Brett Halliday - Shoot to Kill

Victor Conroy began to stir and make funny noises, and try to lift his head on the seat beside him. Shayne watched him out of the corner of his eye while he drove at moderate speed in the right-hand lane of the almost deserted Boulevard. They were past 79th when Conroy managed to pull himself up and turn his head and blink dazedly at his companion.

“Wha… where are we? What happened?” he managed to blurt out. “You’re… Mike Shayne, by God. You were driving that cab. I remember now.”

“Keep right on remembering,” Shayne said grimly. “You’ve got a lot of talking to do, Conroy.” Ahead of them on the right, a high, arched neon sign spelled out BISCAY REST, and beneath that in smaller letters, Sorry-No Vacancy.

“My head,” moaned Conroy, hunching forward and trying to retch, putting both hands up to his forehead. “What did you hit me with?”

“First a gun and then my fist,” Shayne told him stolidly. He slowed to turn in to the motel entrance, drove past the darkened office to a U-shaped courtyard lined on three sides with connecting motel units. Parked cars stood in front of most of the doors, and at least ninety percent of the units were dark. Shayne checked the numbers on the doors and found 25 with an empty parking space in front of it and a night light on over the door.

Conroy lifted his head from his hands to look around apprehensively when the taxi stopped and Shayne cut off the motor. “Where are we?” he demanded, his voice thin with rising hysteria.

“End of the line,” Shayne told him. “I think I’m about to pin a murder rap on you… maybe two.” He leaned past him to unlatch the door, shoved him out roughly with a firm grip on his left arm.

“I didn’t… kill anybody,” stammered Conroy with his teeth chattering. “You’ve got it all wrong. He was dead when I went in there. I swear he was.”

Shayne said, “Shut up. First we’re going to take a look in number twenty-five. Then you can start talking.”

He put the motel key in the lock and turned it, opened the door and dragged Conroy inside and pressed a wall switch by the door.

Overhead light showed a double bed and the figure of a woman lying on her back with arms outstretched. She was fully dressed and her eyes were closed and her face was very white.

It was Dorothy Larson.

Shayne shoved Conroy across the room away from him with such force that he struck the wall and slid to the floor. He jerked the door shut and bolted it and then took two strides to the side of the bed where he picked up one of Dorothy’s wrists. It was limp, but it was warm, and there was a strong, steady pulse. She appeared to be in a deep, drugged sleep, but her lips came apart and she moaned faintly as Shayne bent over her, and her eyelids fluttered and then rested shut again.

Shayne straightened up and turned on Conroy who was picking himself up from the floor. “What did you use to knock her out?”

“A couple of sleeping pills,” Conroy mumbled eagerly. “Just enough to keep her quiet until I could get back. They’ll wear off pretty soon and she’ll tell you. I didn’t hurt her. She was just hysterical and I was afraid she might do something crazy. So I brought her here where she’d be safe from her husband. Don’t you understand? That was before he came back and shot Wesley and got arrested. I thought he might come after her next. And I didn’t know what she’d do or what she’d tell him. I was afraid to take a chance. Don’t you understand what I’m saying?”

Shayne said, “Frankly, no.” He moved back to a chair near the door and sat in it and got out a cigarette. “Was this after you stabbed Ames and stole the papers Sutter wanted?”

“I didn’t stab him.” Conroy sank into a chair across the room and looked at him wide-eyed, the picture of innocence. “You did find that out finally, huh? I wondered when you and that sergeant came back. He wouldn’t tell any of us why he was reopening the case when we all thought he had it wrapped up with Ralph Larson as the killer. And then you asked about the paper-knife.”

“Is that what you used?” Shayne asked levelly.

“I tell you I didn’t. I went in his study and he was dead. I could see he’d been stabbed in the heart, and I thought of course that Ralph Larson had done it. Why shouldn’t I think that?” he demanded heatedly. “He was the last one who’d been up the back way to see him. We all knew that Ralph suspected Wesley was laying his wife. You could hear them arguing in there and then Ralph went out the back, and when I went in fifteen minutes later, Wesley was dead. Naturally, I thought Ralph had done it. You don’t know how mixed up I felt later when I came back to the house and discovered Ralph had broken in with a pistol and shot Ames after I knew he was already dead. What could I say? All I could do was keep my mouth shut and hope that was the end of it. What did it matter whether Ralph was electrocuted for stabbing or shooting him… or both? Though I still don’t understand why he came back to shoot a man he had already killed with a paper-knife.”

“Let’s back-track a little bit,” said Shayne reasonably. “You claim you heard them arguing and Ralph leave… and you went in the study a few minutes later and found Ames stabbed to death. Is that your story?”

“It’s the truth. I knew that envelope was in his desk with the Murchinson file that Sutter had flown down here to get. I knew Sutter was prepared to pay twenty-five thousand in cash for those papers. So I grabbed the envelope quick and just walked out and pulled the door shut behind me. I knew Ralph had killed him, of course, and why. And I was afraid of what Ralph might do to Dorothy after killing Ames. Or what she might tell him if he came back to her and admitted he had killed Ames. Having killed once on her account, the damned fool might well come after me if she broke down and admitted to him that he’d killed the wrong man. I had to get to her before he did and shut her up, don’t you see?”

Shayne said slowly, “I’m beginning to see… a little. Do you mean it was you she was having an affair with… not Ames?”

“Of course. Do you think she’d look at a popinjay like that? The funny thing was, Ames understood the situation and rather enjoyed it. He knew Ralph suspected him, and I think he actually egged Ralph on to believe it. It pleased his goddamned ego to have Ralph think that a beautiful woman like Dorothy was in love with him.”

“So you went straight to the Larson apartment after you left Ames dead in his study and walked out with the Murchinson file?”

“Yes. I wanted to get the papers out of the house before Wesley’s death was discovered so I could make a deal with Sutter later, and I didn’t know what Ralph might do after killing Ames. You can imagine how I felt until I got to Dorothy.” Victor Conroy drew in a deep breath at the memory and released it slowly, shaking his head.

“I didn’t know whether I’d find Ralph there, or what. But Dorothy was alone, and practically hysterical. She clung to me and babbled that Ralph was going to kill Ames and I should stop him, and I didn’t realize what she was talking about and I told her he already had killed him. Then she went all to pieces and began to blame me for everything. I couldn’t leave her alone in that state. I knew she needed time to get to her senses before she talked to anybody. And I needed time to collect from Sutter. With that amount of cash in my pocket I meant to simply disappear and take Dorothy with me. First she agreed to go with me and started to pack a bag, and then she suddenly changed her mind and got martyr-like and swore she was going to tell the whole world the truth and share Ralph’s guilt with him. I couldn’t let it be like that. Don’t you see I couldn’t? I knew she’d come to her senses later on if she had a chance to think about it calmly. So we wrestled a little and I… well, I hit her,” Conroy confessed shamefacedly. “I didn’t mean to but her nose bled dreadfully and she was crying and taking on and we mopped it up in the bathroom and then she sort of collapsed and came with me. I gave her a drink with two of her sleeping powders in it and she didn’t notice, and she came here where I rented this room, and by the time I got her in here she was practically asleep on her feet. You can see that’s all that’s the matter with her.” Conroy gestured toward the bed, sounding run down now, and exhausted. “She’ll tell you the same thing when she wakes up. I didn’t hurt her. I was in love with her. All I wanted was time enough to make a deal with Sutter and get travelling money. If I’d known at the time that Ralph was already under arrest for shooting Wesley, I wouldn’t have worried about her and about getting her away from there. But I didn’t know that until I left her here and went back to the house.”