Brett Halliday - Shoot to Kill

“Been a shooting, huh?” He sniffed the air with satisfaction, nodding his head slowly. Behind him a younger officer peered over his shoulder, and in the hallway behind him Shayne could see the man whom they had passed in the living room downstairs and the houseman, and another round-faced man who had appeared from nowhere. The trio were drawn together in a little knot, speaking anxiously to each other in low voices.

“Yep. Been a shooting, all right,” the first officer announced with finality. “You, there!” he snarled suddenly at Michael Shayne. “What’s that I see in your hip pocket?”

“It’s a gun,” Shayne told him quietly. He dropped his hand to the butt of the. 38 to pull it out, but the policeman shouted, “None of that. Keep your hands up, hear me?” He swung his revolver around so the barrel was leveled at the redhead’s belly and said, “There’s been enough shooting. Just keep your hands up and turn around slowly, Mister, and face the wall.”

Shayne turned slowly as he was directed, and Timothy Rourke burst out impatiently, “For God’s sake, Officer, that’s Mike Shayne. We came here…”

“I don’t care if he’s Jesus Christ, and I figure to find out why you came here. You just keep your mouth shut while I handle this here according to regulations. Step forward about three feet from the wall,” he directed Shayne, “and lean forward and put your hands out flat so they’re holding up your weight.”

Shayne followed his instructions silently.

“Now then, Powers,” the big cop ordered his companion with satisfaction, “you step up there and take that gun off his hip while I keep him covered.”

He stepped aside and the younger man passed in front of Rourke to lift the. 38 out of Shayne’s pocket.

“Hand it over to me,” the bulky man directed, and he took the revolver and smelled the muzzle of it and announced, “Been fired just recently all right. I guess we got the murder weapon, Powers. You better take a look at that man behind the desk,” he added as an afterthought. “He looks dead enough from here, but in a case like this we got to make sure.”

Shayne pushed himself up erect from his awkward position and folded his arms across his chest and watched sardonically while Powers circled the desk and knelt down to take the victim’s dangling left wrist between his fingers and feel for a pulse. “He’s shot right square through the middle of the chest,” he announced. “There’s a hole and some blood but not very much it looks like to me. He’s dead all right, Griffin.” He let go of the wrist and rocked back on his heels and averted his eyes from the corpse. “What do we do now?”

“What you’d damn well better do,” Shayne grated savagely between his teeth, “is get down to your radio and call in to Headquarters. This is a job for Homicide and nothing should be touched in this room until they get here.”

“You telling me how to handle this?” Griffin swung a broadly amazed face toward the redhead.

Shayne said, “I’m telling you. And you’d better listen if you don’t want to go back to pounding a beat.”

“Is that so, Mister? And just who in hell do you think you are?”

“I told you who he was,” said Rourke disgustedly. “He’s Mike Shayne. And I’m Rourke from the News for Chrissake. We’re the ones who called in the report in the first place and tried to get here in time to prevent a killing.”

“I think that redhead is Mike Shayne, Griff,” said Powers anxiously. “You know, the private dick that’s such good friends with Chief Gentry. We should call in to Homicide, I guess.”

“I don’t care whether he’s a private dick or not, or who he’s friends of,” said Griffin ominously. “I know we got a dead man here and him with a gun that was still smoking in his pocket. Sure, go down and call in to Homicide,” he decided magnanimously. “Tell ’em we got their killer rounded up and dead to rights.”

The younger officer got to his feet and hurried out of the room, the three men still clustered in the doorway drawing back to let him pass.

“Now then,” said Griffin importantly. “You there, sitting on the floor with your face in your hands. What do you know about this. Come on, speak up,” he added impatiently as Ralph Larson took his hands from his face and looked up at him dazedly. “Were you a witness to the shooting?”

Shayne squared his wide shoulders, then stepped over beside Larson and reached down to take hold of his arm and help him stand up. “Don’t answer any questions,” he advised the young man. “You’ll just have to repeat your answers later when Homicide gets here. All of us,” he announced firmly, “should get out of this room and leave it exactly as it is. You know that much, Griffin. Quit throwing your weight around. And just so you won’t look like a complete fool when Sergeant Griggs gets here to take over, this is Ralph Larson standing beside me. He’s a reporter on the News with Tim Rourke who is standing behind me. Tim and I got here about sixty seconds too late to prevent him from shooting Wesley Ames. Two of those men in the hallway will tell you the same thing. I don’t know who the other one is or how much he saw. Now, can we all go downstairs and rustle up a drink, maybe?”

“Why didn’t you tell me all this in the beginning?” demanded Griffin. “How was I supposed to know…?”

“You aren’t supposed to know anything,” Shayne told him disgustedly. “Come on Ralph, and Tim.” Still holding firmly to Larson’s arm he went toward the door that was sagging inward on its hinges, and Griffin moved aside uncertainly to let him pass.

In the hallway, Shayne nodded to the three men there who had drawn back in a huddle and told them, “We should all go downstairs and wait for the arrival of the Homicide Squad. They will want statements from all of you, but in the meantime I advise you to keep quiet. Mr. Ames is dead,” he went on with a shrug of his shoulders. “We can’t do anything for him up here.” He went toward the head of the stairs with Ralph wavering along beside him and Rourke on the other side of the reporter.

After a moment’s hesitation the three men followed along behind them, and Officer Griffin appeared in the doorway of Ames’ study to announce loudly, “I’ll stay on guard here to see that nothing’s disturbed. None of you are to leave the premises, do you understand?”

None of them bothered to reply to him as they went down the stairs. Suddenly, Michael Shayne had assumed control of the situation and was tacitly accepted as the one in authority despite his lack of uniform or badge.

Downstairs the silver tray, broken glasses and two bottles still lay on the floor where they had fallen. Shayne stopped beside them and looked down at the two corked bottles. One was Scotch and one was bourbon. The white-coated Puerto Rican knelt beside the tray and began picking up pieces of glass. Rourke went on across the room with Larson toward a settee, and the other two men hesitated at the foot of the stairs behind Shayne.

Shayne asked the houseman, “What’s your name?”

“Alfred, sir.”

“As soon as you pick up the bigger pieces of glass, do you suppose you could find us some fresh ones in the kitchen… with some ice?”

Looking past him at the two men to whom he hadn’t been introduced and to whom he hadn’t spoken previously, Shayne went on pleasantly, “I don’t see any reason we should stand on ceremony. We’ll all have to give statements to the police when they arrive, but I don’t think a drink will hurt any of us. I’m Michael Shayne, by the way.”

One of the men stepped forward with hand outstretched. He was tall and in his forties, with a deeply lined face and an engagingly diffident smile. He said, “I felt I recognized you when you sprinted past me while I was lying on the floor a few minutes ago. I’ve seen your pictures in the papers, Mr. Shayne. I’m Mark Ames. Wesley’s brother.” His handshake was surprisingly warm and strong. “If I had reacted more effectively, my brother would still be alive,” he said ruefully. “But I was bowled over, you might say, and I was that, literally, when that young man burst into the room waving a pistol in his hand and with murder in his eye. I tried to stop him, but…” He shrugged expressively. “I wasn’t very good at football even in college.”