“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ralph stood in the center of the neat room looking about dazedly. “Where’s Dottie? What… where is she?” His voice rose shrilly in sudden panic.
“Suppose you tell us.”
“But I don’t know. I…” He turned and went to the bedroom door and peered inside at the disarray there, shaking his head in dismay. “Dottie was always so neat,” he faltered. “She wouldn’t have…” He turned to Griggs with his face working. “Where is she? What’s happened to Dottie?”
“Take a look in the bathroom,” said Griggs grimly, stalking up to him with out-thrust jaw. “Then you might try telling us the truth about what happened here tonight. Go on and look.” He turned the hesitant young man about and shoved him angrily toward the open bathroom door.
Ralph Larson shambled past the bed and the bureau with its gaping drawers, and looked inside the bathroom. He turned back, his young face white and drawn, his fists clenched tightly by his side.
“Blood all over. Is it Dot’s blood? What’s going on here?”
“Did you kill her first?” demanded Griggs savagely. “And then go back to kill her lover? Where’s her body? What did you do with her?”
“I didn’t do it. I loved her. That’s why I killed Ames. She was here when I went out. She tried to stop me and I remember pushing her. But I didn’t hurt her. I wouldn’t hurt her. I loved her. Don’t you understand that?”
“Yeh,” said Griggs disgustedly. “You loved her so much you couldn’t stand the thought of her getting into bed with another man. Come on! Tell us the truth. What have you got to lose? You’ve already got one murder rap around your neck. They can only put you in the chair once. Get it out of your system. It’ll do you good. You made a clean job of it and killed them both because she was two-timing you.”
“I didn’t,” Ralph cried thinly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why don’t you do something, damn you? Don’t just stand there. Get busy and find Dottie.”
Sergeant Griggs shrugged and turned back from the bedroom door to Shayne and Rourke who were silent onlookers. “This is the kind I have to get,” he complained morosely. “You, Mike. Can you swear it was the Larson woman who called to send you out to Ames’ house?”
“There’s no way I can swear to it. She was hysterical and practically screaming at me over the phone. She seemed to know me and about the talk I had with Mrs. Larson this evening. She called him ‘Ralph’ and she wailed that she didn’t want him arrested when I told her she should call the cops. She certainly sounded like a distraught wife trying to head her husband off from committing a murder.”
Sergeant Griggs nodded absently. “She probably just got scared and took a run-out powder,” he muttered unconvincingly.
Timothy Rourke grinned at him. “After cutting her wrists and bleeding all over the bathroom?”
“How do you know she cut her wrists? How do we even know that’s her blood? Maybe she had a nosebleed. Let’s don’t jump to conclusions around here. After my boys give the place the onceover we’ll know more about what went on here. I guess I don’t need you two any more,” he went on flatly. “Why don’t you beat it? I’ve got work to do.”
“Sure,” said Rourke easily. “You get on with your knitting, Sergeant. Mike and I’ll go get some shut-eye like you suggested awhile ago. How about it, Mike?”
Shayne nodded and edged toward the open door into the hallway. He saw, now, that the opposite door was open about a foot, and he sensed that May was standing behind the partly opened door listening. He stepped out and waited for Rourke to follow him, with his hand on the knob to close the door behind the reporter and with the thought that it might be worthwhile talking to May without interference from the sergeant.
But evidently May had been watching as well as listening, and waiting for him to appear, because her door swung open before Rourke reached the hall, and she swayed forward drunkenly almost into Shayne’s arms so he had to catch her to keep her from falling headlong.
She was still barefooted, but she had changed from her former costume into a tightly-belted, pink, quilted robe with a frayed hem that struck her sturdy legs just below the knees. She was quite drunk and her well-fleshed body was heavily lax in his arms as he held her upright. Her eyes were round and unfocussed and she was smiling vaguely and she clung to him and said, “Hiya, Red, honey?” and hiccoughed loudly, and then she drew herself back with dignity and pushed him away from her, and demanded in a huskily fuzzy voice, “Whatcha doin’ in there, huh? I thought you was comin’ back to see me, Red. Wha’ she got that I haven’t got, huh?” She stood with arms akimbo and ducked her head coyly and rolled her unfocussed eyes at him.
Rourke stood aside watching with a grin on his lean face, and Sergeant Griggs thrust his square jaw out the door and demanded of Shayne, “Friend of yours, Mike? You didn’t tell me…”
Shayne said grimly, “May and I are old friends and I didn’t know I was under any obligation to reveal such intimate details to you, Sergeant.”
He put his arm gently about May and patted her shoulder beneath the quilted robe. “Where is Dottie?” he asked her quietly. “Have you seen her since I was here?”
She blinked her eyes a couple of times and then closed them tightly and leaned against him. “Haven’ seen her,” she said in a faraway voice. “Been waitin’ for you, Red. Beltin’ down a few an’ waitin’ for you.” She snuggled up against him and slowly clasped her arms about his neck, keeping her eyes closed and turning her face up to his with full lips avidly parted. “Send ’em away, huh?” she murmured drowsily. “You take me in an’ put me to bed, huh, Red? Tuck me in good?” She pulled his head down with surprising strength, and pushed her mouth up against his, and Sergeant Griggs snorted obscenely behind them and closed the door firmly to shut out the maudlin scene.
Shayne lifted his head from her lips and grinned past her at Rourke and said gruffly, “Help me get her inside, Tim. She’s out on her feet and she’s a pretty good hunk of woman.”
Rourke came up on the side of her and helped support her sagging weight, and they half-dragged her inside and through the comfortably littered sitting room to the still unmade double bed beyond, where they got her decently stretched out and she immediately rolled over on her side and buried her face in the pillow and began snoring gently.
They went out together and closed the outer door behind them just in time to witness the arrival of Griggs’ Homicide experts for the second time that evening.
They went past them down the stairs to Shayne’s car, and got in and he said, “I’ll drive you around to the office, Tim. Got time for a drink first?”
Rourke looked at his watch and grunted his satisfaction. “Time for half a dozen. I want to check with Griggs again and maybe have another talk with Ralph before I write my story.”
9
Michael Shayne stopped in front of a small bar around the corner from the newspaper office where he often met Rourke for a drink, and they went inside together, past a line of men at the bar and with a greeting for the bartender, and back to an unoccupied booth near the rear.
A waiter came also immediately with drinks which the bartender had automatically started making as soon as they walked in, a tall, very brownish bourbon and water for the reporter, and a brimming shot-glass of cognac for Shayne with a tall glass of ice water on the side.
Shayne nodded and said absently to the waiter, “Keep them coming, pal. As fast as we get low.” He took a cigarette out of a crumpled pack from his shirt pocket, lit it reflectively and let twin spirals of thin gray smoke trail from his nostrils. “What do you make of it, Tim?”
“I don’t.” The gangling reporter took a long slow drink, lowering the contents of his glass halfway. “I don’t get that picture in the apartment at all, Mike. Where could Dorothy Larson be? Suppose she did take out after Ralph after phoning you, with some crazy idea of trying to stop him?”