Pay-Off in Blood ms-41

by Brett Halliday

  “He refused to tell me that either. Just that he was in a particularly vulnerable position as a doctor, and that the information could ruin him both socially and professionally, if it became public knowledge.”

  “Do you know what was being held over him, Rourke?”

  “No,” the reporter confessed reluctantly. “He told me just about the same as Mike says he told him. Something that was worth twenty thousand bucks for him to keep quiet. And he wasn’t a wealthy man. Look at his home here. It’s not worth more than twenty-five, and I happen to know it’s mortgaged to the hilt.”

  “He told me that, too,” said Shayne quietly. “That he’d taken out a second mortgage on his home to raise the money.”

  “Yes, well…” Peter Painter lightly brushed his mustache with the back of his thumbnail again. “Can you prove that you didn’t accompany him to the Seacliff Restaurant, Shayne?”

  “Do I have to prove it?” The redhead’s voice was bland.

  “You very well may. I don’t take anything you tell me on faith, Shayne. Indeed, I wasn’t aware that you were quite so ethical as you pretend to be.” His voice became thinly sarcastic. “It’s nice to know that you value the trust imposed in you by the State of Florida so highly, though I must say there have been times in the past when I have doubted it.”

  Shayne said easily, “You’ve just got a mistrustful nature, Petey. Check with the desk clerk at my hotel,” he went on generously. “He’ll tell you I came in at eight o’clock completely pooped and ready for bed, and that I didn’t leave the hotel until shortly after eleven when Tim Rourke phoned me to meet him here.”

  “I’ll check with him, all right,” Painter promised. “Both of you stick around.” He swung about on his heels as one of his homicide squad approached, and moved out of earshot where they had a low-voiced colloquy.

  Rourke stepped a couple of feet aside from Shayne at the same moment, and turned his back, hunching his thin shoulders to light a cigarette.

  Shayne started toward him, and then held himself back. This was not the time or place for confidences. He had sold Peter Painter on the idea that he hadn’t accompanied Dr. Ambrose to the pay-off, and he wanted to keep him sold. The less Rourke knew about it, the better for all concerned.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Peter Painter moved into the group surrounding the doctor’s body, effectually screening it from Shayne’s view, and, after some further discussion and the issuance of orders by Painter, the group began to disintegrate.

  Two white-coated ambulance attendants moved toward the rear of the ambulance carrying the sheet-draped body on a stretcher, while some of the men went back to their parked cars and drove away. Others fanned out on foot in both directions from the doctor’s house, and Shayne, who knew the routine well, knew they would be ringing neighborhood doorbells for the next few hours, arousing neighbors who were not already aroused, taking statements and gathering as much information on the private life of the Ambroses as possible.

  Chief Painter came back across the grass carrying a.32 automatic dangling by the trigger-guard from his forefinger. He stopped in front of Rourke and held the weapon up to him and demanded, “Ever see this before?”

  The reporter stared at the gun and said, “Hell, I don’t know. All automatics look alike to me. That what killed him?”

  “What I mean is,” said Painter silkily, “since you were such buddies with the doctor, did you ever see a gun like this in his possession?”

  “We weren’t buddies,” protested Rourke. “The guy saved my life that time I was shot here in your territory. I’ve seen him a few times off and on since then. No reason I’d know whether he owned a gun or not.”

  “How about you, Shayne?”

  The detective shook his red head. “I met him for the first time this evening. I didn’t frisk him before he went to make the pay-off, but I did ask him and he swore he wasn’t carrying a gun.” He frowned, recalling the neat, tan suit the doctor had worn. “I don’t believe he was,” he added flatly.

  Painter said, “H-m-m. This thirty-two was lying on the ground beside him. One shot fired from it. Only blurred fingerprints. He was killed with a thirty-two slug. Powder burns indicate the muzzle was rammed up against his body.” He sighed. “So far, we haven’t found anybody who heard the shot.”

  “What about the widow?” asked Shayne. “Was she home?”

  “Now, that’s something I want to ask you both. Do you know Mrs. Ambrose?”

  Shayne shook his head. “Never met the lady.”

  Rourke said, “I met her a couple of times. Haven’t seen her for at least two years.”

  “Pretty much of a lush?” demanded Painter.

  Rourke hesitated. “I don’t know her well enough to say. She’s one of these, well, sort of professional southern belles, if you know what I mean. Pretty and plump and young-looking, and never forgetting that her family was real southern gentility. In a nice way,” he hurried on. “Nothing overt about it. Just… the way she’d been brought up. She just couldn’t help flirting, but you knew all the time it didn’t mean a damned thing. Doctor Ambrose treated her like a child-bride, and she gobbled it up.” He paused thoughtfully. “I always had a hunch she was the type of southern gal who had been taught by her mother that it was perfectly ladylike to sip a pint of Southern Comfort in the privacy of her own room, but who was shocked to see other, more emancipated females tossing off cocktails in public.”

  “A secret drinker.” Painter nodded with satisfaction.

  “Wait a minute. Don’t quote me on that. It’s just that I got an impression…”

  “It adds up,” said Painter. “She was passed out cold when we got here. Not Southern Comfort, but straight vodka, apparently. With a couple of ounces of Peppermint Extract mixed into the bottle, from an analysis of the dregs from an empty quart bottle in her room.

  “The doctor has just got her sobered up enough to do some talking,” Painter went on briskly. “I want you both to come and sit in on it. I’ll do the questioning, but since you both talked to her husband about blackmail, you’ll be better able than I to decide whether she knew what was going on or not.”

  He wheeled about precisely on his heels and marched toward the front door of the neat stucco house which showed light from every window.

  Timothy Rourke fell into step with Shayne behind him, and muttered nervously, “This isn’t like Petey. Since when did he start asking for any cooperation?”

  “He thinks we’re both lying our heads off,” Shayne told him quietly. “Watch it, if you’re holding anything back.”

  “I’m not, Mike. I swear I’m not.”

  “Then take it easy,” growled Shayne. “And let him do the talking.”

  In front of them, Painter opened the front door and marched inside stiffly, leaving the door standing open behind him.

  They entered directly into a square living room with subdued gray wall-to-wall carpeting, comfortably though unostentatiously furnished with overstuffed chairs and a long sofa against the far wall. There were innumerable floor lamps with pastel silk shades in various colors, and all of them were lighted. There were also a lot of footstools scattered about, with small, puffy cushions in each chair and cushions bunched on the sofa.

  Mrs. Ambrose sat huddled at the far end of the sofa. A couple of feet back from it, regarding her intently, was a tall, thin-faced man whom Shayne recognized as the Assistant Medical Examiner on the Beach. Chief Peter Painter crossed the rug in front of them with sprightly steps and stopped directly in front of her.

  Dr. Ambrose’s widow had soft, platinum hair that was cut quite short and formed a riotous mass of tiny curls all over her head. She had a petulant face that was streaked with tears and needed make-up badly, and a babyish mouth that Shayne supposed had often been likened to a rosebud when it was properly lipsticked. Right now, the lips were plump and pouting.

  She had very wide and very blue eyes in which tears were forming and sliding down her cheeks. She wore some sort of
formless Mother Hubbard housecoat of citron yellow and lavender blue which effectively concealed whatever sort of figure she had.

  Peter Painter rocked back on his heels in front of her and said gravely, “I realize this is a terrible ordeal for you, Mrs. Ambrose, and I’ll make this as brief as possible. Tell me first: When did you last see your husband?”

  “This morning. When he left for the office.” She shut her eyes tightly and two big tears squeezed through under the lids.

  “Did you hear from him during the day?”

  She nodded violently without opening her eyes. “His nurse telephoned about four o’clock to say Doctor was tied up and wouldn’t be home for dinner. She said not to expect him until some time late this evening.”

  “Was this… unusual?”

  “Not so very,” she faltered. “He was a doctor, you know. And this morning he said, well… that something might come up to detain him tonight and I shouldn’t plan anything fancy for dinner.”

  “What sort of thing, Mrs. Ambrose?”

  She hesitated and tightened her plump lips and then opened her eyes wide and said, “It was those gamblers. I know it was. I knew it all the time. They killed him. He couldn’t get enough money for them and so they killed him. Oh God, what am I going to do now?” She turned her head to the police doctor and implored in a trembling voice, “Couldn’t I please have just a tiny drop of something for my nerves? I’m going to pieces. I know I am.” Her voice rose thinly. “Don’t just stand there looking so supercilious. I know what I need. What do you know about it? Is your husband lying out there in the yard murdered by gangsters?”

  Painter glanced at the doctor who shook his head slightly, and told her cheerfully, “I’ve administered a sedative, Mrs. Ambrose. It will begin to take effect in about five or ten minutes and you’ll be fine. Please try to answer Chief Painter’s questions in the meantime.”

  Painter asked, “What’s this about gamblers?”

  “They were after him… hounding him all the time for money. He’s always gambled. It was a sort of compulsion with him. On the horses, you know. He confessed to me the first year we were married, and I forgave him. He was lucky and often won as much as he lost. Sometimes he was real lucky and we’d go out for a big splurge. But lately it’s been different. He was unlucky, and I’m afraid he started plunging. Just a month or so ago he told me he was in too deep. He said they were pressing him, and he broke down and cried like a baby with his head in my lap and said he was afraid they’d do something to him, if he didn’t pay up. And he promised he’d never bet on the horses again, if I’d help him this time, and I signed all the papers. You know. Insurance and on the house and all.

  “And I thought it was enough and everything would be all right again and just the same as before, but I could see he was worried again, the last few days, and it frightened me and I wondered. And now… oh God!” She put the backs of both her hands up against her mouth and her wide blue eyes were anguished as they looked up at the chief of detectives.

  “He didn’t say anything about this this morning?” asked Painter patiently.

  “He didn’t have to. I could tell. You can’t be married to a man for twenty-two years without having an intuition. And when Nurse called this afternoon I had a premonition.”

  “Is that why you hit the bottle of vodka so hard that you passed out and didn’t even know when he came home… didn’t even hear the shot that killed him?” asked Painter, folding his arms and thrusting his chin forward.

  “Now I like that! Why, you, you… No gentleman would make an insinuation like that to a lady. I was worried and frightened, and I took a little sip of spirits, and it relaxed me and I took a nap. That is absolutely all.”

  “Dr. Cross,” said Painter flatly, “tells me you had the better part of a quart of ninety-proof vodka in your stomach when he found you passed out in the bedroom half an hour ago.”

  “Of all the insolent lies!” She turned her head and looked at the doctor like a little girl reproving a parent. “Don’t you realize I could sue you for slander and libel for making such a gratuitously untrue statement? What sort of doctor are you, anyway? I don’t know you, do I? Doctor Cross?” She spat out the two words venomously. “What sort of doctor are you? An osteopath?”

  Dr. Cross studied her patiently and disapprovingly, and did not reply.

  “This gambling of your husband’s,” said Painter. “On the horses, you say? Did he bet at the tracks?”

  “Oh, no.” She turned her round, blue eyes on him in a manner to indicate that she thought him some sort of imbecile to ask such a question. “With his patients and all, he hardly ever had time to get out to the racetracks. It was a… a bookie, I guess you call them.”

  “Can you give us his name, Mrs. Ambrose?”

  “The bookie’s name?” She registered mild surprise. “You know them all, don’t you? You’re a policeman. I remember asking Doctor if it wasn’t illegal, and he said they couldn’t operate five minutes without police protection. So you must know lots more about that than I do.”

  “We’ll skip that,” said Painter brusquely. “Now then, Mrs. Ambrose, answer me this: Were you aware that your husband was being blackmailed?”

  Watching her face closely, Shayne could have sworn that her surprise was genuine. “Blackmailed?” she wailed. “Doctor? Whatever for?”

  “I hoped you could tell us that.”

  “But how could I? I simply don’t believe it! That’s something you made up because you’re a policeman in cahoots with the gamblers who murdered my husband. And so you start accusing my poor, dead, murdered husband of blackmail! Shame on you!” She turned to the doctor again, trembling violently now, and holding out both her shaking hands, palms upwards. “Now, couldn’t I?” she beseeched him. “You can see how overwrought my nerves are.”

  “In about three minutes,” Dr. Cross told her austerely, “your nerves will be perfectly all right again.”

  “Let’s not waste those three minutes, Mrs. Ambrose. Let’s go back to this afternoon. After the doctor’s nurse telephoned you that he would be detained. You say you had a premonition that it had something to do with his gambling debts?”

  “Yes… I… I thought about that.” The widow slumped sideways on the sofa. Her eyes were becoming slightly glazed.

  “What did you do?” demanded Painter urgently.

  “What could I do? I… waited for him to come home. I was so worried. Mercifully, I dropped off to sleep about nine-thirty when he still wasn’t here.”

  “And you didn’t see his car come in the driveway at ten? You didn’t hear the shot that killed him?”

  “I was taking a nap,” she murmured defensively, sighing and blinking her eyes shut and open rapidly.

  “One more thing, Mrs. Ambrose.” Peter Painter glanced at Dr. Cross and received a brief nod. He took the.32 automatic from his pocket and held it out in front of her face. “Have you ever seen this before?”

  “Is it Doctor’s?” she asked weakly.

  “I’m asking you.”

  She murmured, “It looks like Doctor’s,” and closed her eyes, slumping a little more to the side and cuddling down among the nest of puffy pillows.

  “You mean… he owned a pistol that looked like this?”

  Keeping her eyes closed, she answered drowsily, “Yes… he… had a permit for it.”

  “Where did he keep it, Mrs. Ambrose?”

  “Here, sometimes. In the office, I guess. Glove compartment…” Her voice trailed off and she settled down convulsively in a huddled pile on the sofa.

  Dr. Cross took two strides to stand in front of her and lift a limp wrist to feel her pulse. He glanced over his shoulder at the chief of detectives and said, “She’ll be out for eight hours, at least.”

  Painter nodded and stepped back, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “I’ll send a man in to help you get her into the bedroom… and he’ll spend the night.”

  He swung on his heel and made for th
e front door, motioning Shayne and Rourke to follow him. Outside, he issued orders to a detective who was standing at the bottom of the steps, and then faced the redhead and the reporter and asked, “Did either one of you get anything in particular out of that?”

  When Timothy Rourke shook his head and didn’t reply, Shayne said, “That business about the gambling, Chief. I may have an angle on it.”

  “What is it?” snapped Painter.

  “He’s been paying blackmail for six months,” Shayne explained. “He told me that, in order to cover up in front of his wife, he had told her he was gambling heavily and losing.”

  “And she believed him.” Painter swung on the reporter. “How about it, Rourke? You’ve known him for years. Was the doctor a heavy gambler?”

  “I told you I knew him only casually,” protested Rourke. “I never checked on his personal habits.”

  “You mean you don’t know?” persisted Painter.

  “I mean I don’t know,” agreed Rourke stiffly.

  “All right.” Painter swung away. “You can both go. I may be calling on you tomorrow.” He went down the walk on hard heels toward his unmarked car with a police chauffeur at the curb.

  Timothy Rourke turned after him, muttering, “Guess I’ll take off, too.”

  Shayne caught up with him in three long strides. He clamped the fingers of his big left hand tightly around the reporter’s thin biceps and pulled him to a halt. “We’ve got things to talk about, Tim.”

  “I don’t see it.” His old friend faced him defiantly in the thin moonlight. “I asked you for a favor. You refused. That’s your right. What the hell?” He looked away from Shayne’s scowling face. “I need a drink.”

  Shayne said, “So do I.” He released Rourke’s arm, gave him a little shove toward the sidewalk. “Get in your heap, and I’ll follow,” he said grimly. “Pull in at the first gin-mill where we can have a quiet drink and some talk.”

  CHAPTER SIX