Brett Halliday - Killers from the Keys

Only, under the newspaper cut there was a caption that read: “Wife of Illinois Embezzler Distraught and Disbelieving.”

Shayne took the clipping from him with a baffled frown, and swiftly scanned the story, date-lined Springfield, Illinois:

“Mrs. Steven Shephard, pictured above with her two children in a photograph taken during happier days, declared today that she did not believe her husband guilty of the crime of which he is accused.

“Steven simply could not have stolen that money,” she insisted tearfully, on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “There is some dreadful mistake. I know there must be. Steven was a loving husband and a devoted father. He has lived an exemplary life in this community for twenty years, and it is utterly absurd to think he is capable of such an act. Someone else must be responsible, and I fear that Steven is the victim of foul play because he may have tried to prevent it.”

The quote from Mrs. Shephard ended there, and the newspaper story went on to briefly rehash the known facts in the case.

Steven Shephard, it appeared, had been an officer and a trusted cashier of a Mutual Savings and Loan Association in Springfield, Illinois, for the past twenty years. A Sunday School teacher and a Boy Scout leader, he had been universally respected by a wide circle of friends and associates, and had been known as a man with no vices, and no bad habits. He owned his own modest home, mortgage-free, paid his bills promptly on the tenth of each month, and over the years had built up a substantial savings account in the Mutual Association with which he was associated.

And then, approximately three weeks ago, Steven Shephard had disappeared and $200,000.00 of the mutual funds had disappeared with him.

Auditors going over the books reported evidence that the theft was the result of careful planning and preparation for at least one year prior to Shephard’s disappearance. During that period, it appeared, he had been secretly diverting cash deposits into his own hands by falsifying the daily records, until a cash reserve of United States currency totalling exactly $200,000.00 was in his possession.

Then Steven Shephard had walked away from his office and his home, leaving no trace behind him. There were indications that he had fled westward, and the account stated that he was being actively sought in Southern California and Mexico at the time of the writing, which was one week previous.

Shayne’s gray eyes were bleak as he put the clipping down. He muttered, “So she really fed me a story, and I swallowed it, hook-line-and-sinker.”

“Want to tell me about it now, Mike?” Rourke asked eagerly.

“Not for publication.” Shayne gave him a wry smile and lit a cigarette. “She told me her name was Mrs. Renshaw when she came to my office this afternoon to retain me to find her husband. From Chicago, where her husband, Steven… she was smart enough to use his first name so she wouldn’t make any slips,” he interpolated, “… had run out on a Syndicate gambling debt and was supposedly hiding in Miami to avoid their vengeance.

“She made it sound real good, Tim. So good that I was sympathetic as hell.”

“Smart woman,” Rourke said admiringly. “She knew Mike Shayne would be a pushover for a story like that. That why you were checking The Preacher out with Joe Hoffman?”

Shayne nodded moodily. “From another source, I got a description of a man on his tail who sounded like The Preacher. Sheer coincidence, I guess… since it appears The Preacher has been dead six months, and the Syndicate isn’t interested in her husband after all.”

“This guy you thought was The Preacher. Could he be the dead man?”

“Could be,” Shayne conceded morosely. “Goddamn it, this knocks everything into a cocked hat… though a lot of things do make more sense this way than they did before. Have you given this to Will, Tim?”

“Hell, no. Let him read about it in the paper tomorrow morning. I’m just about through with my story.”

Shayne said, “No soap, Tim.” He leaned forward and picked up the photograph of Mrs. Shephard and the newspaper clipping he’d just read. “Will gets these right now.”

“For Chrissake, Mike! Let him do his own deducing. Won’t be the first time you and I held out information.”

“Not this time,” Shayne said firmly. He got to his feet, shaking his head sternly as Rourke tried to protest further.

“I helped you walk off with this picture, Tim. It changes everything, and I’m taking it to Will right now. He can check fingerprints and find out who was who in that cabin tonight. Then maybe we can start adding things up. Go ahead and write your story. You’re still ahead of the pack on it. But Will gets this in the meantime.”

He turned and went out of the City Room fast, and Rourke sank back to his desk with a sour look on his face, and went back to typing his story for the early edition of the News.

Chief Will Gentry wasn’t at Police Headquarters when Shayne got there. The chief had not been in his office, Shayne was told, since leaving for home late in the afternoon. Neither had Lieutenant Yager come back from a Homicide call to the Pink Flamingo Motel. Shayne went out slowly, still carrying Mrs. Shephard’s photograph and the newspaper clipping. He was sure that Gentry had been headed for his office when he left the Bright Spot, but with a two-way radio in his car, Yager might have intercepted him with a message. That indicated that some sort of break might have occurred in the Pink Flamingo killing.

Acutely conscious of the important information in his possession and feeling guilty about helping Rourke unearth it without Gentry’s knowledge, Shayne paused indecisively outside the building in front of his parked car. If it weren’t for his worry about Lucy, he knew he would wait right there and wait for Gentry to return so he could turn the information over to him.

But he was worried about Lucy… and the fact that she was his only means of contacting Mrs. Shephard.

He made up his mind abruptly and got in his car and drove down Flagler Street to park in front of his office building. The night operator took him up to his floor, and Shayne had his key out as he approached his office door.

He switched on the anteroom light, and wrinkled his nose when he discovered that the heavy scent of Sloe Burn’s perfume still lingered in the outer office.

Crossing swiftly to Lucy’s desk, he opened the center drawer and took out the daily record where she kept notes of his appointments and phone calls on the chance that she might have entered Mrs. Shephard’s address under the name she had given them.

She had. There was the notation: “Mrs. Renshaw, 3:30,” and beneath it: “Room 334, Corondao Arms.” Beneath that, Lucy had efficiently entered a local telephone number.

Shayne closed the drawer and lifted Lucy’s phone to dial the number. He got the hotel operator and asked for extension 334. After a short wait, she told him brightly that the room did not answer.

Shayne hung up and glared sourly across the empty and silent anteroom. Then he tried Lucy’s number and let the phone ring four times before slamming the receiver down.

He lit a cigarette and strode into his private office to drink a short slug directly from the cognac bottle. Then he called his own apartment hotel and the night clerk assured him there had been no calls for him that evening. He took another swallow of cognac, but it didn’t really taste very good. He lowered one hip to the edge of his desk and tugged at his left earlobe angrily and stared out the window and down at the slow-moving headlights on Flagler Street below.

Where in hell was everybody all at once? As a final effort, he dialled the News and got Tim Rourke.