“But you didn’t have anything to do with it, did you?” she asked.
He smiled sideways at her. “Do I look like a killer?”
Smiling back, she said, “You look like a lover.”
Gary didn’t stay when they got back to the motel. In case he needed an alibi later, he wanted to be seen as much as possible, while Irma was missing, by people who knew him. He planned to drive to a bar in his own neighborhood where he was well known and stay until the closing hour of two a.m.
Gary didn’t reappear at the motel until the following midnight. Meantime there still had been nothing at all on the news about the kidnapping; very hush-hush.
“Get your wig and glasses on and let’s go,” he said as soon as he was inside.
“Is it over?” she asked.
“Uh-huh. There’s a hundred grand in a suitcase in the trunk of my car.”
As she donned her disguise, she asked. “What about all the food left here?”
“I’ll clear it out tomorrow,” he said. “Rent’s paid until the end of the week. Hurry it up.”
When they were in the car, he headed south.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I’m going to take you to Long Beach.”
“Oh? Why so far? I thought you were just going to turn me loose somewhere in L.A. I’m not supposed to know where I was held anyway, being blindfolded all the time.”
“Slight change in plans,” he said.
They drove in silence for a time. Presently she asked, “Any trouble about the pickup?”
“Not a bit. Matter of fact, I was able to simplify the original pickup plan considerably.”
“Oh? How?”
“I’ll tell you when we get where we’re going,” he said. “Right now I want to think about all the lovely money in the trunk.”
It was nearly one a.m. when he parked the car at a deserted stretch of shore in Long Beach.
“Why such an isolated spot?” she asked.
“Why not?” he asked. “Come on, let’s walk down to look at the water.”
He sounded as though he had romance in mind. The timing surprised her, but she was enough in love to be always willing. Agreeably she climbed from the car. It was a warm, pleasant night with a moonless but clear sky studded brightly with stars.
She took his hand as they strolled toward the water. “You were going to tell me how you simplified the pickup plan,” she said.
“Oh, yeah. When I phoned your husband this morning, he threw me a curve. He said, ‘I was hoping you would phone instead of write. I am in my private office alone, and no one is listening in. How would you like to make two hundred thousand instead of just one?’ When I asked how, he reeled off a telephone number and asked me to call it at seven this evening. ‘The phone won’t be tapped and we can talk safely,’ he said. ‘I don’t like this one because this call is going through a switch-board.’ I said okay, I’d call him at the number he gave me. When I hung up, I called information, said I was a cop and asked the name of the subscriber for that number. Turned out to be Marie Sloan.”
“My husband’s secretary?” Irma said in surprise.
“Uh-huh. That, plus the offer of an extra hundred grand, gave me a couple of clues to the puzzle. So I really wasn’t very surprised when I phoned him at seven and heard his proposition. I guess he’s decided to marry another of his secretaries. The extra hundred grand was to kill you.”
They had reached the water’s edge. They stopped and she turned to stare at him in the darkness.
“It’s foolproof from his point of view,” Cary said. “The cops listened in on our call from that phone booth, so there’s no question in their minds about it being an actual kidnapping. Kidnappers quite often kill their victims after collecting the ransom.”
“Why, that beast!” Irma said indignantly. “And to think I refused even to talk about killing that—”
“Yeah. Tactical error on your part. After his proposition, there wasn’t much point in going through all the rigmarole I’d planned for the payoff. I just had him leave it in an alley while I watched from across the street. I wasn’t afraid he’d try to set a trap, but I still didn’t want him to see me. The second pickup will be made just as simply.”
“The second one?” she said, her eyes widening. She withdrew her hand from his.
“Sure. He’ll pay it. He wouldn’t want to risk an anonymous note to the cops from the kidnapper explaining who suggested the killing, and I’ve already told him that’s what will happen if he tries to get out of paying the second hundred grand.”
Her eyes grew wider and wider. Even in the darkness she could see his expression. This time she would have had to give a different answer to the question he had asked her twice. She had never before seen anyone who looked more like a killer.
Guardian of the Hearth
Originally published in Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, December 1979.
It was exactly three p.m. when the door chimes sounded, because the oven timer bell went off at the same moment. Coco Joe, as usual, made a beeline for the front door, barking his head off. Josephine was considerably longer getting there. She first shut off the oven, lifted the cookies from the oven with a pot holder, set them on top of the stove and hung up the pot holder. At sixty-five she was still slim and trim, but she no longer hurried.
The Pomeranian was still barking furiously when Josephine finally got to the door, indicating that the caller had not given up and gone away. Josephine said, “Hush! It’s only the lady from the doggie parlor, come to get you for your bath and trim.”
But it wasn’t, she saw when she peeped through the viewing hole. It was a man in a blue serge suit. She scooped up the little dog in her arms before opening the door.
Coco Joe, as always when a man came to the door, went into an absolute fit. Growling and snarling, he did his best to struggle from his mistress’s arms and fling himself at the intruder’s throat.
The man stood there examining the dog warily as Josephine repeatedly but lightly slapped his muzzle and said. “Stop it! He’s a nice man. Stop it now!”
When Coco Joe finally stopped struggling, and his performance tapered off to mere low, threatening growls, Josephine said. “I’m sorry. He thinks he’s a mastiff.”
The visitor, a stocky man of about forty, gave her a pleasant smile. Producing a wallet, he displayed a police badge pinned inside of it.
“Sergeant Dennis Cord, ma’am. Are you Miss Henry?”
“Yes.”
“May I have a few words with you?”
“Certain—” Josephine started to say, then Coco Joe suddenly went into another frenzy when he detected the presence of another man alongside the door.
The second man loomed into view, smiling apologetically. He was young, large, blond, and wore a blue police uniform.
When Josephine had quieted the dog for a second time, Sergeant Cord introduced the uniformed man as Officer Harry Dewey. He told Dewey to wait outside and stepped into the apartment with Josephine.
His entrance into the apartment brought on another display of ferocity from Coco Joe. Again Josephine had to slap his muzzle and say, “Stop it! He’s a friend. Be nice, now!”
When for a third time the dog’s performance had finally tapered off to occasional low-throated growls, Josephine said, “He’ll be all right in a minute. He doesn’t bite anyway. He just puts on a fierce show.”
Kneeling, she held the Pomeranian so that he could sniff the sergeant’s shoes. “Make friends now,” she ordered. “He’s a nice man.”