“Where?” Shayne pressed him.
“In New York.”
“I think you should get her back here.”
“I don’t see why. She’s been gone for days and can’t possibly have any knowledge of this affair.”
Shayne shook his head sternly. “I’d be careful about the impression you give Painter. If he gets the idea you don’t want your stepdaughter brought back to testify, he’s likely to get official about it and insist that she return. And even though you do think Chief Painter is an imbecile, I wouldn’t underrate him if I were you. Once he gets an idea, he’s hell on wheels about carrying it through.”
Painter said, “I don’t need any testimonials from you, Shayne. What about your stepdaughter, Henderson? Why don’t you want her to come back?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t. I just don’t see any reason for it at this time.”
“Isn’t the fact that you’re under suspicion of murder reason enough to want your family around you?”
Henderson wet his lips and protested weakly. “You can’t be serious about that, Chief.”
“Suppose you let me decide whether I’m serious or not. You’ve been making a nuisance of yourself demanding police protection from some nebulous danger, though you’ve insisted all the time that you haven’t an enemy in the world.”
“Now wait a minute,” protested Henderson.
“You wait a minute and listen to me.” Painter was warming up now, and he strutted forward two paces, thrusting his pointed chin aggressively in Henderson’s face. “You’re building your whole defense for this killing tonight on the assumption that the dead man came here planning to murder you, yet you want us to believe that no one has a motive for wanting you dead. You can’t have it both ways, Henderson. The police may be stupid, but, by God, we’re not that stupid.”
“I didn’t mean to imply…”
“You may as well understand right now that I’m the one who’ll decide who’s to be questioned and who isn’t. Perhaps I won’t be chief of detectives after next election, but, by God, I am now, and I don’t let anybody tell me how to run my department. Now, this stepdaughter of yours who’s supposed to be in New York. Did you ship her out of the city just to avoid having her questioned?”
“What a preposterous ideal She’s been planning the trip for months.”
“I think I want to talk to her,” grated Painter. “Where can she be reached by telephone?”
“I have no idea.”
“Nonsense. You must have.”
“But I don’t. She’s visiting various friends and I don’t know where she is tonight.”
“Can’t you call some of the friends and find out?” put in Shayne, taking a sadistic pleasure in watching the householder squirm.
“Just what I was going to suggest. Either arrange to contact her at once or I’ll put a call through to New York to have her located and brought back here immediately.”
“On what grounds? I simply don’t understand…”
“There are a lot of things you don’t understand about police work, Henderson,” Painter told him witheringly. “On the grounds that she is an important witness in a homicide and is suspected of fleeing to avoid questioning.”
“But how can she be a witness to something that happened in Miami Beach tonight?”
“A killing that must have roots in your own life. You can’t expect me to believe that a complete stranger just wandered up here to your front door by the purest chance… armed with an automatic pistol which he drew the moment you opened the door. If this was the third attempt on your life, it’s self-evident that you do have an enemy who wants you dead. If you can’t throw any light on that, we’ll have to go to the people closest to you. Your stepdaughter is certainly the most logical person to question on that point.”
“Yes… I begin to see your logic,” Henderson admitted unhappily, not able to refrain from a baleful look at Shayne’s impassive face. “I’ll contact Muriel’s friends in New York, and ask her to return at once.”
“Do that. And if you don’t, I’ll show you that we’re not so stupid and insular here as you think. I want to talk to that girl.”
A detective came hesitantly through the archway and said, “If you got a minute, Chief…”
“I’m through here.” Painter faced Henderson again and told him, “I’m not arresting you… yet. But don’t try to leave town, and get your stepdaughter back here in the morning.” He turned and went away stiffly on hard heels, and Henderson turned to Shayne, mopping perspiration from his face.
“Why did you bring Muriel into this? It was entirely your doing. If you hadn’t mentioned her name, Painter would never have thought of questioning her.”
Shayne said, “Because I’d like to ask her some questions myself, and Painter has the facilities for locating her which I don’t. I didn’t one goddamn bit appreciate the way you tried to use me to pull your chestnuts out of the fire tonight,” he went on harshly.
“You’re not my client and I had no moral obligation to conceal the fact that the letter you showed me this afternoon positively named your stepdaughter as the instigator of the attempts against you. If that dead man on your doorstep was hired by her, she’s the one who’s really responsible for his death. Goddamn it, Henderson,” he went on angrily, “don’t you realize that every bit of dirty linen in a man’s life comes out in a homicide investigation? This thing may look cut and dried to you, but Painter is a stubborn cuss when he gets started and he won’t stop digging until he finds a motive. If your stepdaughter has a secret motive for hating you, you’d better spill it to me right now. I might be able to do something for her if I know the truth before Painter has a chance to dig it out.”
“But I swear as God is my judge that there’s nothing, Shayne. It’s not that I’m afraid to have her questioned, it’s just that the publicity will ruin me politically and socially if such rumors ever get out.”
Shayne said, “This is your last chance to come clean with me before I walk out of here and start doing some digging of my own.”
“But I have nothing more to tell you. I swear that as…”
“I know,” Shayne interrupted with a disgusted snort. “So you’ll have nothing to complain about when God does start judging you.” He turned and stalked out.
13
“Now then, Mike. How does all this tie in?” demanded Timothy Rourke, following the detective as he emerged from the house and circled around to his parked car.
Shayne paused with his hand on the door handle. “All what?”
“I’ve been patient,” said Rourke bitterly. “I’ve been a good boy and refrained from digging into things or asking questions when you asked me not to. But now you’ve got your corpse. It’s time you came clean. Remember me? I’m the guy who started you on this. Handed the whole thing to you on a silver platter.”
“What did you hand me on a silver platter?” Shayne grunted uncompromisingly, opening the door and sliding his rangy frame beneath the wheel.
Rourke moved swiftly to stand against the door and prevent it from closing. “Jane Smith. For God’s sake, Mike! Don’t you know that from that first evening I knew Saul Henderson was in it somehow, and it didn’t take any great deductive powers to figure that Jane Smith was Henderson’s stepdaughter. From that, it was an easy jump for my agile mind to deduce that Henderson was the man she wanted bumped off. But I stayed away from it, Mike, because you asked me to. I trusted you to let me in when the time was right. I got you over here to meet Henderson this afternoon and you slipped off for a private talk with him and never gave me a word of it. But now Henderson has killed a man on his doorstep. You know how it looks from where I stand?”
“How does it look to you?”
“As though that dead man is the substitute killer Jane Smith dug up after you turned her proposition down. If that’s true, you can’t sit on it any longer, Mike. I’m a reporter, goddamit. I’ll have to start working on that lead unless you give me the dope. And if I do it on my own, Peter Painter will be third-degreeing Miss Muriel Graham before you know it.”