The Body Came Back

by Brett Halliday

  “Don’t… you mustn’t… she heard herself stammering. “The towels are all right. I can make my own bed down.” She reached firmly for the doorknob and the maid released it, stepping back, her lined face showing bewilderment and then a sudden sly understanding.

  “All right, Ma’m. Just as you say, Ma’m.” The maid tilted her nose and sniffed and retreated across the room, went out the door with silent dignity and closed it with what was not quite a slam.

  She stood with her back defensively against the closed bedroom door, and then began to shake with hysterical laughter. The old fool thought she had a man in her bedroom. That’s what she thought.

  Well, dear God, the maid was perfectly right. She did have a man in her bedroom. A dead one, but a man for all that.

  Her hysteria went away as swiftly as it had come, and the imminent danger of her position became clearer to her than before. The maid was safely routed, but who would be next? A bell-boy coming for the empty tray? A repairman who had a report that her air conditioner was not functioning properly? She couldn’t stand guard here against all of them. Suppose the hotel were to catch on fire? Suppose… suppose…?

  This wouldn’t do. This wasn’t like her. She wouldn’t give way to panic.

  She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t. She wouldn’t.

  No. She would sit down and calmly take a drink and assess the situation. There must be something she could do. Some way out. If she could just get him out of here. Let his body be discovered somewhere else. Any place else except her hotel suite.

  She sat down and drank from her glass, not too calmly, it is true, but with puckered brow and her thoughts beginning to mesh again.

  How had he found her here in Miami? Did anyone else know he had come to her room, or that he had traced her to this hotel and planned to see her? What sort of identification did he have on him?

  In other words, if she could discover some way to remove his body and have it found elsewhere… how likely was it that he could be traced back to this hotel suite?

  She emptied her glass and set it on the table and got to her feet. Those questions needed answering, and some of the answers might be in her bedroom.

  She went to the door and opened it unhesitatingly and stood on the threshold looking down at him. He lay on his side exactly as he had fallen with five .25 caliber bullets in him. His back was toward her from where she stood, and she could see no blood in evidence.

  She walked around him, frowning, and crouched down in front of him. There wasn’t much blood. Just a wide, reddish stain on the front of his yellow sport shirt. If his jacket were buttoned together in front there would be nothing to show the cause of his death.

  Her fingers were steady as she began checking the insides of his pockets. A pack of cigarettes and book of matches with a Hunt’s Tomato Sauce Recipe in his shirt pocket. Both outer and inner breast pockets of his jacket were empty. So was the left side pocket. There was a square of cardboard in the other side jacket pocket, and she rocked back on her heels to study it.

  It was a parking ticket from the hotel parking lot. There was no time stamped on it. Just a numbered ticket for a parked car.

  Thoughtfully, she replaced it in the pocket where she had found it. So he had driven a car to the hotel? Alone? Or with a friend who was waiting downstairs in the lobby or cocktail lounge? Someone who might already be getting impatient and wondering why he was taking so long.

  It was impossible to tell.

  His right hip pocket was empty, but there were some bills and silver in the right side pocket of his slacks. Two fives and three ones and a quarter and a dime.

  She returned the money, and then had to roll him over on his back to explore the other two pockets. His body was limp and it rolled easily, seeming curiously weightless. She wondered if bodies were always so easy to roll about.

  There was only a crumpled handkerchief in his left pocket, nothing in the side one. No wallet. No identification of any sort. Of course, there were laundry marks, she realized. And fingerprints. But those normally took some time to check out.

  And what she needed was time.

  Time to think. Time to make plans. Time to set up defenses against the possible repercussions of his death.

  She glanced at the small pistol lying beside his body and decided it might as well remain there. It could not be traced to her.

  Fingerprints?

  Probably not, but better be sure. She picked it up in her bare hand and rubbed the smooth surfaces carefully. Not with a handkerchief as fools were always doing in books, thus making it evident that fingerprints had been removed, but with her fingers so there would be smeared prints left, but with no recognizable pattern.

  Then, satisfied that there was no more to be done in the bedroom, she arose and went back to the sitting room, thinking deeply.

  She poured herself another, very moderate drink, added the rest of the soda, and faced her problem.

  She needed help.

  She needed that corpse out of her bedroom… and fast.

  And she didn’t know a single soul in Miami to whom she could turn for help.

  All sorts of wild ideas went through her mind as she sat there drinking slowly, her eyes narrowed to slits while she considered the problem.

  Go down to the lounge and pick up a complete stranger, make a play for him and invite him up, and then explain to him that she had a peculiar aversion to going to bed in a room with a corpse and if he’d get rid of the body she’d be happy to oblige?

  You’d have to pick your guy damned carefully. Find one who had a lot of guts and not too much respect for the law, and who knew his way around Miami and had some experience in disposing of corpses.

  That was a pretty big order. To just go down to the lounge and spot such a guy and entice him up.

  Then an idea took hold of her. And it began to grow. And the more she considered it the less unfeasible it became.

  As a city, Miami was noted for many and various things. There was its climate, the luxury hotels, the white sands of its bathing beaches, the beautiful race tracks, the tropical foliage… and there was a private detective named Michael Shayne.

  She didn’t know him personally, but she knew a lot about him. Of course, everyone who watched television or read paperbacks knew a lot about him. Knew that he had plenty of guts and not too much respect for the law… that he definitely knew his way around Miami and had had a certain amount of experience in disposing of corpses.

  But she had further knowledge about the kind of guy he was. What really made him tick. What kind of sob-story he’d go for, and what he wouldn’t. Personalized knowledge from years back in Hollywood.

  Her narrowed eyes took on an excited glitter as she considered the situation. If she could get him on her side… she had it made.

  And, by God she could!

  She nodded slowly and emphatically. All it needed was the right approach.

  She turned her gaze slowly aside to yesterday’s paper lying open at the society page with the picture of the happily betrothed couple looking up at her.

  Vicky Andrews and State Senator-Elect William C. Greer!

  Who could fail to be moved by that picture of youthful innocence and love and faith in the future? Not Michael Shayne. Not from everything she knew about him.

  She began planning excitedly, glancing at her watch as she did so. It was only 11:17. God in heaven! Had so much actually happened in so few minutes?

  It was probably a good time to call him at home. Before he settled in for the night or drank so muck cognac that he wouldn’t be able to handle the situation intelligently.

  She had to get her story in order first. Let’s see, now. How had he found her in Miami?

  She read the newspaper account of the anticipated wedding slowly again, absorbing every word of it, nodding her head slowly.

  That would do it. But how convince the redheaded detective? Then it came to her. A lovely burst of inspiration. She picked up the paper and tore out the entire wedd
ing story, including the picture of the engaged couple. She didn’t attempt to make a neat job of it, just tore it jaggedly around the four sides of the story. Then she crumpled it a little between her hands, smoothed it out and folded it two ways. She pressed the creases together tightly, then opened it again for careful scrutiny. It looked about right, she thought. Not too well-worn, because it was just yesterday’s paper after all, but as though it had been thumbed and read several times.

  She refolded it and went into the bedroom, kneeled down beside the body and placed it in the jacket pocket. Then she returned to the sitting room and sat down at the desk in a corner of the room, found blank sheets of hotel stationery and a ball-point pen.

  She hesitated a long moment with her pen poised over the paper, then took a deep breath and began writing swiftly, letting the words flow out of her, not worrying about correct punctuation or pausing to dot her i’s or cross more than half of the t’s.

  She wrote. “Dear Mom—I don’t know how to say this—I can’t think straight—I’m scared to death and sick at my stomach. I just killed a man…”

  She continued writing as fast as the pen would flow over the paper, covering three and a half pages before ending it, “Vicky.”

  She sat back and carefully read what she had written, and found it good.

  She then crumpled the four sheets together in a tight fist, dropped them to the desk and reached for the Miami telephone book.

  When she found the number, she lifted the receiver and asked the operator to get it for her.

  3.

  Michael Shayne was slouched in an easy chair in the living room of his apartment with a final nightcap of straight cognac within easy reach of his right hand when his telephone rang.

  He frowned at the instrument and perversely let it go on ringing. Long experience had taught him that unexpected calls at this time of night were very likely to mean trouble, and right now the redhead wasn’t in a mood for trouble. He had no cases on the fire and knew of no reason in the world for anyone to disturb him at home shortly before midnight.

  It continued to ring monotonously, and after six insistent b-r-r-r-s he sighed and reached out to lift it from its cradle. He said, “Mike Shayne,” and a woman’s voice answered him. It was a throaty, modulated voice with overtones of deep emotional stress, and it throbbed with thankfulness:

  “Thank God you’re there. I was afraid… She paused abruptly and he could almost see her getting a grip on herself, forcing herself to speak calmly and say the words she had planned to say when she made the call.

  “You won’t recognize my name, Mr. Shayne. It’s Carla Andrews. But we do have a mutual friend. Brett Halliday.”

  “You’re a friend of Brett’s?”

  “I know him… knew him quite well in Hollywood a couple of years ago when they were filming his television series. He told me then… that if I ever found myself in Miami and in trouble I should call on you. I’m in Miami, Mr. Shayne… and I’m in desperate trouble.” Her voice rose and broke on the last two words, and a sibilant sound that was almost a sob lingered on after they were spoken.

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Your kind. I… oh God, I hardly know how to say it, but… there’s a dead man in my bedroom.”

  “How did he get there?” Shayne demanded.

  “I can’t explain over the phone. Won’t you come? Please. This very instant. I’m at my wit’s end.”

  “Where, Miss Andrews?”

  “The Encanto Hotel. That’s on Biscayne Boulevard…”

  “I know the Encanto,” he interrupted. “In ten minutes.”

  “Room Eight-Ten. I’ll be… waiting.”

  Shayne hung up and clawed the knobby fingers of his left hand through his bristly red hair while he lifted his cognac glass and drained it. He got to his feet swiftly and picked up a light sport jacket from the back of a chair nearby and shrugged his wide shoulders into it, then went out of the room with long strides.

  His car was already put up for the night in the hotel garage, and it took him the better part of five minutes to get it backed out and headed east toward the bayfront. The Encanto was only a dozen blocks north, facing the bay, and in less than ten minutes he pulled under the entrance canopy and got out.

  He strode around the front of his car to receive a salute and a parking stub from the uniformed doorman who asked, “Will you be long, Sir?”

  “Not too long.” Shayne grinned mirthlessly to himself as he hurried through the open doors and across the lobby toward the elevators. How the hell did he know how long he would be? A friend of Brett’s from Hollywood with a dead man in her bedroom!

  A half-filled car waited for him to step inside, and went up smoothly, discharging passengers at the fourth and seventh floors.

  He was the only one who got off at the eighth. There were signs with arrows, and he followed the arrows around a corner and down a wide, well-lighted hall with his heels thudding softly in the thick carpet.

  He stopped in front of 810 and knocked, and the door opened instantly.

  The woman who faced him across the threshold was tall and willowy, and appeared to be about forty. Her body was well-fleshed, though not excessively, and in the right places. She had lustrous coal-black hair combed smoothly back from a wide smooth forehead, and very dark eyes which glowed as though with unspilled tears. She managed to look terrified and happy and relieved all at the same time, and both her hands went out to clasp his convulsively while her eyes searched his rugged face and she exclaimed throatily, “Mike Shayne! I think I’d have known you anywhere.”

  She held both his hands tightly and drew him into the room, backing away at arm’s length with her intense gaze fixed on his face as though she drew strength and assurance from what she saw there. “It was so good of you to come. I don’t know how to tell you…

  He said gruffly, “Any friend of Brett’s… any time. How is the old so-and-so?”

  “It’s been more than a year since I’ve seen him. I don’t know whether he’s still on the Coast or not.” She released his hands and moved around him to close the door.

  “He settled in Santa Barbara after the show was canceled,” Shayne told her, standing flat-footed just inside the room and surveying it carefully, noting the ice bucket and Scotch bottle and one glass on the coffee table. The ash tray beside it holding half a dozen crushed butts… the closed door leading into the bedroom.

  He turned to her slowly with lifted eyebrows and added pointedly, “You didn’t ask me over here to discuss Brett, Miss Andrews. You said something about a dead man…?”

  “You’d better… see for yourself.” She nodded toward the bedroom with her eyes wide and glistening, and a single tear slid slowly down each cheek.

  Shayne turned on his heel and strode to the bedroom door. He opened it and looked down at the dead man lying on his back a few feet inside the room. He moved closer, noting the bloodstains on the front of his shirt, the tiny pearl-handled automatic on the carpet just beyond. He leaned down and pressed the back of his hand against the corpse’s neck, and guessed that he had been dead between thirty minutes and an hour. He straightened up and thrust his hands deep in his pockets and made a careful survey of the room, noting the neatly made twin beds that had not been turned down for the night, an array of toilet articles on the vanity near the bathroom door, an overturned open suitcase beside a luggage stand at the foot of one of the beds.

  He went back and closed the door behind him, and found the woman composedly seated at the end of the sofa leaning forward to reach for the Scotch bottle which was a little more than a quarter full. She looked up at him carefully, studying his face for a clue to his reaction toward what he had seen in the bedroom, and said steadily, “There’s ice but no soda left. And only one glass. I’m sorry there’s no cognac, but… I d-didn’t kn-know I was going to entertain Mike Shayne t-tonight.” She tried to keep her voice light, but it broke at the end and she put her hands to her face and began sobbing.

 
Shayne lit a cigarette and moved to the other end of the sofa and sat down. When her sobbing subsided, he asked matter-of-factly, “Who is he, Carla?”

  “My… husband.”

  “Why did you kill him?”

  “I didn’t,” she exclaimed vehemently. “I found him like that. I was so utterly surprised. I haven’t seen him for years. I thought he was dead,” she wailed, the sobs beginning again. “I thought that was all ended… that I’d never in my life see his nasty face again. And I walked in and there he lay. Dead. Oh God, what am I going to do?”

  “Get hold of yourself and tell me about it,” he ordered emotionlessly. “You say you walked in. When?”

  “About… half an hour ago. Maybe more. It was a little after eleven. I flew in from the West Coast and my flight was late. It was a little after eleven when I reached the hotel. I came straight up to the suite expecting my daughter to meet me. She’s been here several days and I knew the room number. When she didn’t answer the door, the boy let me in with his key, and I had him just set my bags down there and go on.” She nodded toward a smart overnight bag and a small hatbox on the floor near the front door. “Thank God he’d gone before I opened the bedroom door and saw Al lying there on the floor. I suppose I had a slight case of hysterics,” she admitted ruefully. “I called out for Vicky, and ran into the bathroom looking for her, and looked in the closet and even under the bed. But there was just Al. Alone on the floor and dead. And Vicky’s pistol on the floor. One I bought for her five years ago when we had a prowler around our house in Laurel Canyon. And I came back in this room and, well… you’d better read it, Mike. You don’t mind if I call you Mike, do you?” She was fumbling nervously inside the bodice of her dove-gray gown and drew out several crumpled sheets of hotel stationery which she smoothed out with trembling fingers. “I found this note lying over on the desk.” She nodded across the room. “First I thought I should destroy it, and then… then I remembered you were in Miami. You read it and tell me what to do, Mike.” She thrust the sheets of paper into his hand.