CHAPTER ELEVEN

Captain Gerlach stuck his head through the door with a big smile on his moonlike face and asked, “What’s that about a drink?”

Shayne said, “I’ll buy one.”

“You’re not in New Orleans,” Gerlach reminded him. “We’re pure in Texas. You have to buy it by the bottle and swill it in private.”

“All right,” said Shayne happily, “I’ll buy a bottle and we’ll swill it.” He turned to Dyer to ask, “How about it, Chief? Closing up for the night?”

“Might as well — but I don’t know-”

“Let’s adjourn to my office,” Gerlach suggested. “You used to drink cognac, Mike. How does 1912 Napoleon strike you?” the captain asked gently.

Shayne made a comical grimace and said, “I wouldn’t dare touch the stuff without a physician handy. Where’ve you got it stashed?”

Gerlach chuckled and said, “Maybe we can pick up Doc Thompson.” He led the way along the corridor back of Dyer’s office, stopping en route to tap on a closed door.

“Who is it?” Thompson asked.

Gerlach opened the door a crack and said, “Bottle of brandy bites man. In my office.”

“That I must see,” the police surgeon answered happily. He switched off the light and joined the trio in the corridor, looking suspiciously at Shayne over the sizzling bowl of his pipe. “It’s the hot-shot again. I’m thinking Towne didn’t get any bargain when he imported you to dig into this mess.”

Shayne grinned and asked, “Did Towne kill the boy?”

“How should I know? The Free Press has him drawn and quartered for it whether he did or not.”

The three of them followed the homicide captain another twenty feet down the hall to an office similar to Chief Dyer’s, though slightly smaller. There were half a dozen chairs around the wall, but the three men waited in an expectant group while Gerlach took out his key ring and went to a square safe in the back of the room. Squatting before the door, he opened the safe, saying cheerfully over his shoulder, “This is where I preserve the evidence in important cases.”

Groping inside, he drew out a bottle of aged Napoleon brandy, which he held triumphantly above his head. After closing and locking the safe, he stood up with the bottle dangling from his fingers. “Remember this?” he asked Dyer and Thompson.

The police surgeon stepped forward on his short legs to peer nearsightedly at the bottle. He whistled softly and said, “Didn’t I analyze those bloodstains five years ago?”

“The Langley case,” Dyer reminded him. “Mrs. Langley beat her husband’s head to a pulp with that bottle.”

“And not a crack in it,” Captain Gerlach added, setting the bottle on his desk. He rummaged in a drawer for a corkscrew, and sat down to wrestle with the cork.

The others pulled up chairs in a semicircle around the desk. Shayne’s gray eyes were intent upon Gerlach struggling with the corkscrew, but he asked Thompson, “How do you like Jeff Towne as a killer?”

“I like him.” Thompson sucked on his gurgling pipe. “If I’d known what I know now, I’d have made that p.m. stronger. Hell,” he added irritably, “I thought you were clearing the man, not hanging him for murder.”

“I thought so, too,” Shayne admitted wryly. “But that’s beside the point now. The only thing I’m going to get out of this case is the satisfaction of seeing someone hang.” The cork came out of the cognac bottle with a soft plop. “If Towne fits the noose,” he continued mildly, “I want to see him wear it.”

Gerlach passed the bottle to Shayne. After reverently sniffing the bouquet, he took a long drink and passed it on to Dyer.

Gerlach settled back in his desk chair and said, “There should be a handout from Manny Holden on this for you, Mike. Carter’s election will be a walkover.”

“That’s the only thing I don’t like about it,” Shayne confessed, frowning. “I won’t have done you boys any favor if Honest John Carter gets elected.”

Gerlach nodded gloomily. “That’s a cinch. He’ll probably appoint Holden Police Commissioner.” He took the depleted bottle from Thompson and poured down a stiff drink.

“The time element is the only thing wrong in the Towne set-up,” Shayne mused. “Riley sets the time of murder about two hours before sundown. But you figured the soldier couldn’t possibly have been dead more than half an hour before Towne ran over him at dusk.”

“Not more than that,” the police surgeon agreed, “else Towne and the ambulance attendant would certainly have noticed the condition of the body.”

“Which throws Riley’s statement off a couple of hours.” Shayne spread out his big hands in an impatient gesture. “Leaving that out — conceding that Riley’s estimate of the time was wrong, and using all of your leeway, Doc — what in hell was Towne doing during those two hours after he killed the soldier?”

“Driving around with the body in his car trying to figure out how to get rid of it,” Dyer offered. “A man often gets panicky after committing a murder.”

“Not Jeff Towne,” Shayne objected. “He’d take murder in his stride.”

“Where’s your motive?” Gerlach demanded. “That’s where the whole case bogs down, Mike. We’ll never get a conviction without some sort of motive.”

“Maybe not a conviction,” Dyer interposed, “but enough people will believe it to vote Carter in as mayor.”

They all nodded assent to that. Captain Gerlach glumly passed the bottle to Shayne, who nursed it tenderly as he asked Dyer, “Did you turn up anything else on that pair your men picked up today?”

“The Mexican girl and Mr. Larimer?” Chief Dyer looked at him in surprise. “Nothing important. Her name is Marquita Morales and she lives in El Paso, but spends most of her time in Juarez. She’s just another juvenile delinquent. Larimer runs a straight business, as near as I can learn. You were right about his being a foreigner,” he added grudgingly. “A refugee from Austria. Entered the country legally through Mexico in thirty-nine. Changed his name to Larimer and has been here in business ever since. Hasn’t been in any previous trouble.”

Shayne tilted the cognac bottle and with the mouth scarcely touching his bottom lip, let a drink gurgle in. Passing the bottle to Dyer, his gray eyes narrowed and he said, “Here’s a hunch. Find out if Larimer has had any contact with a man named Lance Bayliss, an American citizen who recently returned from Mexico after dodging out of Germany ahead of the Gestapo.”

“Lance Bayliss?” Gerlach repeated the name thoughtfully. “Isn’t that the name of the young fellow who was sweet on Carmela Towne ten years ago — when Towne hired you to bust it up?”

“That’s right. Don’t ask me what I’m trying to prove. I don’t know — but I’ve got a feeling we’re only starting on this thing.”

There was a moment of quiet. The three men looked steadily at Shayne, who absently massaged his earlobe. Then he said, “I’ve been holding out on you. I’m so damned used to holding out on the police in Miami and New Orleans where I depended on collecting a fee by staying a couple of jumps ahead of them, it’s become second nature with me. This is one time when I don’t have to.”

Captain Gerlach leaned forward and folded his arms on his desk. Chief Dyer took the cognac bottle from his lips and hurriedly passed it to Thompson, rumpled his browless forehead, and glared at Shayne. Thompson set the bottle on the desk, untouched, and turned a humorous twinkle on Shayne.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Dyer snapped.

“I first got in on this case through a little old lady in New Orleans — name of Delray.” Shayne then related the details of his conference in his New Orleans office.

The chief’s face grew red with anger as he listened. When Shayne finished, he exclaimed, “So that’s why you wanted an autopsy! And that’s how you knew the army wasn’t going to locate his parents in Cleveland. Did you know they buried the body at Bliss this afternoon because they didn’t know what else to do with him?”

“I didn’t know, but I supposed that would be what they’d do. We’ve still got to keep it quiet,” he went on emphatically. “It’s our one ace in the hole. The killer, or gang of killers, doesn’t know about the letter Jimmie Delray wrote his mother, and doesn’t suspect that we know who the boy really is. They think they’re clean. Towne’s arrest has given them a further sense of security.”

“If Towne himself isn’t the killer,” Gerlach muttered.

“That’s right. If Towne isn’t the killer. In the meantime, you can start digging for a motive for Towne to have killed a Jimmie Delray of New Orleans instead of an unknown recruit.”

Captain Gerlach’s telephone rang. He picked it up, talked for a moment, saying finally, “All right. I’ll have a look.”

Replacing the instrument, he said to Dyer, “That was Sheriff Craven from below Ysleta. They’ve just pulled a man’s body out of the river.”

Shayne asked, “Isn’t that well beyond the city limits?”

“Sure. But the sheriff says the body has been in the river for some time and may have floated several miles. That would put it in our jurisdiction.” Gerlach stood up and put his hat on.

Shayne asked, “Mind if I go along?”

“Glad to have you.”

Chief Dyer swore softly, and Doc Thompson chuckled as Gerlach led the way from the office and Shayne followed him with a wave of his hand and a final farewell look at the cognac bottle on the desk.

Загрузка...