Guilty as Hell

CHAPTER 3

An intelligent-looking Labrador retriever whimpered beside the body. One shotgun, a fine lightweight English weapon, hung from a nail at the back of the blind. Another, a full-choked 20-gauge, lay on the boards at Langhorne’s feet. Shayne’s quick scrutiny of the blind picked up one other object of interest-a silver pocket flask on the bench.

Forbes, at Shayne’s shoulder, made a sound as though he had been hit. Shayne turned back to the father. Hallam had dropped his hands and seemed to cringe away. A drop of saliva glistened at the corner of his mouth.

“How did it happen?” Shayne asked quietly.

“I don’t know.” Hallam stared at the water at his feet. “I just don’t know.”

He drew a long shuddering breath. His eyes started slowly up the redhead’s rangy body. When they met Shayne’s eyes he gave his head a short shake, as though awakening from a hard sleep.

The detective took out his pint of brandy. “Take some of this. You have to talk about it sooner or later. You might as well get it over with.”

Hallam went on shaking his head. His hand started up to take the bottle, but he dropped it again.

“No. If they smell it they’ll think I’m drunk. I’m cold sober. I drink very sparingly, Shayne. Four ounces of whiskey before dinner, sometimes a weak Scotch afterward. I never touch alcohol before lunch.”

“Then that’s Langhorne’s flask in there?”

Hallam blinked again and his back straightened. He was beginning to recover, though both fists were still clenched. His son was vomiting into the long reeds at the end of the blind.

“The flask,” Hallam said. “A silver flask. Yes, it’s Walter’s, of course. It cost a hundred and twenty-five dollars at Tiffany’s in New York. I happen to know. A hundred and twenty-five dollars!” He made a quick, convulsive motion. “Shayne, he just sat there drinking, making barbed remarks. I’ve known him since I was ten years old. Stop that!” he told his son sharply. “Or go farther away.”

His tall brother-in-law, Jose Despard, emerged from the next blind in the line. After a moment he came toward them, an awkward figure in too-large waders. Hallam scooped up a double handful of salt water and dashed it over his face. After doing this twice more, he straightened, dripping. This time he came back to his full height.

“Despard,” he called, “What’s the reason for the kaffeeklatsch? You people make one holy hell of a decoy. Especially you, Shayne, with that red hair.”

Hallam said steadily, in something approaching his usual tone, “I just shot Walter.”

“What?”

“The damn fool popped up in front of my gun.”

Despard looked blank. He swiveled from Hallam toward Shayne. The detective told him, “We’ll need the sheriff. Go in and phone.”

Despard looked back at Hallam. “You shot Walter?” he said stupidly. “Walter?” Suddenly his eyes sharpened. “What makes you think he’s the one? Have you gone out of your mind?”

“It was an accident,” Hallam said coldly. “Let’s everybody get that straight. Call the sheriff.”

After a moment, Despard turned and headed for the jeep. Shayne offered Hallam a cigarette. Again the older man shook his head. Forbes, at the end of the blind, came erect. He was pale and shaken.

“The sheriff knows me,” Hallam said. “His name’s Banghart. What’s his first name?” He thought for a moment. “Ollie Banghart. I think we put some money in his campaign last year. I’d give anything if this hadn’t happened. I was swinging on the duck. I was low to start with. Much too low. When the gun came around, there Walter was, falling toward me. It was too late to do anything.”

“Falling?” Shayne said.

Hallam brushed his forehead. “No, he couldn’t have been falling. He was coming toward me, his arms out. But why was he there at the front of the blind? He hadn’t moved off the bench all morning. I need to sit down.” He took a step toward the blind. “No. Not in there.”

Shayne summoned young Hallam with a movement of his head. “Take him to the lodge. I’ll wait for the sheriff.”

“We’d been arguing,” Hallam said. “He was intense about it, as usual. Why couldn’t I just let it go? Once he got an idea in his head, you couldn’t get it out unless you used dynamite.” Forbes started to take his arm. He pulled away. “I’m all right. Bring my gun, Shayne.”

“Yeah,” Shayne said, and watched them go off across the marsh toward the road.

When they were out of sight, he stepped into the blind again and studied the body, checking the angle of the shot. The flies were already gathering. Shayne took off his canvas hunting vest and spread it over the bloody head.

He returned outside and lit a cigarette. The tide was going. He heard a rustle of wings overhead and a shotgun banged in the last blind, off by itself a quarter mile to the south.

Half an hour passed. Finally a car came down the gravel road, traveling very fast, and skidded to a stop. Three men got out. They were all heavily built, and at that distance they looked somewhat alike, but it was easy to see that the man in the middle was the sheriff.

Shayne walked into a constrained silence in the lodge an hour later. It was a low, unpretentious building of split cypress logs, one large central room separating the kitchen from a bunkhouse. Shayne took a quick head count. Begley was still missing.

The senior Hallam, in a chair in front of the big fireplace, was intent on a crossword puzzle. Shayne went over to him.

“I’d like to see you outside for a minute.”

Hallam looked up. After a pause, he completed lettering the word he had begun. Then he crumpled the newspaper and threw it in the fireplace.

“Where’s the sheriff?”

“He’ll be along in a minute.”

They went outside and got into one of the two open jeeps. Hallam’s normal color had returned, but he still gave the appearance of being so wound up that a touch would send him spinning out of control.

“What did the sheriff have to say?”

“Not much,” Shayne told him, “and he took his time about saying it. He’s a slow talker.”

“Yes, Ollie’s slow.”

“He’ll want to take you through it step by step, but I can’t waste that much time. What were you and Langhorne arguing about?”

Hallam gripped the wheel in both hands. “The usual thing. The way I run the company. We’ve had the same argument at two-week intervals for fifteen years.”

“Specifically.”

Hallam hesitated. “He didn’t like the idea of taking the T-239 investigation outside the company. The whole thing is my fault, for not moving into production on the strength of the preliminary tests. That was a hard decision to make. But if I’d hurried, if trouble had developed later, the board would have been justified in asking for my resignation. Walter worked himself up to quite a pitch. Finally, for the nth time, he told me he was quitting. I made some slighting comment, and then the duck came over. When I brought the gun around, there he was in front of me.”

“Was he drunk?”

Hallam moved his head. “You couldn’t tell with Walter. His speech wasn’t slurred or heavy.”

“Will you try to remember what you said just before he jumped? It might be important.”

Hallam reflected. “It had something to do with you. I believe I said to wait till we found out if you deserved your reputation. Something like that.”

“Do you think he’s the one who passed the paint material to Begley?”

Hallam turned his head sharply. “Certainly not.”

“Forbes doesn’t think it’s impossible.”

“Forbes doesn’t know what he’s talking about!” Hallam snapped.

“Were you told that Langhorne had been dickering with Candida Morse of the Begley firm?”

“What do you mean, ‘dickering’? They were seen together once, at a sort of party. We don’t know who initiated it or what was said. I don’t condemn a man on that kind of evidence.”

“How was he fixed for money?”

Hallam shrugged. “We paid him a good salary. He had no one to spend it on but himself. And it always seemed to me that he kept getting small inheritances from various aunts. He never talked about the vulgar subject. That’s usually a tipoff that somebody’s not suffering.”

“You’ve been living with this thing for several months now. If you don’t think Langhorne did it, do you suspect anybody else?”

“I suspect everybody. That’s the damnable thing. Everybody suspects everybody. This has opened a real fissure in the company, and we won’t be able to close it until we find out who’s actually guilty.”

“Forbes said he was beginning to suspect himself. I don’t think he was serious. What do you think of the possibility?”

At his son’s name, Hallam’s arm jerked and the horn blared. “Excuse me. I don’t think much of it. He’ll inherit fifty percent of my stock. He’d be going against his own interests. I don’t want to close off any legitimate inquiry, but you’d be throwing away your time pursuing that one. I suppose he meant he had the opportunity. So did fifteen or twenty other people. You’d better sit down and have a talk with Miss McGonigle, our counterintelligence department.”

“That’s the first thing I’d do if I had time,” Shayne said. “But if I’m going to come up with anything between now and Monday, I’ll have to work on it from the other end.”

“By that you mean Begley?”

“Begley’s firm. He didn’t break out of the small time until Candida Morse went to work for him. She’s the brains of the combination. And Begley’s going to be out of contention all day, probably into tomorrow. As a rule, he’s a fairly cool drinker. His strategy for the weekend is to get drunk and stay drunk, so nobody can ask him any questions.”

“You know your business,” Hallam said doubtfully. “But if you simply go to this Morse woman and ask her who she was dealing with at Despard’s, why should she tell you anything?”

Shayne’s eyes were hard. “That’s not the way I’ll do it. I’ll push her a little first. We have a small score to settle. It may not work, but I can’t see any other way of getting results in a hurry. If there isn’t a quick payoff, I’ll come to the office Monday morning and run a routine credit check on the list of possibilities.”

A black Chevrolet appeared, moving fast.

“There’s the sheriff. If he talked as fast as he drives, I’d stick around. He’ll tie you up most of the day. Is your plane still at the airstrip?”

“Yes. Use it if you want to. Some of the others may want to go back at the same time.”

The Chevy went into a long screeching skid in front of the lodge.

Shayne said, “Do you think there’s any chance Langhorne committed suicide?”

“Suicide?”

“He did everything but throw himself on your gun. People sometimes have scruples against killing themselves, and get somebody else to do it for them. It’s not unknown.”

Hallam squinted at the approaching sheriff. He didn’t answer.

Shayne went on, watching him, “And there’s a third possibility. Homicide.”

Hallam’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “I think I see what you’re trying to do, Shayne, prepare me for my morning with the sheriff. But I doubt if Ollie Banghart will want to open up that area. You’re wondering if Walter admitted selling us out and I lost control and shot him. The answer, for the record, is no. It’s true that I identify myself closely with the interests of my company, but anyone will tell you I am not what you would call a passionate man.”