Framed in Blood (12 page)

“Nothing broken as near as I can tell,” he announced cheerfully. “In fact, I’d say I’m in damned good shape for the hard life I lead.” He padded across the room barefooted and picked up his drink, again carefully lowering one hip to the desk.

“I got in touch with the Beach police,” Gentry told him. “You must have slugged the second one harder than you thought. They’re both dead, and Peter Painter was getting ready to drag the bay for your body after checking the license plate.”

“Hopefully?” said Shayne.

“When I told him you were here and alive he ordered me to arrest you on a charge of double murder.”

Shayne managed a brief grin. “Let me put on a robe first, Will.” He went into the bedroom and returned tying the belt of a faded blue-striped robe around his lean waist. “Did Painter identify the bodies?”

“Tentatively. Much as he hated to admit it, he acknowledged that both appear to be well-known trigger boys with long records.”

“Any known mob tie-up?”

Gentry moved his graying head slowly from side to side. “No particular tie-up right now.” He settled back and took a drink from his glass. “I think it’s time you and I had a long informative talk,” he suggested moodily.

Shayne said, “Sure. You start while I put on some coffee.” He slid from the desk carefully and on his way to the kitchen asked, “Shall I put your name in the pot?”

“Why not?” The chief’s tone was caustic. “The way you’re passing out information it looks like I’ll be here a long time.”

“You haven’t done too badly for a start,” Shayne remonstrated from the kitchen, and in a couple of minutes he returned to the desk and his drink, lit a cigarette, and resumed. “How many murders do you expect me to solve in one night?”

“There’s still Bert Jackson.”

“Can’t your boys do anything?”

“Let’s not bat it around too much, Mike. Who hired those two hoods to take you on the causeway?”

“I don’t know.” Shayne took a long drink of cognac. “Before God, I don’t,” he went on angrily when Gentry shook his head in disbelief. “When I do find out it’ll probably be something that can’t be proved, so better let me take care of him in my own way.”

“The way you took care of his two men?” Gentry rolled up his rumpled eyelids and fixed his cold gaze on Shayne’s face.

“Isn’t it a pretty good way?” Shayne challenged.

“Are you intimating that the man who searched your office and this place, sent the two hoods after you, also killed Bert Jackson?”

“I wouldn’t know about that. Can you tie things up?”

“I might,” Gentry rumbled, “if I knew what Jackson was doing here yesterday afternoon and why you threw him out.”

“I told you about that,” Shayne reminded him. “He wanted me to get divorce evidence.”

“I know what you told me. But that was before Ned Brooks spilled his guts and Mrs. Jackson’s next-door neighbor Mrs. Peabody gave us a pretty detailed statement on the private lives of Bert and Betty Jackson.”

“Who’s Ned Brooks?” Shayne parried.

“A reporter who’s been teamed up with Bert Jackson on the
Tribune
recently. Also, a close friend of Bert’s. It’s no use, Mike. From what Brooks and Mrs. Peabody say, Bert knew that Tim Rourke was playing his wife. He wouldn’t have come to you to get divorce evidence that would point to your best friend.”

“My God, Will, do you think I would have made up a story like that if I’d had the faintest idea Tim was involved with Mrs. Jackson?” Shayne burst out angrily. “I swear I didn’t know.”

Gentry took a leisurely sip of his highball, still staring straight at Shayne. “I don’t believe you did, then,” he conceded mildly. “I think you believed it was a safe lead to send us off on the wrong trail. But you know better now. I know you pumped Mrs. Peabody before Sergeant Allen got to her. And when you realized what you’d done you tipped Tim off. Where is he, Mike?”

“Why ask me?”

“He’s disappeared.”

“Why would Tim do that?” marveled Shayne.

“Because you and Ned Brooks and Mrs. Peabody have all put him right in the middle of the Jackson killing,” said Gentry, a warning weariness in his voice. “If he didn’t actually do the shooting himself, he’d better come in and tell us what he knows about it.”

The fragrant odor of fresh coffee brought Shayne to his feet again. He padded into the kitchen and returned with a steaming cup in each hand. He set one on the end table beside Gentry’s chair and the other on the desk, and poured the remaining brandy from his glass into it. Then he settled down, stirred it, and said, “Give me what you’ve got on the Rourke angle, Will. If Tim has killed anyone, I want to know it as much as you do.”

“We’ve got more than I like,” said Gentry gruffly. “Enough to charge him with murder right now. Add these up and see if you still think you’re justified in hiding him out.” The police chief had his fingers ready to tick off the charges when Shayne intervened to protest.

“I haven’t said I’ve got him hidden out.”

“I know you haven’t admitted it. One—Tim’s a friend of both the Jacksons and helped Bert get his first job on the
News.”

“Since when did friendship become a motive for murder?” Shayne cut in fiercely.

“Two,” Gentry resumed, unperturbed, “Mrs. Jackson is a beautiful woman who didn’t get along with her husband. Tim’s been seeing her at home when her husband was at work, and not more than a month ago Bert had a big fight with his wife about that. Oh, hell, Mike, let’s face it. Mrs. Peabody’s report is pretty conclusive, and Ned Brooks says it was common knowledge among people who knew them.”

Shayne’s face muscles were growing stiffer. His scowl pulled at the edges of the tape binding his ear. He took a drink of hot, cognac-laced coffee and said, “Even if Tim was working that side of the street, does that make him a killer? You know how Tim is about women, Will. If he made a habit of killing every husband he—”

“There’s always a first time,” Gentry interrupted angrily. “Maybe you don’t know this, Mike. Tim was out on the town all evening, going from bar to bar trying to locate Bert Jackson. Yet we know they weren’t on speaking terms. Jackson was definitely killed by a bullet from a twenty-two target pistol. I’d feel a lot better about that if Tim hadn’t taken second place in that tournament last month.”

“Yeah,” said Shayne broodingly. “So would I. But if you can get hold of his gun and check it against the bullet that killed Jackson—”

“We searched his apartment when my men went there and found him missing. The pistol was missing, too.”

“Which doesn’t necessarily mean a damned thing.”

“Not in itself. Even the jealousy motive isn’t enough in itself. If Bert Jackson had been out looking for Tim and they happened to meet it would make more sense. But Tim was looking for Bert. Why? There’s another  angle on this thing, Mike, that really makes it look bad for Tim. Do you know anything about the big story Tim’s supposed to have stolen from Jackson just prior to getting him canned from the
News?”

“No. What about it?”

“It’s just a rumor I’ve heard around. You know how hard it is to pin a thing like that down. Something about Tim taking the credit for a story that Jackson actually dug up.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Shayne flatly.

“I wouldn’t either—ordinarily. But it does tie in with the other. If you steal a man’s wife, why not steal a story from him?”

“Nuts. Nobody stole Mrs. Jackson from her husband. Have you talked to her?”

“You know damned well I haven’t,” Gentry roared. “Some officious medico got to her first and shot her full of dope before she recovered from a dose of sleeping-pills.”

“Is there a law against a doctor taking care of a sick patient?” Shayne interposed acidly.

Gentry tested his coffee for temperature, took a big swallow while he ignored Shayne’s question, and resumed. “There’s another angle on this story business. I didn’t quite get the straight of it, but it seems that Brooks and Jackson were onto something pretty hot around City Hall and were getting ready to break it. Brooks didn’t admit it in so many words, but he implied that Jackson was afraid of Rourke getting onto it first and stealing it for the
News.
In fact, Jackson was so afraid it would leak out that he kept most of the essential details secret from even Ned Brooks, his partner on the assignment. It looks as though his decision to turn the whole story in for publication last night may have precipitated something. It might be the reason Rourke was trying so hard to locate Jackson—to prevent it. And if he did locate him in time—” The police chief paused significantly and drained his coffee cup while studying Shayne with lifted brows, noting the look of blank bewilderment on the redhead’s bruised and swollen face.

“You’ve got a couple of things all wrong,” Shayne protested vehemently. “Who says Bert Jackson was going to turn in an important story to his paper last night?”

“Ned Brooks. He ran into Bert near the Jackson house last night and Bert told him then. He was pretty drunk, according to Brooks, and was raving about putting one over on Rourke and wishing he could find him so he could gloat about it.”

“And in a nice friendly way,” Shayne interjected angrily, “Brooks suggested that Bert might go home and find Tim there with his wife.”

“How did you know that?” Gentry demanded.

“Never mind how I know. Damn it, Will, don’t you see that Brooks is lying all over the place for some reason of his own? I know Bert Jackson had no intention of turning in his City Hall story last night. He couldn’t have told Brooks that. I suggest that everything else Ned Brooks told you is a lie.”

“The city editor on the
Tribune
corroborates Brooks’s claim,” said Gentry, unruffled.

“Abe Linkle? What do you mean?”

“Just that. Jackson phoned in last night while Abe was off the desk and left a message for Abe to call him back as soon as he came in. Said he had a City Hall scandal so hot it was burning his hands and he wanted to bring it in.”

“Bert phoned from where?” said Shayne incredulously.

“From his home. At least, he left word for Linkle to call him there. Which Abe did soon afterward. But Jackson’s phone didn’t answer. He tried again later without getting an answer, then gave up.”

Shayne finished his coffee, slid painfully from his position on the desk, and began walking stiff-legged around the room, his head bowed in fierce concentration as he tried to digest this amazing bit of news. He tried to recall exactly what Marie Leonard claimed she had heard Bert say over the telephone in her apartment.

Jackson had called the man he planned to blackmail and given him half an hour to call him back at his home before turning the story in. Suppose the man hadn’t called? Suppose Bert had waited at home for the call, getting drunker and more desperate, and finally decided to drop the idea of blackmail and turn the story in to his paper?

That made sense. But Ned Brooks claimed he had met Bert before he reached home and Bert had told him of his decision then. How could Bert have reached such a decision if the half hour hadn’t elapsed? And it hadn’t—if Marie Leonard and Mrs. Peabody were correct in their timing. Marie said he left her apartment around ten, and Mrs. Peabody had seen him reach home at nine minutes after ten—just about time to have walked the distance from the Las Felice, but not enough to conclude that his blackmail scheme had fallen through.

So Ned Brooks must have lied about that. Yet how had Brooks known the truth if Bert hadn’t told him?

“What time,” Shayne asked, going slowly toward Gentry, “did Bert Jackson phone the
Tribune
and ask for Abe Linkle?”

“Around ten or ten-thirty. Linkle got back a little after ten-thirty, found the message, and called Jackson’s number at once.”

That was the first unanswered phone call, then, that Mrs. Peabody had heard from next door, Shayne figured, turning away.

“And Linkle called again about eleven?” he flung over his shoulder.

“Right. Says he waited about half an hour, and when he didn’t get an answer decided to put it off till morning.”

There it was—more definitely now. That crucial period between Bert’s return home shortly after ten and the unanswered telephone about half an hour later. What had happened in the Jackson house during that period? Where were Bert and Betty Jackson at the time Abe Linkle called back that neither of them was able to answer the phone?

More than ever, Shayne realized that Betty’s testimony was of the utmost importance, and he wondered, now, whether he had made a mistake in calling Doctor Meeker to attend her. But he had been afraid her story would involve Tim Rourke—was still afraid of that. There was Rourke’s testimony that he had seen Betty soon after midnight, and she claimed Bert hadn’t returned home all evening.

Was Rourke lying? Or was Betty lying? Or had Betty actually been out of the house for a period and didn’t know Bert had returned? If that were true, why had Bert gone out soon after calling Linkle, without waiting for the city editor to call back?

Shayne’s brain was confused with the muddle of so many unanswered questions, and his head ached from Tiny’s blackjack. He turned to Gentry again and said, “How close can you spot the time of Jackson’s death?”

Chief Gentry was slow in answering, and he chose his words carefully. “The full report isn’t in yet. Won’t be until the p.m. is completed. Doc tentatively places it somewhere before midnight, an hour or so, maybe. There’s one peculiar thing he has turned up,” he went on cautiously. “He admits he’s guessing right now, but from certain indications of the way the blood settled—what they call post mortem lividity—he thinks the body lay in one position for a certain length of time after death—couple of hours at a guess—before it was dumped where we found it. And it must have been put there at least two to three hours before we reached it.”

“You mean the corpse was carried around in a car after the shooting for a couple of hours before the killer dumped it?”

“According to Doc.”

“But why?”

Gentry didn’t answer. He took his half-smoked cigar from the ash tray, looked at it with a distasteful grimace, lit a fresh one, and puffed on it until the end glowed.