Murder Is My Business

CHAPTER EIGHT

Half an hour later Michael Shayne was rolling west on Main Street as it roughly paralleled the course of the Rio Grande out toward the smelters. He was driving an unmarked coupe loaned to him by Captain Gerlach.

He turned to the right at the intersection of Lawton, and drove the one block toward Missouri at about twenty miles an hour. The two streets met at an acute angle, and at that speed Shayne had to swing the coupe out in a wide arc to make the turn eastward onto Missouri. It was quite evident that the sharp corner could not be negotiated at a greater speed than he had been driving.

He pulled the coupe in to the curb and walked back toward the corner. Faint chalk marks still remained on the pavement, showing where the police had outlined the position of the soldier’s body and had traced the tire marks of Towne’s limousine around the corner. The chalk lines indicating the path of Towne’s tires stopped about ten feet beyond where the body had been run over.

Shayne stood on the curb and studied the chalk marks carefully. Towne’s heavy limousine had cut the corner more sharply than the coupe, indicating that Towne was driving at even less than twenty miles per hour, an assumption that was borne out by the fact that he had stopped within ten feet after running over the body.

The spot had been well chosen if the body was placed in the street in the hope of having it run over by a car rounding the corner at slow speed. The acuteness of the angle would prevent a driver from seeing what lay ahead until his car was fully straightened out. And at dusk, when headlights give little actual illumination, Shayne could see that it had been easily possible for a driver to strike a body lying in the street without realizing it until the wheels passed over it.

He went back and got into the coupe and drove along slowly, stopping in front of a little stuccoed house set well back from the street behind a neat hedge of cedar. He got out and went up a gravel walk to the front door and pressed the bell. The hedge extended past both sides of the house, effectually screening it from its neighbors.

A woman opened the door and looked out at him. She was about forty, with a well-kept figure for a Mexican woman of that age. She had pleasantly placid features, dark skin, and her cheeks were smoothly plump beneath high cheekbones. Her black hair was drawn back severely from a broad, unlined forehead. She looked at him with perfect self-possession and waited for him to state his business.

Shayne pulled off his hat and said, “Good afternoon. Mr. Jefferson Towne sent me.”

She raised black brows until they made a straight line above her eyes and said, “I do not understand.”

“Jeff Towne,” said Shayne expansively. “Didn’t he telephone you that I was coming?”

Her eyes were puzzled, and she moved her head slowly from side to side. “I do not have telephone, Senor.”

“I guess he meant to come around and tell you, or send a message. Anyhow, he sent me to have a talk with you.” Shayne tried out his most disarming smile.

Her eyes were very dark, a soft, liquid brown. She stood looking at him with disconcerting steadiness and it was impossible to know what she was thinking, or if she was thinking at all. She was clothed with dignity and a stoic reserve characteristic of her race. For a baffled moment Shayne thought that Carmela must be mistaken with regard to her relationship with Jefferson Towne, but he made a move to step forward and said, “May I come inside where we can talk?”

She stood aside, then, to let him enter.

There was a small, uncarpeted entryway through which she preceded him to a comfortably furnished front room dimmed by half-closed Venetian blinds at the windows. The structure was of adobe, bungalow style, with plastered inner walls, and very cool. Small Indian rugs were laid before the restful chairs, and a few good pieces of Indian pottery adorned the sideboard and center table.

Shayne stood in the center of the room looking around slowly. The woman seated herself in a rocking chair and invited him to be seated. Her serenity was a complement to the quiet, restful appointments of the room.

“Your name is Morales?” Shayne asked.

“Yes, Senor.”

“Mrs. Morales?”

She inclined her head in assent.

“Where is your husband, Mrs. Morales?”

“He has been dead ten years.” She looked at him steadily. “Why do you ask these questions?”

“To establish the fact that you’re the woman Mr. Towne sent me to see. You haven’t admitted that you know Towne.”

She lifted her shoulders in the merest fraction of a shrug. Her dark, smooth face was inscrutable.

Shayne sat down in front of her and said persuasively, “I’m a good friend of Mr. Towne’s and he’s in trouble. You can help him by talking freely to me.”

She said placidly, “I do not think he is in trouble.”

“Do you read the papers, Mrs. Morales?”

“No, Senor.”

“Or listen to the radio?”

“No, Senor.”

“Well, don’t you talk to the neighbors?”

She shook her smooth, black head. “I go only to the market before noon. Other times I stay at home.” There was a ring of dignified humility in her voice that pictured the ostracized life she lived for Jefferson Towne’s pleasure.

“Then you don’t even know that Mr. Towne killed a man just down the street from here two days ago?” Shayne asked in surprise.

Again she shook her head. “I do not know this thing, Senor.”

“It was an accident,” Shayne told her, “but his political enemies are trying to make it look bad for him. You know he’s running for mayor, don’t you?”

“Yes, Senor.” An expression of pain crossed her face but was quickly erased.

“He ran over the body of a man when he was turning onto this street from Lawton,” Shayne told her. “We think the man was placed there by his enemies so he would run over it. I’m trying to help him by finding out who could have known he was coming to visit you Tuesday evening. Do you understand that?”

“I understand, Senor.”

“Was it his regular day to come?”

“Sometimes I know when he is coming. Sometimes I do not know.”

“How about last Tuesday?” Shayne persisted. “You expected him that evening, didn’t you?”

“I cannot remember, Senor.”

“Nonsense,” said Shayne strongly. “If you expected him and he didn’t come, you’d certainly remember it.”

“Perhaps it is as the Senor says.” Her face was absolutely expressionless.

“He’s in serious trouble,” Shayne urged her. “He may lose the election unless you give me some information.”

Her lips tightened the merest trifle. She said formally, “That would be sad, Senor,” and she got up to indicate that the interview was ended.

Shayne got it then. She was afraid Towne would be elected. As mayor of El Paso, she knew, he would cease his visits to her house. She loves him, Shayne thought wonderingly. By God, that’s it! She loves him and she’s afraid she’ll lose him.

He got up, reluctant to give up the quest for information, but convinced of the uselessness of further questioning. As he slowly turned toward the door, he noticed a framed photograph of a flagrantly pretty girl on the sideboard. The full, round contour of the face was that of a child, but the sensual lips and the flashing gleam in her dark eyes indicated a maturity far beyond her years.

The picture was without question that of the Mexican girl whom Shayne had seen at the police station, taken before her mouth had become sullen. He went toward it, saying politely, “This is a beautiful picture. It must have been made when you were much younger, but the resemblance is remarkable.”

“That is my Marquita. She is a good girl, Senor.” There was fierce, throbbing pride in her voice. “Marquita goes to the school in Juarez and comes to this house not often.”

Shayne murmured, “Your daughter? but she looks older-”

“Thirteen only, Senor, when she pose for it. I have one that is later.” Beaming maternally, she went to the center table and shuffled through some snapshots, selected one, and held it out proudly.

Marquita was seated on a stone wall with her knees crossed, her skirt drawn down so that it almost covered her knees. She was smiling into the camera and her long black hair framed her face in two demure braids.

Shayne studied the snapshot carefully, comparing it with the larger photograph on the sideboard.

“A girl to be proud of,” he said, and placed the snapshot atop the others on the table. “When did you see her last?”

“She comes on Sundays. On most Sundays she comes,” Mrs. Morales amended.

Shayne started toward the door, stopped, and asked, “I wonder if I could trouble you for a drink of water before I go?”

“But yes, Senor.” She went into the kitchen and Shayne turned back to the table. He pocketed the recent snapshot of Marquita Morales, and was waiting at the kitchen door when Mrs. Morales returned with a brimming glass of water. He drank it and thanked her, went out and drove away in the police coupe.