“You weren’t living with your father then?”
“No, we had our own apartment. Mother was still alive. She was in and out of hospitals the last few years. It was a bad time for all of us.”
“Did you and George live within your income?”
“Why do — no, that’s right, I’m not supposed to ask any questions. Most of the time we came close, Mike. We had to borrow from Father now and then, but usually we managed to pay it back when we said we would.”
“Was your marriage happy?”
“Very,” she said quietly.
“He wasn’t involved with any other women?”
“Involved! Certainly not.” She looked at him directly. “I don’t care — I have to ask a question. Are you implying that he had something to do with the robbery?”
“That’s what I’m implying. It’s not necessarily true. When people are given responsible jobs and not enough pay to make ends meet, they’ve been known to make ends meet by dipping into the till. I’m not saying that happened, but it would explain a few things.”
She smoothed her dress. “Mike — I know strange things happen, but I honestly don’t think I could be that wrong about anybody. We were married three years. We were still as much in love as when we were on our honeymoon, and we just didn’t have any secrets from each other. We spent our free time together. When could he get mixed up with other women? In the morning coffee break? They didn’t have a coffee-break at the bank. It’s physically impossible. I managed our checkbook. I knew what came in and went out, to the penny. On top of all that, I knew George.”
“Tell me again why he worked overtime that night.”
“There was some kind of department deadline, something was moved up and he was the only one who could handle it. I don’t suppose anyone would remember now.”
“But it wasn’t a regular thing?”
“If it had been, I would have suspected he was seeing another woman.” Her face clouded. “He was depressed about something, though. It was a rare thing for him to worry. Our finances were pretty tight just then, and the way the hospital bills were piling up, Father didn’t have anything to spare. It was probably that. I couldn’t get him to cheer up. He went around with a gloomy face on all the time, very snappish and cross, and we had some bad fights. Not about anything, really. He was in such a rotten frame of mind that anything could set him off.”
Shayne smoked for a moment in silence. “Did he ever belong to a union?”
“No, he went to work at the bank just after he got out of the service, and there weren’t any unions there.”
“Do you know the name Harry Plato?”
“The name, but that’s all.”
Shayne flicked his cigarette into the grass. “Or Luke Quinn? He’s an official in the international now, but he used to be head of the Miami local.”
“Luke Quinn?” she said thoughtfully. “A serious-looking man?”
Shayne nodded. “About thirty-five. He wears glasses now, and he looks more like a TV announcer than the popular idea of a labor leader.”
“I think that’s the one. There was some kind of city-wide committee, I think for the Red Cross, with representatives from business and labor and the Kiwanis Club and so on. Father was chairman, and they sometimes met at his house. They divided the city in sections, like a military operation, and Father was very pleased when they raised more money than anybody ever had before.”
“Let’s jump to the present,” Shayne said. “Did your father say anything to you before he went to see Painter?”
“I’m ashamed to say, Mike, that we weren’t on very good terms. I don’t mean we weren’t speaking, but we weren’t speaking very cordially. We’d disagreed bitterly when I wanted to help Norma. The day of his stroke he just called a cab and put on his hat and left. He didn’t even say where he was going.”
Shayne pulled reflectively at his earlobe. “Rose, I know you’ve been thinking about what happened this morning, and I hope you’ve come up with something.”
She shook her head. “I had a long session with Lieutenant Wing, and we both kept thinking of the most far-fetched possibilities. But nothing helped. The name Cole means nothing to me. Baltimore means nothing to me. It’s very creepy, and I’ve been grateful for having a detective looking after me all day, I assure you. But what’s going to happen, Mike?”
“There’s some kind of deadline,” Shayne said. “The obvious one is Sam Harris’s execution, but that’s not enough. The Truckers are electing officers tomorrow, but I can’t see that that means anything. Well, my next stop is the St. Albans, which this week is no place for a lady. I don’t want you to go home. I’ll put you in an out-of-the-way hotel, and you’d better register under a different name.”
She stood up when he did, her face troubled. “Mike, that scares me. I don’t like to be all by myself in a hotel.”
“Wing will assign you another detective if you ask him,” Shayne said. “But bodyguards work both ways. They give you a certain amount of protection, but they also attract attention. It’s safer just to drop out of sight. I’ll make sure that nobody follows us.”
“You know about these things,” she said doubtfully, “but I can promise you I won’t get any sleep. I’ll just look in on Father before we go.”
Shayne’s eyes were bleak as they went up the sloping lawn. He was doing some hard thinking. Somewhere there had to be a link, and he knew that much depended on how fast he could find it. In a city as large as Miami, he could hide Rose where she would be perfectly safe so long as she followed a few simple directions. He was worrying about Peter Painter. Rose had talked to Painter, and a gunman was sent to call on her. Fred Milburn talked to Painter, and he was knifed.
The longer Shayne thought about it, the worse it looked. And yet the only constructive thing he could think of to do about it was to collect Joe Wing and a few cops and walk in on the leadership of the Truckers. And that was only constructive by comparison with other ideas he’d had. He didn’t expect it to get him anywhere. He didn’t know what questions to ask. The Trucker officials weren’t amateurs; they wouldn’t break down at the sight of a badge.
He went inside with Rose. In the front hall she forced a smile and started upstairs. Shayne turned into the waiting room, which had been the living room of the house when it had been a private residence. It was nicely furnished, with comfortable chairs and sofas. Several old people were watching a television program, and in one corner of the room a young doctor was talking to a man and woman, probably relatives of one of his patients. A small adjoining room had been turned into an office, where a young girl was serving a telephone switchboard.
She was saying, “I’m afraid there hasn’t been any change. Mrs. Heminway is here now, if you’d care to speak to her.”
Shayne listened idly, his attention divided between what she was saying and the loud dialogue from the TV screen. She went on, “That’s perfectly all right. I’m just sorry I haven’t any better news.”
Shayne sauntered over to the doorway as she accepted another incoming call. “Sunset Nursing Home, good evening.” She seemed too young to be earning her own living, but girls of that age had a way of looking younger to Shayne each year. She plugged a jack into the board and looked up.