Murder in Haste

by Brett Halliday

  “That’s probably natural,” Shayne said.

  “Is it?” she said bitterly. “I’m not sure that it is. I’m only sure of one thing—for a long time, too long, I let it poison my life. It changed everything about me. All I could think of was how much I wanted this man to die for leaving me without a husband. Me. To think that some unfeeling murderer could do such a thing to me! All I knew about this man Harris was what the newspapers printed about him, and I actually wished I could attend his electrocution and watch them clamp the electrodes on his ankles and behind his ear … This is quite a subject for before breakfast.”

  She gave a sudden cry and snatched the frying pan off the burner. She said ruefully, “I overdid my reaction then, and I’ve overdone the eggs now. I’ll have to start over.”

  “They look fine to me,” Shayne said.

  She stirred them doubtfully. “If you’re willing to think of it as an omelet—”

  She served the eggs and brought a platter of Canadian bacon and a basket of crescent rolls from the warming oven.

  “But I got over it,” she said. “I won’t go into all the stages. I started going to church again, for one thing, and after about a year or so I was able to get to sleep without wishing that some kindly prison official would invite me to throw the switch at Sam Harris’s execution. My father moved in with me, and he helped a lot. I started going out with men, and that helped. I even had one or two mild flirtations. I think I’m more or less normal now. But those execution dates—they keep postponing them and postponing them, and it’s beginning to seem less and less like Sam Harris’s execution and more and more like mine. I don’t suppose that will convince you I’m normal. I can’t sleep without drugs, or did I say that?”

  “Eat,” Shayne said gently.

  She stared down at her scrambled eggs and picked up her fork. “I think the one thing that kept me sane was that there didn’t seem to be any doubt that Harris was guilty. He was caught with a powerful cutting torch and some of the money. He’d already served a long term in prison for bank robbery, and he was known to carry a gun. He claimed that he hadn’t done it, but he didn’t convince anybody—certainly not me. At the same time, I kept running across stories about cases where eye-witnesses had been positive about an identification, and it turned out later that they had identified the wrong man. And I began to wonder. Could I really be sure I had seen Sam Harris, or did I just want to make certain that somebody was punished? Then Norma Harris came to see me.”

  “That’s the wife?”

  “Yes. She found a letter that seemed to bear out her husband’s story that he was somewhere else that night. The trouble is that it wasn’t dated, so by itself it wasn’t conclusive. But it was something to start with. Her lawyer’s trying to get a stay of execution with it, but it doesn’t seem to Norma that he’s trying too hard. She took the letter to Painter. He was very hostile and reluctant at first. Then suddenly, for a few days, he seemed to get interested. Then he dropped it again. It seems very strange.

  “Norma thinks he’s afraid of probing too deeply for fear of finding out that he was responsible for a miscarriage of justice. He’s a funny man, and I don’t know. Norma asked me to help, and I said I would. And when I went to Painter he acted just as coy with me. Coy’s the wrong word. Strange, certainly. He keeps telling us to leave it to him. And day after day goes by, and we still haven’t the faintest idea what he’s up to, if he’s up to anything. Yesterday he wouldn’t even let Norma in to see him.”

  “What’s the letter say?”

  “Norma has a copy, and you’d better get it from her.” She gave him a direct look. “Does that mean you’re taking the case?”

  “Hell, yes. I’m just as curious as you are about what Petey’s been up to.”

  She leaned forward impulsively and pressed his hand. “That’s wonderful. If you’d turned it down, I’d have to go ahead with an idea Norma has. She wants to call a press conference, where we’d stand up in front of a lot of reporters and cameramen and charge Chief-of-Detectives Peter Painter with deliberate sabotage. I’ve been dreading it. I’m not the type for that kind of thing. And Norma. We-el, you’ll meet her. She gets carried away sometimes, and she might do more harm than good. And my father would really hate it. He practically blew the house down around my ears when I told him I was going to Mr. Painter. You probably don’t know—he’s Benjamin Chadwick. Does that name—”

  Shayne sipped at his coffee, thinking. “President of the Beach Trust.”

  “He retired last year,” she said. “He has a violent aversion to publicity, and it was rather unpleasant in the house for awhile after I put in with Norma Harris. He couldn’t understand that it was something I had to do, because of that horrible year when I was eaten up with thoughts of revenge. He couldn’t see any point in raking everything up all over again. He was afraid I’d go into another tailspin, as bad as the one I’d finally pulled myself out of. I usually take his advice, but this time I couldn’t. Then an awful thing happened. He went to Painter himself, I think to warn him about letting me get too involved. He collapsed on the steps, and he hasn’t been able to speak since. He was totally paralyzed for a few days, and he still can’t move his left side.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, he’s seventy-six. This may sound cruel, but I can’t let him put pressure on me. He lies in bed and stares at me, willing me to do what he wants, but I can’t.”

  “Did he tell you he was going to Painter before he went?”

  “No, and it was the last thing in the world I expected him to do. The first thing I knew about it was when they called me. They got his name and address from his driver’s license. Mr. Shayne, you know Peter Painter better than I do. What do you think of Norma’s theory? That to protect his own reputation, he’d suppress evidence that would cost a man his life?”

  Shayne shook his head soberly. “No. Painter wouldn’t do that. Is there more coffee?”

  “Of course.”

  She poured more coffee and added cognac. Shayne went on, “But what he’s perfectly capable of doing is keeping a piece of evidence in the safe until he can bring it out at the most favorable time, in terms of publicity. He doesn’t share your feelings about press conferences. He enjoys them.”

  “And while he’s holding onto this evidence, it wouldn’t occur to him that a fellow human being is sitting in a condemned cell, counting the minutes?”

  “No, that wouldn’t occur to him. He wouldn’t class an ex-con as a fellow human being, and that might include the ex-con’s wife. On the other hand, maybe the little so-and-so just took it into his head to get stubborn. He doesn’t like to be pushed, even by a good-looking widow.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she said.

  “You’re welcome. But he may have held off too long. It’s probably time to tell you that he’s missing.”

  Her hand flew to her throat. “Oh, my God. Missing! You don’t mean he’s been—that anyone has—”

  Shayne shook his head. “Things have to be serious before a cop is deliberately killed, especially when he’s a high cop like Painter. It makes for hard feelings. Of course a quarter of a million bucks is a serious sum of money.”

  “You mean from the robbery?” she said, puzzled. “That’s one of Norma’s big points. If Sam has it hidden, why doesn’t he use some of it to hire a better lawyer? But doesn’t this—I know, it’s terrible and I certainly hope that nothing has happened to Mr. Painter, but doesn’t it show that the truth wasn’t brought out at Sam’s trial?”

  “It probably shows that,” Shayne said. “It doesn’t mean that he’s innocent. I’ll need Norma Harris’s address, and the name of that lawyer. And while we’re on the subject of money, my secretary keeps telling me to be more businesslike, especially when she’s not around to handle it for me. I’ll charge you a hundred a day and expenses.”

  “That’s fair enough.”

  “And I have another incentive besides money. Life wouldn’t be the same without Peter Pai
nter.”

  “I thought you didn’t like him.”

  Shayne’s eyebrows went up. “Did I say I liked him? I said life wouldn’t be the same without him.”

  She laughed and offered him the coffee pot. When he shook his head she said, “It makes me feel hoggish, leaving your friends outside. If you still have a minute, why don’t I see if they’d like a cup of coffee and a roll?”

  Shayne stopped with his hands on the edge of the table. “What friends?”

  “Didn’t you bring two detectives with you?”

  “Not that I know of. Don’t look out the window. Look at me. I didn’t spot them coming out, but they knew where they could find me. I can’t operate with cops on my tail, and they ought to know that by now. Can you get me a pocket mirror?”

  “I think so.” She reached across to a sideboard and rummaged in a purse. “One of them walked past on the other side of the street a few minutes ago. Nobody out here gets up this early, as a rule, and if they do they don’t go out for an early morning walk. He got into a parked car down the street, and there’s another man in it.”

  She found a mirror and passed it to him. He was looking out across the bay, his back to the street. He set the mirror on the table, careful to keep the sun from hitting it, and adjusted its angle so he could see the parked cars outside.

  “Behind the yellow convertible,” she said. “Do you see it?”

  “Don’t look at the street.”

  He tilted the mirror and saw a black four-door sedan, probably a Ford. He smiled grimly. “If they want to find out where I’m going from here, I’m going to Beach headquarters. We’ll see what their boss has to say. Can you write down those addresses for me? And where will you be if I want to reach you later?”

  “I’ll be here till the middle of the afternoon, when I go to the nursing home to see Father. I’ll put that phone number down, too.”

  “Fine,” Shayne said. “Stay here at the table where they can see you. I’m going to give these boys a fast ride.”

  She slid him a piece of paper, which he folded and put in his pocket. “I feel better about things, Mr. Shayne. Thanks.”

  “Mike,” he said.

  She smiled. “Mike.”

  He pushed back his chair, moving slowly until he could no longer be seen from the street. An instant later he was out the front door. Cutting across the grass toward his Buick, he leaped in, hit the starter and went back fast. The crushed shells of the driveway spurted from beneath his rear wheels. He cramped the steering wheel sharply as he felt the pavement, reversed and shot forward. He watched the rear-view mirror. He had caught his two friends flat-footed. He went into the climbing turn to the causeway and the black sedan still hadn’t moved.

  On the causeway he built his speed up rapidly. He slowed at the approaches to the toll station; he still hadn’t picked up the sedan in the mirror, and his smile was beginning to fade. He tossed a quarter into the basket, pulled past and stopped in the plaza beyond. When even now the sedan didn’t appear, he got out of the Buick and brushed past the toll-collector.

  “Can I use your phone?” he said. “Emergency.”

  “This is no phone booth, Jack,” the attendant said.

  “It’s a local call. Will that cover it?”

  He threw the attendant a dollar, which was promptly whisked out of sight. Shayne dialed a number and asked for Lieutenant Wing.

  “Wing speaking,” a voice said a moment later.

  “Shayne,” the redhead said abruptly. “You’re doing what I asked you not to, Joe. You’re crowding me.”

  “What are you talking about, Mike?”

  “Your two boys in the black Ford. I thought at first they were tailing me, but it seems you want somebody to ask Mrs. Heminway the same questions I asked her, to see if you get the same answers. I don’t like to be checked up on.”

  “I still don’t know what you’re talking about. What two boys in what black Ford? I didn’t put anybody on you, Mike, and I didn’t send anybody to talk to Mrs. Heminway.”

  Chapter Six

  There was a second’s pause. Wing said alertly, “Are you still on, Mike? Need some help?”

  “I think so,” Shayne said slowly, pinching the lobe of his ear. “If we do this right, maybe we can find out something. Get a radio car up to 96th. They’d better hold up at the toll booths. If this black sedan comes through before I’m in position, tell them to grab it. It’s a four-door, I’d say two years old, and the first two numbers of the license are seven-three. A Florida tag. Keep the circuit open so they can shoot down to the Heminway house if I need them. Have you got that?”

  “Got it, Mike.”

  Shayne broke the connection, flipped through the book until he found Rose Heminway’s number, and dialed it.

  “Mrs. Heminway,” he said when she answered. “Lock up all around and don’t let anybody in, no matter who it is. Do you understand that?”

  “But what on earth—”

  “Just do it. I’ll explain later. Lock up and don’t let anybody in.”

  He hung up. The attendant said, “Shayne, eh?”

  “I’ll give you my autograph some other time,” Shayne said, and ran back to his Buick. He waited approximately fifteen seconds, thinking hard. He could park on the shoulder of the causeway and get back to the island on foot, but that wouldn’t accomplish what he had in mind.

  He turned left on Collins and took another left to the Haulover Beach charter docks. In a moment he saw a captain he recognized—Jean Prideaux, a Frenchman from Martinique. He left the Buick double-parked with the motor running, and slid a Miami Beach police department courtesy card under the windshield wiper.

  Prideaux hailed him. “Mike! Not see for months. Come out with me today and kill a sailfish?”

  “Not today, Jean. I want some taxi service—ten bucks down to the Bay Harbor islands and back.”

  The fishing captain looked at him in amazement. “You charter a deep-sea boat to go to Bay Harbor?”

  “This is business,” Shayne said briefly. “I want to sneak up on some people, and they know my car. Fifteen bucks.”

  “Sure, Mike, sure,” Prideaux cried. “Make it quick because I got a party coming.”

  Shayne jumped in and Prideaux called to a boy at the gas pump, “Tell them I back quick, o.k.?”

  “And keep an eye on my car!” Shayne shouted.

  Prideaux cast off and gunned the motor. They rocketed away from the dock. Prideaux grinned back at Shayne.

  “Noisy, to sneak up on people.”

  “Take her out past the Haulover and back in,” Shayne shouted.

  Other fishing boats were heading out toward the Stream with charter parties, and the upper bay was dotted with sails. Prideaux veered to the left, and at a signal from Shayne cut sharply toward the causeway and then swung back toward the islands. The private docks along the water were screened from the single street by palms and hedges. Shayne saw the long, low modern house where he had had breakfast. He let Prideaux pass the dock that went with the house, then signed to him to cut his motor and coast in.

  Shayne grabbed at the dock belonging to Rose’s next-door neighbor. “Don’t tie up,” he said in a low voice. “I could be leaving fast.”

  Prideaux tapped his wrist watch, reminding Shayne that he had paying customers waiting. Shayne stepped onto the dock. He skirted the boathouse and went across the lawn, parallel to the water’s edge. An elderly woman having breakfast alone on the back terrace of the next house looked at him in surprise. He waved cheerfully and went on. As soon as he was hidden behind a flowering hedge, he ran, bent over, to the Heminway house.

  He tried the back door. She had done as he had told her; it was locked. He tapped lightly. There was no response from within. As he moved off the small porch and started along the back of the house he could hear the electric pump hammering in the basement. All the windows on that side of the house were shut and locked, and an air-conditioning unit was sealed into a bedroom window. He reached the
single frosted glass window of the bathroom. The shower was running. He tapped sharply on the glass with his fingernail, but the noise of the shower drowned it out. He went to the corner of the house and looked around carefully.

  The black sedan had moved up in front of the house. The front door was open. Shayne could see only one of the two men. He was sitting sideways in the front seat, his feet on the curb. Shayne’s eyes closed down to slits. He didn’t like this man’s looks. He was overweight for his height, with heavy jowls and a thick neck. He hadn’t shaved yet this morning, and he needed it badly. The stubble was grayish and dirty-looking. His hat was pushed back on his head. He had a loose, careless look, as though nothing mattered to him.

  Shayne pulled back, moving slowly so he wouldn’t attract the man’s eye. He thought for a moment and went back to the bathroom window. Taking a half dollar from his pocket, he clinked it against the glass. It sounded very loud to Shayne’s ears, but it didn’t seem to penetrate the noise of the shower. He flicked open a pen-knife. Reaching up to his full height, he slipped the blade through the crack between the upper and lower sash and forced the catch. Then he raised the lower sash just enough so he could work his fingers beneath the bottom. He raised it without difficulty.

  “Mrs. Heminway,” he whispered. “Rose.”

  He heard a noise from the front of the house and sprang up, getting the upper half of his rangy body in across the sill. He wriggled headfirst into the bathroom and came down on his hands. He had just turned to close the window when the shower went off and Rose Heminway opened the door of the shower stall.

  She gasped and raised one hand, as though to hold him off. “Michael Shayne!”

  He was still in a slight crouch, breathing hard from the exertion. Her hair was pinned up on the top of her head, to get it out of the water’s way. The first thing Shayne noticed was that she was very clean, but that wasn’t all he noticed. He would have to report to Lucy Hamilton what had happened in Miami while she was in New Orleans, but on the whole, he thought, he had better not tell her he had climbed in through a bathroom window.