Murder is My Business

by Brett Halliday

  Shayne grinned and said, "The hell they do."

  "And other pertinent questions," Neil Cochrane shot at him insanely, thrusting his bushy head forward. "My readers will want to low "

  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 couple of things I wanted to talk over with you."

  "Busy right now," Dyer started down the hall. "Boys have pulled a couple of suspects on an angle we've been working on for some me.

  "I'll tag along," Shayne said agreeably.

  "Yeh. 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 bent down the hallway with Dyer, and the two reporters trailed along 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 in civilian clothes for an evening's what-have-you," yer told him. "We've been co-operating 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 landing 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 very short skirt that came well above her knees as she sat sprawled 1 a bench. Her rayon stockings were twisted, and one of them had run all the way down the inside of her calf.

  Her companion was a tall, dapper man. He sat bolt upright beside le 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 3 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 over 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 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 senk eet ecs nice eef ze soldados can go weeth me to Juarez for the fun, an' I am theenk maybe they can buy clothes for change the uniform."

  "So you took them to Larimer's store where you've often been before."

  "Never," said Larimer tightly. "I have a legitimate business and—"

  "How much does he charge to rent clothes to soldiers?" Dyer demanded of the girl.

  She lifted her head and widened her eyes at him. "I do not know. heenk I weel ask "

  Chief Dyer uttered a disgusted exclamation and turned to stride out of the room. To the patrolman at the door he said, "Have Sergeant Lawson get all the dope, and then release them. You made the nab too fast. If you'd waited until the soldiers actually changed clothes in the shop, we'd have something." Muttering to himself, he strode back to his office.

  Cochrane and Jasper Dodge were lounging against the wall in front his door. He brushed past them and went inside. Following Chief Dyer, Shayne was intercepted by Cochrane, who stepped in front of him and said, "Look here, Shayne. I want some answers."

  Shayne put a big hand flat against the reporter's thin face, and shoved. He stepped inside the chief's office and closed the door. Dyer was seated at his desk fitting a cigarette into his long holder. His ked-appearing face depicted extreme disgust. "That's the way it is police work," he said. "Have to depend on a bunch of incompetents who go off half-cocked and ruin things."

  Shayne eased one hip onto a corner of the chief's desk. "Speaking of those two back there?"

  Dyer nodded. "We haven't a thing on them now. And they'll be careful from now on."

  Shayne lit a cigarette and blew smoke into a cloud already rising from a violent puff from Dyer. "Larimer appears to be some kind of a foreigner."

  "He speaks mighty good English," growled Dyer.

  "Too good," Shayne agreed. "Too precise and bookish."

  "We'll have to work up another lead on the racket now."

  "You could hold the girl," Shayne suggested.

  "On what? Juvenile delinquency? There are hundreds like her in Juarez and El Paso preying on the soldiers."

  Shayne's gaunt face was grave. He murmured, "That would be a logical approach for a spy ring. Getting young soldiers across the border with a girl like Alarquita. I suppose there are still places in Juarez that go the limit."

  "If there is any limit," Dyer grunted. He leaned back to peer at the red-headed detective through a haze of cigarette smoke. "Are you saying there's a spy ring operating here?"

  "Could be. It's a good spot. Close to the border, where information is easily relayed overseas."

  "What sort of information?" Dyer snapped. "What sense would there be in pumping a couple of privates? They possess about as much secret military information as a taxi driver."

  "If enough of them do enough talking, things begin to add up," Shayne told him. "The modem espionage agent is taught the value of extracting minute bits of information from every source. Add ten thousand of them up and you may have something."

  "Do you think they'd hire a girl like Marquita for that?"

  Shayne shrugged. "Not as a Mata Hari, but as a decoy to get the boys across the border to the right places. It's just a thought," he went on easily. "How did Cochrane take Thompson's autopsy?"

  "He choked over it," Dyer chuckled. "The
Free Press is all set to tear it to pieces as bought and paid for with Towne's money."

  Shayne said pleasantly, "Towne didn't like it either."

  "I know. He called me after you'd been out to see him. He figures you're playing the Free Press game."

  Shayne grinned imperturbably and admitted, "Maybe I am." He stood up and yawned, "Any chance of borrowing a spare police vehicle to do some poking around the city?"

  Chief Dyer regarded him quizzically. "Who are you working for?"

  "Myself. As far as I can see, I'm the only one actually interested in how and why the soldier was murdered before Towne ran over the body."

  "I've got men on it, but it looks like a dead end to me," Dyer howled. "Look up Captain Gerlach and tell him I said to give you e key to one of the Homicide crates." Shayne thanked him and sauntered out to look for Captain Gerlach.

  VIII

  Half an hour later Michael Shayne was rolling west on Main Street it roughly paralleled the course of the Rio Grande out toward the letters. He was driving an unmarked coupe loaned to him by Captain Gerlach of Homicide.

  He turned to the right at the intersection of Lawton, and drove the le block toward Missouri at about twenty miles an hour. The two streets met at an acute angle, and at that speed Shayne had to swing e coupe out in a wide arc to make the turn eastward onto Missouri, was quite evident that the sharp comer could not be negotiated at greater speed than he had been driving.

  He pulled the coupe in to the curb and walked back toward the corner. Faint chalk marks still remained on the pavement, showing here the police had outlined the position of the soldier's body d had traced the tire marks of Towne's limousine around the corner. The chalk lines indicating the path of Towne's tires stopped out ten feet beyond where the body had been nm over. Shayne stood on the curb and studied the chalk marks carefully, Towne's heavy limousine had cut the corner more sharply than the cope, indicating that Towne was driving at even less than twenty miles per hour: an assumption that was borne out by the fact that he’d stopped within ten feet after running over the body. The spot had been well chosen if the body was placed in the street the hope of having it run over by a car rounding the comer at )w speed. The acuteness of the angle would prevent a driver from seeing what lay ahead until his car was fully straightened out. And dusk, when headlights give little actual illumination, Shayne could see at it had been easily possible for a driver to strike a body lying in the street without realizing it until the wheels passed over it. He went back and got into the coupe and drove along slowly, stopping in front of a little stuccoed house set well back from the street behind a neatly trimmed hedge of cedar.

  He got out and went up a gravel walk to the front door and pressed the bell. The hedge extended past both sides of the house, effectually screening it from its neighbors.

  A woman opened the door and looked out at him. She was about forty, with a well-kept figure for a Mexican woman of that age. She had pleasantly placid features, dark skin, and her cheeks were smoothly plump beneath high cheekbones. Her black hair was drawn back severely from a broad, unlined forehead. She looked at him with perfect self-possession, and waited for him to state his business.

  Shayne pulled off his hat and said, "Good afternoon. Mr. Jefferson Towne sent me."

  She raised black unplucked brows until they made a straight line above her eyes and said, "I do not understand."

  "Jeff Towne," said Shayne expansively. "Didn't he telephone you that I was coming?"

  Her eyes were puzzled, and she moved her head slowly from side to side. "I do not have telephone, Senor."

  "I guess he meant to come around and tell you, or send a message. Anyhow, he sent me to have a talk with you." Shayne tried out his most disarming smile.

  Her eyes were very dark, a soft, liquid brown. She stood looking at him with disconcerting steadiness and it was impossible to know what she was thinking, or if she was thinking at all. She was clothed with dignity and a stoic reserve characteristic of her race. For a baffled moment Shayne thought that Carmela must be mistaken with regard to her relationship with Jefferson Towne, but he made a move to step forward and said, "May I come inside where we can talk?"

  She stood aside, then, to let him enter.

  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, Senora 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 to him 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 3thcrs on the table. "When did you see her last?"

  "She comes on Sundays. On most Sundays she comes," Mrs. Morales intended.

  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, md was waiting at the kitchen door when Mrs. Morales returned with 1 brimming glass of water.

  He drank it and thanked her, went out and drove away in the police coupe.

  IX

  When Shayne stopped at the hotel desk to pick up his key, the clerk 5aid, "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.