Brett Halliday - The Homicidal Virgin

“With a nubile stepdaughter,” said Shayne grimly.

“With a nubile stepdaughter,” agreed Rourke no less grimly.

Shayne said, “Keep on digging,” and hung up.

He leaned back in his swivel chair and took a lazy drag on his cigarette as Lucy hurried into his office with color flaming in her cheeks.

“I heard everything Tim said, Michael.”

“No reason why you shouldn’t.”

“You are mixed up in the Henderson case, aren’t you?”

“Sort of.”

“Why didn’t you tell me… instead of pretending you didn’t know what I was talking about when you came in?”

He said mildly, “You went to some lengths to tell me Painter had it all solved while I was sleeping late.” He yawned wildly. “Get Will Gentry on the phone and ask him…”

His desk telephone interrupted him. Lucy compressed her lips firmly and reached for it. She said, “Michael Shayne’s office,” then nodded and said in a subdued voice, “He’s right here, Chief Gentry.”

Shayne took the instrument from her and said, “I was about to call you, Will.”

“Sure. Any time you want a job done for free, just call on the Miami Police Department, Mike.”

“That’s what I always figured,” said Shayne cheerfully. “Service with a smile. What you got this time, Will?”

“Some hocus-pocus about fingerprints you turned in to Sergeant Calhoun without bothering to get an authorization from me.”

“And?”

“Where’d you lift those prints, Mike?

“You know that crazy hobby I’ve got… lifting fingerprints? It’s a sort of compulsion with me. Every time I see a nice set of prints…”

“Come off it, Mike.” Gentry’s voice was bluntly forceful. “Calhoun says they tie in with the Henderson kill on the Beach.”

“They do.”

“How?”

“That’s Painter’s baby, Will. You wouldn’t want to horn in on his territory.” Shayne made his voice mildly reproving.

“Goddamit, Mike!” Gentry paused to regain control of his temper. “The man’s a fugitive, Mike. Don’t cover up for him.”

“I won’t. What’s the rap against him?”

“Arson and manslaughter. Twenty years ago in Endore, Colorado. The man’s name is Ernie Combs.”

Shayne frowned and tugged at his left earlobe with right thumb and forefinger. He repeated aloud, “Endore, Colorado?” nodding at Lucy to make a note of it. “That’s all you got, huh?”

“That’s all Washington gave us. I’ll tell you this right now, Mike…”

Shayne said, “Thanks a million,” and hung up. He looked at his watch and told Lucy, “It’s too early in Colorado to call anybody, but try it anyway. Get the police department or sheriff’s office in Endore, Colorado.”

She nodded efficiently and hurried out to the other office.

Shayne mashed out his cigarette and his gray eyes were very bright. He got up and went behind the desk to a filing cabinet and took a bottle of cognac from the second drawer. He uncorked it and turned to a water cooler where he nested two paper cups together and was pouring amber liquid into them when his buzzer sounded. He strode back to the desk and lifted the instrument to his ear, took a sip of cognac as Lucy said, “I have Chief of Police Dyer of Endore, Colorado, on the wire, Mr. Shayne.”

He set the nested cups down and said, “Chief Dyer? I’m sorry to bother you so early in the morning, but we’ve got a murder case here in Miami that you may be able to help us with.”

A rasping voice chuckled, “Chickens have been up out here for two hours so ’tain’t so early. Say your name is Shayne?”

“Michael Shayne. How far do you go back on the force, Chief?”

“Further’n you, I reckon, son. What you wanta know?”

“Twenty years ago,” Shayne told him succinctly. “An arson job. You still have a warrant outstanding for Ernie Combs?”

“That murderin’ son-of-a-bitch,” grated the thin voice over more than two thousand miles of telephone wire. “You got him there?”

“Did you say murder, Chief?”

“Close enough. Wife died in the hospital two months afterward givin’ birth to a boy-child, but it was the burns that killed her. I allus swore I’d get that Ernie…”

“A man named Gleason implicated with him?”

“Harry Gleason. Yep. He took his rap and served his time like a man. But that goddamned slippery Ernie Combs…”

“We’ve got him on ice for you here, Chief,” Shayne interrupted him. “Any reward offered?”

“There was ten thousand put up when it happened more’n twenty years ago. I reckon maybe it still stands good.”

Shayne said, “I’ll be in touch with you later,” and hung up. He reached for the cognac and downed it, crushed the two paper cups together in his right hand with savage intensity as Lucy reappeared in the doorway and asked eagerly, “Who is it, Michael? I don’t even know what…”

With slow deliberation, Shayne said, “Go out and close the door, Lucy. Don’t put any calls through. Nothing.” He got up slowly, his gaze bleak and abstracted, while Lucy withdrew quietly and drew the door shut behind her.

Michael Shayne stood at the window for a long time, looking down at the slow-moving traffic going eastward on Flagler Street while a frown of fierce concentration creased his brow and his mind played with the broken and jagged pieces of the puzzle that had been put into his hands.

When the telephone finally recalled him to his desk, he saw with a start of real surprise that it was almost eleven o’clock.

Lucy Hamilton said apologetically, “I know you told me not to bother you, Michael, but there’s a long-distance call from some man named Bitsy Baker, and he insists…”

Shayne said, “Put him on, angel.”

Bitsy’s voice came over the line a moment later, “Mike, I’m in Algonquin, but I haven’t got much.”

“Give it to me.”

“Harry Gleason is a quiet sort of Joe. Well-liked here, with a nice wife. No one knows much about him or where he came from. Close-mouthed cuss, I guess. He sort of turned up here ten years ago…”

“How about the last couple of months?” Shayne put in sharply.

“Yeh. Well, he has been sort of changed and surly. No one seems to know why he took off suddenly or where he went. Then his wife disappeared too. They all figure he took a run-out powder on her and she followed him. If you want me to keep on digging, Mike…” Bitsy Baker’s tone was questioning and apologetic.

“You can drop that angle,” Shayne said decisively. He hesitated, rubbing his angular jaw thoughtfully. “You know a town in Illinois named Denton?”

“Yeh. Little place south of here. Close in to Chi. You got something there?”

Shayne said, “I…” Then after a thoughtful pause he said decisively, “I think it’s something I’d better handle myself. Bill me for your time, Bitsy, and thanks.”

He depressed the cradle and released it, told Lucy in the outer office, “Check with information to see if a telephone is listed under the name of Combs in Denton, Illinois. I don’t have any address. That’s C-o-m-b-s, angel.” He hung up and sat back and relaxed broodingly until Lucy reported: “There is a Denton number for a Roy Combs, Michael. The only one in Denton.”

“Can you dial it direct?”

“I think so. I’ll check.”

Shayne got up and picked the open cognac bottle from the top of the filing cabinet and strode into the other room. His secretary was looking in the front pages of the telephone book and she looked up and nodded as he lowered one hip onto the low railing beside her desk with the bottle dangling from his big hand. She said, “I can dial it.”

“Go ahead. And give me the phone.”

He drank deeply from the neck of the bottle while she dialed the long-distance circuit and the Denton number she had written down. She listened a moment and gave his local number to the operator and then silently handed the instrument to him.