“I didn’t. I haven’t been to the pen for a year.”
“The records say different, Mike.”
Shayne hesitated, savoring the shock of Gentry’s accusation, trying to adjust his thoughts… see where all this was leading.
“This means you know who the dead man is, Will?”
“Oh, sure. We got a fast make on his fingerprints. He’s an ex-con named Julius O’Keefe… as if you didn’t know. Pardoned yesterday morning, and it looks as though he came straight to Miami and went to your office where he got himself stabbed to death.”
“And I’m supposed to have visited a prisoner named O’Keefe in the pen twice in the last three months?” Shayne demanded incredulously.
“That’s what their records show.”
“Then their records lie,” Shayne told him hotly. “Maybe someone claiming to be Mike Shayne visited a man named O’Keefe, but it wasn’t me, Will.”
“Then why did he go straight to your office after being released yesterday?”
“I don’t know, but I’m beginning to get the glimmer of an idea. If you’ll listen to me for a minute instead of trying to pin a murder rap on me, maybe you’ll get the glimmer of an idea, too.”
He reached in his pocket for the scented envelope with the message signed Elsa Cornell still inside, and tossed it in front of the police chief. He also got out his wallet and removed the two halves of the thousand-dollar bill which he placed in front of Gentry while the chief removed the letter and read it, with Rourke peering down over his shoulder to read it also.
“That was delivered to my office by Special Delivery yesterday morning,” Shayne told the two of them harshly. “One of these torn pieces of currency was inside, along with a roundtrip first-class ticket to Los Angeles by United Airlines. I got that other half of the bill when I finally caught up with Elsa Cornell at the Cock and Bull at five o’clock. I also got a completely incredible story from her supposedly explaining why she needed my help in LA., and finally a different story which was slightly more credible, but not much. Let me tell you the way it happened and you can judge for yourself.” He swiftly sketched in the salient details of his experiences on the West Coast the preceding day, ending with, “When I finally got hold of Tim on the phone about seven o’clock and he told me about the dead man and Lucy being missing, it suddenly came to me that I’d been hoaxed. That the letter and all was a device to get me out of town and away from my office. I still hadn’t the slightest idea why, of course. I accused Elsa of it, and she finally broke down and told me a different story, saying she thought it was a practical joke.”
He related her tale of being hired by a television producer to lure him away from Miami and keep him away at least overnight. “Then she made the mistake of telling me she hadn’t been in Miami for years, and I found Lincoln Road labels in all her clothes. To top it off, in her purse she had the return half of a round-trip airplane ticket that had been issued in Miami two days previously. That clinched it, so I brought her back with me to see how she fitted in.”
“But why, Mike?” protested Gentry. “Why the devil would anyone go to all that trouble and expense to get you out of town for a couple of days?”
“Adding up both plane fares, it must have set somebody back a couple of grand,” Rourke put in.
Shayne spread out his big hands. “Doesn’t it begin to explain the penitentiary records showing that Mike Shayne visited this guy twice recently? Someone impersonating me visited him,” he went on angrily. “From where I sit right now it looks as though that same someone wanted to set things up to be in my office when O’Keefe was released, still impersonating me… and where in hell does that put Lucy?”
“Right behind the eight-ball,” Rourke exclaimed feelingly. “They had to use some ruse to get her away from the office, too. Probably put another woman in at her desk to pretend to be your secretary.”
“But why in the name of God?” demanded Gentry again.
“That’s what we’ve got to figure out. This O’Keefe? What was he in for? Was he mixed up with a mob? Was he a danger to somebody important as soon as he got out of jail?”
“Nothing like that. He was doing time on an embezzling rap from four or five years back. In Jacksonville, wasn’t it, Tim?”
“Yeh. It was a one-man job the way I remember it. O’Keefe was a bookkeeper or something, and he confessed. It was a big hunk of money, I think, and he’d wasted it all on wine, women and the bangtails. I don’t see how that could make him a danger to anybody after he was pardoned.”
“Hell of a long way around just to knock a guy off anyhow,” protested Gentry. “Why would anyone plan to pull the job in your office?”
Shayne shrugged and admitted, “I don’t say that’s the answer. It was just an idea.”
“To get you blamed for the job,” suggested Rourke. “You and Lucy both. Who hates you enough to go to all that trouble and expense?”
“A lot of people hate me,” Shayne growled. “None I know to that extent.”
“How about another case you’re working on?” Rourke guessed again. “To prevent you from getting on with it and maybe turning up some information somebody doesn’t want turned up?”
“I haven’t any other case at present. Not a single thing pending. In fact I had thought about going fishing yesterday until that Special arrived and I got sucked into a trip west.”
“I wouldn’t mind getting sucked into something by that gal,” said Rourke pensively.
Shayne disregarded that, and asked, “Haven’t you got any leads, Will? Nobody that saw him go into my office, or Lucy leave?”
“Everything negative so far. He wasn’t discovered until after eight, and by that time all the offices in the building were empty. Elevator man doesn’t particularly remember Lucy leaving… or you either for that matter. We’ll go through the full routine as soon as people begin reaching their offices. In the meantime we’re checking O’Keefe’s background, pals in the pen and so on. And we’re trying to trace his movements after he was released to see if he came direct here or contacted somebody outside.”
“Does the name Rexforth mean anything to either one of you?” Shayne hesitated, searching his memory. “Reginald Dawes Rexforth Third?”
They both shook their heads and Gentry asked, “Should it?”
“Tim asking about other cases we had on hand reminded me that there was a new client supposed to be coming in yesterday morning. Lucy had made the appointment the day before. He’d been very insistent that he see me. Life and death, he told Lucy.”
“So you just walked out without keeping the appointment?” Gentry demanded disbelievingly.
Shayne shrugged. “Half my clients think their cases are matters of life and death. Let’s see if we can find Rexforth listed in the phone book.” He reached for a directory on the desk and thumbed through it with a frown. “Six Rexforths. None of them with the right initials. Lucy didn’t mention whether he was local or not.” He hid a yawn behind his big hand and stood up. “I haven’t been to bed.”
“Neither have I,” said Gentry. “Where do you think you’re going, Mike?”
Shayne looked at his watch. “Not much to be done until about nine o’clock. I figure you’ll want to take a crack at Elsa’s story, and I’ve a strong hunch you may get more out of her without me around. She hates my guts,” he confided, “because I turned down her pure white body last night.”
“My God,” breathed Rourke. “That pure white body? I bet it’s something.”
“Juicy,” Shayne told him with a tired grin. “You don’t want any more from me right now, do you, Will?” he added innocently, turning toward the door.
“Wait a minute, Mike,” Gentry said sternly. “Don’t think I’m buying your story whole hog. Visitors to the penitentiary have to sign the register, and I’ll have those signatures of yours checked. I’ll also check the flight personnel on United’s noon flight yesterday. Just don’t do one thing.” His voice remained friendly, but it had the bite of s
teel in it. “Don’t walk out of this door leaving any lies behind you that can be disproved by the facts. Right now is the time to come clean if you’re covering anything up.”
Shayne said mildly, “You know I never tell a lie that can be disproved.”
He opened the door and started out, and Rourke said hastily, “I’ll go with you, Mike. Grab an eye-opener of cognac, huh?”
He hurried out after the redhead and caught his arm as he went into the empty waiting room. “Where are you headed?”
“How do you know I’m headed anywhere special?”
“Because I’ve been on too damned many cases with you not to know when you’ve suddenly thought of something and want to check it on your own.” Rourke went down the steps with him. “That your car at the curb?”
“Yeh. Where’s yours?”
“Headquarters. I rode up with Will.”
Shayne got under the steering wheel and said, “I’ll drop you there.”
“After you’ve checked whatever’s on your mind.” Rourke settled himself firmly in the seat beside the redhead.
Shayne said, “Okay. We’ll have that eye-opener at the office. I think there’s still a bottle of Cordon Bleu left over from my last case.”
11
“Yeh, there is,” Rourke agreed as Shayne pulled away from in front of the morgue. “Couple of snorts lighter than it was yesterday.”
“You and Will hit it?”
“Just a couple of small ones last night while the boys were checking the office. I knew you’d want me to act the gracious host… with you away and all.”
“He went over everything carefully, huh?”
“With a fine-tooth comb. I don’t know what you hope to find there that they didn’t.”
“There happen to be one or two very small things about my business that you and Gentry don’t know,” Shayne told him acidly. “What about fingerprints?”
“Mostly inconclusive, I guess. They dusted everything. O’Keefe’s prints were plainly inside your office… in the right place for him to have left them while he sat in the client’s chair and talked to you.”
Shayne nodded and muttered, “Which makes it look more and more as though someone was there pretending to be me. No prints to indicate that fact?”
“I wouldn’t say a positive no.” Timothy Rourke hesitated. “You know how it is. Prints get messed up and blurred. And they weren’t looking for proof of anything like that at the time, Mike. We all supposed you and Lucy had been there all day. No reason to think otherwise.”
Shayne grunted a surly acknowledgement of this. He turned into the light early-morning traffic of Flagler Street and drove a block and a half to pull up in front of the office building that had housed his business for many years.
Only one elevator was in operation this early in the morning. The operator was a wizened, little, garrulous man who knew all the tenants in the building and greeted most of them by name when they entered his car.
He exclaimed, “Mister Michael Shayne in person. And it’s Mister Rourke, isn’t it? All kinds of excitement around here last night, huh? Never a dull moment when Mike Shayne’s around.”
“Were you on duty last night?” Shayne asked as the doors closed on the two of them.
“No, I went off at four. But they disrupted a cribbage game me and the old woman was having about ten o’clock when they came around asking their questions.” He stopped at the second floor and opened the doors, but Shayne didn’t get out at once.
He said, “I understand neither you nor the other man were able to say when either Miss Hamilton or I went in or out yesterday.”
“I guess that’s a fact. You know how it is… hundreds going up and down, in and out, all day. I can swear both of you were here, and probably went in and out about your regular times, but that’s about all. Today, now, you see, I’ll remember this trip all right if anybody comes around asking next week even, because I never seen you up and around so bright and early before. But on just a regular day…”
“I know. And you didn’t notice anything else funny? Any other people going to my office?”
“I’m sure sorry, but I didn’t. You know how it is.” He gestured out to the hallway. “You let a man out… you don’t wait to watch and see what office he goes to. And nobody asked for your number yesterday, the way they’ll do sometimes.”
Shayne nodded absently and got out. Rourke followed him down the hall to a doorway with his name on it, which he unlocked and thrust open.
He stepped inside slowly, flipping the wall switch that turned on the ceiling light in the small reception room, and he stood there for a long moment with his gaze going somberly over the room that was Lucy Hamilton’s domain, a curious questing, questioning look on his gaunt features as though he hoped there might be some aura or emanation from this familiar room where violent death had taken place that would trigger off something for him.
Watching him very closely and curiously, Rourke could have sworn that the redheaded detective was unconsciously sniffing the air as though he hoped to get some clue there, and for a moment he seriously wondered (as he had a few other times in the past) if Michael Shayne did actually possess some sort of extrasensory perception that helped make him one of the most successful detectives in the country.
The moment passed quickly and (Rourke sensed) unsatisfactorily. Shayne relaxed with a sigh and moved across to the low railing behind which Lucy normally sat. He stood with his hands on his hips looking down broodingly at her desk and chair and typewriter, unable to note anything out of place, anything different, except the fact that the heavy steel filing spindle that generally stood near the railing at the left of her typewriter was not there this morning.
Behind him, Rourke cleared his throat and said, “If they found any fingerprints around Lucy’s desk that didn’t belong to her, nobody mentioned it. Of course, they weren’t looking for that sort of thing…”
Shayne nodded his head slightly. He opened the gate that let him behind the railing, went to the other side of Lucy’s chair and leaned down to open the middle drawer of her desk on that side. He picked up a ten-cent-store ruled tablet with a blue cover, opened it and glanced inside. Then he turned with it in his hand and told Rourke pleasantly, “This is one of those few little things that you and Will don’t know about my business.”
He came out and closed the gate behind him. “For a couple of years, Lucy has made a habit of jotting down notes about anything important or interesting that happens while I’m out of the office. If I don’t return before she leaves, she types them up and leaves a copy on my desk for me to see if I should drop in later. I take it you and Will didn’t find anything like that on my desk last night.”
Rourke said, “No. I was with Will when he went into your office the first time after the body was found. Your desk was clean.”
Shayne said, “That means Lucy wasn’t here at five o’clock, or else she was prevented from doing the job.” He led the way in long strides toward the inner office, snapped on the light and circled the big desk to sit down and open up the tablet in front of him.
“Break out the cognac,” he told the reporter. “Whatever you and Will left of it, and we’ll see if we can make sense out of Lucy’s notes on her interview with a Mr. Rexforth at eleven-thirty yesterday morning. Thank God she doesn’t use shorthand for stuff like this, but her personal abbreviations are just about as bad.”
The sheet was headed cryptically:
“11:30 A. Rex N. A. Bond Jax”
Shayne pondered over that briefly while Rourke nested paper cups together, got a bottle of cognac from the second drawer of a filing cabinet behind Shayne and poured drinks. Shayne read aloud, “Rex. N. A. Bond. Jax. There’s a North American Bonding Company with state headquarters in Jacksonville, I think.”
He paused to take a sip of liquor, frowning at the penciled notes. “Read it with me and see if you follow.” Rourke leaned over his shoulder and read what Lucy had scribbled down for her own guidance:<
br />
“Angry M. not in. Disblevs out town. Prac accsed me lie when tell. Asks O’Keef appt today. Insist O’K to come amp; thnks M. here for him. $20 me to call if O’K show. No promis.” At the end Lucy had written with a heavy pencil, “Nasty little man.”
“Seems fairly clear,” said Rourke slowly. “This Rexforth was sore you weren’t here to keep the appointment and refuses to believe Lucy when she tells him you’ve left town. Accuses her of lying about it when she tells him, and asks about your appointment with O’Keefe today. I’d guess Lucy hadn’t heard about O’Keefe up to that point and told him so, but he insists the guy is coming and thinks you’ll be here. Then he offered her twenty bucks to give him a ring if O’Keefe showed up, which she naturally refused to take.”
Shayne nodded, his gaze glued to the sheet. “That’s about the way it adds up. So we know a man named Rexforth expected O’Keefe to visit me yesterday and. that I would be here to meet him. We also know that Rexforth is a nasty little man in Lucy’s expert opinion, and can guess that he may be connected with North American Bonding in Jacksonville. You said Julius O’Keefe was from Jax originally, didn’t you?”
Rourke nodded. “I’m sure that’s where he embezzled the money some years ago.”
Shayne lifted the first sheet, shaking his head in disappointment when he found the next one blank. “No more notations. Either O’Keefe didn’t show while Lucy was still on the job, or she had no opportunity to jot anything down.”
He closed the pad carefully on his desk, leaned back in the swivel chair and half-closed his eyes in concentration while he let a good portion of cognac flow smoothly down his throat.
Rourke said eagerly, “If we could get hold of Rexforth…”
Shayne said, “Yeh.” He looked at his watch. “It’s still an hour too early to raise anybody in an office in Jacksonville. He must have given her a telephone number, damn it. But she didn’t bother to put it down because she had no intention of calling him. Probably a hotel, if he’s in town from Jax.” He drummed his fingertips irritably on the desk. “At least we’ve got someone to start looking for. Someone who knew O’Keefe was headed for my office from the pen.”
Never Kill a Client ms-43 Page 8
