Бретт Холлидей - Murder in Haste

“Now you’re worrying me, Shayne,” Quinn said.

“Do you ever do any skin-diving, Luke? That’s something else we’ll want to look into, to tidy everything up. It doesn’t matter too much. You can’t be executed more than once, and what you’re going to be executed for is the murder of George Heminway... Where are you going, Rose?”

She turned. “Mike, hadn’t I better call Norma Harris? It seems cruel to keep her in suspense.”

“Her big interest is the money,” Shayne said. “I’m coming to that.”

“The money?”

“Sure. I wouldn’t want you to keep it, when you’re the one who sent your husband to the bank that night.”

Painter sat up straighten “Now look here, Mike. Just because you had a few lucky breaks doesn’t entitle you to—”

“Right or wrong, Rose?” Shayne said.

“Wrong,” she said coldly. “As wrong as you could possibly be.”

Shayne smiled. “And how could we prove it, anyway? After three years, we probably can’t even prove that your father was helping himself to the bank’s assets even before you suggested the robbery to him. I really don’t think he’d go into partnership with a character like Quinn unless he already had a shortage he couldn’t cover.”

“Sixty G’s,” Quinn said. “Or so he told me. Of course he wasn’t George Washington, as far as telling the truth was concerned.”

“That’s the most — the most despicable—” Rose said.

“Well, Luke’s a despicable character,” Shayne said tolerantly. “I’ve been thinking about this, and I think I know about what happened. Your husband found out what his crooked father-in-law was up to. What’s more natural than for a husband to confide in his understanding wife? But he made a mistake there, because you’re the type of understanding wife that thinks things through. If George turned your old man in for embezzlement, he’d either go to jail or the bank would fire him and make him sell everything he owned to pay them back. Without a father-in-law at the head of the bank, George would stay at his adding machine for the rest of his career, and life as a clerk’s wife, with a father to support, was not for you.

“I’d better not try to guess which of you actually thought up the robbery, you or your old man, and that’s another thing that doesn’t matter. But of course you knew about it. Luke wouldn’t put thugs on you unless he was damn sure you knew everything there was to know about that night. When George came to you with his problem, you told him you couldn’t believe it, you had to have proof, and that meant he had to go back to the bank and work late, on his own time, with nobody else around. He got the proof all right, but from the wrong end of a gun.”

She started to speak and he said cheerfully, “This is all guesswork. I admit it.”

“When Norma came to me I did everything she wanted,” she said. “I tried to push Mr. Painter—”

“No, you didn’t,” Shayne said. “You went to him to find out what he knew, if anything. Your father went to him for the same reason, and I think he may have wondered if you’d sold him out.”

“But I–I hired you, Mike. Doesn’t that prove—”

“You suddenly realized you needed protection. Luke Quinn, who was coming to town this week, was friends with some very rough men.”

“Mike,” she said quietly, “your tone’s so — I don’t know — so vindictive. I thought you — you and I—”

Shayne looked at her in surprise. “Just because you offered to sleep with me, you thought I’d let you keep the money? That’s not the way I operate.”

Rourke put in, “He’s already got a girl.”

Rose looked from Shayne to Painter. The chief-of-detectives looked away, flicking his thumbnail across his mustache. She seemed to harden as she saw that Shayne’s reasoning had left her without allies.

“Just exactly what do you intend to do about it?”

“There’s not much we can do,” Shayne said. “You didn’t fire the gun that killed your husband, Quinn did, and there’s no way we can prove conspiracy. We can’t even prove perjury on your identification of Harris — you had the sense to qualify that. But we can take the money away from you. Goddard,” he said, addressing the insurance company president, “do you want to speak on that point?”

“I checked the banks for safe deposit accounts, as you asked me to,” Goddard said. “There’s one in Mrs. Heminway’s name and one in her father’s. It wouldn’t have mattered if you’d let her leave a minute ago, Mike, because I put a temporary stop-order on those boxes until we can get court permission to see what’s inside them. The Bay Harbor property ought to bring a nice price.”

“It’s not my father’s!” Rose cried. “It’s mine!”

“But he bought it for you, probably? It may take some litigation, but if Shayne’s charges hold up, and having worked with Shayne before, I have a feeling they will, I think the courts will decide that it was bought with money that properly belongs to us. That would go for any other real property, bought since your husband’s death. A car, say, jewelry, fur coats.”

Rose looked confused. “I’ll be left with nothing? Nothing at all?”

Painter said quickly, “You admit it?”

She rallied. “I don’t admit a thing! You’re going to have a fight on your hands! And as for you, Michael Shayne, I wish I’d paid more attention to the stories I’ve heard about you. You don’t want to settle for my little fee. You’re after higher stakes.”

Shayne said soberly, “No, I’m charging you my usual rates, and I expect to get paid. I promised I’d give Sam Harris twenty-five percent of the recovery fee, but I’ve decided he deserves it all. He’s spent three years in jail on a bad rap, and I doubt if the state of Florida will do anything but say they’re sorry.” He added to Rourke, “But don’t tell Lucy about this, Tim.”

“Norma Harris!” Rose exclaimed. “I might have known. That over-sexed, over-developed bitch. You’re birds of a feather!”

Shayne grinned. “I’m giving it to Sam, not Norma. It may be just the thing to keep their marriage together.”

“This isn’t in character, Mike,” Rourke observed. “Lucy wouldn’t believe it even if I told her.”

The door opened and a union official looked in. “Harry—”

He looked around, and Plato said impatiently, “Well? Hurry it up, because I’ve got to get out there and take the chair, if I’m going to hold the membership in line.”

“They just announced the results, Harry. You ran third. The rank-and-file—”

“What?” Plato demanded.

“Well, they won, Harry, all down the line.”

“We only put them on the ballot so there’d be a contest!” Plato cried. “What do those jerks know about running a union?” He turned angrily on Shayne. “And how about me? How about me? This is all your fault, you bastard. I’ve never been able to put aside a penny. I hope you’re satisfied! I’ll have to go back to driving a truck!”