Brett Halliday - Murder Is My Business

He turned his head very deliberately to look at her. His gaze was impersonal and searching. He drew in his breath, and the small sound was loud in the stillness of the hotel room. He looked back at Shayne and said acidly, “I’m sorry I interrupted your drinking party. I’ll get out and let you finish it.” He went swiftly to the door and jerked it open.

Carmela swayed forward and cried out, “Lance,” again.

He stepped out, and the slamming of the door echoed his name.

Carmela turned numbly toward Shayne. “Did you see his eyes when he looked at me? He hates me, Michael.”

Shayne said evenly, “Ten years have taught him to hate a lot of things, Carmela.”

“I heard everything he said. About Father and all. Do you believe them, Michael? Can they be true?”

Shayne said, “I don’t know.” He sighed. “I’m not even sure that Lance believes them.”

Carmela came toward him slowly. Her features were haggard and tightly drawn. Her dark eyes glittered insistently. “What do you mean by that?”

“I’m not sure.” Shayne moved restively in his chair. “I’m only sure that Lance is trying to balk a complete investigation into the death of the soldier. Other people are trying to do the same thing for different reasons.” He got up and jerked his head curtly toward the chair. “Sit down and relax. I’ll order up that bottle and we’ll pour ourselves a drink.”

Early in the afternoon Shayne strolled down to police headquarters and went up a corridor toward Chief Dyer’s private office. He was nearing the door when it opened and Dyer came out. He was accompanied by Neil Cochrane of the Free Press and a long-legged young man with tousled hair and a solemn face and round, wondering eyes behind a pair of thick-lensed glasses.

Dyer was puffing explosively on his inevitable cigarette in its long holder. When he saw Shayne, he told the two men, “Here he is now, if you want to ask him those questions. You can use my office if you like. You know Cochrane, don’t you, Shayne? And this is Jasper Dodge, on the morning paper.”

Shayne said, yes, he knew Cochrane. He shook hands with the solemn-faced young reporter, who mumbled that he was happy to meet Mr. Shayne. Dyer started to go on by, but Shayne blocked him for a moment. “What’s this all about, Chief?”

“I just gave the boys a statement on the autopsy. They want to ask you a few questions. They want to know on what information you based your request for an autopsy, and who retained you on the case.”

Shayne grinned and said, “The hell they do.”

“And other pertinent questions,” Neil Cochrane shot at him incisively, thrusting his bushy head forward. “My readers will want to know-”

Shayne said, “To hell with your readers, Cochrane. I’m not ready to make a statement yet.” He linked his arm in Chief Dyer’s. “I’ve a couple of things I wanted to talk over with you.”

“Busy right now.” Dyer started down the hall. “Boys have pulled in a couple of suspects on an angle we’ve been working on for some time.”

“I’ll tag along,” Shayne said agreeably.

“Yeah. And we’ll tag along too, Shayne,” Cochrane grated disagreeably. “My paper wants to know who put up the bribe money that caused Doc Thompson to falsify an autopsy.”

Shayne didn’t pay any attention to the little man’s yapping. He went down the hallway with Dyer, and the two reporters trailed behind.

“What sort of an angle?” Shayne asked the chief idly.

“Boys from Fort Bliss have been turning up in Juarez more or less regularly with civilian clothes for an evening’s what-have-you,” Dyer told him. “We’ve been cooperating with the army authorities-” He broke off to stop and open a door into one of the detention rooms just off the booking desk.

Shayne went in with him. There were two uniformed policemen standing in the bare room, and two other occupants were seated.

One of them was a young Mexican girl. She didn’t look over sixteen. She had sultry eyes and a sullen, heavily rouged mouth. She wore a thin white blouse that showed a pink brassiere beneath, and a very short skirt that came well above her knees as she sprawled on a bench. Her rayon stockings were twisted, and one of them had a run all the way down the inside of her calf.

Her companion was a tall, dapper man. He sat bolt upright beside the Mexican floosie, with his hands folded in his lap. He had fierce eyes and a beaked nose, and a square, aggressive jaw.

“Here they are, Chief,” one of the patrolmen said. “The guy won’t do no talkin’, but the girl says-”

She opened her mouth and spewed out a torrent of Mexican vilification at him. Her companion compressed his lips tightly and did not look at her. She ceased abruptly in the middle of a sentence, and her eyes widened as the two reporters peered through the doorway behind Shayne and Chief Dyer. She jumped up and cried out, “Senor Cochrane! You ’ave come for tal them Marquita ees not bad girl. You weel mak’ them let me go, no?”

Neil Cochrane lounged forward with a sickly smile on his ferrety face. He asked, “What have you been up to, Marquita?”

“Nossing. I ’ave done nossing at all. Bot zees mans arrest me, for w’at I do not know.” She shrugged her shoulders defiantly and wriggled her thin hips, then plopped herself down on the bench again, twitching her skirt above her knees and letting her mouth relax into sullen lines.

“How well do you know this girl?” Dyer demanded of the Free Press reporter.

“I’ve run into her in Juarez a couple of times. What are the charges against her?”

Chief Dyer turned inquiringly to the patrolman who had first spoken.

“We picked her up taking a couple of young soldiers in uniform into this man’s secondhand clothing store,” the officer said. “We’ve been watching his place for some time on the hunch that he rented civvies to soldiers who want to slip across the border for a good time. Couple of M.P.’s went in with us, and the soldiers said, sure, she’d picked ’em up on the street and offered to show ’em how to get out to Juarez without gettin’ caught,”

“Who are you?” Dyer growled at the dapper man.

“I am Sydney J. Larimer.” He spoke in precise English, forming each word carefully, his tone incisive and superior. “I have a legitimate business and I protest this outrage. I demand the protection of a legal advisor.”

“What kind of a business do you run?”

“I purchase and sell slightly used clothing and luggage.”

“And rent civilian clothes to soldiers who want to slip across the border?”

Larimer glared at the police chief. “I demand to be allowed to call my lawyer.”

Dyer turned his attention to the girl. “How long have you been taking soldiers to his place to get them fixed up so they could cross the border with you?”

Neil Cochrane interrupted to ask reprovingly, “You haven’t ever done that, have you, Marquita?”

Chief Dyer whirled on the reporter and bellowed, “Get out of here! Both of you!”

Cochrane backed toward the door, protesting, “Is this a Star Chamber? I just want to see that-”

Dyer nodded to one of the patrolmen and growled, “Put them out.” He waited until the door was closed behind the two reporters and then ordered the Mexican girl, “Answer my question.”

She was looking down at her lap. She shook her head and said sullenly, “I do not know w’at you mean. Me, I ’ave done nossing. I am theenk eet ees nice eef ze soldados can go weeth me to Juarez for ’ave fun, an’ I am theenk maybe they can buy clothes for change from uniform.”

“So you took them to Larimer’s store, where you’ve often been before.”