Bodies Are Where You Find Them

by Brett Halliday

  Stallings entered the detective’s office with a firm, assured stride. He nodded to Shayne, but neither spoke nor offered his hand.

  Behind him, Peter Painter entered aggressively. He always carried himself with an assertive air to compensate his lack of physical stature. He was a slender, small-boned man, meticulously groomed. He slanted glittering black eyes upward at Shayne as he passed into the office.

  Shayne closed the door and said, “This is a surprise. Sit down and I’ll pour a libation.”

  Both men remained standing. Stallings arched thick iron-gray brows at the detective and said dryly, “I imagine you expected us—or me, at least.”

  “Not exactly.” Shayne moved to a corner of his desk and lowered one hip to it, swinging his foot casually.

  “Why else would you put off your proposed trip?” Painter snapped. He caressed a threadlike black mustache with the tip of his forefinger. “You can’t get away with this, you know. Mr. Stallings is not a man to be intimidated by threats.”

  Shayne queried, “No?” His gray eyes glinted mockingly. No flicker of expression indicated that he had not the faintest idea what Painter was talking about.

  “No,” said Stallings forcefully. He moved backward and seated himself precisely erect in a chair. Painter remained standing. Always conscious of his slight stature, he was more at ease in that position while others were sitting.

  “I have conducted a clean, hard-hitting campaign,” Burt Stallings began resonantly. “My slogan from the first has been ‘Let the best man win.’ I am prepared to abide by a free expression of the voters at the polls, but I demand that they shall be allowed that right. It is an inherent attribute of our democratic processes.”

  Shayne held up a big knobby hand and grinned. “Save your stump speech. I don’t even vote in Miami Beach.”

  Pin points of anger shone in Painter’s eyes. “That’s exactly the point. You’ve backed Jim Marsh because of personal animus toward me. You’re afraid to have me assume the post of police chief in Miami Beach, Shayne. You know I’ll use the added authority to see that you discontinue the practice of your so-called profession my side of Biscayne Bay.”

  Shayne shrugged and leaned forward to pour a small drink. He muttered, “Sorry you won’t join me. All right, Painter. I’m perfectly willing to grant that I want to see Stallings defeated because you’re slated for the job of police chief if he wins. So what?”

  “Just this, Mr. Shayne.” Stallings took up the discussion before Painter could form a suitable reply. “We’re not interested in your motives. We are interested in your methods. I’ll admit that Painter has warned me to expect dirty tactics from you when your cause appears hopeless. But I didn’t expect this, Mr. Shayne. This outrageous flouting of every law and decency. I have been prepared for a criminal attack on my person, but I did not feel it necessary to safeguard my family against you.”

  Shayne laughed shortly and sipped from his glass. There wasn’t much he could say until he knew what the devil they were talking about.

  “I’m not surprised,” Painter exploded. “You’ve pulled this sort of thing time and again in the past without paying the piper. But this time we’ve got you cold.” He hammered a small fist into a smooth palm. “You’ve gone out of bounds this time and you won’t wriggle out of it.”

  Shayne wrinkled his nose at the detective chief from across the bay. “You’ve played that record before.”

  “This time you’re really out on a limb, Shamus. Kidnaping is a federal offense. It’s not something you can cover up locally. You picked the wrong man to intimidate when you picked Burt Stallings.”

  “Painter is absolutely right,” Stallings told him in a measured tone which carried more weight than Painter’s vindictive snarl. “I refuse to be intimidated. I owe a certain duty to my constituents and, no matter what my own feelings in this matter, the issue is larger than any mere personal consideration.”

  “So?” Shayne mused. He gravely sipped from his glass, keeping his face impassively blank. “All right,” he said sharply, “you refuse to be intimidated. Where does that leave us?”

  “It leaves you smack behind the eight ball,” Peter Painter exulted. “You took a long chance and failed.”

  “I haven’t failed yet.”

  “Oh, yes, you have. You’re through, Shayne. Washed up.” Painter’s words were clipped and exultant.

  “If you’d shut up this little twerp’s yapping,” Shayne said to Stallings, “you and I might come to an understanding.”

  Painter trembled with rage. He drew his lips back for a retort, thought better of it, and laughed coldly.

  Stallings shook his silvery head. “We’re not here to sue for peace. I won’t even discuss terms with you until my daughter is safely returned.”

  Shayne exclaimed, “Your daughter?” in a tone of complete surprise, caught himself up hastily, and scowled. “I didn’t know you had a daughter.”

  “My stepdaughter,” Stallings amended smoothly.

  Shayne stalled for time. “I haven’t got your stepdaughter.”

  Stallings smiled persuasively. “We hardly expected you to have her in personal custody. However, we’re quite sure a word from you will effect her release.”

  Shayne parried, “What makes you so sure of that?”

  “Quit beating around the bush,” Painter snapped. “You’re the only one in Marsh’s camp with the guts to engineer a snatch. As soon as Stallings came to me about it I told him you were the one to see.”

  “It’s self-evident, Shayne,” Stallings interposed. “Jim Marsh has been a hard campaigner, but a gentleman through it all. I can’t believe Marsh would even condone such an act.”

  Shayne emptied his glass and set it down. He lit a cigarette. “From all this talk I get the impression that your stepdaughter is missing; that you suspect she’s been kidnaped.” He addressed Stallings directly. “Do you want to retain me to get her back? It’s quite natural you should come to me for help when a nincompoop like Painter is running the Miami Beach detective force.”

  Painter choked over a reply, but Burt Stallings did not allow his equanimity to be disturbed. “I expect you to arrange for her return, but there is certainly no thought of retaining you for the job. The terms set forth in your note are preposterous and I have no intention of meeting them.”

  “My note?” Shayne echoed. He shook his head and looked vaguely amused. “I haven’t written you any notes.”

  “Denying it won’t help, Mr. Shayne. Who else but you would demand that I withdraw from the mayoralty campaign as the price of my daughter’s life?”

  “Who else, indeed?” Shayne murmured. A murky light of anger was slowly kindling in his gray eyes. “Is that what I’m accused of this time?”

  Stallings spread out his strong, well-kept hands and smiled patiently. “We’re not wasting our time with accusations. We’re giving you to understand that your plot has failed. I have no intention of withdrawing from the campaign. Unless Helen is safe at home by noon tomorrow, this entire story will be given to the newspapers. I’m sure the voters will rise indignantly against such foul tactics and by their ballots effectively answer the threat you have made.”

  Shayne frowned, lowering his eyelids to veil the blaze of violent anger in his eyes. “You seem positive that I’ve kidnaped your stepdaughter. What proof have you?”

  “Isn’t your guilt self-evident?”

  Shayne hesitated, choosing his words with care. “There is such a thing as a frame-up. Since I am so clearly indicated, don’t you see it’s possible someone else has taken advantage of that situation to throw the blame on me?”

  Painter threw back his sleek head with a taunting laugh. “By God, it would be poetic justice if you were hooked in a frame-up—after engineering so many of your own in the past.”

  “If you don’t shut up,” said Shayne savagely, “I’ll attend to it for you.”

  “Let’s remain calm,” Stallings pleaded. “Helen’s safety must be our first consid
eration.” He took out a handkerchief and mopped his high forehead, tossed back his mane of silvery hair. “Poor child. Think of the agony she must be suffering.”

  Shayne’s laugh was cynical. “I’m beginning to remember now. Helen Stallings was the girl who brought suit against you last month for mishandling her mother’s estate.”

  “An unfortunate error,” Stallings told him with a pained expression. “She has since regretted her action.”

  “When was she kidnaped? And how?” Shayne demanded. “You’re putting it up to me to get her back by noon tomorrow. I can’t do much without the facts.”

  “As if you didn’t know more about it than we do,” Peter Painter scoffed.

  Stallings silenced him with a gesture. “It’s possible we’ve wronged Mr. Shayne in our assumption. I’m unwilling to withhold any information that may lead to Helen’s return. She disappeared shortly after lunch today. She was in a temper and drove away in her car without telling anyone her destination. The note demanding that I withdraw from the election was delivered at six o’clock.”

  “What was she mad about?” Shayne demanded.

  “That’s neither here nor there. She’s a flighty child, given to moods and tantrums, though her mother and I have always tried to be patient with her.”

  “Then you haven’t any evidence against me at all,” Shayne told him coldly. “Yet you’ve got the guts to come here and openly accuse me of kidnaping a girl I’ve never seen. By God, I ought to throw both of you out on your necks.” He slid off the desk and stood up, big hands knotted into fists.

  Painter took an involuntary backward step and assumed a pugnacious stance, but Burt Stallings remained calmly seated.

  “I have reason to believe that Helen came directly to you after lunch. In her hysterical state she was obsessed with a desire to do me harm and she had misinterpreted a conversation she had overheard into something she believed could be used as a political weapon against me in the election. The facts are very plain—she contacted someone in the enemy’s camp.”

  “So you think she came to me with the information—and instead of accepting it and using it against you, I kidnaped her.” Shayne was leaning slightly forward from the hips, his angry gaze riveted on Stallings’s handsome face. “You’re a Goddamned fool, Stallings.”

  Stallings smiled evenly. “I believe you had perspicacity enough to recognize her so-called information for what it was, and that you seized the opportunity to hide her away for use as a lever against me. Not only do I believe that, Mr. Shayne, but I believe any jury will agree with me that the premise is sound.”

  Shayne did not take his eyes from Stallings’s bland face. “And I suppose it never occurred to you, Mr. Stallings, that you could pull a dirty trick like this, have it headlined in the papers that Marsh and I had conspired to kidnap your daughter, and turn the tide in your favor at the polls.” His big fist crushed against his palm in a resounding blow. “Get out.”

  “Very well.” Burt Stallings got up. He smiled, revealing a row of even and glistening white teeth.

  Peter Painter came forward like a fighting cock with spurs and wings strutted. “I told Stallings he was wasting his time coming here. I’ve given him my word to wait until noon tomorrow to file a criminal information against you, but that’s the deadline.”

  Shayne turned away from them and shakily refilled his glass with cognac. He kept his back turned until the door closed behind them. Then he strode to the bedroom door and kicked it open.

  It struck Timothy Rourke on the side of the head as he crouched behind it with his ear to the crack. He rocked back on his heels and cursed Shayne, then groggily picked up his bottle of Scotch from the floor and followed the detective into the living-room, his lean face wreathed in a mocking smile.

  “This,” he exulted, “gets better and better. How do you manage to wiggle yourself into spots like this?”

  Shayne slumped into a chair and glared at the exuberant reporter. “Do you know Helen Stallings?”

  “Hell, no. How’d I know a dame like that?”

  “Your rag has run enough pictures of her on the society page,” Shayne growled. “Would you recognize her?”

  “My deah young man—” Rourke grimaced and made a circle with left thumb and forefinger, holding it up to his eye like a lorgnette “—I nevah read the society page. Nevah! With so many of the nouveaux riches cluttering up the pages—”

  Shayne said, “Go to hell,” and threw his empty glass at the grinning Irishman. “You’re going to start now,” he directed. “Go in there and take a good look at the corpse. Then beat it up to the News morgue and see if she’s Helen Stallings.”

  “I don’t see why that’s necessary. It seems plain enough to me.”

  “We’ve got to know.” Shayne was firm. “Then we can start figuring—”

  “I don’t see what good it’ll do you,” Rourke interrupted cheerily. “If that is her—and I’m willing to lay a hundred to one it is—it’s a cinch you can’t deliver her home safe and sound by tomorrow noon. S-a-a-y, did you by any chance send that note to Stallings, taking advantage of a situation that dropped into your lap?”

  “Get the hell out of here before I throw you out,” Shayne fumed. “I’ve got enough on my mind without thinking up answers to your pseudo wisecracks.” His eyes wandered to the bedroom door and stared thoughtfully. He held up his hand, detaining Rourke as he started for the door. “Wait—hold it. Before you go we’ve got to figure a way to get rid of the body.”

  “We?” Rourke gasped. “Sweet grandmother! You don’t expect me—”

  Shayne nodded, holding him with a shrewd, level gaze.

  “To hell with that. You do your own figuring. There are certain limits I’ll go for a pal, but I draw the line—”

  “Shut up and let me think,” Shayne demanded impatiently. He whirled about and strode up and down the room, muttering.

  “The killer must be getting pretty nervous right now. He doesn’t know where the hell she is. He figured he had me sewed up tight when he sent you and Gentry up here—and he must have sent that note to Stallings at about the same time to clinch the kidnaping and murder on me. Now he doesn’t know what to think. He must know that both Gentry and Stallings have been here and gone away without finding the body. His natural thought will be that I found her before you and Gentry came, carried her upstairs to our living apartment, or hid her here in the building some place. He can’t tip his hand by forcing a further search until he knows where she is. He’ll be watching for me to make a break with the body.”

  Shayne stopped suddenly before Rourke. Rourke backed away from the burning heat of his eyes.

  “Tim, you’ve got to get her out of here,” he said slowly.

  “Me? Nothing doing.” He took another backward step, holding up his hand as though to fend the detective off. “I’m not running any dead wagon.”

  “You’re in this up to your neck already,” Shayne reminded him grimly. “Gentry knows you stayed behind when he left. If it comes out there was a body here and you connived with me to keep the fact covered up—”

  Rourke shuddered and groaned dismally. “You do have the sweetest way of putting things. All right, I might as well be hung for one thing as another. How’ll we work it? What the hell will we do with her? Dump her in the bay?”

  “Nothing like that.” Shayne resumed his pacing, rumpling his coarse red hair. “We want to keep her in storage where we can produce her as evidence later.”

  Rourke brightened perceptibly. “That’s an idea, Mike. You got any close butcher friends?”

  Shayne ignored him. “How about that fishing-place of yours below Coconut Grove?”

  “Now look here, Mike, if you think I’m going to have her found on my—”

  “That’s just the place,” Shayne interrupted. “No one ever goes there. Better not use your car, though,” he decided. “After you collect the pix from the News, rent a U-Drive-It and come back here.”

  Rourke started for t
he door, saying, “Well, so long, Mike. It was nice to’ve known you.”

  Shayne reached out two long arms and caught his shoulders. Whirling him around, he continued. “I’ll leave the back door unlocked, and you can come up the fire escape. I’ll decoy any watcher away—and give him the slip—meet you out along the Tamiami Trail, say at the Wildcat.”

  Timothy Rourke sighed lugubriously. “If I get a headline out of this I’ll earn it. Maybe I’ll have a chance to write up some firsthand prison stuff. I’ve always had a hankering for that.” He went to the door with a sickly smile that tried to be jaunty, waved his hand, and went out.

  Shayne went to the bedroom and switched on the light. He bent over the girl’s body and gently drew her hand down from her face, studying the contorted features and impressing them on his memory.

  He went out and got a clean glass from the kitchen, came back, and pressed the tips of her fingers against the glass, hesitated, then pulled down the sheet and spread to get at the other hand which was edged under her body.

  He sucked in his breath swiftly and audibly when he saw the tiny beaded bag clenched between her fingers. It was very small and dainty, such as one might carry to a formal evening affair. He closed his eyes and visualized the scene that afternoon when she had come stumbling up the corridor to him. She did not have such a bag in her hand then.

  He got a handkerchief from his pocket and dropped it over her hand and the bag, bent each finger back until he could lift it away.

  In the living-room he opened it and examined the meager contents. A jeweled compact bearing the initials H. S. Lipstick and some small change, and a tiny mirror with an identification card on the reverse side. The identification card stated that the owner was Helen Stallings.

  He called the Miami News office and got the morgue. Rourke came to the phone, and Shayne said, “You needn’t bother with the pix. It’s the Stallings girl, all right.”