Brett Halliday: Too Friendly, Too Dead

“I’m not so sure about that, Shayne.” Peter Painter spoke with smirking satisfaction and caressed his thin mustache with a beautifully manicured thumbnail. “You’ve stupidly neglected a very important point. You haven’t asked the cause of death.”

“All right. What caused his death?”

“We haven’t had time for a P. M. yet, of course. Just a preliminary examination of stomach contents while we were awaiting identification,” Painter purred happily. “But he was poisoned, Shayne. There isn’t the faintest shadow of doubt that death was due to poison… probably administered in alcohol from half an hour to an hour before he died. Do you consider that reason enough for requiring a full statement from the widow without interference from you?”

Linda said falteringly, “Poisoned? Oh no!” She put her hands to her face and swayed against him in a faint and would have slumped to the floor if his arm hadn’t supported her.

“Goddamn it,” said Shayne angrily. “That’s one way of breaking the news to a newly-made widow.” He slid his left arm gently beneath Linda’s knees and lifted her limp body. “Where can I take her? Got some smelling salts?”

“There’s a sofa in my office. I’ll get a doctor if necessary… if she isn’t faking it.” He opened the door and strutted out, and Shayne followed him down the hall to the chief’s private office.

Looking down into Linda’s white face as he carried her, Shayne saw her closed eyelids begin to flutter and knew she was coming out of it.

He laid her carefully on a sofa in the office, sat beside her and took both her hands in his, rubbing them gently between his palms. “She doesn’t need a doctor,” he said shortly. “She just needs a moment to recuperate from one shock before she receives another. You could have taken me aside and told me privately…”

“When I need lessons from you in how to interrogate a suspect, I’ll ask for them, Shayne.”

“A suspect?” Watching her face, Shayne saw the color slowly coming back; her eyelids opened briefly to allow her to see his concerned face looking down into hers, and closed again as she breathed a faint sigh.

“What else?” said Painter sharply. “The man was poisoned, Shayne. It’s not a simple mugging. Closer to home than that.”

“How do you know it isn’t a new M. O. for your Beach muggers?” demanded the redhead angrily. He released her hands as Linda opened her eyes wide and struggled to sit up, slid his hand beneath her back to help her and said soothingly, “Take it easy, Linda. Your husband is dead. That’s a fact you have to live with. How he died isn’t really important.”

“I say it’s extremely important,” Chief Painter cut in incisively. “I need every tiny detail I can get about the man in order to proceed intelligently. I’ll call in a stenographer and take down a complete statement… if you don’t mind, Mr. Shayne,” he added sarcastically, moving behind his desk and reaching for the intercom button with pointed forefinger.

Shayne said bluntly, “I do mind, Painter. She’s my client and she’s in no condition to make a statement at this point. Goddamn it, man! There are two small fatherless children at home waiting for her to come back and tell them what happened to daddy. You can get a statement from her later, but right now I’m taking her home.”

“Your clients aren’t immune to interrogation, Shayne. If you continue to interfere with the due process of law, I’ll have you locked up here and now.”

Shayne didn’t bother to reply to that. He told Linda, “Listen to me carefully. When you do make a statement, I want you to be out of shock and in full possession of your reasoning faculties. If this idiot is stupid enough to hold you here against your will, refuse to answer any questions. Do you understand, Linda? Call a lawyer. That’s your legal right, and I want you to promise me you’ll do it.”

She nodded, her face grave, her eyes intent on his. “I promise.”

“Okay, Petey.” Shayne stood up and grinned at the infuriated detective chief. “Am I under arrest?”

“By God, Shayne, I ought to throw you under the jail. Get out of here. And stay out of this case, do you hear?”

Shayne said, “I’ll get out gladly… for now. But I told you Mrs. Fitzgilpin is my client, and my license entitles me to practice my profession in Miami Beach as well as any other municipality in this state. Come on, Linda. The little man wants us to go now.”

He arose, holding out his hand to her, and she took it and he pulled her to her feet. He said, “She’ll be at home and available to you at any time, Painter. But you keep it clear in your mind that you have no jurisdiction across Biscayne Bay. When you question her it will have to be in cooperation with the Miami police.”

He stalked to the door, holding Linda’s arm tightly and leaving Peter Painter standing behind his desk transfixed with frustration and rage.

When they reached Shayne’s car and Linda subsided weakly in the seat beside him, she asked in a low, frightened voice, “He did say Jerome was poisoned, didn’t he, Mike? I’m not dreaming that.”

Shayne nodded, backing out carefully. “That’s what he said. Just a preliminary medical report, of course, but we can take it pretty well for granted there’s no mistake.”

“It’s so horrible. So utterly vicious and unthinkable. Poison! That means premeditation. Someone who wanted and planned Jerome’s death. Who could? Everyone he knew loved him. He was gentle and generous and kind. It’s appalling and impossible to try and realize that there’s such a monster alive who would do that to Jerome.”

Shayne drove toward the Causeway very carefully several minutes before answering her. “These are questions you’re going to have to face, Linda. Not only will they be asked by the police, but you must ask them of yourself and try to know the answers. We don’t know what sort of poison it was yet… how it was taken. There’s always the possibility of suicide in a poisoning. Can you positively rule that out?”

“Oh, yes.” Linda sounded honestly and completely shocked. “Not Jerome. He loved living. He really did… as much as any person I’ve ever known. Though we weren’t wealthy, we lived comfortably and his business was increasing all the time. He never wanted to make a lot of money, and was determined to keep his business small, to have personal contacts with his clients. That was one of the things he liked most… his feeling that he really was of help and service to the people who came to him. He was such a friendly man. I can’t conceive him having an enemy.”

“There wasn’t any difficulty recently? Nothing to upset him?” probed Shayne.

“Nothing at all. Well, there was a funny thing happened about a week ago at the office, and we laughed about it. Some woman wanted to insure her husband’s life for a quarter of a million dollars without him knowing about it… the husband, I mean. That’s absolutely against the rules, you know, and Jerome told her so point-blank. He didn’t know her from Eve, and didn’t know why she came to him with such a proposition, but he suspected it was because he has such a small business and she hoped he’d be tempted by the fee. Because it would be huge, you know, on such a yearly premium. And that made him angry. Because she had the effrontery to think he’d do something like that just for the money involved. He told her off flatly, I guess. It was funny,” she added wistfully. “For one whole evening, we both felt rich. You see, she called one day to make an appointment to see him the next day and discuss the policy and he told me about it that night. Naturally, she didn’t tell him she wanted to take out the policy without her husband’s knowledge, so it was a shock the next day when he came home and told me it was all off.”