Too Friendly, Too Dead

13

At the New York airport, Shayne went directly to the Information counter to inquire about return flights that night. There was only one scheduled. For eight-thirty. Shayne made a reservation for it on the chance that he’d be able to make it.

It was a quarter to six when he called Blanche Carson’s West side apartment. A pleasant, youthful, feminine voice answered.

He asked, “Is this Blanche Carson?”

“Speaking. Who is this?”

“I’m a detective from Miami, Miss Carson.”

“Oh, yes. Doris told me. Something about Rose. What is it?”

Shayne said, “I wonder if I could possibly have a talk with you. I’m at the airport. Just flew in from Miami particularly to see you.”

“Well… I don’t know. I have a date to go dancing at eight. What did you say your name is?”

“Shayne. Michael Shayne, Miss Carson. I’m a private detective…”

“Oh!” she thrilled. “Mike Shayne? Really? That cute one that was on TV a year or so ago?”

Shayne grimaced wryly and said, “I’m afraid I’m not quite as cute as the actor who portrayed me. But I am Mike Shayne. And I want very much to see you at once. Could we possibly have dinner together? I have to fly back at eight-thirty.”

“I’d be thrilled to death to have dinner with you,” caroled Blanche Carson. “Where?”

“Can you suggest a place close to you? I can be there in thirty or forty minutes.”

“There’s a nice French restaurant about two blocks away.” She gave him the name and address. “I’ll be waiting for you there in half an hour.” Shayne said, “That will be wonderful,” and hung up. Well, that was one thing a television series did for you, he told himself sourly, as he went to look for a taxi. You could make dinner dates with strange women without any difficulty.

When he entered the dim foyer of the restaurant forty minutes later, a girl arose immediately from a bench and came up to him. She was slightly on the plump side and wore glasses, but she had an intelligent face and her eyes sparkled. “You’re Mike Shayne,” she said eagerly, offering him her hand. “I’d recognize you anywhere.”

“From watching TV?”

“Of course not.” She laughed happily. “I know he was just an actor. But I’ve read lots of the books about you and your cases, and you’re just like the author describes you.”

Shayne grinned and took her arm and they went into a small, quiet dining room and were promptly seated at a secluded table in a corner of the uncrowded room.

Shayne asked if she would have a drink, and she said promptly, “I’d love one. I’ll drink a sidecar in your honor. With Martel cognac, if you have it,” she told the hovering waiter gravely, “and just a little easy on the cointreau.”

Shayne grinned and said, “You have been reading the books. I’ll have two or three of the same,” he told the waiter. “Just keep them coming as fast as I finish one.”

“Now,” said Blanche, planting her elbows on the table and becoming suddenly serious. “What is it about Rose? I haven’t heard a single word from her.”

Shayne said, “I’m not just sure how much of it is about Rose. I hope you’ll help me there. Actually, Blanche, a man was murdered in Miami last night, and that’s what I’m working on. His name was Jerome Fitzgilpin.” He watched keenly for the girl’s reaction to the name, and saw a look of puzzled doubt spread slowly over her expressive features.

“Fitz-gilpin?” She repeated the syllables slowly. “Wait a minute. I think I know. Isn’t that the name of the nice, little man who stood up with Rose and Rutherford Rodman when they were married?”

Shayne nodded. “And took you to dinner in the Village afterward.”

“Yes. He was so nice about everything.” She clasped her hands together tightly. “A complete stranger like that. He had just met Rutherford at the hotel the night before. He bought Rose a corsage of tiny yellow rosebuds and insisted on paying for the dinner… with a bottle of champagne and everything. And you say he’s dead? Murdered? Who would murder such a friendly little man?”

“That’s what I hope to find out.” Their sidecars arrived and Shayne sipped his with pleasure. It was astringently cold, with no sugar around the rim of the glass. “Do you remember what he talked about that night? Anything important?”

“I think he was in New York attending some sort of convention. Mostly he talked about young love and marriage. He was married and had a couple of children, I think. He showed us pictures of them. He was so sweet talking about his wife. Still terribly in love with her after being married so long. I remember he said they’d never had a single quarrel in all the years they’d been married. And he was so anxious to get home to her. I didn’t realize he lived in Miami,” she added. “I don’t believe he mentioned that.”

And that was exactly the time Linda had been having her affair with George Nourse, Shayne thought grimly. Poor devil. It had been a hell of a home-coming for him. Aloud, he said, “Tell me about your friend Rose and her husband. Was it a happy marriage?”

“Oh, no. It was dreadful. Perfectly horrible for poor Rose. But it was partly her own fault. I have to admit that. I told her she was out of her mind to marry a man under false pretenses like that, but she was crazily romantic and got caught up in a lie and it kept getting bigger and bigger and she didn’t know how to tell him the truth. She thought it would be all right after they were married, and they’d laugh about it, because you see she thought he had all kinds of money and he wouldn’t mind. But it turned out he was fooling her, too, and had just married her because he thought she was rich.”

“Wait a minute,” protested Shayne. “How long had they known each other?”

“Just about a week. They met at a party and he was introduced to her as a wealthy bachelor from Chicago. So she made up a silly story about having rich parents in Philadelphia and just being in New York on a visit… and… and that’s the way it happened,” she ended helplessly, spreading out her hands. “Rose was actually a salesgirl at Bonwit’s and she spent practically every penny of her salary buying clothes there at a discount. So she did have beautiful things to wear, but not a penny in the bank. And neither did he, as it turned out. He couldn’t even pay his hotel bill at the Commodore a few days later, and he was furious when he discovered she wasn’t rich at all. He was a thoroughly nasty man,” she went on, lowering her eyelids and hesitating. “I didn’t know about this until months later, after he had left her, because she was too ashamed to tell me in the beginning, but he actually wanted her to… well… have men come up to their room at the hotel to get money to pay the bill.”

“Did she?”

“No!” Blanche shot at him. “She was a good girl. They slipped out of the hotel without paying, and she went back to her job and rented a cheap room where they lived for a time. Then he just disappeared one day and she never heard from him again. I didn’t know about any of this until a long time later because she never even called me when it was going on.”

Shayne thoughtfully finished his second cocktail and waited appreciatively while a third was set before him. Then he picked up a menu and suggested, “Shall we order dinner? I have to be back at the airport a little after eight.”

“Yes. Let’s.” She began looking at her menu also, and Shayne asked, “Can you suggest anything in particular?”

“Their pot-au-feu is wonderful, if you like it. They make it as a specialty for two. A whole chicken in one pot, with herbs and vegetables and wine.”

Shayne said, “It sounds perfect to me,” and nodded to the waiter, who was listening attentively.

“When you did see Rose again, her husband had left her?”

“Yes. Just walked out without a word. After she’d been supporting him for two or three months. It was good riddance, of course, and she never wanted to see him again.”

“Did she?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t see her much for about a year. Then suddenly she called me up about two months ago and asked me to have dinner with her. She was happy and excited… more like the old Rose I’d known before her marriage. And she had some kind of secret scheme for getting a lot of money. Oodles of it, she told me. But she was very mysterious and wouldn’t tell me how she was going to do it. Just that she was going to Miami the next day, and when she came back she’d call me and maybe we’d take a trip around the world together, and like that.

“She was so romantic. Always imagining things and making up stories. Like pretending to be a rich debutante when she first met Rutherford. So I was skeptical when she told me this, but she insisted it was true this time. She seemed so very positive that I was halfway convinced myself. And I kept waiting to hear from her, and never did. Not a word. And I called Bonwit’s after a couple of weeks and they said she’d quit her job and they had no new address for her. And I went around to her old place and they didn’t know anything. Now it’s your turn,” Blanche told Shayne soberly. “I’ve told you everything and you haven’t told me anything.”

“At this point,” said Shayne frankly, “I’m not sure what I’ve got to tell you. Does the name of Kelly mean anything to you? Ever hear Rose mention it?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Or George Nourse?”

“No. Who are they?”

“A couple of names that have come up in connection with Fitzgilpin’s murder last night. Both of them more or less leading back to his trip to New York a year and a half ago.”

Shayne paused as their chicken was placed before them in a large earthenware pot. He waited while the waiter deftly served joint portions to them, appreciatively sniffed the aromatic steam arising from his plate, and asked Blanche one final question.

“Did you ever know of Rose having a prescription for sodium amytal? It’s a high-powered sleeping drug.”

“No. Rose never took anything like that while she lived with me. Why?”

“That’s what killed Jerome Fitzgilpin last night. He was poisoned by sodium amytal.”

“Do you suspect Rose had anything to do with his death?” Blanche leaned toward him, her young face showing concern and strain. “Why? What reason can you have?”

“Right now,” growled Shayne, “I’m not being reasonable. I’m clutching at straws. You’ve been frank with me, and you deserve to know the truth. Eat your chicken while I explain what brought me to New York to talk to you.”

He started at the beginning with a recital of Fitzgilpin’s death and the homicide investigation which had followed. When he concluded the story, he spread out his hands and admitted, “That’s all I’ve got, Blanche. Admittedly, it’s damned little. If we only knew what Rose had in mind when she took off for Miami. You say she spoke of a lot of money. How much would have been a lot to a girl like Rose? Ten thousand? Fifty thousand? Half a million?”

“Fifty, I should think. Not ten. Not the way she was talking. But fifty or a hundred thousand would be really big money to her.”

“How could she possibly plan to get her hands on a sum like that? Think carefully, Blanche. You knew Rose. If it were an inheritance, she would have given you the details. You must have wondered about it… why she was so secretive. Didn’t you come to the conclusion that she’d planned something illegal… something she knew you wouldn’t approve, and thus didn’t tell you?”

Blanche nodded miserably. “Yes. I did think that. She was a peculiar girl. Nice, but… but, she was hard too. She was an orphan and had to make her own way from the time she finished high school. She didn’t exactly feel the world owed her a living, but she did feel… oh, I don’t know exactly. That whatever she could get out of life, she deserved. That’s why… she saw nothing really wrong about tricking Rutherford Rodman into marriage by making him believe she was rich. Later, when it developed he’d tricked her too, she was philosophical about it.”

“Blackmail?” suggested Shayne gently. “Would that be out of her line?”

“I don’t know,” Blanche confessed miserably. “Under certain circumstances. If the person had a great deal of money and Rose felt he didn’t deserve any decent consideration. Yes, I think I can see her justifying blackmail under those conditions.”

“Someone like Rutherford Rodman,” said Shayne flatly.

“Yes. Certainly Rutherford,” said Blanche with spirit. “I’m positive Rose wouldn’t have hesitated to blackmail him if she were given the opportunity. But he had no money.”

“Neither did Jerome Fitzgilpin,” said Shayne broodingly. “Not the sort of money that would appeal to Rose. I just don’t know at this point. You’ve been a big help,” he told Blanche, finishing his chicken and glancing at his watch. “And you’ve got a date to go dancing. Shall we just have coffee and skip dessert?”

“Oh, yes,” she said a trifle ruefully. “I never eat dessert though I can’t seem to lose a pound. You will let me know about Rose, won’t you? As soon as you find out anything. The one thing I can’t understand is why she didn’t let me know. That last night when I saw her… she promised me so faithfully that she would let me know how things turned out. I can’t think of any reason why she hasn’t even dropped me a card.”

Shayne could think of one reason, but he didn’t mention it to Blanche. If blackmail had been Rose’s object, it was a pretty dangerous project to embark upon.

They finished their coffee while talking about trivialities, and Shayne found a taxi outside which dropped Blanche at her apartment and then took him back to the airport in ample time for him to put in a call for Timothy Rourke at the News before his plane took off.

“I’m at the New York airport,” he told the reporter. “Catching an eight-thirty plane back. Eastern, Flight number six. Meet me at the airport?”

“What in hell are you doing in New York?” groaned Rourke. “All hell has broken loose here. The widow Fitzgilpin has disappeared and Painter is having kittens all over the place.”

“Disappeared? When? How?”

“No one knows. She just turned up missing when Painter finally got around to her. She and both the children. I guess he suspects you spirited them off to New York with you. Did you?”

“Hell, no,” growled Shayne. “I don’t know any more about it than you do. Has he caught up with Nourse yet?”

“That’s another thing,” said Rourke aggrievedly. “I’m sitting on that and wondering when in hell it’s going to blow up under me. Yeh. Painter caught up with Nourse. In L. A. this afternoon. Nourse is there and swears he hasn’t been in Miami for over a year. Painter believes him.”

“Doesn’t Petey realize it’s only five hours by jet plane to Los Angeles?”

“Evidently not. Anyhow, that’s when he decided it was time to interview the widow… and she wasn’t home when he got there. Have you got her hid out, Mike?”

“No. Look, I’ve got to get on that plane, Tim. One thing I want you to do. Check on any unsolved murders in the last couple of months. Unidentified bodies of gals in their mid-twenties on either side of the bay. I’ve run into a missing person here in New York.”

“Right now I don’t remember… wait a minute,” said Rourke with rising excitement. “I think there was such a one, Mike. I’ll have to check it out, but…”

“You check and have all the dope for me when I get there. They’re calling my plane right now. See you at the airport, Tim.”