Pearbome looked up and past Shayne, alerting the detective. “Rourke,” he said in flat greeting.
Shayne twisted and shot a look at his friend. Rourke lounged in the doorway. “Saw you heading back here, Mike. What’s up? But make it sane, huh? I’ve had enough weirdos for today. Rich playboy shot out of his wheelchair by a street sniper and some alcoholic found murdered at his kitchen table, bottle in hand, the only problem being the booze had been laced with strychnine. That’s a full day in my book.”
A tiny light flickered inside Shayne’s skull. He stared hard at Rourke. “What’s the pitch on the poison case?”
Rourke showed mild surprise. “Man found dead in his two-by-four home by a neighbor. The neighbor called the cops. The poor devil lived alone, was a bachelor, name was Carter Lincoln. He was a TV repairman by day, an alcoholic by night, worked every day, got drunk every night.
“At home— Never went out. Just got off work, went home, got out his bottle and the ice cubes and sat at the kitchen table. Sometimes he slept there, sometimes he made it to bed. But last night he got pinned to his chair good.
“Cops are speculating he got the laced bottle by special messenger early last evening. The reason being the neighbor saw a messenger hit Lincoln’s front door around seven, saw Lincoln accept the package, sign for it. Cops got back to the messenger service.
“Their records show a guy who signed a ticket as an Anthony Spear paid to have the package delivered to Carter Lincoln. But that’s where it ends. The girl down at the messenger service doesn’t remember anything in particular about this Spear other than he was a man probably about thirty, had blonde hair.
“Lincoln in business for himself?”
“No. Worked for Palm TV. It’s an independent operation — small. Owned by an ex-chain outfit TV repairman who finally went on his own, built a trade, has hired three employees along the way, Lincoln being one of them. How come you’re so damned interested, Mike?”
Shayne stomped past Rourke and out of Pearbome’s cubicle, not offering an answer. He stopped in the news room and used the City Directory. He found an address for Palm TV, the name of an owner — Alfred Bannister.
Bannister was working late. It was past the normal closing hour for the small shop, all of the employees had gone home, but Bannister was up to his elbows in TV repair work. He had lost a repairman the previous day, a man named Carter Lincoln. Lincoln had been murdered. He still couldn’t believe it. Murder was big — but even-bigger was the repair load Bannister suddenly found on his shoulders.
Had Palm TV ever had a service call from the Robert Hume Tiener Estate?
Bannister thumbed through small cards in a box. Yep. He had a call recorded for a Tiener. It had been a home call and the service had been minor, replacement of a small tube in a color set. Carter Lincoln had handled it.
Carter Lincoln had filed a complaint after the call. When entering the Tiener grounds he had been attacked and claimed to have been bitten by an unchained dog.
What had Bannister done about the complaint?
Called the Tiener place, talked to somebody out there who admitted the dog had attacked. Compensation was forwarded — five hundred clams. Bannister said he had handed Lincoln the five bills.
“But did you?” asked Shayne.
Bannister bristled. “Lincoln went on a ten-day drunk! And that’s answer enough if you’ve investigated Lincoln!”
“Lincoln was an alcoholic,” said Shayne. “So how come you kept him?”
“Drunk, Carter Lincoln was a better TV serviceman than most men are sober, that’s why!”
“Who killed him, Bannister?”
“Hell, I dunno! All I do know is, the killer went the best route. If you wanted to kill Lincoln give him a jug saturated with poison. He’d drink it because it had a booze label on it. Taste wasn’t important to him.”
Shayne went to the bar, ordered a cognac and ice water chaser, took both to a corner table where he was out of the flow of bar traffic and away from the other table customers. He did not want to be disturbed. It was skull time.
He had five deaths — Burns and Singleton staked out in a swamp, Elizabeth Stewart strangled in her apartment, Dobbs shot out of his wheelchair and Lincoln poisoned at his kitchen table. There was at least one common tie — Robert Hume Tiener or Tiener South. Add an ex-mercenary, a man who on the one hand seemed totally subservient to a master and on the other had the ingredients of a cold-blooded killer.
Shayne lit a cigaret. Okay, five murders, one killer. Cozy package if it held together. So what was the glue?
Burns and Singleton. Each had been a land expert, employed by competing firms going after the same piece of swampland. Brooks and Associates had won, Tiener South had lost. Then Burns and Singleton had been found staked out on the same piece of swamp.
Dobbs, a sportsman who had taken Tiener’s wife on a tryst to a Wyoming hunting lodge — Dobbs, killed by a slug from a hunting rifle ripping across his skull.
Lincoln, an alcoholic TV repairman who had been attacked by Tiener’s dog, the dog later found dead, poisoned by strychnine. Then Lincoln dies. Strychnine in a bottle of booze.
Each had burned Tiener. Burns and Singleton — money. Dobbs — the man’s wife. Lincoln — the man’s dog.
Shayne shuffled his feet and smoked rapidly as he savored the smell of eye-to-eye vengeance.
Problem.
Shayne stopped shuffling, scowled. Where was the vengeance in the strangulation of Elizabeth Stewart?
Answer — her death simply didn’t fit.
Shayne finished the cognac, sat twirling the ice water without drinking. And who was pulling Tony Andrews’ string? Robert Hume Tiener, a fantastically wealthy eccentric with a history of occasionally crawling into a cave and pulling the opening in after him?
Or was Lisa Hume Montgomery a super shrewdie, had she been one all her years? Her brother was dead, really dead this time out. Lost at sea. And now Lisa was pulling strings? On her brother’s behalf?
Shayne butted the cigaret and walked out of the bar on long strides, his heels digging in, his jaw squared, his eyes hard. An ex-mercenary had answers.
Mike Shayne was going hunting.
XI
The pert maid at the Tiener front door cocked her head slightly in recognition and said, “I’m sorry, sir, Mr. Andrews has not returned.”
“Un-huh,” said Shayne, running a thumbnail along his jaw line. He twisted and looked over his shoulder at the plain, cream-colored sedan braked ahead of his Buick in the drive. It was the only car he had ever seen at the Tiener place.
When he turned back to the door, he found it closed. It looked solidly in place. His blood pressure went up and he raised a fist to hammer it, then dropped his arm.
He stomped to the Buick and rolled away from the house. But a hundred yards down the street, he made a U-turn and braked at the curbing. The Tiener entry was in sight. Evening was dusk, but he had a clear view. He slouched behind the steering wheel and settled down for what could be a long night. The next time the plain sedan left the estate, he’d be on its tail.
The sedan popped into view and turned away from him in just twenty minutes.
He rolled cuatiously keeping plenty of distance between himself and his tailee. The streets were quiet, no other cars to hide behind until the sedan turned onto a busy boulevard.
Shayne applied pressure to the Buick’s accelerator, closed the distance. There was a station wagon immediately ahead of him, then a dented pickup truck, a glistening sports car. The sports car was riding the sedan’s tail.
Suddenly it zoomed around the sedan and the gap closed. Shayne eased off, allowed another car to get into the lane ahead. The line rolled smoothly for three miles, then the sedan drifted into the right lane and turned off at the next intersection.