Brett Halliday - Murder Is My Business

There was a small, uncarpeted entryway through which she preceded him to a comfortably furnished front room dimmed by half-closed Venetian blinds at the windows. The structure was of adobe, bungalow style, with plastered inner walls, and very cool. Small Indian rugs were laid before the restful chairs, and a few good pieces of Indian pottery adorned the sideboard and center table.

Shayne stood in the center of the room looking around slowly. The woman seated herself in a rocking chair and invited him to be seated. Her serenity was a complement to the quiet, restful appointments of the room.

“Your name is Morales?” Shayne asked.

“Yes, Senor.”

“Mrs. Morales?”

She inclined her head in assent.

“Where is your husband, Mrs. Morales?”

“He has been dead ten years.” She looked at him steadily. “Why do you ask these questions?”

“To establish the fact that you’re the woman Mr. Towne sent me to see. You haven’t admitted that you know Towne.”

She lifted her shoulders in the merest fraction of a shrug. Her dark, smooth face was inscrutable.

Shayne sat down in front of her and said persuasively, “I’m a good friend of Mr. Towne’s and he’s in trouble. You can help him by talking freely to me.”

She said placidly, “I do not think he is in trouble.”

“Do you read the papers, Mrs. Morales?”

“No, Senor.”

“Or listen to the radio?”

“No, Senor.”

“Well, don’t you talk to the neighbors?”

She shook her smooth, black head. “I go only to the market before noon. Other times I stay at home.” There was a ring of dignified humility in her voice that pictured the ostracized life she lived for Jefferson Towne’s pleasure.

“Then you don’t even know that Mr. Towne killed a man just down the street from here two days ago?” Shayne asked in surprise.

Again she shook her head. “I do not know this thing, Senor.”

“It was an accident,” Shayne told her, “but his political enemies are trying to make it look bad for him. You know he’s running for mayor, don’t you?”

“Yes, Senor.” An expression of pain crossed her face but was quickly erased.

“He ran over the body of a man when he was turning onto this street from Lawton,” Shayne told her. “We think the man was placed there by his enemies so he would run over it. I’m trying to help him by finding out who could have known he was coming to visit you Tuesday evening. Do you understand that?”

“I understand, Senor.”

“Was it his regular day to come?”

“Sometimes I know when he is coming. Sometimes I do not know.”

“How about last Tuesday?” Shayne persisted. “You expected him that evening, didn’t you?”

“I cannot remember, Senor.”

“Nonsense,” said Shayne strongly. “If you expected him and he didn’t come, you’d certainly remember it.”

“Perhaps it is as the Senor says.” Her face was absolutely expressionless.

“He’s in serious trouble,” Shayne urged her. “He may lose the election unless you give me some information.”

Her lips tightened the merest trifle. She said formally, “That would be sad, Senor,” and she got up to indicate that the interview was ended.

Shayne got it then. She was afraid Towne would be elected. As mayor of El Paso, she knew, he would cease his visits to her house. She loves him, Shayne thought wonderingly. By God, that’s it! She loves him and she’s afraid she’ll lose him.

He got up, reluctant to give up the quest for information, but convinced of the uselessness of further questioning. As he slowly turned toward the door, he noticed a framed photograph of a flagrantly pretty girl on the sideboard. The full, round contour of the face was that of a child, but the sensual lips and the flashing gleam in her dark eyes indicated a maturity far beyond her years.

The picture was without question that of the Mexican girl whom Shayne had seen at the police station, taken before her mouth had become sullen. He went toward it, saying politely, “This is a beautiful picture. It must have been made when you were much younger, but the resemblance is remarkable.”

“That is my Marquita. She is a good girl, Senor.” There was fierce, throbbing pride in her voice. “Marquita goes to the school in Juarez and comes to this house not often.”

Shayne murmured, “Your daughter? but she looks older-”

“Thirteen only, Senor, when she pose for it. I have one that is later.” Beaming maternally, she went to the center table and shuffled through some snapshots, selected one, and held it out proudly.

Marquita was seated on a stone wall with her knees crossed, her skirt drawn down so that it almost covered her knees. She was smiling into the camera and her long black hair framed her face in two demure braids.

Shayne studied the snapshot carefully, comparing it with the larger photograph on the sideboard.

“A girl to be proud of,” he said, and placed the snapshot atop the others on the table. “When did you see her last?”

“She comes on Sundays. On most Sundays she comes,” Mrs. Morales amended.

Shayne started toward the door, stopped, and asked, “I wonder if I could trouble you for a drink of water before I go?”

“But yes, Senor.” She went into the kitchen and Shayne turned back to the table. He pocketed the recent snapshot of Marquita Morales, and was waiting at the kitchen door when Mrs. Morales returned with a brimming glass of water. He drank it and thanked her, went out and drove away in the police coupe.

When Shayne stopped at the hotel desk to pick up his key, the clerk said, “There’s a party here inquiring for you, Mr. Shayne. He’s sitting right over there on that circular lounge.”

Shayne turned to look at the man indicated by the clerk. He was an old man with deep-set eyes beneath shaggy brows. He had sunken cheeks, a weak chin, and a long scrawny neck. He wore a shiny black suit and was obviously ill at ease in the marbled grandeur of the Paso del Norte lobby. A dirty black felt hat was tipped far back on his gray head and he was sucking noisily on a short-stemmed briar.

After studying him for a moment, Shayne was positive he had never seen the man before. He walked over to him and said, “You wanted to see me? I’m Shayne.”

“The detective I read about in the papers?” He came hastily to his feet.

Shayne nodded.

“Then I wanta see you, I reckon. Yes, sir, I sure do.” He bobbed his head up and down several times as he spoke.

“What about?” Shayne made a move to sit down on the circular lounge.

“It’s sorta private,” the old man quavered, glancing around the crowded lobby. “Couldn’t we go out some place to talk?”

Shayne dangled his room key and suggested, “I’ve got a drink up in my room.”

“Now, that’d be right nice. Yes, sir, I say that’d be right nice.” The old man chuckled and held out a blue-veined hand, gnarled and callused by long years of hard work. “Name’s Josiah Riley,” he announced.

Shayne shook hands with him and led the way toward the elevator. They went up to his room, and he indicated a chair while he went into the bathroom to wash out the two glasses he and Carmela had drunk from. He came back and uncorked the bottle of rye he had ordered after Lance Bayliss left, poured out two drinks, and handed one to Josiah Riley.

“I take this right friendly of you,” the old fellow told him. “Yes, sir, it’s a real gentleman that offers a man a drink without knowin’ what his business is.”

Shayne sat down and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “What is your business, Mr. Riley?”

“I’m what you might call retired,” the old fellow chuckled. “Yes, sir, I reckon that’s what you might call it. Live by myself in a little shack on the river flats north of the College of Mines. Mighty pleasant an’ quiet an’ comfortable livin’ by myself thataway.” He put the glass of rye to his lips and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down until the glass was empty. He sighed gustily and licked his lips. “Got kind of usta livin’ by myself back in the old days when I was prospectin’.”