He made the telephone, sitting on the floor, dialed operator and waited, seemingly an eternity, until the voice replied. Two other bullets smashed into the little house before he got his message through to the Police.
Then, coming up into a crouch with gun still cocked and ready, Mike Shayne prepared to counterattack.
Swiftly and silently, he went to the rear door and on through, during a lull for reloading. He recalled the barbecue pit that had so nearly proved his undoing two nights earlier and slid into it.
When a dark form came around the corner of the smaller house, the redhead brought him down with a bullet in the knee, then rose and disarmed him. It was Carl Meadows, and he was out like a light. Shayne regarded him with distaste, then looked up just in time to see another shape emerge around the other rear corner of the building.
“Okay,” the detective said. “Drop the cannon. Nice and easy. Kick it over here. Okay. Now sit down and stay down.”
XIII
The dinner, served in Roy Latimer’s private dining room atop the News building, was strictly a stag affair. Shayne was there, of course, as were the three defendants in the now defunct criminal libel case. So also was Ryan Akanian, who had made handsome atonement to Latimer for his fall from grace.
Mostly, it was Mike Shayne who fielded the questions.
“I wondered about Myra Rainey not calling in the police. Len Sturgis’ Homicide boys dug out the reason. It seems, when she was a teenager, she got picked up for trying to shoplift an evening gown for a high school formal. Seems her mother wouldn’t let her wear a strapless, so she went out and took one.
“The parents asked the police to throw a scare into her, and they did their job a little too well. Rainey’s had copaphobia ever since.”
There were questions about Carl Meadows, who was recovering in a prison hospital ward from the shattered knee Shayne had given him, about Allen MacRae, who was languishing in the pen under impossibly high bail.
“They worked it together,” the detective told his small audience, “but my hunch is that Meadows was the idea man, Slimy Mac the how-to-do-it boy. Is that how it seemed to you, Ryan?”
The publisher nodded, said, “I still don’t know how I fell for such a flagrant con. Sheer greed, I guess. But I think you called it right, Mike. And, once again, I want to thank you for what you did the other night.”
“We all want to thank you. Mike.” Roy Latimer was on his feet, wine glass lifted. The toast was drunk and Mike, fingering the stem of his goblet, longed for Martell instead of another in the series of expensive wines that had accompanied the dinner.
“The one I don’t understand,” said Latimer, “is the Fowler woman. She doesn’t make sense to me.”
“She made sense by her own lights,” Mike Shayne assured his client. “She couldn’t turn down a luxury trip to Bermuda, which Meadows offered her because he wanted her out of town. She loved the island and he knew it. Once Fowler was there and learned about Cathy Whiting’s murder, she realized why she’d been lured away. So she figured the wisest course was to clam up and pretend she knew nothing about it. Which, in a way, she didn’t.”
“How are your friends at Headquarters taking that?” Roy Latimer asked Shayne.
“They’re sullen but not mutinous. After all, she didn’t actually do anything illegal. There’s no charge on the books for accepting a free trip to Bermuda.”
“What about Myra Rainey?” Carl Dirkson asked. “How is she taking it?”
“Right now she’s hitting bottom,” the redhead replied. “She’s still, sick about Cathy Whiting’s murder. She feels wholly responsible. But Myra is blessed with the resiliency of the young. My guess is that she’ll get over it — but probably not around here. She’s had a bellyful of Miami, and I can’t blame her for that.”
Roy Latimer looked puzzled. “You know,” he said, “I still can’t figure out why the Whiting girl was killed.”
“According to Meadows, before the police took him away, that wasn’t supposed to happen,” Shayne told him. “They had the apartment wire tapped and, as I thought, Myra did call Cathy to let her know she was okay and to find out what was happening. They sent the button man around to force her to tell them where Rainey was. They took it for granted she must know — which she didn’t.
“He was leaning on her pretty hard when I drove up and headed straight for the little house in back. He figured it was a trap and opened fire to keep her from talking to me — just about the way I figured it. Then he opened fire on me.”
“You were lucky, Shayne,” said Akanian.
Tim Rourke looked at the larger publisher, said, “I used to think that about Mike — but he’s survived too many scrapes like this to call it all luck. He’s quick, and he seems to have a sixth sense for impending danger.”
The detective said, “Whatever it is, I’m grateful for having it. But considering I heard the shots that killed Cathy, I was a damned fool to try and crash the house. I should have waited him out or called the police from my car.”
“You’re second-guessing yourself,” the reporter told him, “to say nothing of revealing unbearable modesty.”
“What’s the word On Lowman?” the redhead asked.
Roy Latimer put down his wine glass. “I’m told he’ll recover. It seems discovering what looked like mere legal chicanery had turned into murder was more than he could take. But he’ll never practice law again.” A pause, then, “Incidentally, Shayne, the paper is happy to express its gratitude, as are Tim, Carl and myself.”
The envelope he handed Mike Shayne was reassuringly thick. When he opened it later, he discovered fifteen thousand-dollar bills, ten more than the fee he had been promised.
On the whole, he felt he had earned it.
A Case for Curiosity
by Wyc Toole
Charlie didn’t want the neighbors to know about his past. But when Vera Platt was found shot to death right across the lake, Old Charlie could not resist the puzzle presented by her death.
Charlie Johnson saw the flashing red lights of the police cars at the Anderson home about six-thirty in the morning. It was almost three hours later, however, before he, found out about the dead woman.
There were two reasons for this — one, pride — the other, stubbornness. Neither of which were real strangers to Charlie’s nature. So, considering the way things happened, it is surprising that he learned about her death soon enough to do something about it.
Perhaps this just goes to prove that curiosity is a stronger emotion than either pride or stubbornness. On the other hand, it may only tell something about Charlie. But whatever the case, he first saw the rotating lights while he was eating breakfast.
To most people, breakfast is a time for sitting and enjoying the morning meal. But, since Sarah died, Charlie used it as a period for wandering and snacking, for admiring the house, checking the yard, in general getting ready for the day ahead. That is why the lanky old man was carrying a half-eaten bowl of cornflakes and a luke-warm cup of strong, coffee in his big hands when he came out of the cool dark living room and squinted at the early morning sun.
Charlie liked this time of day. The world just waking up. The lake shining. Grass smelling green and warm. The sharp flat random sounds of jumping fish and birds starting to fly. All the familiar comforting sights and sounds of his forty years of living on the lake.