“There’s the clear imprint of a briefcase in the bottom of the hole,” said Rourke defensively. “It looks plain enough to me.”
“All right,” said Gentry bitterly, “what else about the case looks plain enough to you. Where’s that dancer?” he roared suddenly. “Sloe Burn? They tell me she handles one of those sharp conch shells in her dance like she was born with it. She’s the one I want.”
“Is that right, Tim? Do they use conch shells in their dance?”
“Sure. That’s part of the act. One of the things that gets the audience. You think, by God, they’ll surely rip each other to pieces on the stage before sex saves the day.”
“You interviewed them, Tim,” Shayne put in quickly, before Gentry could stalk away. “You know exactly where they come from?”
“Little town of Manachee. Somewhere down on the Keys.”
“Hear that, Will? She’s just a dumb child for all her sophisticated front. Where else would she know to run if she wants to dodge the law? She’s like an animal… and she thinks like an animal. Whether she did any of these killings or not, she knows damned well she’s in bad trouble… and down on the Keys a few killings aren’t regarded too seriously.”
“Manachee?” Gentry rubbed his blunt jaw thoughtfully, then nodded and strode back fast to his car.
“Now then!” Shayne grabbed Rourke’s arm as soon as Gentry was out of hearing. “Fill me in on the rest of things fast. Were you with the cops in McTige’s room?”
“Sure. I got there with Yager.”
“What did they make out of it?”
Rourke shrugged elaborately. “There wasn’t much for them. Brannigan’s fingerprints were on one highball glass and a few other places that indicated he’d been a guest, drinking with McTige. The inference being that McTige contacted Brannigan here in Miami to help him locate Shephard… same as he contacted you later on, after Brannigan had failed.
“There was that conch shell driven in through the poor bastard’s temple. I guess you saw that yourself, if you found him dead. The switchboard reported several incoming calls for McTige by a woman prior to the discovery of his body,” Rourke went on reflectively. “The way I got it, a couple of those calls were taken in McTige’s room not very long before the cops were tipped off he was dead.”
Shayne said, “That was me, Tim. One of them was from Mrs. Shephard… the other from Lucy. What about Mrs. Shephard? Have they located her?”
“I don’t think so. Hell, Mike, you know how it is with a reporter,” Rourke ended disconsolately. “I sniff around at the edges and pick up a bit here and there. You think Sloe Burn knocked both of them off with her little conch shell?” he added eagerly.
Shayne said, “I don’t know. I do have a strong hunch Will Gentry will pick her up in Manachee, because I’d bet a fair amount of money that’s where she’s hightailed it back to.”
“With two hundred thousand bucks in nice green bills? The way I get it around the edges, McTige had half of it that he’d grabbed from Shephard in the motel room. Then, if Shephard dug the rest of it up from under the tree here in a briefcase… but how’d she know to meet him here?”
“I think he asked for it,” Shayne told him. “I think the poor frightened damned fool phoned her at the Bright Spot after giving up half his money at the Pink Flamingo, and invited her to go off and share a desert island with him on the other half. That’s what I think happened, Tim. Come on. Let’s get going.” He grabbed his friend’s arm and led him at a trot past the line of official cars toward his own sedan parked at the end.
“What’s the rush?” protested Rourke. “You gave Gentry the dope on Manachee. He’ll already have that covered by the law down there. It’s a long drive, and by the time we get there…”
“We’re not going to Manachee.” Shayne released his arm at the front of his car, shoving him toward the left and striding around the other side to jerk the door open at the driver’s seat.
Rourke got in quickly without any more questions. He had seen Shayne in moods like this before, and had profited by going along and seeing what happened.
He leaned back against the cushion and got a cigarette going while Shayne made a fast U-Turn and headed back toward Miami twenty miles above the speed limit.
“All right,” said the reporter quietly. “So, we’re not going to Manachee. Then where in hell are we going?”
“To the airport. Before Will gets the same idea.”
Rourke said, “Fine. You know some plane that’s taking off for a desert island about this time?”
Shayne was leaning over the steering wheel, concentrating on his driving. “I don’t know their schedule of departures for desert islands,” he admitted. “Wish I did. But there must be something taking off at this time of night for somewhere.”
“There usually is,” Rourke grunted sourly. “From Miami International.”
Shayne said vaguely, “I don’t think it much matters where.” They were back across the river now, and in Miami’s northeast section. The bright lights of one of the world’s busiest airports were directly ahead of them, and Shayne braked hard to make the turn-off and swing around in front of the administration building.
He left it parked at the curb where it said NO PARKING, and leaped out and hurried inside the vast waiting room with Rourke at his heels.
They found her sitting demurely alone on one of the benches in the Trans-World section. She had her nice white gloves on her hands that were folded quietly in her lap, and there were two neat travelling cases on the floor on each side of her. She looked up at Michael Shayne with a pathetically weary smile as he planted himself solidly in front of her, and her gaze strayed past him to a large electric clock behind the Trans-World counter.
She said in her precise, Mid-western voice, “I suppose you’ve come to say you’ve found my husband, Mr. Shayne. It really doesn’t matter now. My plane is leaving in ten minutes.”
Shayne said gently, “You’re not going anywhere, Mrs. Shephard.” He looked down at the two travelling bags on either side of her, and asked, “Which one has the two hundred thousand dollars? Or, have you divided it up the way your husband did?”
She stood up and said quietly, “Does it matter, Mr. Shayne? Poor Steven didn’t get much more enjoyment out of it than I am going to.”
18
Lucy Hamilton asked practically, “But why did Sloe Burn hit that poor man with a whiskey bottle in the Pink Flamingo? That’s what I don’t understand. What did she gain by it?”
Shayne grinned at her from his end of the sofa in her apartment where he was enjoying a final cognac before going home for a well-earned rest after a pretty hectic evening.
“Sloe Burn isn’t exactly the type to stop and calculate whether she’s going to gain something or not by busting a guy with a whiskey bottle. She was just disappointed and upset and angry, that’s all. After McTige and Brannigan didn’t show up at her table in the Bright Spot when she came back after hurrying Shephard out the back, she realized he might be in danger… and his money, too, which was much more important to Sloe Burn… she went to the Pink Flamingo to see what was going on.
“And there was Brannigan alone in the room and just coming to his senses, and Shephard had vanished and Brannigan told her about the money she had just missed out on. Her reaction was perfectly in character. She didn’t have a conch shell handy, so she sloughed him with the first thing she could get her hands on.”
“Do you think she meant to hurt Shephard when she drove out to meet him on the trail and help him dig up the rest of the money?”
“I’m inclined to think not, and from the report Gentry got from the sheriff in Manachee, she swears she planned to help him dig up the money and go off with him. To a desert island, or what-have-you?” Shayne grinned over the rim of his glass at his secretary on the other end of the sofa. “Would you go off to a desert island with me, angel, if I had a hundred grand?”
She said truthfully, “I’d go off to any kind of an island with you any time, Michael, if I had to buy the tickets myself. And you know that without asking.” Her eyes twinkled at him to contradict the seriousness of her voice, and she offered an objection to his first answer: