Brett Halliday: The Body Came Back

“He said that was fine and he’d wait and he and I could have a good time getting acquainted with each other while we waited for you-huh? And I began to get scared, Mom. I had a funny, queasy feeling inside me. The way he looked at me and licked his lips-and old enough to be my father too.

“He started pouring the whiskey down and I knew he was already loaded to the gills, but I saw it was almost eleven o’clock and your plane was due in at ten so I thought you’d be coming along any minute-and I knew you’d know how to handle him without making any fuss, so I just said, ‘Sure,’ and that was fine, but I circled around him toward the bedroom thinking I’d go in and shut the door and leave him for you to take care of.

“And he jumped at me just as I was going in, and started cursing me and asking me what I thought I was going to do in there-‘Call the cops, huh?’ That’s what he kept asking, and his face was just awful and he said ‘No you don’t. Oh, no you don’t,’ and I pulled away from him and tried to run into the bathroom where I could lock the door but he caught me and dragged me back and started to choke me.

“I think he meant to, Mom. I really do. I don’t know why. Except he was drunk and just about crazy-mad. But he threw me down on the floor and tried to choke me and we knocked my suitcase off the rack and a lot of things tumbled out including that little pistol.

“Mom. I don’t know. Right now I don’t know for sure. Whether I meant to do it or not. But I grabbed it and pushed it up against him and it went Pow, Pow, Pow. Not very loud. Nothing like I thought a pistol would really sound.

“But that did it, Mom. His hands went loose around my neck and he rolled off to the side and lay there and right then all at once I knew he was dead. I knew I’d killed him. That I’d murdered a man.

“I didn’t know what to do. I ran out and closed the door as if that would make it all right. And I thought what if someone comes before Mom does. What will they do to me? They hang you for committing murder.

“And then I called the airport and they said your plane was late and they didn’t know when you’d arrive, and so then I just gave up.

“I’m writing this so you’ll find it and know what’s happened. I’ve got to get out of here. I can’t stay here with him. I’ll go to some hotel where they don’t know me and register under another name-and maybe tomorrow I should go to South America, Mom. You’ll know best. I know you’ll rally round and cope. You always do.

“I’ll telephone every hour or so until I get you. If I call when the police are here and you can’t talk, just pretend it’s someone else and I’ll understand and I’ll call you back an hour later.

“I can’t stay here cooped up in this room. I’ll get the screaming meemies. Mom, I can’t ever tell Bill. Everything is ruined. I wish I’d killed myself instead of him.

“I can’t wait any longer. Somebody might come. I’m going now. Out into the night. I’ll call you. Mom, wait for me to call you here. I don’t know what else to do.

“Vicky”

Michael Shayne stared down thoughtfully at the sheets of paper in his hand for a long moment after he finished reading them. Then he sighed and laid the four pages down on the table in front of him and turned to look at the woman seated at the other end of the sofa.

She was sitting very erect with her hands twisted together in her lap. Her gaze was fixed and intense, directly in front of her, and she appeared completely unaware of his presence. Her clean-cut profile was like a tragic mask. She did not start or perceptibly move a muscle when he spoke quietly:

“Is the man her father?”

“Yes.” Still immobile. Still staring straight ahead.

“Why didn’t she recognize him at once?”

“She’s never seen her father. She thinks he’s dead. In fact, I thought he was dead.” She turned her head slowly. “It’s a long drab story, Mike. Are you willing to listen to it?”

“In a moment. First: Where’s Vicky now?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been waiting for her to call… praying for her to… and yet, dreading it. What am I going to say to her? What shall I tell her to do?”

“Tell her to get back here,” Shayne said flatly. “You can’t run away from reality. Once you start running, you can never stop. This isn’t so bad. A clear case of self-defense if her story is true.”

“She killed her own father.”

“Unknowingly and to protect herself. She has to face it now, Carla.”

“All right,” she agreed submissively. “When she calls I’ll tell her. I guess we’re in your hands now, Mike Shayne. I’m at the end of my rope. Maybe I shouldn’t have called you,” she went on wildly. “Maybe I should have taken a chance…”

“Calling me was the best thing you ever did,” he told her quietly. “Now: Before we get the police in on this I’d like to have all the background I can get.”

“The police? Oh, God, I thought… I hoped that maybe you…”

“Not a chance,” Shayne told her calmly. “This is homicide even though it is self-defense. I’m sticking my neck out as it is by not reporting it immediately. But I don’t see that a few minutes either way can make much difference. Actually, it will look a lot better for Vicky if she is here to give herself up when the police come. How old is your daughter, by the way?”

“Twenty-one, Mike. Just past twenty-one. She… was to be married tomorrow. That’s why she was in Miami. I flew in for the wedding… my darling, little girl. Oh, God, I can’t realize yet…” Her face broke into pieces as she fought for self-control. She won the battle and smiled wanly, a ravaged and pitiful smile.

“But I promised to tell you about Al… Donlin was his name. I was just eighteen when I eloped with him from a little farm in Ohio. I think the only reason he married me was because he hoped to stay out of the draft. But it didn’t work and they took him in the army anyhow… a few months before Vicky was born. I was glad. I didn’t want her to know her father. He was mean and sadistic and shiftless. I went home when Vicky was born and he didn’t write from the army. They forced him to give us part of his pay as an allotment, but that stopped when the war was over and he was discharged.

“I left home then, with Vicky and went to Denver and found a job to support the two of us. I used my maiden name and made my parents promise to never tell Al where I was. And they didn’t. He came back and pestered them some, and then drifted away, and I heard later that he’d been sent to prison for knifing a man in a drunken brawl, and I was glad and put him out of my mind.

“And I made a new life for Vicky and myself in Denver. I got into a newspaper job and was finally doing feature articles for the Woman’s Page on the Denver Post. Then, about seven years ago… Vicky was fourteen, I remember, they ran a little story about me in the paper with a picture of Vicky and me at home. I thought nothing of it. I believed Al was still in prison… had practically forgotten that he existed… until he turned up in Denver one day.

“He’d seen the story and our picture in the paper some place, and hitch-hiked to Denver. He wanted to move in with me, demanded money, threatened all sorts of things. I stalled him off… promised to borrow money the next day and give him a thousand dollars… and that night I packed up and left Denver.

“You say it never pays to run, Mike. Well, I ran that time and I think it paid off. I couldn’t stand the thought of Vicky ever seeing him… knowing him as a father. I didn’t tell her the truth. I told her I’d had an offer to write for the movies in Hollywood and we had to go at once. That very night. We made an exciting game out of it. I told her a vague story about being under contract to the newspaper and the mean old editor wouldn’t release me to take the movie job, and so we were going anyhow. I had a car and we drove straight through to Los Angeles, and I used that story as an excuse to Vicky for changing our name when we got there… and I became Carla Andrews, and, by God, I made it pay off, Mike.