“Yes.”
“And I also take it you were attempting to disinter Mrs. Rogell’s pet dog to have its stomach contents analyzed?”
Shayne said, “I have no intention of admitting that fact, Doctor.”
“Yes… well…” The sedan turned north on Brickel. “I can only wish you had been successful,” the doctor said fretfully. “I confess I’m dreadfully bothered.”
“You think the dog was poisoned?”
“I have no opinion in the matter… not being a veterinarian. I do wish Mrs. Rogell had not been so precipitate in having the little beast buried. But she has a dreadful complex about death in any form. The result of some childhood trauma, I daresay, though I’m not a psychiatrist either. And the death of her husband, just two days ago, left her dreadfully upset, of course. A remarkable woman, though. She’s bearing up exceedingly well.”
Shayne said, drily, “Yes. I imagine Anita Rogell will survive okay,” with the memory of that tempestuous embrace still rocketing through his body.
“I understand you signed the death certificate,” he added.
“Certainly, I did. I had been attending him for months and was called immediately after his death was discovered.”
“Is there any possibility whatsoever, Doctor, that he could have been poisoned?”
“You’ve been listening to Henrietta,” he said bitterly. “Spreading her spleen wherever anyone will listen. Mr. Shayne, if you are an experienced detective, you must know that no competent medical man in his right mind can absolutely rule out the possibility of some kind of poison in any death. No matter how normal it may appear on the surface. If we took that fact into consideration, perhaps we should have an autopsy on every cadaver… no matter what the circumstances of death.”
“Perhaps we should,” Shayne said equably.
“Yes… well…” The doctor slowed as he approached the bridge across the Miami River. “Since that is not accepted practice, I can only tell you there was no scintilla of evidence to give me the slightest doubt that John Rogell’s death was the normal and natural result of his heart condition. That is the statement I gave the police, and I stand behind it.”
“Right here, Doctor,” Shayne said hastily as they drew abreast of his apartment hotel. “Thanks for the lift… and for the information.” He got out at the curb and lifted a big hand in farewell, waited until the doctor drove on and then trudged across to the side entrance where he climbed one flight of stairs and went to his corner apartment to wait for Timothy Rourke to show up or telephone him.
7
It was almost two hours and three drinks later when the door opened and Timothy Rourke shambled inside with his trench-coat belted tightly about his thin waist, eyes glittering balefully at the tranquil picture Shayne made, sitting at ease in a deep chair with smoke curling up from a cigarette and a drink beside him.
He said, “By God, Mike! You’re one who’d come up covered with diamonds if you fell into a sewage pit.”
Shayne grinned amiably and asked, “Had rough going?”
“Look at my goddamned hands.” Rourke strode forward, holding the palms up for Shayne’s inspection. They were puffed with blisters, some of which had broken and the red flesh beneath was cracked and bleeding. “Been rowing around in circles on that lousy bay for two hours,” grated Rourke, turning aside to a wall liquor cabinet and lifting down a bottle of straight bourbon with the ease of long familiarity. He pulled the cork as he returned to the center table, tilted the bottle over a tumbler containing two half-melted ice cubes and a small quantity of water that Shayne had been using for a chaser. He poured four fingers into the glass, sloshed it about for a moment, and then drank it off in four gulps.
He smacked his lips expressively, draped his knobby body into a chair across the table and grated, “The things I do for you, Mike Shayne! By God, that dog had better have poison in her belly.”
“She has,” Shayne said flatly. “You got her, huh?”
“Sure I got her,” said Rourke belligerently. “While you were inside getting cozy with the widow. I got a peek through the bushes after the shotgun blasted. I figured I’d take one look at you with your fool head blown off so I could give Lucy the morbid details. And what did I see? You standing there under the floodlight with that unconscious lug in your arms, and that babe fawning up at you like she’d never seen a man before in her life.”
“It was a diversionary tactic,” said Shayne cheerfully, “to give you an opportunity to do your stuff with the shovel.” He reached in his pocket for a small address book and began thumbing through it.
“How was she, Mike? After you got her in the house and dumped the chauffeur?”
“There were too many people around to really find out. Some other time, maybe, I’ll give you a detailed report. Where’s the dog?”
“Downstairs in my car.” Rourke sighed and pulled himself to his feet with a grimace of pain from long unused muscles. He went out to the kitchen to get a fresh glass and more ice cubes for himself while Shayne found the number of Miami’s most noted toxicologist, lifted the phone and gave it to the switchboard downstairs.
Shayne spoke into the mouthpiece as Rourke sauntered back and sloshed whiskey into the glass: “Is that Bud Tolliver? Mike Shayne, Bud. Can you do a fast job for me tonight?”
He listened a moment and said, “I don’t think this will take long. You should be able to handle it right there in your basement lab. Analysis of the stomach contents of a dead dog for poison.”
He lifted one eyebrow at Rourke and grinned slightly, holding the receiver inches from his ear as a torrent of protest poured out.
Then he cut in persuasively, “I don’t blame you a bit, Bud, but this is a hell of a lot bigger than just a pooch. If I’m right, we’re going to get a P.M. ordered on a corpse who’s due to be cremated tomorrow. That’s why it’s got to be fast.”
He listened a moment longer and nodded. “I’ll bring it right over to your place.” He hung up and told Rourke, “Tolliver feels his professional status is being impugned by working on a dog. Coming along, Tim?”
Rourke had sunk back into his chair with tall glass clamped tightly in both hands. He shook his head, got a leather key-case from his pocket and dropped it on the table. “Take my car. It’s parked in front with the dog locked in the luggage compartment. Drop Daffy off at Bud’s and then come back here, huh? I’m trying to remember something about Henrietta Rogell. If it comes through, I think we can stand a trip to the News morgue. If it doesn’t, at least I’ll be catching up with you.” He lifted his glass significantly.
Shayne took the keys and said, “Try to make it come through, Tim.”
He went out the door and down on the elevator, through a deserted lobby to Rourke’s battered sedan in front.
Bud Tolliver was a bachelor who lived in a five-room stucco house in the northeast section of the city. The porch light was on when Shayne pulled up in front of the house, and the redhead got out and unlocked the luggage compartment and opened it. The tiny body of a Pekinese lay stiff-legged on the floor, its formerly shiny coat matted with dirt, its mouth half open in what appeared to be a derisive grin.
Shayne lifted the light body out by a front and rear paw, carried it up the walk held stiffly out in front of him, and the front door opened as he stepped onto the porch, and Tolliver motioned him inside.
The toxicologist was as tall as Shayne, and a few years younger. His head was completely bald, and he had an intelligent, bony face that puckered thoughtfully as he drew aside and looked at the detective’s burden. “How long has the pooch been buried?”
“Just about twenty-four hours.” Shayne paused inside the neat living room while his host closed the front door and led the way toward the back where he opened a door off the kitchen and switched on a light leading down to his basement laboratory.