Brett Halliday - Murder Spins the Wheel

“Sanderson!” Painter piped.

Shayne picked up the bottle of red ink with one swipe of his big paw. Neither Sanderson nor the stenographer moved to stop him. As Shayne’s arm cocked, Painter shrank away from the blazing look in his eyes, and his chair went over backward.

The door opened and Tim Rourke and Harry Halstead, Shayne’s lawyer, came in.

“Captain Rourke of the U. S. Cavalry,” Rourke announced. “Hi, Mike. Been hitting cops again, have you? Where’s Painter?”

Shayne put the bottle of ink on the table and dusted his hands. Painter scrambled to his feet.

“You heard that, Sanderson!” he cried. “You heard him threaten me.”

“I did,” Sanderson said gravely. “And he called you a pipsqueak. That’s going to count against him.”

Painter darted him a suspicious look. “Well, I guess we’ve got enough on him already,” he said grudgingly. He glanced up at his big redheaded nemesis. “But if I was disposed to be lenient before, forget it. You want to do this the hard way. OK, that’s the way we’re going to do it.”

The wall phone rang. The stenographer answered.

“For you, Chief,” he said. “The lab.”

Painter came out from behind the table to take the phone. He listened for a moment, his face darkening. “OK,” he snapped, and hung up with a clatter.

“What did they do, test the end of the hypodermic needle?” Shayne asked. “What was it, granulated sugar?”

“Shut up,” Painter said with a vicious look.

Rourke laughed. He was long, thin and disheveled, with an offhand manner which concealed his loyalty to his friends and a passionate dedication to his profession. He waved a big envelope at Shayne.

“The trouble you get yourself into when I’m not around! Wait till you see these pictures. They’re the hottest thing since Sodom.” He slapped the envelope on the table. Picking up the stick of marijuana, he sniffed it. “Mike, you’re branching out.”

“Put that down!” Painter snapped. “That’s evidence.”

Halstead, a gray-haired, sleepy-looking man, observed, “Something you found in my client’s pocket?”

“No-o,” Painter admitted, “but if you think there aren’t various other things we can hang on him, you don’t appreciate the situation. Who let you in here, anyway?”

“To be candid, Peter,” Halstead said, “we had to pull some strings. It seems that one of the boys you picked up is Judge Pike’s son. That greased the skids a bit.”

“Shayne’s in for more than drunk and disorderly, counselor,” Painter said. “You can have young Pike. You can’t have Shayne until we get a medical report on Sergeant Maguire. That won’t be for twelve hours.”

Halstead smiled. “Tim?”

The lanky reporter slipped a sheaf of glossy five-by-eight photographs out of his envelope. “This is the sort of art that sells papers,” he said happily. “You missed the Sunday deadline, Mike, but you and your friends are going to be all over pages one, two, three and the split page on Monday. Believe me. I took one fast squint at the movie film, and I’m going to recommend that we pick out a few of the least lurid frames and use them as stills. I’m volunteering for the assignment. I don’t like to volunteer for anything usually, but I know I’ll enjoy this.”

He slid several photographs across to Shayne. Having been present on the scene, the redhead already knew that the girls at the party hadn’t been unduly hampered by clothes. Rourke pointed out one of Lee, her blouse unbuttoned all the way down, flourishing a gin bottle.

“We’ll have to paste a little strip of tape across that to keep the post office department off our necks. We’re a family paper.”

Shayne laughed. “That photographer deserves a combat ribbon.”

“I didn’t hear him complaining,” Rourke said. “Now I want to show you a sequence of three shots featuring Sergeant Maguire. When we heard what had happened to him we all shed a tear. We’ve followed his career for years, and when we heard his jaw had been dislocated, with a double fracture, we shed a quiet tear that it wasn’t worse.”

He arranged the three photographs in order. The first showed Maguire stooping above Betty, nightstick raised. Betty cowered away. Her face already showed the mark of an earlier blow. Maguire’s face was congested with fury. His eyes bulged. It was a classic photograph of a type of sadistic cop and his helpless victim, and it was sure to be reprinted all over the country. The next picture showed Shayne arresting the nightstick as it came down. In the third, Maguire was reeling back from Shayne’s blow.

“Of course she bit him on the neck first, as I understand it,” Painter said, “but you didn’t bother to take a picture of that.”

“Since when did Maguire need a bite in the neck to slug somebody?” Rourke asked.

Painter looked at the pictures again, one after another, then racked them decisively and tore them across. He slapped the pieces down on the table.

“They’re distorted. They’re one-sided. But I’m a realist, Rourke. They could crucify us. In one day you could destroy the image of the police that I’ve been trying to put across. Give me your word that you’ll withdraw them, and your redheaded pal can walk out of here.”

“And we want Maguire off the force,” Shayne added.

Painter snapped, “If I feel that Sergeant. Maguire has outlived his usefulness, that’s a decision I alone will make.”

Shayne exchanged a look with the gray-haired lawyer. Halstead said quietly, “In that case we’ll take a chance with a jury, Peter. If acquitted, and I assume Mike would be acquitted, I’d advise him to bring suit for false arrest.” In a less formal tone he added, “You know Maguire has been asking for this for a long time.”

Painter ripped the red carnation out of his buttonhole, tore it apart petal by petal and ground it on the floor under his heels.

“One of these fine days,” he warned the redhead, “you’re going to step over the line and I’m going to be standing there with a machete and chop off your feet. You’re shot full of luck, Shayne. If that photographer hadn’t been along, I’d have you. But there’ll be a next time. I’m working night and day on this matter. The minute I can tie you into it, I’ll have you back so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

“Mike,” Sanderson said, “you said something about the Donahue boy being dead.”

“Did I?” Shayne said. “It’s late, Bob. I’m tired. My brain doesn’t seem to be functioning too well.”

Sanderson gave a rueful smile. “I guess I don’t blame you, Mike.”

“What’s that?” Painter demanded. “What did you say? What do you mean by that?”

Sanderson put out his cigarette slowly. “Not a thing, Chief. Just talking to myself.”

“Well, don’t do it around me!”

Halstead said, “There’s no point in putting Mike back in the tank. You’ll be getting the papers in another few minutes. They’re being typed now.”

“No favors,” Shayne said firmly. “We all came in together and we’ll go out together.”

He kept his lawyer from protesting with a curt shake of his head. Tim Rourke fell in beside him as they went out.

“Mike, you’ll want a drink to get the taste of this place out of your mouth. By a strange coincidence I have a pint of cognac in my car. I’ll trade it for an explanation.”

“There are too many things I can’t explain myself yet, Tim. I may need some more help. I’ll meet you at your place if I can. Otherwise I’ll call you.”

“If you insist. Marijuana, granulated sugar, dirty movies. I look forward to it. First I want to get that chick’s phone number, the one in the picture. Lee something. Thin and wild is the way I like them.”