Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 111, No. 1. Whole No. 677, January 1998

The Wireless Bluff by L. J. Washburn

©1997 by L. J. Washburn

L. J. Washburn’s sleuth Lucas Hallam debuted a decade ago in a story for a Private Eye Writers of America anthology. Since then be has brought his author several honors, including a Shamus Award for best novel. The last Hallam story EQMM published (“Double Take” 12/95) was selected for The Years 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories.

Hallam hadn’t been to Fort Worth since the late twenties. A lot had changed in a decade and a half. Back then, even though Fort Worth had already grown into a city, a man could look at the place and see the frontier town it had once been. Now those vestiges of an earlier time were pretty much gone, replaced by structures of glass and steel that speared toward the sky and almost made Hallam feel like he was back in L.A.

Beside him, his daughter Beth let out a surprised whistle. “You didn’t tell me Fort Worth was this big, Lucas,” she said.

“Didn’t know it was,” Hallam replied as he picked up their suitcases and started through the lobby of the train station. The redheaded twelve-year-old hurried along beside him, carrying a smaller bag. Her coltish legs enabled her to keep up with her father’s long strides.

Hallam knew he looked more like Beth’s grandfather than her daddy. The shaggy hair that poked out from under his fedora was gray, as was the drooping moustache. His face was seamed by sun and wind and burned to the color of old saddle leather. Beth had been born late in his life, too late for any sensible fella to be having a kid, but Hallam had always been one to play the hand he was dealt. Besides, he was still in pretty good shape for his age, and he didn’t dwell on the fact that he was already grown when the centuries changed. A careful man kept an eye on his back trail, Hallam’s own daddy had been fond of saying, but a wise man watched where he was going, too.

“Lucas! There you are!”

The woman’s voice made Hallam stop and look around. Coming toward them was a handsome, white-haired woman in her late sixties. The family resemblance was strong, which was bad luck for his sister, Hallam thought. He put his arms around her, hugged her, and said, “Howdy, Sarah.”

She kissed him on the cheek, then turned to the girl. “This can’t be Beth! She’s gotten so big.”

Beth turned her eyes toward the floor and looked uncomfortable. Hallam said, “Say howdy to your Aunt Sarah, Beth.”

“Howdy,” Beth mumbled.

Sarah hugged her, adding to Beth’s discomfort, then she turned back to Hallam and said, “I can’t thank you enough for coming, Lucas. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t. When the police came and arrested Johnny, I just... just...”

Beth looked up sharply, and Hallam winced. As far as Beth knew, they had come to Fort Worth simply to visit relatives and see some of Hallam’s old stomping grounds.

He hadn’t said anything about murder.

Now the cat was most of the way out of the bag, so Hallam patted his sister on the shoulder and said, “Don’t you worry, Sarah. We’ll get this mess all sorted out.”

“Johnny didn’t kill that man. He swore to me that he didn’t, and he wouldn’t lie.”

“Of course he didn’t kill nobody.” Hallam glanced at Beth, saw the interest shining in her eyes. “You take Beth on home with you, and I’ll take a pasear up to the jail to see him.”

“I want to go with you, Lucas,” Beth said eagerly, just as he had known she would.

“Not this time,” Hallam told her. He was going to make it stick, too.

Beth looked up at the Tarrant County Courthouse, impressive in its dark granite and marble majesty, and said, “Is this the jail?”

“Next door,” Hallam said. “Stay in the car with your aunt.”

He hadn’t been able to talk Beth into going home with Sarah, but they had reached a compromise. Sarah had driven them in her car from the south end of downtown, where the depot was located, to the north end, where Hallam now stood in front of the courthouse.

“I want to go with you and meet my cousin Johnny,” Beth said from the backseat of Sarah’s Ford roadster.

“A jail ain’t no place for a little girl, and Johnny’s got a lot on his mind right now.” Like being charged with murder, Hallam added to himself.

“I’m not a little girl anymore,” Beth protested.

Hallam grunted. “Don’t remind me.”

Without giving her a chance to argue anymore, he swung away from the car and strode toward the building next to the courthouse that housed the Tarrant County sheriff’s department and lockup. Kenneth Ward’s body had been found outside the city limits, in the northwest part of the county near Eagle Mountain Lake. So it had been sheriff’s deputies who had arrested Johnny Reeves.

“You got my nephew in here,” Hallam said to the deputy on duty at the desk in the jail. “I’d like to see him.”

The deputy was a young man with slicked-down hair parted in the middle, and his voice was even more of a drawl than Hallam’s as he asked, “And who might that be, old-timer?”

Hallam’s eyes narrowed at being called an old-timer, but that was exactly what he was, he reminded himself. Reining in his temper, he said, “Johnny Reeves. My name’s Lucas Hallam.”

“Lemme check.” The deputy looked at a list on his desk. “Yeah, Reeves’s mama said you’d be stoppin’ by.” He leaned forward as he noted something else on the paperwork. “Say, what’s this? You a real private eye, mister?”

“Licensed in California,” Hallam said. “Here in Texas I’m just a citizen.”

“You know Dan Turner? Lordy, I like to read about them adventures he gets into.” The deputy’s face creased in a grin. “It sure is funny the way all them gals seem to lose their clothes whenever Dan Turner’s around. That’s a mighty neat trick. You ever run into him out there in Hollywood?”

Hallam hesitated, unsure whether to explain to the deputy about how all those yarns in the pulp magazines were just made-up stories. Not wanting to disillusion the man, he said, “Nope, never have run into ol’ Dan.”

“Well, if you do, tell him Burt from Fort Worth says howdy.” The deputy snapped his fingers and stood up. “Oh yeah, you wanted to see one of the prisoners. Come on.”

Three minutes later, a jailer ushered Hallam into a cell and clanged the door shut behind him. Hallam frowned. He never had liked that sound, no matter which side of the bars he might be on.

The man in the cell sat on the bunk, smoking a cigarette. He was in his forties and seemed small, especially next to the tall, broad-shouldered Hallam. Johnny Reeves had gotten that from his father, Hallam supposed. Ben Reeves hadn’t been a big man, but he had treated Sarah decent. That was all Hallam could ask for in a brother-in-law. Ben had been gone for quite a few years now, ten or twelve at least.

“Uncle Lucas?” Johnny asked as he looked up at Hallam. He got to his feet, dropped the smoke onto the floor and stepped on it, held out his hand. “Good to see you again.” He smiled sheepishly. “I just wish it wasn’t under these circumstances.”

Hallam shook hands with his nephew and said, “You and me both, Johnny. This has been mighty hard on your mama. She tells me you didn’t kill that fella.”

Johnny blinked. “Well, of course I didn’t. You believe me, don’t you, Uncle Lucas?”

“I don’t know you well enough to say either way,” Hallam said bluntly. “You’re blood kin, so I want to believe you didn’t. But you’d best sit down and tell me about it.”

“Sure. Sure.” Johnny passed a hand over his face. “Pull up that stool.”

There was a three-legged stool in a corner of the cell. Hallam hooked it with a toe. He sat down as Johnny sank back onto the bunk.

Johnny took a deep breath before he began. He was pale, and Hallam could tell how shaky he was under the surface calm. Johnny had been named after his grandfather, but he didn’t have the strength of old John Hallam.

“You know about the radio station,” Johnny finally said.

Hallam nodded. “Know you used to own one, till you got fleeced out of it.”

“It was a swindle, all right,” Johnny said with some heat. “Nothing but a damned swindle. Ward offered to let me in on one of his cattle deals, but I had to put up the station as my part of the investment. Then it all went sour, and I lost the station. I didn’t find out until later that the company that took it over was owned by Ward, too. He was buying and selling cattle to himself and defaulting on his own agreements with himself. He was a sneaky son of a—”

“There’s always been wheeler-dealers in the cattle business,” Hallam said. “You got to watch out for sharpers, no matter what you’re doin’.”

“Yeah. You’d think I’d know that, as old as I am.”

Silently, Hallam agreed, but he didn’t say anything. Johnny had always been a little gullible, but he’d done all right for himself, getting in on the ground floor of the radio industry and building a profitable operation here in Fort Worth, at least to hear his mama tell it. Then he’d run into Kenneth Ward and tried to get too rich, too fast. That was the trail to ruination most of the time, Hallam thought, and it sure had been in this case.

“Anyway, Ward turned around and sold the station to somebody else while I was still trying to straighten everything out,” Johnny went on. “Shoot, I’d have gone into debt and bought it back from the new fella, only he’s not interested in selling. I offered to work for him and manage the operation, but he didn’t want that, either. I was out in the cold, after all I’d done to make that station what it is.”

“That’s mighty rough,” Hallam said. “What’d you do?” He knew from talking to Sarah when she had called him in L.A. what the official version of the story was, but he wanted to hear Johnny tell it.

“I was so mad I figured that if I couldn’t do anything else, at least I could take some satisfaction out of whipping Ward,” Johnny said. “I tracked him down to the Four Treys, that gambling club out on the Jacksboro Highway, and braced him there. We’d’ve had it out right there, but Buckston — that’s the boss of the joint — had his boys toss us out. Ward got in his car and left, and so did I. That’s the last I saw of him.”

“And later that night some fellas fishin’ in the Trinity below the Eagle Mountain Lake spillway found his body with a couple of forty-five-caliber slugs in the back,” Hallam finished.

Johnny shook his head. “The cops think I followed him and shot him, but I didn’t do it, Uncle Lucas. I swear I didn’t.”

Blood kin or not, the vow had the ring of truth to it. Hallam put his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll poke around a mite,” he said.

Johnny stood up and grabbed his hand again, pumping it. “Thanks, Uncle Lucas. I know you’ll find out who really killed Ward. I’ve read all about those big murder cases you’ve cracked out in Hollywood.”

“Don’t believe all you read,” Hallam warned him.

Sarah Reeves drove out Camp Bowie Boulevard, named after the military base that had been located west of Fort Worth back during the World War. The First World War, Hallam corrected himself as he thought about where they were headed. The big ruckus going on in Europe and the Pacific right now sure qualified as the second one. Hallam gave a little shake of his head. The War to End Wars... shoot, he could have told anybody who’d listen that it wouldn’t work out that way.

This part of town wasn’t open countryside anymore. Houses and businesses covered most of it, even well beyond the Trinity River. Sarah lived out here, in a neat little frame house a couple of blocks north of the brick-paved boulevard.

As shook up as she was about her son being in jail, she was still happy to have relatives visiting, Hallam knew. She fussed over him and Beth, fixing supper for them and making sure they were settled in their rooms. After they had eaten, Beth sat down cross-legged on the floor in the living room, in front of the big cathedral radio, and turned the dials until she found what she wanted. She leaned forward and listened avidly to I Love a Mystery. She always claimed she could figure out the stories before the characters in them did, and Hallam had to admit that most of the time she was right.

While Beth was busy, Hallam stepped into the kitchen and picked up a dish towel to dry the dishes his sister was washing. He said, “If it’s all right with you, I reckon I’ll borrow your car for a while tonight.”

“Did Johnny tell you anything?” Sarah asked, keeping her voice low.

“Only what he’d already told you — and the cops. He argued with Ward, all right, but then Ward drove off and Johnny didn’t follow him.”

“The police are convinced he did.”

“Well, we’ll just have to un-convince ’em.”

“Of course you can use the car, Lucas. Anything you want. Anything that will help Johnny.”

“I can’t promise I’ll do the boy a bit of good,” Hallam said. “But I’ll sure try.”

Sarah took the dish towel out of his hands. “I’ll do that. You go clear my son’s name.”

Hallam snagged the car keys from the hook beside the back door, put on his fedora, and slipped out of the house. Beth might be annoyed with him for leaving that way without saying goodbye, but he didn’t want to waste any more time arguing with her.

Where he was going tonight was no place for a youngster.

The sign by the road was an oval that said simply “3333.” That was the street number of the big, sprawling white house at the top of the hill overlooking the Jacksboro Highway. Everybody in town knew it as the Four Treys. Hallam wheeled the roadster into the driveway of the place and found a place to park in the gravel lot, which was pretty crowded. The gambling club was doing good business. Hallam heard music and laughter before he ever got inside. Some of the windows were open on this warm summer night.

The shoulders of the man standing at the door strained the fabric of the tuxedo he wore. “Lookin’ for somebody, Pop?” he asked. His accent told Hallam he was either a Yankee or a Dallasite, which was about the same thing.

“Like a word with Mr. Buckston,” Hallam said pleasantly.

“This is a gambling club, not a conversation parlor,” the doorman said.

“So I’ve heard, but I don’t care to gamble. Rather talk.”

“Is that so? Beat it, Pop.”

“I can see you like to gamble,” Hallam said, still sounding mild.

The doorman frowned. “Whattaya mean?”

“You’re bettin’ that a big young fella like yourself s got nothin’ to fear from a feeble old coot like me. You’re bettin’ against the fact that even on my worst day, I could take a dozen punks like you ’fore breakfast.”

The doorman’s face hardened, and his hands clenched into fists. “You old bas—”

“And you’re bettin’ I won’t haul out the hogleg I’ve got under this coat and put a couple of slugs right through you.” Hallam moved his hand enough to make the threat seem real.

The doorman hesitated, and Hallam knew what he was thinking. The fella was trying to decide if Hallam was crazy enough to pull a gun and start blasting.

He was saved from having to make that decision by a voice that called out, “Hello, Lucas! When did you get back in town?”

The rugged-looking, white-haired man who strolled up had an air about him that said he ran the place. The doorman gestured at Hallam and asked incredulously, “You know this old gink, Mr. Buckston?”

“Sure I do.” The owner of the gambling club grinned. “Come on in, Lucas. I’ll buy you a drink.”

Hallam started into the building with Dave Buckston, but he glanced back and said to the doorman, “The answer, son, is— Yep, I sure am.”

The club had been built as a private residence, and it still served as that for Buckston and his family. The owner led Hallam to a bar and got a cold beer from the bartender for him. Hallam took a swallow, then said, “I reckon you probably know why I’m here.”

Buckston nodded. The music coming from one of the other rooms, the excited talk, the laughter, the click of chips and the shuffle of cards and the rattle of the roulette wheel all blended into a background melody that was unlike anything else in the world. Over that sound, Buckston said, “You came to see about that nephew of yours.”

“He says he didn’t kill Ward.”

Buckston shrugged. “Most murderers say they didn’t do it.”

“I believe Johnny. From what I hear, this fella Ward played pretty fast and loose most of the time. Sounds to me like there might’ve been somebody else who wanted him dead.”

“I suppose Ward had other enemies,” Buckston admitted. “But he played it straight here and paid up when he lost. That made him a good customer as far as I was concerned.”

“But you might’ve heard something, Dave...”

Buckston hesitated, then said with a frown, “You might look up a girl named Raeann Jordan. Society girl here in town. Father’s got a lot of oil and gas money. I heard she and Ward had some kind of blowup.”

“Trouble over business?”

Buckston gave a short bark of laughter. “Monkey business, I’d say.”

“Thanks, Dave.” Hallam drained the rest of the beer. “For the drink and for the information.”

“Glad to help, Lucas. Don’t get your hopes up. Could be Johnny Reeves really did kill Ward.”

Hallam nodded curtly. Maybe Buckston was right — but Hallam didn’t want to think about that just yet.

He would look up Raeann Jordan tomorrow, Hallam decided as he drove away from the Four Treys. The train trip from L.A. had been tiring, and he knew his thinking might be clearer if he got a good night’s sleep. On the way back to Sarah’s house, he turned on the radio in the Ford and found it set to the station that Johnny had owned before Kenneth Ward had swindled him out of it. Curious, Hallam listened for a few minutes. There was a program of dance music on, nothing out of the ordinary. When the number ended, an announcer came on and read the news, which these days consisted mainly of troop movements and bombardments and such-like. Hallam sighed. There were a lot of American boys overseas now, and way too many of them would never be coming home.

The announcer wrapped up the break by saying excitedly, “And tonight’s special numbers are... 17, 39, 54, 66, 77, and 93. Keep track of those numbers, folks, and win big money!”

Hallam snorted. Radio contests were just a bunch of hoopla as far as he was concerned. Real people never won anything at them.

“And now back to our evening of music from the Casino Beach Ballroom,” the announcer concluded, and the lush strains of a big band came over the airwaves again.

So far it hadn’t been much of a homecoming, Hallam thought.

But he was just getting started.

Hallam figured that Raeann Jordan, being a society gal from a rich family, was probably the type who liked to sleep late. Wanting to be polite about things — at least for the time being — he decided to make another stop the next morning before he looked her up. He headed for the radio station that had once belonged to his nephew.

He had company this time. Beth had been adamant. She loved the radio, and she was going to see what a real radio station looked like.

“I’ve been to some of the stations in L.A.,” Hallam told her as he drove back toward downtown. The station was located on Seventh Street, not far from the river. “They’re nothing special. Just buildings with a bunch of machines in them.”

“I don’t care,” Beth said from the roadster’s passenger seat. “I want to see it for myself.”

That was just like her, Hallam thought. She was curious about nearly everything.

“Back when radio was just gettin’ started,” he said, “we called it wireless. Folks were used to bein’ able to talk over telephone wires, but to be able to turn a switch on a box and hear voices and music comin’ out of thin air... well, it was something, let me tell you.”

“Golly, I don’t know what I’d do without radio,” Beth said, shaking her head. “It just wouldn’t be the same without the Shadow, and Fibber McGee and Molly, and the Great Gildersleeve, and the Lone Ranger—”

“You could always read books,” Hallam cut in, knowing that if he didn’t stop her, she’d likely go on naming her favorite programs for several minutes.

“It’s not the same.”

Hallam didn’t argue the point. He had given in and allowed Beth to come with him this morning on the condition that she would go with her Aunt Sarah to the zoo this afternoon, while Hallam kept on tending to the business that had brought them here. Beth was still a little mad about not being told the real reason for their visit until they had gotten to Fort Worth.

The radio station was a red-brick building perched on the edge of a bluff overlooking the Trinity River. The ground floor faced Seventh Street, but there was a lower floor built on the side of the bluff. Hallam parked in the small lot and took Beth inside.

A young receptionist with a hairstyle patterned after the Andrews Sisters took them to an office in the rear of the building after speaking on the phone for a moment. Their route led them along a hallway, and on both sides of the corridor were large windows. Through the glass, Hallam and Beth could see the equipment that kept the station on the air and sent its signal out to the world. Hallam had never seen so many dials and gauges and glowing lights. There were also several studios with big microphones on floor stands. Beth stared at them, wide-eyed with awe. When they reached the window that looked into a studio where an announcer was reading the farm and ranch report, Hallam had to practically drag Beth away. A small red light was burning over the door into the studio, reminding Hallam of the movie sets in Hollywood, where a red light also indicated that something important was going on inside.

A tall, slender man with a shock of fair hair was waiting for them in the office. He stood up, extended his hand across a paper-cluttered desk, and said, “Mr. Hallam? I’m William Gruber, the owner and general manager.” His voice had a faint accent.

Hallam shook hands with the man and said, “This is my daughter Beth.”

“Hello, Beth,” Gruber said with a smile. “Are you interested in radio?”

“You bet,” Beth replied. “I mean, yes, sir, I am.”

“Janice,” Gruber said to the receptionist, “why don’t you give Beth a tour of the station?”

“All right, Mr. Gruber,” the young woman said with a nod.

Beth looked at Hallam. “Can I, Lucas?”

“Go ahead,” he told her. The discussion he planned to have with Gruber wasn’t really meant for the ears of a little girl anyway.

When Beth and the receptionist had left, Hallam said, “I understand you bought this station from Kenneth Ward.”

“That is correct,” Gruber said in precise tones. “And Ward took it over from your nephew, John Reeves, after a failed business arrangement between them.”

Hallam frowned. “How’d you know I’m Johnny’s uncle?”

“I make it a point to know the things that may affect my business. In this case, after you called this morning and requested an appointment to see me, I took the liberty of phoning an acquaintance at the Star-Telegram. He told me quite a bit about you, Mr. Hallam. There was a time when you were something of a celebrity in this town.”

“A long time ago,” Hallam said.

Gruber shrugged slightly and made a gesture with a well-manicured hand. “I assume you have come to Fort Worth because of the trouble your nephew is in.”

“That’s right. He didn’t kill Ward. But I’m going to find out who did.”

“An admirable goal,” Gruber said. “I wish you luck. But I don’t know how I can help you. I didn’t know Ward well, and I never even met John Reeves.”

“How did you come to buy this station from Ward?” Hallam asked bluntly.

“I had been looking for an investment opportunity in the communications field. Ward initially approached one of the companies that owns several other stations in this area, intending to sell to it. However, that company is not in the market for any more stations at the moment, so the man with whom Ward spoke — who is an acquaintance of mine — suggested that he talk to me instead.” Again Gruber gave his elegant little shrug. “A fortuitous meeting for all involved. Ward made a tidy profit on the sale. Of course, it didn’t save his life later.”

“Money won’t stop a forty-five slug,” Hallam said. “You know anybody else who might’ve wanted Ward dead?”

“I know of no one at all. My dealings with him were brief and strictly business. I’m told, however, that he was something of a shady character. I’m certain that if you continue digging, you will find what you need to know. I wish you luck.”

Gruber stood, indicating that the conversation was over. Hallam got to his feet as well, but before leaving the office, he said, “There’s one more thing I’d like to know, but I don’t want to insult you, Mr. Gruber.”

“Go ahead and ask your question, whatever it may be, Mr. Hallam. I assure you I will not be insulted.”

“All right,” Hallam said. “With everything that’s goin’ on in Europe right now, this ain’t a very good time to have a German name. Has it affected your business?”

“It might if I allowed my connection with the station to become common knowledge. But the owner of record is my corporation, Paragon Communications, and William Gruber is only a stockholder.”

“You’re hidin’ behind a phony name, then?”

Gruber’s mouth tightened a little. “I would not say hiding, Mr. Hallam. Merely being circumspect. My involvement with the company is a matter of public record, if anyone cares to delve into it.”

Hallam nodded. “All right. Like I said, I didn’t mean no offense. One of my best pals out in Hollywood is a fella named Charlie Gebhardt. You probably know him as Buck Jones.”

Gruber raised an eyebrow in surprise as Hallam left the office.

Hallam found Beth and the receptionist in one of the studios. Beth was pretending to be an announcer and talking into one of the big microphones. She grinned at Hallam and said, “Look, Lucas, I’m on the radio.”

“Sure you are, honey. You ready to go?”

“I guess,” Beth said reluctantly. She turned to the receptionist. “Bye, Janice.”

When they were in the car again, Beth turned to Hallam and said solemnly, “Did you know that fella Mr. Gruber is a Nazi spy?” Hallam frowned and looked at her in surprise. “What in blazes makes you think that?”

“Well, he’s a German, isn’t he? He looks like Conrad Veidt. He’s one of those Fifth Columnists, and he’s sending out coded messages to other Nazi spies. I heard them on the radio last night.”

“You’re talkin’ about that contest,” Hallam said as understanding dawned. “Those special numbers folks’re supposed to remember.”

“Code,” Beth said smugly. “I’m going to keep listening, and I’ll figure out what they’re up to. I’ll bet they’re planning some sort of sabotage.”

“Maybe so,” Hallam said, trying not to chuckle. William Gruber had struck him as a pretty cold-blooded businessman, but a Nazi spy? Hallam didn’t think so.

He dropped Beth off at Sarah’s house, over the girl’s objections. Beth would keep her part of the bargain, and Hallam would go see Raeann Jordan, who according to Dave Buckston had been the murdered man’s girlfriend.

The girl’s family lived not far from Colonial Country Club, which sprawled along the Trinity southwest of downtown Fort Worth. It was a neighborhood of huge houses with big lawns and tall shade trees. Hallam found the one he was looking for and drove up a circular driveway to park Sarah’s roadster under a fancy porte-cochere.

A woman in a maid’s uniform answered Hallam’s knock on the mahogany front door. He tugged his fedora off and said, “I’d like to see Miss Raeann Jordan if I might, ma’am.”

The maid frowned. “Do you have an appointment with Miss Raeann?”

“No, ma’am, I don’t, but I was hoping she’d give me a few minutes of her time. My name’s Lucas Hallam, and I’d like to speak to her about a fella named Kenneth Ward.”

From the look in her eyes, the maid recognized Ward’s name, all right. She also didn’t look as if she thought letting Hallam into the house would be a good idea. But then a man’s voice asked from somewhere behind her, “Who is it, Alice?”

“Some old gentleman who wants to see Miss Raeann, sir,” the maid said over her shoulder.

She stepped back and opened the door wider as a thick-bodied man with graying hair, a neatly trimmed moustache, and glasses came up to the entrance. He was wearing a sweater and carried a newspaper in one hand. “I’m Alvin Jordan,” he said to Hallam. “Perhaps I can help you. Raeann is my daughter.”

“Maybe so,” Hallam said. “I want to ask Miss Jordan a few questions about Kenneth Ward.”

Jordan’s face, barely affable to start with, lost any hint of hospitality as it hardened into a mask. “My daughter has nothing to say about that man or his death. The police have already questioned her, and she told them everything she knew about Ward, which was absolutely nothing. Now, if there’s nothing else—” Jordan reached for the door, obviously intending to shut it in Hallam’s face.

“Now, Daddy, you know that’s not true.”

Hallam looked past Jordan and saw a young woman coming down a curving staircase. She wore a simple dress but managed somehow to make it look like an elegant gown. Her hair was such a pale blond that it was almost silver.

“I’m dealing with this, Raeann,” Jordan told her, but she ignored him, coming straight to the door when she reached the bottom of the stairs.

“My father disapproved of my relationship with Ken,” she said to Hallam. “He’d like to pretend that it never existed. What did you say your name is?”

“Lucas Hallam, ma’am.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Hallam,” Jordan said curtly.

Raeann continued to ignore her father. “Come in, Mr. Hallam,” she said, stepping forward to take Hallam’s arm. “I’d be glad to talk to you.”

Jordan looked completely exasperated, but he moved aside and let Raeann lead Hallam into the house. She took him to a parlor and set him down on a fancy sofa, settling herself beside him. Her father sat in an armchair on the other side of the room, rattled his newspaper a few times in disapproval, then retreated behind it. Hallam thought he had this relationship figured out: Raeann Jordan did just about whatever she pleased, and though her father might grump around about it, he never really tried to stop her. Hallam wondered how long the girl’s mother had been dead. A good while, he guessed.

“Now, tell me what you want to know, Mr. Hallam. Are you a reporter of some kind?”

“No, ma’am. I’m a private detective. But more’n that, I’m Johnny Reeves’s uncle.”

That got through Raeann’s pose of languid indifference. “The man the police say shot Ken?”

“That’s right. I don’t believe he did it, so I’m trying to find out who might have.”

Raeann lifted a hand to her breast. “You can’t possibly think that I—”

“You tell me, ma’am,” Hallam said coolly.

That brought a response from Alvin Jordan. “See here!” he said sharply, lowering his paper. “No matter who you are, you can’t come in here and start accusing my daughter of killing someone!”

“Oh, hush, Daddy,” Raeann said. She looked at Hallam. “I didn’t shoot Ken. I couldn’t have. I loved him. Besides, I was at a party that evening, and a hundred and fifty people saw me there.”

She was mighty handy with that alibi, Hallam thought, but what she said sounded true. He looked over at Jordan and asked bluntly, “What about you?”

“What do you mean?” Jordan said.

“You didn’t like your daughter bein’ mixed up with a shady character like Ward. Maybe you did something about it.”

“This is insane!” Jordan exclaimed.

“Ken wasn’t a shady character!” Raeann added.

Hallam wasn’t going to argue that point with her. There was too much evidence to the contrary to worry about what she thought of Ward. But he was still waiting for Jordan’s answer, and after a moment the oilman said, “I was at the same party as my daughter, if you must know.”

“All right,” Hallam said with a nod, accepting what Jordan had told him. “But you knew Ward pretty well, Miss Jordan. Was there anybody else you know of who had a reason to want him dead?”

“I had nothing to do with Ken’s business affairs,” Raeann answered quickly. “Our relationship was strictly social.”

“But maybe he said something sometime that made you wonder,” Hallam prodded.

Raeann frowned in concentration. “Well, there was one time when Ken seemed upset about something. He wouldn’t say much except that he wasn’t going to let anyone double-cross him.”

“Did you tell the police that?”

She shook her head. “They didn’t ask. They just wanted to know if John Reeves had ever threatened Ken while I was around. I told them the truth, that I had seen the two of them arguing at the Four Treys.” Raeann shrugged her slender shoulders. “But that’s all I know.”

“There,” Jordan snapped. “Are you satisfied now?”

Not particularly, Hallam thought, but he figured he had gotten about all he was going to out of the Jordans. He stood up and said, “I’ll be goin’, I reckon. But if you think of anything else that might help me, Miss Jordan—”

“I won’t. That’s everything, Mr. Hallam. Honestly.”

Hallam wasn’t sure, but for now he was willing to let it go. No point in putting them on their guard by saying that he might be back later to ask them more questions.

Jordan showed Hallam out himself, rather than summoning the maid, as if he wanted to see with his own eyes that the unwelcome visitor was gone. As Hallam drove away, he thought about what he had learned so far today, which wasn’t much. He could see why the cops had settled on Johnny as the killer. There might be speculation about Ward’s other business dealings, but there was good solid evidence that Johnny had hated him and had in fact argued with him shortly before his death.

Maybe Beth had something with that Nazi spy business. If Gruber was a Fifth Columnist, and if Ward had found out and threatened to expose him...

Hallam chuckled and shook his head. He was grasping at straws now, and he knew it. He reached over and turned on the radio to clear his mind.

Then his eyes narrowed, and for a moment he didn’t even see the road in front of him. He was too busy thinking...

By late that afternoon, he had all the information he needed. It had taken some digging in the morgue of the Star-Telegram, as well as picking the brain of the reporter who was currently on the police beat. The man knew of Hallam by reputation and was glad to talk to him in return for the promise of an exclusive.

Hallam was listening to the radio station as he parked in front of it. The Shadow was just about to begin, and the music from a Blue Coal commercial was playing as Hallam shut off the engine. He could have used Lamont Cranston right about now, he thought as he walked into the building. The power to cloud men’s minds had to come in mighty handy sometimes. Hallam didn’t have that ability.

But after all these years, he sure as hell knew about the evil that lurked in the hearts of men...

The pretty young receptionist was already gone for the day. Hallam headed down the hall toward William Gruber’s office. Before he got there, he spotted Gruber through a big window that looked into one of the studios. The red light over the door wasn’t on, and the radio drama that was coming softly from the speakers mounted on the wall of the corridor was more proof that the mikes inside the studio weren’t live. Hallam opened the door.

Gruber had a sheaf of papers in his hand, probably a programming schedule, from the looks of it. He glanced up from what he was doing and said in surprise, “Why, Mr. Hallam, what brings you back here?”

“Came to see you, Mr. Gruber,” Hallam said as he shut the door. “I need to ask you some more questions.”

“About Kenneth Ward? I don’t know what else I can tell you.”

Hallam leaned a hip against one of the studio consoles and placed his fedora down so that it covered several of the dials and switches. “Well, when I was here this morning, you didn’t say anything about bein’ Ward’s partner in the cattle business.”

Gruber frowned. “That’s because I wasn’t. I’m in the radio business, Mr. Hallam. I know nothing about cows.”

“You sure? There’s good money to be made in cattle. That’s why folks steal ’em.”

“You’re speaking of what? Rustling? Isn’t that what they call it on the radio plays and in the movies?” Gruber laughed. “That was in the old days, wasn’t it?”

“It’s still goin’ on,” Hallam said. “For example, Ward had four trucks full of cattle hijacked in the month before his death. He was bringin’ ’em to Fort Worth to sell ’em in the stockyards, but they never got here. Hijackers hit the trucks on the highways into town, no matter where they were comin’ from. One of ’em was headin’ up U.S. 67 from Stephenville, another was on 281 comin’ down from Bowie. Then there was a truck lost on Highway 80 west o’ here, and another on 77 comin’ down from the north. Ward owned all of ’em through a series of dummy companies. None of that’s public knowledge, but the cops found out about it when they went through his records after he was killed. Took some diggin’, but I found out, too.”

Gruber looked bored and annoyed. “I have work to do, Mr. Hallam, and while this is certainly interesting, it has nothing to do with me. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“I figure Ward had a silent partner in all those deals,” Hallam went on, as if Gruber hadn’t spoken. “And that partner double-crossed him by tippin’ off a gang when and where they could hit a shipment of Ward’s cattle. That partner was you, Gruber.”

Now the station owner was more than annoyed. He was mad. “I’m going to call the police if you don’t leave,” he said.

“I’ll go soon enough,” Hallam said. He gestured at the notes in Gruber’s hand. “Figurin’ out the special numbers for that contest you’re runnin’? Reckon you’ve got to keep it up for a while and actually give a little money away so that nobody will know you were really usin’ it to send messages to the fellas who were stealin’ Ward’s cattle for you.”

Gruber stared hard at him for a moment, then said, “Are you actually accusing me of using that silly contest to send secret messages? My God, the next thing you’ll be saying is that I’m some sort of Nazi spy!”

“Well, now that you mention it—” Hallam began, then shook his head. “Nope, you’re not a Fifth Columnist, Gruber. Just a cheap crook and a double-crosser and a killer. The cops’ll prove it, too, once I show them all the connections and they start diggin’. You might as well ’fess up now.”

Gruber drew a deep breath and turned to set the papers on a table. When he turned back to face Hallam, there was a little pistol in his hand. A curse in his native tongue came from between his clenched teeth.

“No one will believe you,” he said. “My ties to Ward are too well concealed. You will be taken for a foolish old man so desperate to save his nephew from the electric chair that you have concocted this whole mad story. If I let you walk out of here.”

Hallam seemed as nonchalant as he had been all along, leaning on the console as if nobody was pointing a gun at him. He said, “I reckon you and Ward have been partners for quite a while, runnin’ all sorts of shady deals on folks. Ain’t that right?”

Gruber shrugged. “Ward was a good salesman, a smooth talker. He could travel in circles in which I could not, especially with the war going on. But I provided most of the ideas and capital for our partnership. It was only fair that most of the profits should be mine, too.”

“Even if you had to steal ’em from Ward?”

“You have no proof of any of this.” Again, Gruber took a deep breath, and he lowered the pistol. “Go on, Mr. Hallam. Spread your ridiculous rumors. Harass me all you want. You may damage my reputation and my business for a time, but in the end you will accomplish nothing.”

Hallam shook his head. “Reckon I’ve already accomplished something,” he said. “I’ve broadcast you confessin’ to anybody who’s listenin’ to this radio station of yours.” He lifted his hat and pointed to the switch he had thrown when he started talking. “I’ll bet folks think they just tuned in late to another episode of The Shadow. Damned if I’m goin’ to try to do the fella’s laugh, though.”

Gruber’s eyes widened in horror and rage, and the gun in his hand came up again. Before he could pull the trigger, Hallam flicked the fedora at his face. Gruber flinched, and Hallam followed the hat with a big fist, slamming it into Gruber’s jaw at the same time he batted the gun aside with his other hand. Gruber sailed backward, knocking over a couple of microphones, and sprawled on the floor of the studio in a tangle of mike stands. Hallam picked up the fallen gun and stepped back. He straightened one of the stands and said into the microphone, “Testin’, one-two-three-four. Somebody out there want to call the cops?”

“I heard the whole thing, Lucas!” Beth said excitedly as Hallam came into the house later that night, a grateful Johnny Reeves with him. While Sarah embraced her son, Beth grabbed hold of Hallam’s hand and asked, “Did Gruber try to shoot you?”

“He might have, if I’d given him the chance,” Hallam said. “Figured it’d be better not to.”

“I told you he was a bad guy!”

“You said he was a spy,” Hallam pointed out.

“Well, maybe I was wrong about that. But what I said this morning helped you figure it all out, didn’t it?”

“Reckon it did,” Hallam admitted.

“Then you ought to hire me to help you in the private eye business.”

Hallam tried not to roll his eyes. “That’ll be the day.”

Beth gave him a mock glare. “Well, if that’s the way you feel about it, maybe I’ll be a writer and write mysteries for the radio, since I’m so good at figuring things out. How about that, Lucas? Would you rather me be a writer or a private eye?”

Hallam frowned and didn’t say anything.

He was going to have to think long and hard about that one.