Murder Is My Business

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Captain Rodriquiz was squatting beside them and he twitched a stubby pistol from Carmela’s fingers before she dropped it. He said swiftly to Shayne, “I will stay here if you wish. Papa Tonto’s is where the light shines at the end of the alley.”

“The killer ran that way, too,” Carmela moaned. “I shot at him but I don’t think — I hit him.”

Shayne let her lax body down on the ground and stood up. Inhabitants of the neighborhood, aroused by the three shots, were beginning to stream toward them. Shayne muttered, “I’ll take a look in Tonto’s — for the other three who were ahead, and for Lance.”

He trotted down the alley to a closed wooden door with a dim light bulb glowing above it. The door was unlocked, and he strode into a dark hallway. Light showed through curtains at the other end of the hall.

An old Mexican came out of an alcove to confront him as he started forward. He had thin white hair, and luminous eyes set in a wrinkled face. He laid a palsied hand on Shayne’s arm and protested, “No, Senor. I am not know you, an’ you cannot-”

Shayne thrust him off with a force that sent him reeling back against the wall. He went on to the curtains and thrust them aside. The low room was lighted with a few bulbs in the ceiling, partially obscured by a heavy pall of smoke hanging above the couples who sat at small tables or half reclined in booths about the wall. The smoke was acrid and biting in his nostrils, heavy with the noxious fumes of marijuana. The couples were young and mostly Mexican. They looked up at him vacantly as he threaded his way between the tables, and those in the booths didn’t change their amorous attitudes as he paused to peer in at each couple. Neither Marquita Morales and her escorts nor Lance Bayliss was in the room.

The old man from the entrance panted up to him when he finished his inspection at the far end of the room. “Que busca usted?” he demanded.

“I’m looking for a girl and two Americans who just came in,” Shayne growled. “Any other places where people hide out in here?”

“But no, Senor.” His voice trembled angrily. “Nadie se esconde.”

Shayne snorted, and jerked aside another curtain over the entrance to a short corridor leading off from the main room. The odor of opium swept out strongly. Four doors opened off the corridor into small cubicles fitted with beds and smoking equipment. Two of the cubicles were empty. A middle-aged American woman lay on her back in another bed. Her mouth was open and she was snoring. The small room was stifling with opium smoke. Shayne closed the door hastily after one look at her. The fourth cubicle had two occupants, and two pipes were going strongly. They were young, a Mexican and an American girl. They didn’t pay any attention to Shayne when he looked in on them. They were off in a dream world of their own.

The corridor dead-ended, and there was no other exit. Shayne stalked back through the main room and out through the curtains into the dark entrance hallway. The old Mexican’s eyes blazed at him balefully from the alcove as he went by, but he didn’t speak.

In the alley an ambulance and a police car were drawn up at the entrance, with their lights shining on a group of people near the end. Neil Cochrane’s body was being loaded into the ambulance. Carmela hurried toward Shayne, with Rodriquiz a few paces behind. Carmela’s face was white and her smoothly braided hair was disarranged. Her eyes burned into his as she caught his arm and cried frantically, “Where is he, Michael? Did you find him? Was Lance there?”

Shayne shook his head. He put his arm about her shoulders and told the Mexican police captain, “Marquita and her friends evidently didn’t go into Tonto’s. What have you done out here?”

“We will find them,” Rodriquiz assured him confidently. The pistol he had taken from Carmela still dangled from his fingers. He glanced down at it and suggested politely, “If you will ride in the car with me?”

Carmela leaned against Shayne with her face pressed to his chest. “I don’t understand, Michael. Where’s Lance? I don’t-” She began to sob violently.

Shayne nodded to Rodriquiz and picked her up in his arms. He carried her to the police car and got in the back seat with her. Captain Rodriquiz got in the front beside a uniformed driver. The ambulance was already backing away. Rodriquiz turned to tell Shayne, “We have blocked off this section and are searching for Marquita and her two soldiers. The man you looked for in Papa Tonto’s-?”

Shayne shook his head. Carmela sat beside him, supported by his arm about her, with her head resting against his shoulder. She said tiredly, like a small child just awakened from deep sleep, “They told me Lance was there. I don’t know-”

Shayne said, “We’ll talk about it when we get to headquarters.” He tightened his arm about her, and she sighed and didn’t say anything else.

At the police station, Captain Rodriquiz escorted them back to a private office. He seated himself gravely at a desk and had a stenographer brought in, laying Carmela’s pistol in front of him. She sat beside Shayne and held his hand tightly. Before the captain could begin asking questions, Shayne asked him, “What about the man who was killed, Captain?”

“Quite dead.” Rodriquiz raised his expressive eyebrows. “One bullet fired against his body penetrated the heart.” He looked at Carmela. “Will you tell us, please, how it happened?”

“Wait a minute,” Shayne said. “She should be told anything she says may be used against her. And you can consult an attorney first,” he told Carmela, “or refuse to testify at all, if you wish.”

“Oh, no,” she said quickly. “I want to tell you everything. Why should I refuse?”

Shayne shrugged. “Go ahead then.”

“There isn’t much to tell.” She paused to moisten her lips. “We had just turned into the alley, and it was awfully dark. Neil was a step ahead of me — and the first thing I heard was the gun going off. Neil groaned and fell before I realized what had happened. Then I heard someone running. I couldn’t actually see in the darkness, but I realized he’d been shot and his murderer was getting away. I instinctively got my pistol out of my bag and fired after him. I shot twice. And then I heard someone running up behind me. I didn’t know it was you, Michael.” She rubbed her eyes as though still bewildered. “I didn’t know you were anywhere in Juarez. And — that’s all,” she ended simply.

Rodriquiz looked at Shayne and shrugged. He asked Carmela, “You will swear the pistol was in your handbag when the first shot was fired?”

“Oh, yes. It was.”

“And you fired only two shots, after Mr. Cochrane had fallen and his assailant was running away?”

“That’s right. That’s the way it happened.”

Captain Rodriquiz opened the small revolver and drew out three empty brass cylinders, which he carefully lined up in front of him. The gun was a. 38 with its barrel sawed off half an inch from the cylinder to make it a small though lethal weapon.

“There is one empty chamber,” he pointed out to Shayne and Carmela. “Behind that there are three empty cartridges. Then two loaded ones.” He drew out the two unexploded. 38 shells. They had snubnosed, leaden heads, and two deep notches in the shape of a cross were cut in the soft nose of each bullet. He lined the two bullets up with the empty cylinders and said, “Your pistol has been fired three times, Miss Towne.”

“Perhaps I shot three times. I don’t know. I don’t remember.” Carmela shuddered violently. “I thought I just pulled the trigger twice.”

Shayne leaned over to pick up one of the bullets, and he studied it with a frown. “Homemade dumdums,” he muttered. “Who taught you to fix bullets this way, Carmela?”

“Father fixed them for me. Years ago when he gave me that gun. He said”- her voice faltered and then came clearly-”they were more deadly that way. And that I should never use it until I had to, but if it ever came to a showdown, that I should shoot to kill.”

“And tonight was the first time you had to use it?” murmured Rodriquiz.

“Yes, I–I haven’t carried that pistol, or even thought about it, for years, until tonight.” She glanced from the Mexican captain to Shayne. “Why are you both looking like that?”

Shayne shrugged, and reached over to replace the bullet. “There were only three shots filed in the alley, Carmela. Rodriquiz and I were right behind you. One of the three bullets killed Cochrane.”

“Of course! That’s what I said at first. That I fired twice after he fell. And then you said there were three bullets fired from my gun and I — Oh!” She caught herself up suddenly, staring at the three empty brass cylinders in front of the captain. “But — if there were only three shots fired altogether-”

“And there are three bullets missing from your pistol,” Rodriquiz put in pleasantly.

Carmela winced, looking dazed and disbelieving. “I don’t understand. It’s all so sort of mixed up.”

“Wait a minute,” Shayne said. “That’s a six-shooter, isn’t it? Why are there only five shells?”

“That’s all I ever put in it,” Carmela told him. “Father taught me to keep an empty chamber under the hammer.”

“The three exploded cartridges were in a row behind the one empty chamber,” Captain Rodriquiz agreed. “Would it not be better to tell the truth, Miss Towne? A full confession. He insulted you, perhaps? To defend your honor, you were forced to fire the shot.”

“But I didn’t!” Carmela cried wildly. “Someone else shot him and ran away in the darkness. That’s the way it happened.” She clamped her lips together and settled back to fight for composure.

Shayne said, “I think you’d better tell us why you are over here tonight. Why you met Neil Cochrane in El Gato Pobre and were going to a place like Papa Tonto’s with him.”

“He was taking me to Lance. He said he was. He swore Lance was at that awful place. He and Father both said so.”

“Wait a minute,” said Shayne. “Take your time and tell us all about it. When did Cochrane tell you that?”

“This afternoon. After Father came home from — after he was released. Neil came to see him. They were in the library arguing violently when I passed to go upstairs. I heard Lance’s name mentioned as I went by. I jerked the door open and demanded to know what they were talking about — what about Lance. But Father wouldn’t let me stay. He ordered me out. He was angrier than I’ve ever seen him.

“I went up to my room and waited until Neil left,” she went on in a hard, strained voice. “Then I went down and confronted Father. I demanded to know what Neil had been saying about Lance. He refused to tell me, at first. He insisted it would be better if I didn’t know. But I threatened to leave home unless he told me. I accused him of trying to keep us apart again as he did once before.

“Then Father exploded. He said, all right. That I might as well know the truth. He said he’d paid Neil to keep quiet about it so I wouldn’t find out. That that’s what the argument was about and Neil had demanded money for his silence. Then he told me Lance was mixed up in some Nazi spy activities and he was making his headquarters here at a place called Papa Tonto’s.

“I didn’t believe it,” Carmela went on rapidly, her cheeks beginning to show a little color. “I accused Father of lying to keep me away from Lance. And he cursed me and said, all right, if I wanted proof why didn’t I get Neil to show me. I told him I would. That I’d call Neil up and ask him. And he said he’d paid Neil to promise not to tell me, and that Neil would probably deny it if I asked him, but why not get him to take me to Papa Tonto’s so I could see for myself.

“And that’s what I did,” she ended dully. “I called Neil and asked him if he’d take me to Papa Tonto’s tonight, and offered to meet him at El Gato Pobre after dinner. So we did, but when I asked him about Lance he denied everything — because Father had paid him to, I guess. He wouldn’t believe me when I said Father had told me the truth. But he was willing enough to take me. He didn’t seem to think that was breaking his promise to Father. And that’s — all. We were almost there when — it happened.”

Shayne asked, “He did insult you, didn’t he?”

She shrugged disdainfully. “He made some horrid remarks. He pretended to think I had asked him to take me to that place because I wanted to. You know, because I wanted him to take me there. I don’t know what kind of a place it is, but from what he said I guess women do go there with men.”

Shayne said, “Listen carefully now: When you went into El Gato Pobre, where was Cochrane?”

“Dancing with a girl. He took her back to another table where there were two men, while I waited just inside the door.”

“Did you recognize the girl?”

Carmela caught her lower lip between her teeth and looked frightened for the first time. “How do you know all about it?”

“Captain Rodriquiz and I were there watching. Did you recognize the girl, Carmela?”

“All right. I did,” she flashed at him. “It was the same one I saw with Lance in El Paso. The one whose picture you showed me the other night.”

Shayne nodded grimly. “Did you ask Cochrane about her?”

“Yes. He just laughed and said she was one of the habituees of Papa Tonto’s whom he knew slightly.”

“And when you left the restaurant,” Shayne persisted, “did you notice the girl ahead of you?”

“Yes, I did. She and the two men with her. They stayed ahead of us all the way, and Neil said they were probably going to Papa Tonto’s too.”

Captain Rodriquiz had been following Shayne’s questions and Carmela’s answers with alert interest. He now interposed, “And when you turned into the alley, were they not ahead of you still?”

“I think so. Yes. I saw them just ahead when the clouds cleared for a moment.”

“And after the first shot was fired?” Rodriquiz persisted.

“It was so dark. And I was excited and confused.”

“Why did you bring that gun with you tonight?” Shayne asked suddenly.

“Well, I was going to that dreadful place with Neil Cochrane. And Father suggested it. In fact, he refused to let me out unless I promised to bring it. I think he was afraid something might happen.”

A Mexican policeman came in and saluted briskly, laying a little wad of cotton on the desk in front of Rodriquiz. A misshapen lump of lead lay on top of the cotton. He spoke briefly in Spanish and went out.

The captain lifted the bullet and weighed it in his fingers for a moment. He nodded gravely, and passed it to Shayne. “It is the death bullet. Of thirty-eight caliber, I think.”

Shayne leaned forward to take it. Carmela’s eyes were fixed on it in fascination. Shayne tested its weight as had the captain, and agreed, “It’s about the right weight.” He inspected it closely, “Impossible to get a decent ballistics test, the way it mushroomed against a bone.”

“The way it is flattened,” said Rodriquiz firmly, “is most important, I think.”

Shayne nodded. He told Carmela, “That’s what happens to a bullet when it’s been notched like those in your gun.”

She shrank away from him. “I didn’t shoot him, Michael. I swear I didn’t.”

“But your gun did.”

“How do you know? You just said it couldn’t be tested by ballistics, the way it’s flattened out. That’s the only way to prove it was fired from my gun, isn’t it?”

“Even if it wasn’t mushroomed,” Shayne growled, “there isn’t enough rifling in that sawed-off barrel to make a conclusive test. But we can easily enough prove it’s the right caliber — and any expert will swear it was notched like yours before it was fired. There were only three shots fired, Carmela. And three bullets have been fired from your gun. For God’s sake,” he went on hoarsely, “don’t bury your face in the sand. This is murder. You can fry for it just the same as anyone else if you don’t tell the truth. Who fired your pistol the first time, if you didn’t?”

She shook her head defiantly. “No one. It was in my bag when that first shot was fired.”

“That’s a lousy story,” Shayne groaned. “All the facts are against you. You can beat the rap by admitting you killed him. Hell, Cochrane was a skunk. He’d lured you into this trip to Papa Tonto’s, the worst kind of a dive. You wouldn’t have any trouble making a jury believe you had a hell of a good reason for killing him.”

“But I didn’t!” she cried fiercely.

“All right. Then you’re lying to protect the one who did,” Shayne told her coldly. “That’s the only other answer that fits the facts.”

“I want a lawyer,” she said suddenly. “You told me I didn’t have to answer without a lawyer to advise me.”

Shayne nodded glumly. “You’ll have a chance to think it over tonight.” He looked at Rodriquiz. “I suppose you’ll hold her.”

The captain spread out his hands eloquently. “As you have said. With the facts we have, I cannot do otherwise.”

“While you’re thinking it over in a cell,” Shayne told her harshly, “I’ll be looking for Lance Bayliss. This isn’t just one murder, Carmela. It’s the third.”

She stood up, averting her head proudly. “I’m ready, Captain.”

He leaped to his feet and opened the door for her. He returned a few minutes later and reseated himself with a sigh. “You have a theory, Mr. Shayne?”

“No. Only that this is hooked up somehow with two other recent murders in El Paso.” Shayne scowled across the room. “Haven’t they picked up Marquita and her soldiers yet?”

“They are bringing Marquita in for questioning. Her companions have not been found. The girl was arrested a few minutes ago in her room a few blocks from Papa Tonto’s.”

Shayne gave him a description of Lance Bayliss. “You’d better get out a pick-up for him. I don’t know how he figures in this, but I’m afraid his alibi for the time of the murder may be important.”

“He is — the sweetheart of Miss Towne?”

“He was. Long ago.” Shayne rumpled his red hair angrily. “He’s the only person mixed up in any of this whom Carmela might protect.”

“It is your opinion that this man used her gun?”

“It makes too much sense to please me,” Shayne admitted. “Bayliss used to love Carmela, and he hated Cochrane’s guts. If he was hiding in the alley tonight, it could have happened that way. I can imagine him attacking Cochrane, getting the worst of it in the scuffle, and Carmela opening her bag to get the gun and help him out. Whether he grabbed it and pulled the trigger, or whether she did-” He shook his head, glaring at the short-barreled weapon. “You’d better test it for fingerprints.”

“I have touched it only by the trigger-guard,” Rodriquiz assured him. “If you wish to make the tests in your laboratories, I will be happy.”

“Sure,” Shayne agreed. “Reload it just as it was when you took it away from her. And I’ll take this bullet along, if you want.”

“It will be best.” Rodriquiz carefully reloaded the revolver with both empty and full cartridges. “We have not the modern laboratory in Juarez.”

A policeman came in with Cochrane’s belongings that had been found on his person. There was a key ring and some loose change, a leather billfold, and a telegram in its yellow envelope. The billfold had an assortment of business cards and $67 in bills. The telegram had been sent that day from Mexico City. It read: Legal title to Plata Azul passed to Senora Telgucado on death of husband to be held in trust during her lifetime for legal heirs.- Aguido Valverde.

Marquita Morales was ushered into the office while they were puzzling over the telegram. She had washed most of the rouge from her face, and changed from her black dress to a blouse and wool skirt. She looked young and frightened, and she loosed a torrent of questions in her own language at the captain as soon as she was inside the room.

Shayne couldn’t follow the conversation with his limited knowledge of Spanish, but the captain sternly quieted her and then proceeded with the questioning in English.

Marquita started by stating that she had been alone in her room all evening and hadn’t the slightest idea why she had been arrested and dragged to police headquarters, but she began to sob and changed her story as soon as the captain informed her that she had been watched by American and Mexican police ever since she picked up the two soldiers in El Paso that afternoon.

She then admitted inducing the soldiers to come to Juarez with her, and taking them to a place where they could change clothes to cross the border unchallenged. They had dinner and a few drinks at El Gato Pobre, she said sullenly, but that was too tame for them and they insisted on going elsewhere.

Yes, to Papa Tonto’s, she flashed at her questioner. Why not? It was what the stupid gringo soldados wanted. But when they were approaching the place through the alley, someone started shooting at them from behind. They were frightened, and they ran away from the bullets, she said simply. She didn’t know where the soldiers went. She lost them in the darkness, and she hurried to her own room and bolted the door and stayed there until the police came.

Yes, she had noticed the American couple following her down the street from El Gato Pobre, but she didn’t know why. She knew Senor Cochrane slightly, she admitted with a toss of her head and a defiant glance at Shayne, but she didn’t know why he would follow her. She at first refused to admit he had spoken to her in the cafe, and then admitted the dance with him, and said that he had asked her if the two men at her table were soldiers, and he refused to believe her when she denied it. He warned her to be careful of trouble if they were soldiers, but she didn’t think it was any of his business and told him so.

No, she hadn’t seen anyone else in the alley except the couple behind her. There might have been someone hiding against the buildings in the darkness as they passed, she admitted, but they had seen no one. Their first intimation of trouble was when shots sounded behind them and bullets started whizzing over their heads.

Then they ran so fast that if there was anyone else running behind them, she didn’t think they would have known it.

Captain Rodriquiz shrugged and gave up the questioning with a glance at Shayne. The big redhead hunched forward and said, “You remember me, don’t you, Marquita?”

“Si, I theenk you are in ze police office in El Paso.”

“How many soldiers have you brought over to Papa Tonto’s this way?” Shayne demanded.

“No others,” she insisted. “I ’ave heard ees easy for do, so I try tonight.”

“Who told you about it?”

She shrugged. Some of the other girls in Juarez. It was a common practice, she said.

“Who pays the girls to do it?” Shayne demanded. “Who talks to the soldiers when they get doped up at Papa Tonto’s?”

She began to cry, and whimpered that she didn’t understand. No one paid them — except the soldiers themselves. They went to Tonto’s “for to ’ave one good time.” She insisted she knew no more about it than that.

“When did you visit your mother last?” Shayne asked abruptly.

She looked up in surprise and said, “Las’ Sunday I am see her.”

“Did she talk to you about Mr. Towne? Tell you when she expected him to visit her again?”

She made her eyes very wide and round and repeated, “Mr. Towne?” as though she had never heard the name before. And no amount of questioning from Shayne or the Mexican police captain would make her admit any knowledge of an affair between her mother and Mr. Towne. If she did know about it, she had been well-coached to deny it.

Rodriquiz ordered her locked up after the questioning was over, and after she was taken away, he admitted to Shayne, “I can keep her in jail one night only. She has broken no laws of Mexico in what she has done.”

Shayne grimaced and admitted, “I’m not sure whether she has broken any American laws either, though I’m quite sure Military Intelligence will want to question her tomorrow.” He got up wearily. “I appreciate all your help, and I’ll get in touch with you tomorrow.”

“And Miss Towne?” Rodriquiz asked politely. “What statement shall I give the reporters?”

“Tell the truth,” Shayne advised. “That you’re holding her on suspicion of murder until she satisfactorily explains who fired the first shot from her pistol. To cover yourself, you might add that you suspect her of protecting the person who actually fired the shot.” Shayne went out and got in his borrowed car and drove back across the International Bridge.