Brett Halliday: Shoot the Works

There was a bustle at the outer door, and a heavybodied, blond young man pushed past the guard and hurried belligerently into the room and toward Mrs. Wallace, exclaiming, “Mother! Oh God, Mother.” Tears streamed down her cheeks as she rose with outstretched arms. He held her tightly, patting her shoulder and comforting her with the awkward words that men use under such circumstances, and Lucy got up and moved over to Shayne with her own eyes glinting wetly.

“Do you think I should go home with her, Michael? I think Helen might like it and I hate to think of them alone together.”

Shayne nodded and took her arm to draw her over to Gentry. He said wearily, “Let’s not get at cross purposes, Will. Let Lucy and her son-in-law take her home for the night. She’ll keep.”

“Just don’t get in my hair, Mike,” Gentry said gruffly. “You get anything out of Martin?”

“Nothing. He saw Wallace at the office this afternoon, and says they had an important business conference slated for tomorrow morning. That seems to rule out any plans for a trip.”

“You can’t rule it out,” Gentry argued, rolling his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other. He sighed and spoke to Pearce. “All right. Take your mother-in-law home and let Miss Hamilton go along if she wishes. If she wants to pack anything, I’ll have a man…”

“That won’t be necessary.” Mrs. Wallace drew away from Pearce, drying her eyes with a damp handkerchief. “I have my bag still packed just as I brought it from the plane.”

“Oh, yes.” Gentry frowned at a closed bag on the floor. “You mind opening it for us to have a look before you take it away?”

“Why should she?” demanded Pearce angrily.

“We didn’t find any gun here in the apartment,” Will Gentry told him.

“What’s that got to do with a bag she brought from New York?”

Gentry sighed and addressed the widow directly, “Do you mind opening your bag for Miss Hamilton to check it, Ma’am?”

She said, “No. I don’t mind. Because there isn’t any gun concealed inside, I can assure you.”

She knelt beside the bag and unfastened the snaps. Lucy helped her open it and take out some of the things. Lucy checked through it carefully and informed Gentry with biting sarcasm, “No gun or other incriminating evidence, Chief. Now, may Bob and I take Mrs. Wallace to her daughter?”

Gentry nodded stolidly, and stepped back to the door into the bedroom and conferred briefly with one of the men while Lucy helped Mrs. Wallace close her bag. When the three of them went out, Gentry walked back with a tall man in plain clothes beside him. “You know the Pearce address, Mike?”

“It’s on the Beach.” Shayne gave it to him. “Don’t you trust Lucy to keep track of her, Will?”

Will Gentry sighed and said, “Lucy works for you, Mike.” He nodded to the plainclothes detective who went out. “I know you’re both pulling for Mrs. Wallace,” he went on mildly, “but you know as well as I do that nine times out of ten when a hubby gets gunned it’s because he’s been playing around and wifey catches on.” He took the cigar out of his mouth and looked distastefully at the chewed and saliva-soaked end, and then replaced it between his lips with a sigh. “She did come back unexpectedly and catch him in the act of packing for a trip she knew nothing about. How does it add up to you?”

Shayne shrugged impassively, conscious of the damning airplane tickets in his pocket. “Maybe he was getting ready for a trip he planned to take tomorrow afternoon.”

“Maybe,” said Gentry briefly, “though I never knew a man to start packing a bag the night before.” Timothy Rourke yawned and got up from his chair, replacing a wad of copy paper in his sagging coat pocket. “Have the boys turned up anything here in the apartment?”

“Nothing that helps,” Gentry grunted sourly. “Someone stood in the bedroom doorway and let Wallace have it between the eyes. With a thirty-two, most likely. We’ll have a P.M. and a bullet for comparison if we find a gun to match it up with.”

The police doctor and two other men came out of the bedroom as he spoke. Rourke intercepted them to ask the time of death.

“Around ten o’clock, give or take. He died instantly.” The doctor shrugged and went to the door. “I may be able to give it to you closer after the P.M.”

“How well did you know the Wallaces,” Gentry demanded of Shayne after instructing his men to take the body out.

“Lucy knew her quite well… through their daughter,” Shayne evaded a direct answer.

“What sticks in my craw,” said Gentry stolidly, “is why she telephoned Lucy instead of the police. Did Lucy explain that when she phoned you?”

Shayne shook his head. “Stands to reason though,” he said equably. “She finds her husband dead, and her first thought is to get the guy that did it. So her second thought is, naturally…”

“Mike Shayne,” put in Timothy Rourke happily. “Natch. Who else would you think of in Miami when you want a murder case solved?”

Will Gentry gave a disgusted snort. “So she wasted all that time waiting for Lucy to get here. Sitting here quietly with her beloved husband’s dead body getting cold in the other room. Nuts! She called Lucy first for some specific reason. And I expect Lucy to tell us what it was, Mike.”

Shayne said, “Lucy is a very candid and forthright girl. I’m sure she wouldn’t hold out on you, Will.”

“Let’s think about that open bag in there and the stuff laid out on the bed,” said Rourke. “How would it work out if she fixed it that way while Lucy was getting here? To make it appear he was planning a trip?”

“Why?” Gentry and Shayne asked the question simultaneously.

Rourke shrugged his thin shoulders. “That’s for you sleuths to dope out.”

“It just gives her a better apparent motive,” argued Shayne. “It’s more likely she’d do the opposite. Close up the bag and put the stuff away if she were going to tamper with evidence at all.” He moved toward the door, asking Rourke, “Haven’t you got a deadline to hit?”

Rourke looked at his watch and followed swiftly. “I better file something. Give me a lift?”

Shayne nodded and the two friends went down in the elevator together. They didn’t speak until they were outside and settled in Shayne’s car and it was moving away from the curb. Then the reporter said casually. “If you’re heading for the Beach, you can drop me off.”

“Why should I be?”

“Just a hunch that you’d be wanting a private talk with Lucy.”

Shayne looked at him in amusement. “The same hunch that Will is riding? That Lucy is holding something back?”

“If I were in your place, I’d find out what Lucy has to say before getting in too deep.”

“What, exactly, do you mean by that crack, Tim?”

“Mrs. Wallace must have had a hell of a strong reason for calling Lucy first, Mike, and then sitting there until she came, without calling the cops. That’s what sticks in Will’s craw. We all admit you’re pretty hot stuff in Miami, but don’t tell me you’ve fallen victim to your own publicity and have such a swelled head you think for a minute that people think of you before they think of the cops when they have a murder on their hands.”

Shayne’s look of quiet amusement turned into a wide grin. “Could be, Tim. You’ve written most of the newspaper stories about me.” Then he sobered and asked, “How do you figure it?”

“Just about the way Gentry does right now. That Mrs. Wallace came in unexpectedly and found him planning a trip, or maybe with some gal, even, and gunned him on the spot. That’s when she’d start thinking about Mike Shayne instead of the cops. Particularly knowing Lucy so well.”