Private Carson gave a slight start and cleared his throat. Captain Ott asked, “Do you want to add anything to what Sergeant Blake has just told us?”
The youthful soldier wet his lips. “N-no, sir,” he stammered. “I... no, sir.”
Shayne glanced at Ott. “Is the youngster under arrest?”
“No. Private Carson carried out his orders last night in a soldierly manner. As long as the man refused to halt he had no choice except to fire.”
Shayne nodded and got up. “I’ll nose around and see what I can find out about Dinky Moore.” And he told Captain Richards, “I’d like to look over the ground later, and talk to the other eleven men who were on guard duty.”
Shayne stopped his car in front of the shabby two-story apartment building and got out. It was on one of the side streets in the business section of Coral Gables, flanked by a neighborhood fruit stand on one side and by a shoe repair shop on the other.
Four concrete steps led up from the sidewalk to the open vestibule. Shayne looked at the names on the mailboxes until he found the one he wanted. The apartment number was 128. An unpainted wooden stairway led directly up from the vestibule. The stairs creaked under his weight as he mounted to a long hallway with rows of numbered doors on each side.
Number 128 was halfway down on the right. He knocked on the thin wooden panel and waited. After a full minute he knocked again.
He heard a sluffing sound inside, then the door opened a few inches and a woman looked out at him. Shayne lifted his hat and asked, “Mrs. Moore?”
She said, “You can come in if you’re from the insurance company,” and stepped back, pulling the door open. The shade was drawn and the interior of the room was dim. It was also stuffy and hot.
The woman said, “I’m not dressed for company.” Her bare feet were thrust into frayed slippers and her blonde hair was in curlers. She wore a short-sleeved kimono of sleazy red silk and apparently nothing else. She held the edges of it together at her left hip with one hand, and there was a wide gap in the front that showed half of one breast. She seemed unaware of this, or uncaring. She waved her right hand toward a wicker armchair and said, “Sit down, Mister—?”
Shayne said, “Mulrooney,” and sat down. “You are Mrs. Moore?”
“That’s right. Laura Moore.” She went past him to a wicker couch and sat down. She was tall and had a swinging stride. She had full lips that drooped petulantly, and her cheeks were flaccid. With a lot of fixing up, Shayne imagined she would be beautiful.
She crossed her legs and said, “When I called you folks this morning the man talked like it might be weeks before you paid off.” Her voice was low and husky, with an undertone of anger.
Shayne said, “It may not take that long.” He got a small memorandum book from his pocket and unscrewed the cap of his fountain pen.
“It better not. Why should it? It’s got to be paid. Everything’s in order. I paid the premium myself not more’n a month ago. And I can use that five grand, believe me.”
“No doubt. Your husband’s name was Lester Moore?”
“That’s right. Lester G.”
Shayne nodded and wrote in his book. “His occupation?”
She snorted. “Nothing. Not since Tropical Park closed and he quit touting. Naw. He was too good to work.” Her voice became shrill. “It was all right for me though. Sure. I could dance my legs off every night. A lot he cared. But he was always hanging around to bum drinks and watching to see I didn’t have any fun on the side. I pretty near lost my job two or three times account of him raising the devil when he thought I was dancing too close.”
“Where do you work, Mrs. Moore?”
“At the Lido. Say.” She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. “What’s all this got to do with insurance? He’s dead, all right. What else matters?” The kimono slipped from one bare thigh as she leaned forward. Again, she didn’t seem to notice or didn’t mind.
Shayne said, “These are just some necessary formalities. Do you know why your husband went out to that army camp last night?”
“I sure don’t. He must of been awful drunk — not to’ve stopped when the sentry told him.”
“What did he tell you when he started out there?”
“Nothing. I didn’t know he’d gone. I tell you — I was that flabbergasted when they told me what had happened.” She shook her head and made her eyes big and wondering.
“Did he have any particular friends at that camp?”
“None that I know of. Not in particular.” Laura Moore sucked in her lips. “He knew some of them I guess. From them being in the Lido. He was always hanging around,” she went on vindictively. “Like as if I couldn’t be trusted.”
“But he must have had some reason to go there at night,” Shayne insisted. “You see it’s this way—” He took a chance. “It might have some bearing on the payment of double indemnity or not.”
“You mean — maybe I get paid double?”
“In case of accidental death, of course. If it was suicide on the other hand—” Shayne paused suggestively.
“Suicide?” She wrinkled her forehead and faltered, “You don’t think—?”
“We’re simply trying to establish the cause of death,” he explained smoothly. He laughed. “After all, that would be a new and novel method of committing suicide.”
“And in case of suicide you won’t payoff? Is that your game?” Her voice was ragged with anger. “You can’t get away with that.”
“We’re not trying to get away with anything. We want to learn the truth. But if we can’t find any other reason for his strange action—” He let the words lie there before her.
“It wasn’t suicide. You don’t know Dinky,” she scoffed. “He wouldn’t have the nerve.”
“Think hard, then,” Shayne urged. “Didn’t he ever say anything that might explain what happened?”
“Not a word. He must of been awful drunk. Just wandered out there.”
Shayne closed his notebook and got up. He went to the door and turned back with his hand on the knob. “Your husband wasn’t drunk, Mrs. Moore. That’s been established. Unless we can learn a definite reason for what happened, I’m afraid I’ll have to recommend that we fight your claim on the grounds of suicide.” He went out quickly and closed the door behind him.
The Club Lido was a sprawling one-story structure of ugly brown stucco about half way between Coral Gables and South Miami. It lay a few hundred feet off the highway surrounded by a few dispirited palms. A gravel driveway curved in to a dusty parking lot by the side of the building. There were no other cars in the lot when Michael Shayne pulled in.
It was dark and cool inside, and the stale air had a hangover of beer smell and tobacco smoke from the preceding night. There was a long room with a bar running the length of it fronted by padded leather stools. A fat man with curly hair and twinkling blue eyes rested his bare forearms on the bar and watched Shayne come in. He was the room’s only occupant. At the rear was a curtained doorway with a hand-painted sign that said, DANCING. NO LADIES ALLOWED WITHOUT ESCORTS.
Shayne sat at the bar and laid a folded newspaper down beside him. The bartender said, “Mornin’,” in a not unfriendly tone.
Shayne said, “I could use a slug of cognac.”
The bartender sighed and shook his head. “How’ll grape brandy do?”
“California or New York State?”
He turned to look at the array of bottles behind the bar. “We got both. New York’s five years old.”
Shayne said, “A double shot of that — in the bottom of a beer glass.”
A large sign behind the bar caught his eye. It said, HAM & EGGS $1.50.
The bartender set a beer glass in front of him. It had two ounces of brandy in the bottom. Shayne said, “And an order of ham and eggs.”