Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 39, No. 5, November 1976
You Can Beat a Frame
by Brett Halliday[1]
When a murderer strikes from beyond the grave, it means one of three things. Either he is not dead or someone alive is using his name — or a ghost is walking. After a gruesome double killing, it is up to Shayne to find out which.
I
Mike Shayne pondered. It had all the earmarks of being a domestic case and he normally did not mix in family beefs. He would not have seen her at all if Jim Rourke had not pushed him into it as a favor to a friend.
The woman waited patiently. She was perched in the chair placed strategically in front of the redhead’s desk. She had class, was unpainted and still attractive in middle years. A few treadmarks were visible here and there, but most of her lines and planes remained smooth and she exuded an air of cool confidence and intelligence.
When she phoned in for an appointment at Mike Shayne’s Flagler Street office, she had said her name was Samantha. She was Samantha of Samantha’s. It meant nothing to Shayne, but his secretary had instantly perked.
“She is weddings, Michael,” Lucy Hamilton had said, excitement sharpening her tone. “If you have a posh Miami wedding these days, Samantha is your planner.”
Samantha’s father had not been seen by nor been in contact with her mother since the previous Friday, when he left the family home to go to his office at Brooks and Associates. It meant he had been out of touch for five days.
“Brooks,” mused Shayne. “Those are the land people. Worldwide. Right?”
Samantha nodded. “Father has been with them for years. He is considered an expert in land valuation.”
“You’ve talked to the Brooks people? Are you sure your father has not been sent—”
“They are concerned, Mr. Shayne. They do not understand his absence. Father has an enviable company reputation for attendance.”
Shayne slouched lower in his chair and used a thumb and forefinger to tug an earlobe. It was an habitual gesture when he was thinking hard. “How old is your father, Miss Bums?”
“Sixty-seven.”
“He and your mother get along okay?”
“They are contented people, Mr. Shayne — and, no, father has not scurried off to some corner of the world with a young secretary clinging to his arm. Should you discover that he has, I will pay you ten times your normal fee. You may have a contract to that effect drawn by your secretary.”
The redhead gave her a sharp look from under shaggy eyebrows. “You are perceptive, Miss Bums.”
“I know my father,” she said.
He sat up suddenly, braced large forearms on the edge of the desk, interlocked meaty fingers. “Okay, you got any ideas about where he might have gone, why he might have—”
“None,” she interrupted. Her lips tightened. “It’s totally out of character.”
“How about your mother?” the detective asked.
“She’s almost ill with worry. That’s one of the reasons I have come to you.”
“Another being you have not gone to the police.”
“No,” she said. “I have not. Frankly, I do not want newspaper publicity. More importantly, I want someone concentrating full time on finding Father. I can afford to pay for that service.”
“Have you or your mother considered foul play?”
She took a moment before answering. “Mother hasn’t, I’m sure. But I... well, after five days, Mr. Shayne.” She abruptly waved a ringless hand. “I don’t know. I can’t conceive...”
She let the words trail off.
Shayne reached for the phone. One avenue needed to be explored immediately. The phone could cut a comer.
“City Morgue,” answered the voice. “Zoner.”
“Mike Shayne, Ray. I’m looking for a missing person. He hasn’t been in the newspapers.”
“Got two unidentifieds, Mike, a male and a fe — oops, you said he. Okay, got one male unidentified. Negroid, twenty-eight to thirty—”
“Nope. Caucasian. Sixty-seven, probably well groomed and—”
“Got two of them, too. But they’re freshies, just came in about an hour ago. And kinda weird — they came in together. That part ain’t weird, of course. I mean, they was found staked out in a swamp, the way I hear it. Now, that’s weird, ain’t it? I mean, two guys staked out in—”
“You get them with papers, Ray?” Shayne asked sharply.
“Yep. No trouble with I.D. Blake Thomas Singleton, Caucasian, male, age sixty-six—”
“Nope.”
“Patrick Nole Burns, Caucasian male, age sixty-seven—”
“Bingo!” Shayne said grimly.
“Oh, boy, you do pick the dandies! Like I said, these two boys were found staked out in a swamp, side by side, heads and faces packed in mud. Some alligator hunter fell over them early this morning, I hear.”
Samantha Bums went ashen and shot to her feet when Sayne told her where she could find her father. She did not know Singleton, she said, taut and trembling. She looked as if she could explode at any second.
The redhead hooked a long arm up and over his shoulder, yanked open a drawer of a filing cabinet. He brought out a fresh bottle of Martell, planted it on the desk. His hand disappeared into the drawer again, returned with a glass. The movement had spread his lapels wide, exposed the holstered .45.
Samantha Burns stared at him. “I don’t drink,” she finally managed. “And I must go to mother.” She continued to stare hard for a few seconds, then she seemed to gather herself She took a deep breath.
“Mr. Shayne,” she said coldly, “find my father’s killer.”
“Un-huh.”
“And when you do, use that... that gun!”
Shayne opened the bottle and poured some cognac. He slugged down the drink before he rose and slammed the glass against the desk top.
“Miss Bums,” he said flatly, “I am not a hired gun. I will find and take your father’s murderer to the police! Understood?”
She had recoiled. She suddenly slumped. “Yes,” she said meekly.
Then she turned and walked out of the office.
II
Shayne busied himself with office cleanup the remainder of that bright Wednesday morning in mid-May. He was stalling. He was restless, anxious to launch the new investigation, but the police needed time to gather loose ends.
The cops could save him hours and miles. Preliminary, routine police investigation of the double deaths — plus autopsies — would swiftly compile information he needed.
Will Gentry, chief of Miami police, looked up from his desk, his eyes narrowed in dark curiosity, when the redhead finally descended. He sucked a breath and sat back, his squat body wider than the leather chair. A black cigar stub, long dead, bobbed in one corner of his clamped lips.
“Mike,” he said. Then he went silent.
Shayne knew why. Gentry was already waiting. They had been acquainted for years, had worked together on many cases. Each respected the expertise of the other. More importantly, they were friends, had an acquired mutual insight. Gentry was now drawing on that insight. He knew the large redhead had not rolled into police headquarters simply because he had heard on a radio about a new double slaying that confronted the police.
Shayne gave Will Gentry Samantha Burns. Minor surprise showed briefly on the bulldog face of the chief as he scratched the name on a yellow legal pad. He sat back again. The cigar butt shot up to a forty-five degree angle.