The blonde cried murder ms-28

by Brett Halliday

  "That does it." Norman sank back on his knees, breathing hard. He leaned over the heap of water-logged flesh and muttered, "Poor devil's throat is slashed wide open."

  He turned about to resume his rowing seat and take up the oars, looking on in silent commiseration while Muriel leaned over and retched agonizingly.

  "Just don't think about it," he counseled. "It's nothing to do with us. We'll be at the pier in a jiJBEy, and you get in your car and drive straight home and forget this happened. I'll have to find some joint that's open where I can telephone from, and you'll be absolutely in the clear."

  She sat with bowed head, trembling a little, and did not answer him. She couldn't explain to him that it had come to her suddenly that the man in the water might have been some woman's husband-some woman who perhaps had found illicit love more exciting and more zestful than the t2imer caresses he could offer her-a man whose name might be John.

  It was a bizarre and inexplicable thought, and it made her weep silently as she sat in the boat with bowed head until it came up to the end of a deserted fishing pier.

  And Norman saw the tears on her cheeks as he tied up the boat and awkwardly helped her out; and wondered what the hell had got into her, when she broke away from him with a little cry as he tried to comfort her.

  He stood and watched her run down the pier to the place where she'd left her car parked when he met her earlier, and then he followed more slowly, giving her plenty of time to drive away from the spot before he reported his discovery to the police. And he had no way in the world of knowing that his affair with Muriel was already ended, and he never did understand why it was that she resolutely refused to speak to him every time he tried to telephone her in the following days.

  THIRTEEN: 11:00 PM

  When Shayne put the telephone down after Lucy's call, he strode back and forth across the office rumpling his hair angrily. "Let's try to make a little sense out of all this. Let's see what we know at the moment."

  He stopped and held up one finger for each item as he said it aloud:

  "First. The man who told me he was Bert Paulson-who had a wallet with Paulson's identification-isn't Paulson. He doesn't answer the description from Jax, and though he's trying to pose as Paulson, he evidently doesn't know that Nellie's brother has been living with her in Jacksonville all along. Else why would he have bothered with a story about working in Detroit and just coming down two weeks ago in answer to a wire from her?"

  He glared at Gentry and Rourke as he frowned at his own question. "Well, why did he tell me that? Damn it, if he does know about Nellie's trouble in Jax-and he must because he said he hired a private detective to locate her- then he must know she pulled the badger game there with her brother, and it ruins his chance of getting by with impersonating Paulson by adding the Detroit touch. So why do it?"

  "You tell us, Mike," Will Gentry said cheerfully. "Right now this is your baby from the word go."

  Shayne said, "All right. That's one thing we know for certain. That he isn't Paulson. Now, let's see what we actually know about Nellie.

  "Fact number two. She evidently didn't lie about being frightened in the Hibiscus by some man not her brother. Their two stories agree on that one point-other than the mix-up in relationship. But what about the dead body she claims she saw? Her brother with his throat cut?"

  "The body that isn't there any more?" Tim Rourke put in.

  "Yeh. But we have proof that she did call down to report a body. At least, someone called down from three-sixty. Oliver Patton backs up that much of her story. Why would anybody do a crazy thing like that if there wasn't a body?"

  "I think the crux of the whole matter lies in one word you just used," said Gentry placidly. "Crazy. If the girl's off her rocker, there's no use trying to find a reasonable motivation for anything she says or does."

  "But damn it. Will. I don't believe that girl's crazy. Scared and hysterical-sure. But I talked with her for ten minutes. She acted exactly as I'd expect a girl to act who'd been through exactly the harrowing experience she described."

  "You're not a doctor," said Gentry impatiently. "I think we better put out a pick-up on both of them, Mike. Sit down and write out the best description you can of both of them. I'll put it on the radio to all cars."

  Shayne shrugged and sat down and drew a sheet of paper toward him. He scribbled swiftly on it for several minutes, then shoved it toward Gentry. Knowing the girl tvas safely parked in Lucy's apartment was his ace-in-the-hole now. He didn't want her picked up for questioning yet, but he didn't mind her description going out on an All Cars because he knew they'd never find her. And he did want the scarred-face man picked up.

  Will Gentry read the two descriptions over the intercom, and was about to switch it off when he stiffened and said, "Yes. Give it to me."

  It was a voice from the Communications Room, and it said, "Report just came in of a man's body found floating in bay. Throat cut. Ambulance dispatched to pier at Tenth Street to pick up for morgue. Unidentified man in rowboat reported body."

  The three men in Will Gentry's private office sat very silent for a long moment. Then Shayne asked quietly, "The Hibiscus fronts on the bay, doesn't it?"

  "Right on the edge overlooking it," Rourke said.

  Shayne got to his feet and the others followed suit. He said, "If either three-sixty or three-sixteen face the east-"

  Gentry nodded. "I think it's time we took a look at the Hibiscus. We can go to the morgue from there."

  They went out together, parting at the end of the corridor with Gentry going ahead for his own car, Rourke and Shayne turning out a side door to ride together in the detective's Hudson.

  They made it to the Hibiscus in a few minutes, and as Shayne pulled into the curb in front, Gentry's automobile with two uniformed men in the front seat nosed in behind them.

  The trio entered the hotel together, and Dick and the bell-captain snapped to attention when they recognized the bulky figure of Miami's Chief of Police.

  Dick spoke hurriedly over his shoulder to Evelyn, and as they came up to the desk he said brightly, "Good evening. Do you want Mr. Patton? He'll be right out."

  Gentry nodded. He asked, "What third-floor rooms front on the bay? Either three-sixty or three-sixteen?"

  "Why, three-sixteen does. Chief. Three-sixty is-"

  Gentry nodded, a pleased look on his face. He turned from the desk as the house detective came wheezing around the corner toward them. He said, "Evening, Ollie," shaking hands briefly. "You know Shayne and Tim Rourke, don't you?"

  "Sure." Patton nodded at the reporter and detective. "Tried to call you a short time ago, Mike. You know, you asked me to keep in touch if anything more came up on the Paulsons?"

  "Yeh. What?"

  "Her brother was in here asking for her. Big guy with a scar on his face. Just drove in from Jacksonville, he claimed, and she was supposed to be expecting him and he wanted to wait up in her room for her. Funny thing was, he decided he didn't want to wait when I offered to go up and sit it out with him. In fact, he made a funny excuse to beat it-saying he'd be back."

  Gentry said, "Interesting. Let's go up and have a look at this room where you keep your bodies hidden, Ollie."

  As they went to the elevator in a solid group, Patton said forlornly, "Hope you don't think I was negligent about not reporting all this crazy stuff, Chief. As a matter of fact, we're not even sure which room the body was supposed to be in. And then when there wasn't any body at all-"

  Shayne said flatly, "It was three-sixteen, Oliver. Miss Paulson explained to me about the mix-up in room numbers. After seeing her brother's body in three-sixteen, she rushed out to find another phone to report it on. Three-sixty was conveniently open and she used the phone in there. When she got back a few minutes later, the body had disappeared."

  "Her brother's body?" Patton asked in puzzlement as they went up. "But I've just been telling you he was here looking for her."

  "Not her brother," Gentry said. "We got a description o
f him from Jax."

  "He had plenty of identification," Patton protested. "I made him sJhow it when he wanted in to her room."

  The elevator stopped and they got out. Shayne said, "Yeh. He showed me his identification, too."

  As Patton led the way down the dim-lit corridor, he said thoughtfully, "Maybe that begins to add up then. Though the guy said he just got in from Jacksonville, the elevator boy swears he's been around before. Either earlier in the evening or the last day or so."

  "Yeh, it adds up," Shayne agreed. "He was here about nine-thirty. Just when the body was doing its disappearing act."

  Patton had stopped in front of 316 and he knocked perfunctorily before fitting a key in the lock. He opened the door and reached inside to turn on the overhead light, then stepped back. "There it is," he muttered defensively. "See if you can find a body."

  The three entered and stood staring at the smoothly made-up bed standing directly beneath two closed windows. The only way to reach the windows to open or close them was to get on the bed or move it from the wall. Gentry went to the rear and told Shayne, "Take the front and let's move it out. None of you touch the bed. These windows closed when you looked in before, Ollie?"

  "Yes. I remember noticing because it was hot. Most guests keep them open all the time."

  Gentry grunted as he and Shayne moved the bed two feet nearer the center of the room. He and Shayne circled from opposite ends of the bed and stood side by side studying the windows without touching them. Through the panes, they could see the riding lights of half a dozen yachts in the Municipal Basin not far distant. They were ordinary sash windows that could be raised or lowered, and they weren't latched. There were outside screens with hooks and eyes to hold them shut. Both screens were hooked now, but without closer examination it would be impossible to know whether either had been unhooked recently or not.

  Looking downward as directly as they could without opening the windows, they could see tiny whitecaps rolling in from the bay, and could hear them breaking lightly on the stone wall directly below.

  Gentry stepped back with a shrug, saying, "Nobody touch anything. I want this room kept locked, Ollie, until my boys go over it. Did you touch anything at all when you were first up here? Smooth the bed or anything?"

  "Nothing, Will. I just looked in the bathroom and closet and peeked under the bed to make sure there weren't any corpses."

  "Water directly below these windows?" pursued Gentry. "No strip of sand to catch a body if it were shoved out?"

  "Only at low tide. There's about ten feet of sand then. It was high tide about nine tonight. Going down now."

  Will Gentry nodded, moving toward the open door. "About all we can do here. Lock the door, Ollie. I'll send a man up to guard it until the Identification Squad gets here. And for your information, there's an All Cars out on both Nellie Paulson and the lad with the scar who's carrying her brother's wallet around with him. I'll put a couple of men downstairs in case either of them show."

  "Sure. Whatever you say. Chief. Uh-you got reason to believe a man was killed in this room tonight? His body shoved out the window into the bay?"

  "Right now, it's a good bet," said Gentry placidly. "I'm not blaming you for anything-yet. Just keep your nose clean and for God's sake don't try to cover up if anything else funny happens. Your job's one thing, but accessory-after-the-fact is something else again."

  Outside the hotel, Tim Rourke and Shayne got into Shayne's car while Gentry sent one of his men up to watch outside 316 and called headquarters over the two-way radio in the police car.

  Halliday, Brett

  The blonde cried murder

  Shayne pulled away slowly, and Rourke slouched down beside him and lit a cigarette, speaking for the first time since they entered the hotel:

  "What do you make of it now?"

  Hunched over the wheel, Shayne growled, "Let's take a look at what's waiting for us in the morgue before we do any more guessing. You know every damn bit as much about all of it as I do. I didn't hold out anything on Will."

  "Only difference is-you talked to the girl personally and we didn't. If she isn't nuts-"

  "Doesn't it begin to look more and more as though she isn't?" demanded Shayne. "It sounded hay-wire at first when she claimed she'd seen her dead brother and then scar-face claimed he was her brother. Now we know he isn't. And with this body picked up in the bay, there's a hell of a good chance we'll discover he was in three-six teen just as she said, and was shoved out the window while she was looking for a phone."

  "By scar-face?"

  "It looks reasonable. Helll" said Shayne with irritation, "I don't know. If he is the murderer and knows she's the only one who's actually seen the body in three-sixteen, it would give him a good motive for tracing her to my place and then trying so desperately first to make me think she's nuts and then to get his hands on her. Without her to testify about her brother's body, the corpse might well have drifted out to sea and never been found-or, at least, not until it was unrecognizable."

  "Yeh. And it would explain how he came by Bert Paulson's wallet. If he killed the guy. But what's the Roney Plaza angle she handed you? Why didn't she tell you she was staying at the Hibiscus?"

  "That's one of several things," said Shayne wearily, "that I want to ask her the next time she and I have a tete-a-tete."

  He slowed his car as he approached a building with stone steps leading up from the sidewalk, twin lights burning at the top.

  Will Gentry's official car wasn't in sight as they went up the steps to the morgue entrance.

  The night attendant was a wizened man with a wide gap in his front teeth that showed when he grinned at the de tective and reporter from behind a scarred desk with a bright light overhead. Doctor Martin, the police surgeon, stood beside the desk as they entered, and he frowned, looking past them.

  "Where's Will? I understood he was in on this personally."

  Shayne said, "He'll be along. You looked over the stiflE they pulled out of the bay. Doc?", Martin nodded. "Not much to look at."

  "Throat cut?"

  "Like a stuck pig." The doctor made a slashing motion with the side of his hand from left to right

  "Any identification?"

  "Plenty. Bill-fold in his hip pocket with cards and stuflE. No money."

  The doctor looked past Shayne as another car stopped in front. A door slammed and solid footsteps sounded on the stone steps. Will Gentry came in heavily, nodding to the police doctor and attendant. "Been over him. Doc?"

  "Superficially. Throat cut all the way across with a very sharp knife or razor. One to two hours ago. I'd say he went in the water quite soon after death."

  "Lots of blood?" asked Gentry matter-of-factly.

  "Lots."

  "What Will wonders," said Shayne, "is whether the job could have been done in a hotel room, say, without leaving any traces of blood behind if he were shoved out a window fast."

  Martin's eyes were bright with speculation. "It would have spurted," he said doubtfully. "If a pillow or blanket had been held ready and shoved over the wound fast, it might have soaked up the blood without leaving any around. That what you mean?"

  "Or a man's coat?" Shayne asked sharply.

  "Yes. A man's coat." Martin shrugged. "He's wearing no coat, by the way. In his shirt-sleeves."

  "Identification?" asked Gentry.

  The attendant opened a desk drawer and drew out a manilla envelope. He handed it to the chief who tore it open and withdrew an obviously expensive sealskin billfold that was still heavy with water. There were two credit identification cards from well-known hotels in New York, an accident insurance identification card.

  All gave the name of Charles Barnes, and the insurance card gave an address on East 63rd Street, New York City.

  "That's everything we found on him," said Martin. "Not even a buck in the wallet. He's young. Twenty to twenty-five. Healthy. No distinguishing marks. Five-ten or eleven, at a guess. Around a hundred and fifty before the blood drained out
of him. You want anything else from me tonight, Will?"

  "What's that?" said Gentry absently. "Five-ten and a hundred-fifty, huh? I guess not, Doc. Unless something comes up. That remind you of anything, Mike?"

  "Nothing except the description we had from the Jacksonville police tonight on Bert Paulson." Shayne's gray eyes were very bright. "Let's go down for a look."

  The attendant got up hastily and preceded the three men to a heavy door in the rear opening onto a flight of stairs leading down into the concrete-lined coldroom. A dank chillness came up the stairs to meet them as they started down. Though air-conditioned, the square room seemed to hold an indefinable odor of all the corpses that had been stored there for varying lengths of time over the years.

  There were two white enamel tables under a glaring light in the center of the room, a bank of white, over-sized filing cabinets along one wall. Each cabinet had three drawers about six feet long and three feet square.

  The attendant went to the lower drawer at one end, and pulled It out Its full length on ball-bearing rollers. He flipped back a white sheet to show the naked body lying on its back in the drawer.

  The face was chalk-white, paler by far than any dead person Shayne had ever seen before. The eyes were closed, mouth sagging open in a macabre sort of grin. The features were even, and had probably been handsome when the young man was alive. There was a wide, gaping wound in his throat, edges of the flesh cut cleanly as though at one stroke, shriveled now by exposure to bay water.

  The three men stood together, silently looking down at the corpse. Gentry said heavily, "Charles Barnes from New York? I wonder."

  "Yeh," said Rourke quickly. "Why not Bert Paulson from Jacksonville? Description fits. It all adds up to the girl's story. If scar-face slit his throat and switched wallets — there's your complete explanation, Mike. So she did see her brother lying there murdered. Didn't you say she told you his coat was folded up under his head? It could have been used to staunch the blood as you suggested upstairs."