Brett Halliday - Shoot to Kill

“Maybe. Also you might prove to be one of the smartest homicide dicks south of the Mason-Dixon line. Look,” Shayne went on persuasively. “Discounting the curious disappearance of Dorothy Larson and the half-packed bag on her bed and the bloodstains in her bathroom… which you have to admit give an aura of mystery to the whole affair… discounting that, take a look at these statements of Sutter and Larson.”

Shayne handed the two typewritten statements back to him. “Read the end of Sutter’s statement first. The last line of the next to final paragraph. It says: ‘… I went back to my room and shut the door again.’

“Then, first line of final paragraph: ‘… I heard a commotion downstairs and people running about…’ That is Sutter’s statement, isn’t it?”

Griggs read the words, frowning. He nodded without looking up.

“He was at the end of the hall with his door shut,” Shayne pointed out. “He heard Ralph force his way in downstairs and up to Ames’ study. Isn’t it reasonable to assume that Ames would also have heard the same commotion?”

“Probably. No one says Ames didn’t. He didn’t testify on the subject.”

“But Ralph Larson did in a sense. Read the end of his statement. He’s speaking of Ames acting so superior when he ran in waving his gun: ‘… He just sat there leaning back in his chair looking at me and not saying a word even when I waved the gun in his face…’ What does that suggest to you?” demanded Shayne.

“A pretty cold-nerved customer. Remember, he had already sat and laughed at Ralph half an hour earlier when he threatened him.”

“That’s what I am remembering,” Shayne said grimly. “It’s one thing to sit and laugh in the face of an unarmed man, and another thing to sit there in a chair and calmly invite a bullet in your heart without even making a move to prevent it.

“Think about this a minute. Ralph Larson has stormed out the back way from the study half an hour previously threatening to get a gun and kill Ames. Ames isn’t frightened by the threats and he sits right there. Okay. Half an hour later he hears a commotion downstairs… the same one Sutter heard. Ralph shouting, the tray breaking, feet pounding up the stairs to his study. What does he do?

“Nothing, by God. He doesn’t even get up from his chair. He sits there… silent and grinning… and gets a bullet in his heart. What does that suggest to you?”

“That he was drugged or something?” hazarded Griggs.

“There was that pot of coffee on his desk,” Shayne reminded him. “No one thought about analyzing it, of course. A post mortem will show it up fast enough if it was drugged. I’m just saying there appear to be some unanswered questions, Sergeant, and I think you’d be smart if you get the answers to them before this case ever comes to trial and the defense attorney starts asking for proof that his client’s bullet actually killed the man.”

“Yeh,” Griggs said slowly. “You’ve sold me a bill of goods, Shayne. It sure as hell can’t hurt anything… and with Mrs. Larson being missing and all…”

He nodded his bald head decisively and got up from behind the desk. “If anything comes out of it you’ll get the credit,” he added generously.

Shayne said, “Forget the credit, Sergeant. I just want one favor. Let me know the minute you get the P. M. report. No matter what time of night.”

“You’ll get it,” promised Griggs, and he hurried out of his office with Shayne following at a slower pace behind him.

Michael Shayne again parked his car at the curb in front of the side entrance to his hotel because he expected Lucy Hamilton to be waiting tor him upstairs and that he would drive her home a little later. He climbed the one flight of stairs that by-passed the elevator and went down the hall toward his door, instinctively getting out his key as he approached. He unlocked the door and it opened silently and the ceiling light was still on as he had left it when he dashed out a couple of hours previously. But Lucy wasn’t there to jump up and greet him with eager curiosity as he had expected. He advanced slowly into the room, noting the tray with the glasses still on it where he had set it down on the center table to answer the telephone, with the liquor bottles standing beside it where Rourke had placed them.

He stopped and looked around uncertainly, and then a broad grin spread over his rugged features. Lucy lay curled up asleep on the shabby sofa against the right-hand wall. She had kicked off her shoes onto the floor beside the sofa and she lay on her side with her cheek nestled into the palm of her left hand, and she was breathing as sweetly and quietly and happily as a child that has been bedded down with loving care by its mother after having said its prayers in full confidence that they will be heard.

Shayne moved over slowly and silently to stand at the head of the sofa looking down at his sleeping secretary, and his grin widened when he saw the book lying open and face down where she had dropped it on the floor. It was a copy of Michael Shayne’s Long Chance, a mystery novel which Brett Halliday had written from one of his cases, the story of his first meeting with Lucy Hamilton in New Orleans soon after his wife had died, when she had been one of the prime suspects in a murder case and long before either of them dreamed she would eventually wind up as his secretary.

He leaned down to pick the book up to see how far she had read, and was touched to find it was open at page 169, at the point in the story where he had asked her to decide whether she wished to take a long chance with him on a wild hunch which he hoped would blow the case wide open. That was when he had called her ‘Lucile’ and she had said to him then, “I think I know you better, Michael Shayne, than I’ve ever known any man,” and her eyes had been shining and her voice confident as she said it those many years ago.

He turned away slowly with the book in his hands, and laid it face down on the table beside the tray and poured cognac into the empty glass waiting there.

A long time ago, and a great many things had happened since that day in Lucile Hamilton’s New Orleans apartment when she had first thrown in her lot with him. He tipped his head back and let cognac trickle down his throat and wondered if Lucy now regretted that decision she had made in New Orleans. There had been good times and bad times for each of them, and out of it all they had built an enduring relationship which was as close to marriage as either of them wanted.

He lowered the glass and turned his head to look at Lucy again, and he saw her eyes were sleepily half-opened and fixed on him although she had not moved from her sleeping position.

She said drowsily, “I’ve been dreaming, I guess. I was reading that book, Michael, and I got to thinking back…” Her voice trailed off and she closed her eyes again and a little half-smile of contentment came over her softly flushed features.

Then she opened her eyes wide and pushed herself up on the sofa and fluffed her brown curls with both hands and said practically, “It was that champagne I drank at dinner. You shouldn’t have given me so much. You know my capacity.”

“Tim Rourke was paying for it,” he reminded her. She blinked her eyes at him, and suddenly frowned and demanded, “What happened, Michael? You and Tim dashed off to try and stop his friend from shooting the columnist. I called the police as you told me, and then I sat here waiting. What happened?”

“We were about a minute too late to head Ralph Larson off,” he told her. “Wesley Ames is dead and Ralph is in jail charged with murdering him.”

“Oh no!” she cried instinctively. “That’s too bad. I don’t know them, of course, but it all sounds so useless.”