Бретт Холлидей - Death Has Three Lives

Shayne was utterly weary in body and numbed in mind when he pulled in to the small dock and tied the skiff up. He stepped out and paced doggedly down to his parked car, wondering if Lucy was home yet, and where he might find Tim Rourke for the conference that was desperately indicated.

A fast, clean breast of the whole thing to Will Gentry before the woman got her story in would probably be best. It meant disgrace and probable arrest, but it had to be faced.

He drove to Lucy’s place first, was encouraged to see light in her front windows and Rourke’s car parked in front. He pulled in behind it and went doggedly into the foyer to press Lucy’s button. Her voice came over the speaking tube promptly and when he said, “Hi, angel,” her buzzer sounded. He climbed the stairs, and she met him in the hallway outside her lighted door. She cried out humbly, “I feel so terrible, Michael. I don’t know what—”

He caught her slender body to him in a hard embrace, kissed her lips, and muttered huskily, “Nobody’s fault, angel. The gods were against us tonight.”

He released her and stepped inside to see Timothy Rourke lolling back with a highball glass in his hand. He stopped in the center of the floor and announced flatly to both of them, “I stayed until they got the sedan out. No body in it. He must have drifted out an open window and floated away. So now we’ve got to do some hard thinking. I suggest—”

“No, Michael!” Lucy’s voice was hopeful as she interrupted him. “We don’t think he’s dead at all. You tell him, Tim.”

“That’s right, Mike. There’s strong reason to believe the driver of the car was thrown out before it went over the edge, and taken away unconscious by a motorist before the police got there. I’m trying to have the story verified and the man located before the cops reach him.”

Michael Shayne stood stock-still, looking from one to the other while his weary brain tried to assimilate this information, to see how it changed the present picture, to determine whether it was good or bad, whether it should change his decision to go at once to Gentry with the whole story.

He tugged for a moment at his ear lobe with left thumb and forefinger, then shook his red head slowly and sank into a chair. “I need a brandy, Lucy. And I want to know exactly what did happen on the Causeway.”

She had cognac and a wineglass on the tray, and she poured him a drink while she related the events of her evening stroll rapidly.

“So you see,” she ended hopefully, “there’s really nothing at all to connect me or you or Tim with the accident. Even if the police do find and question him, do you think he’ll tell the truth about how it happened? The blackmail attempt and all?”

“God only knows what he’ll tell,” said Shayne moodily. “He won’t have the money. He’ll know that we tried to trick him — capture him with a gas bomb. And there’s still the woman waiting to tell her story.” He glanced at his watch. “In exactly fifty-two minutes, the way he warned me he had it set up, the police will start asking her questions.”

Rourke sat up straight, his eyes bright and probing. “Let’s have it from the horse’s mouth, Mike. If we don’t get to him, or even if we do but the woman still tells her story, where do we stand with Will Gentry?”

“Bad,” said Shayne. “God knows how many laws Lucy and I have broken. And you’re little better off, Tim.” He paused to take a long sip of cognac. “There simply aren’t any extenuating circumstances. If we had managed to pull this off and get the guy and solve the case on our own, Gentry probably would have been willing to forgive and forget. But everything we’ve done has botched it further. At the very least, I’ll be out of business tomorrow — and you and Lucy will be out of jobs. And we’ll probably all three be behind bars, looking out and repenting our misdeeds.” He smiled grimly and finished his drink.

“And every bit of it’s my fault,” faltered Lucy Hamilton in a choked voice. “If I’d told you about Jack Bristow right away — if I’d telephoned you as I should have—”

Shayne shook his head and held up a big hand to stop her self-accusations. “None of that is important now.” He drummed blunt finger tips on the arm of his chair. “How does it look to you, Tim? Feel like taking a ride to headquarters with me and dumping it all in Gentry’s lap?”

“If you say so, Mike.” Rourke studied the big redhead alertly. “First time I ever knew you to toss in a hand before the showdown.”

“First time you ever saw me holding such a lousy hand. We can get our story in first, or we can sit back and wait.”

“I’m ashamed of you, Michael Shayne,” exclaimed Lucy with red flags showing in tearstained cheeks. “Tim’s perfectly right. A hundred things might happen.”

“What, for instance?” demanded Shayne harshly.

“I don’t know. But they might. If you give up now, you admit you’ll be through as a detective in Miami. This case will never be solved if you’re pulled off it.”

“Miami will still have a functioning police force,” Shayne reminded her.

“But think how many times in the past you’ve succeeded where they failed. Just because one little thing went awry tonight, you can’t just give up.”

“Lucy’s right.” Rourke surged to his feet. “We’ve still got fifty minutes. And something may happen to upset whatever plans he had made for the Allerdice woman. I’m going to phone in and see if there’s any dope.”

Shayne lit a cigarette and leaned back moodily while Rourke called his paper. He said, “Hi, Ed? Any news yet on the driver of the car that went off the Causeway?”

He listened a moment, and Shayne knew by his expression that there was no good news. Then the reporter stiffened abruptly and exclaimed, “What? Say that again, Ed... Are you certain?”

He listened intently, his brow furrowed, thin face hardening perceptibly. He nodded after a long interval of silence, said emphatically, “I’m damned interested, Ed. In anything that comes up on any of this. I’ll be at the same phone or you can get a message to me from here.”

He quietly replaced the receiver and looked down at it for a moment, then turned with a soberly preoccupied expression to announce, “You didn’t stay there long enough, Mike. Should have waited until they opened the luggage compartment of the gray sedan.”

Shayne asked just as quietly, “Why, Tim?”

“Because there was a woman locked in there. Tied up with ropes. Dead, of course, when they took her out. The brief description coincides with the one I saw in the tourist cabin, Mike. And they found a motel key in her pocket.”

“Mrs. Allerdice!” exclaimed Shayne. “He had her tied up in the trunk while he tried to collect the money instead of hiding her out as a hostage until he did get it.”

“That’s what it sounds like. He must have been awfully sure of himself — awfully sure you were going to follow instructions. His threats about her talking to the police were pure bluff.”

“And she won’t do any talking now,” said Shayne quietly.

“How ghastly for her,” gasped Lucy Hamilton. “Imagine being locked up in the trunk of a car when it went off into the bay. Drowning there without a chance.”

Shayne nodded somberly. “One more death tonight chalked up against Michael Shayne. If I hadn’t tried to be smart and capture the man, she’d still be alive.”

“But it wasn’t your fault, Michael,” Lucy rushed to his defense. “You had no way of knowing things would go wrong — no reason to suspect he had her in his car.”

“That’s no excuse,” he countered fiercely. “Sure. You can say the same thing about everything that’s happened tonight. Poor old, dumb Mike Shayne! He’s not to blame. In his own blundering way, he done his best.” The self-contempt in his voice was withering. “In the meantime, people are dying right and left — all because I tried to play God and covered up for you in the beginning.”