Brett Halliday: Murder Is My Business

Chief of Police C. E. Dyer stated that Mr. Towne had been released on his own recognizance and expressed the personal belief that the accident had been unavoidable, though he promised the citizens of El Paso a full investigation. The dispatch also stated that the parents of Private James Brown in Cleveland, Ohio, were being notified of their son’s death by army authorities.

Three vertical lines in Shayne’s forehead deepened into trenches as he read the dispatch with great care. He looked up to ask, “When was your son’s letter written, Mrs. Delray?”

“Yesterday morning. He sent it airmail. And he said he had a pass to go to town and see some man about the spy business in the afternoon. Do you suppose — it wasn’t an accident, Mr. Shayne?”

Shayne shook his head. “I happen to know Jeff Towne. Knew him ten years ago,” he amended, “and I’m certain Towne isn’t the type to be mixed up in a spy ring.” He glanced down at the dispatch and muttered, “Running for mayor? He must have been doing all right these past ten years.”

“But there must be some reason for it.” Mrs. Delray’s voice trembled urgently. “Couldn’t be just happenstance.”

“You’re not certain the James Brown mentioned here is your son,” Shayne reminded her. “It’s a very common name. And this James Brown appears to have parents in Cleveland, Ohio.”

“It’s my Jimmie. I know it is. He wouldn’t tell the truth about where his folks live, I guess, enlisting under a different name and all.”

Shayne nodded, his gaunt face hardening a little. He looked past the bonneted mother, out through open windows of his fourth-floor office in the International Building to the soft blue of the horizon. His eyes narrowed a little and a muscle jumped in the left side of his lean jaw. He said, “I’ll check with El Paso, Mrs. Delray. If they haven’t succeeded in locating the dead soldier’s parents in Cleveland, I’ll take the case.”

“Will you, Mr. Shayne? Like I said at first, I haven’t got much money to spend-”

Shayne’s outflung hand silenced her. “Didn’t Captain Denton tell you I could be had cheaply?” He lifted his voice to call, Lucy. She appeared in the doorway almost immediately.

“Get Chief of Police Dyer in El Paso, Texas, on the phone,” Shayne directed her. “If you can’t reach Dyer, try to get Captain Gerlach.” Lucy nodded and went back into the reception room.

“I know it’s my Jimmie,” Mrs. Delray said again with complete conviction. “I just sort of feel it like, Mr. Shayne. And it’s got something to do with those spies that talked him into enlisting under a false name. Jimmie wasn’t any coward and they must have seen he wouldn’t help them out.”

Shayne nodded absently. He got up and walked across to the double windows. It was warm and quiet in the office. Through the open door into the reception room came the murmur of Lucy Hamilton’s voice as she put through his long-distance call.

Shayne thrust both big hands deep into his pockets and scowled savagely out at New Orleans’ skyline. He had one of those crazy hunches that hit him like a ton of bricks sometimes. It was a feeling he couldn’t put his finger on, but one that he had long ago learned could not be disregarded. He stiffened and wheeled about when his secretary called, “I have Chief Dyer on the line, Mr. Shayne.”

He strode past Mrs. Delray to pick up a telephone on his desk. “Hello. Dyer? Mike Shayne speaking. That’s right, it has been a hell of a long time. I’m checking on the traffic death of a soldier in El Paso yesterday. Private James Brown. Has the army been able to locate his parents in Cleveland?”

Shayne listened intently, and as he listened the deep lines in his forehead gradually smoothed out. He nodded after a time and his voice was almost exuberant when he agreed: “It does look as though the James Brown and Cleveland address might be a phony, doesn’t it? I’ll be up tomorrow and may have some dope on that, but keep it under your hat. In the meantime, do me a favor, Chief, and yourself one too. Pull an autopsy on the corpse. What? I don’t care if the cause of death is established. Yep. Be seeing you.”

Shayne replaced the telephone on its prongs and told Mrs. Delray, “I’m afraid it may be your son. The Cleveland address simply doesn’t exist, and they have no record of him there.”

“I knew it.” Mrs. Delray clenched her thin hands together convulsively. “But I don’t know whether I can afford to pay your expenses to make a trip up there, Mr. Shayne. I’ve got fifty dollars here-”

She was nervously opening her purse again, but Shayne stopped her with a wave of his big hand. “The spy angle makes this sort of government business, Mrs. Delray. Forget about the expenses. They’ll be taken care of.”

Tears of thankfulness came into her old eyes. “That’s what I asked Captain Denton — if the government wouldn’t do something. He just laughed and said they couldn’t follow up every wild-goose chase that came along. But will you have to tell them, Mr. Shayne, about Jimmie?”

Shayne shook his head. “I won’t have to tell anyone anything.” He patted her shoulder gently. “You go on home and try not to worry. I’ll get in touch with you as soon as I have something to report. Just leave your address with my secretary.” He helped her from the chair and toward the door.

Lucy came in a few minutes later and stopped in front of his desk with her hands belligerently on her hips. “You certainly let Captain Denton put a sweet one over on you this time. Just forget about the expenses, Mrs. Delray. Where are we going to get next month’s office rent?”

Shayne grinned and opened a drawer to get out a bottle of cognac and two four-ounce glasses. “We’ve still got a drink left. Relax and have one with me.”

“As long as you’ve got a drink of cognac, you don’t think about expenses,” she charged, her brown eyes blazing with wrath.

Shayne’s grin widened. He poured one glass full and looked at her inquiringly. She shook her head and took a backward step. “You just want to get me woozy so I won’t mind if you go off on a trip to El Paso.”

He lifted his glass and arched his eyebrows at her. “Why, Lucy. I didn’t realize you would mind.”

“I don’t. Not the way you think. I hate to see you fall for a sob story like that. No wonder Captain Denton told her you could be had cheaply.”

Shayne tossed off the cognac and laughed. “Get me a reservation on the next plane for El Paso. If I need a priority, get in touch with Captain Campbell, Military Intelligence.” He gave her a telephone number.

Lucy’s brown eyes widened. “Do you really think it’s a spy ring?”

“I doubt it, but there should be enough in the story to wangle me a priority for plane space.”

The sparkle went out of Lucy’s eyes. “Just another one of your shenanigans. What am I going to tell Mr. Pontiff Jalreaux when he calls tomorrow?”

“Tell him any damned thing you want to,” Shayne told her impatiently.

“That you’re in El Paso on a charity case?”

Shayne poured his glass half full of cognac again. “There’ll be certain compensations for my trip to El Paso,” he assured her gravely. “You see, I knew Jeff Towne ten years ago. I did a little job for him while I was working with World-Wide. He had a daughter. She was twenty. Her mother was Spanish.” He emptied his glass and smacked his lips. “Carmela will be thirty now. A beautiful and frustrated thirty.” He set his glass down and there was a queer gleam in his eyes.

“She’ll be fat and satisfied,” Lucy warned him. “All Spanish women are at thirty.”

“Not Carmela Towne. She won’t be married — unless Towne has changed a lot. That’s the job I did for him. There was a chap named Lance Bayliss. A poet, Lucy, and a poet is lower than dirt to a two-fisted, self-made financier like Jefferson Towne. He broke up their engagement and he broke Carmela’s heart. I doubt whether she’s looked at another man.”