Shoot to Kill (12 page)

“If one of the people in this house found him dead and the door unbolted, they’d know Larson was the killer. By bolting the door behind him they would immediately take all suspicion off Larson and make each one of them suspects. It’s the last thing in the world any of them would do.”

“I guess you’re right.” Griggs looked unhappy and chewed on the knuckle of his left thumb. “That gives us those four… counting the houseboy… and that New York lawyer, too. The way I remember their statements, any one of the five could have had an opportunity to slip in here between the time Larson left and when he came back. Sutter was up here, supposed to be in his room alone with the door shut. Mrs. Ames was up here doing something unspecified. Conroy came up to his room for a time before deciding to go out. Mark Ames claims he was downstairs all the time, but he was alone in the living room after Mrs. Ames and Conroy went out, and he could have slipped up here. So far as we know, Alfred didn’t come upstairs, but I suppose there’s a servant stairway up the back, so
he’s
not out. Damn it, the thing is wide open, Mike. And I don’t know whether you caught any of that by-play between Mark Ames and the widow or not, but neither one of them is doing much grieving. You remember what Tim Rourke said about the two of them, and rumors around town they were having an affair.”

Shayne nodded, tugging at his ear lobe. “If I were you, Sergeant, I think I’d
try
to find out why Mark Ames had come out tonight for the first time in months to talk to his brother.”

“Yeh, and I also want a line on Mr. Sutter, the attorney from New York, and why
he
was here to see Ames. It didn’t matter before when I thought it was a cut-and-dried shooting, but now it does matter. Now I’ll have to hold him in town… Goddamn it, Mike!” Griggs broke out explosively. “Why did you have to get so smart? You and your damned post mortem! I never will get any sleep tonight.”

Shayne grinned and said, “You’re a cop. You get paid by the city for not sleeping. Me, I don’t.” He pretended to yawn widely. “It’s all yours, Sarge.”

“Goddamn it, Mike! You tear this thing wide open with your lousy post mortem… are you just going to walk away and leave it that way?”

“I’m leaving it in your very efficient hands, Sergeant Griggs. I’m headed for some well-earned shut-eye. Hell, you’ve got it narrowed down to five suspects and about half an hour of time,” he said indulgently. “What more do you want in a murder case?”

“Yeh,” said Griggs unhappily. “Five suspects that hated the dead man, and not a clean-cut alibi for a single one of them. Okay. Get out of my hair,” he said with finality. “Go get your shut-eye or whatever private dicks do on their nights off while honest cops are working for a living. Just don’t come back messing up this case with any more of your smart ideas. If you get any more like that, keep ’em to yourself, hear?”

Shayne drew himself to attention and saluted smartly. “Very well, Sergeant. I shall away.” He turned and strode stiffly out of the room and down the stairs where Mark Ames and Helena were still huddled together rather intimately on the sofa, and where Victor Conroy intercepted him on his way to the door with a worried look on his face.

“Why is that policeman so interested in Wesley’s paperknife, Mr. Shayne? He was shot to death, wasn’t he? Suppose the knife is missing? There might be a dozen reasonable explanations for that?”

Shayne shrugged and countered, “You never can tell what sort of crazy tangent a homicide dick will go off on. It’s an occupational disease.”

“But what did he mean by ordering that no one should leave the house?” demanded Conroy, following Shayne to the door. “Does he have a right to issue orders like that?”

Shayne told him, “A cop in charge of a murder investigation has pretty much blanket authority. I wouldn’t argue with Griggs if I were you. He’s only doing his job.” He went out into the flood-lighted area and down to his car with the sergeant’s official car parked closely behind it. The uniformed driver got out from under the wheel as Shayne opened his door, and he hurried forward to ask anxiously, “Do you know if I’m supposed to wait out here, Mr. Shayne, or does the sergeant need me inside?”

Shayne said, “I think he’s going to be taking some more statements and will be wanting your shorthand pad. Wish him luck from me,” he added with a wide grin, backing up against the front bumper of the police car and cramping his wheels to make a left turn back down the driveway.

When he reached his hotel this time, Shayne put his car into its assigned slot in the hotel garage, and walked around to the front entrance to the lobby.

The desk clerk watched him with interest as he crossed the lobby toward the elevator, and called out, “There’s a phone message for you, Mr. Shayne.” Shayne broke his stride to go to the desk, and the clerk got a slip of paper from a cubbyhole and handed it to him. Shayne unfolded it and read:
“Call me at once.”
There was a telephone number and a room extension, and it was signed
“Sutter.”
Shayne went on to the elevator and up one floor and to his suite where there was still ice water and a bottle of cognac waiting for him on the center table. He poured a drink and sipped from the glass contemplatively, spreading the telephone message out on the table and scowling at it. It had been received almost an hour previously, very shortly after Sutter had walked out of this room.

He sat down and lit a cigarette and called the number Sutter had given, and when a happy female voice answered, “Hotel
Costain.
May I help you?” he gave her the extension, and the attorney’s voice came over the wire. “Yes?”

“Mike Shayne. Is that Sutter?”

“Yes. Thank goodness you called, Mr. Shayne. I’ve been worried…”

“I just got back from the Ames’ house,” Shayne cut him off. “I told you I’d be in touch as soon as I had anything to report.”

“I know you did. What
have
you to report, Mr. Shayne?”

“Nothing good,” the detective told him bluntly. “I went through the man’s private files without finding anything on your client. Yet, I’m sure I had the real dirt… the stuff he had no intention of printing.”

“I’m not surprised,” Sutter told him. “You see, I received a call in my room immediately after I got back from talking to you. A man who refused to identify himself told me that he had the information in his possession… the documents concerning my client which I had come down here to buy. He quoted a paragraph from one of them which convinced me he was telling the truth, Mr. Shayne.”

“And?”

“He is willing to turn them over to me for payment of twenty thousand dollars. He is apparently aware that Ames’ price was twenty-five, but as an inducement for me to deal with him at once… he stressed it must be tonight… he will accept twenty… intimating that I could pocket the extra five and no one would be the wiser.”

Shayne asked, “Why are you calling me?”

“Because I don’t trust the man whoever he is. I am not accustomed to dealing with violence, Mr. Shayne. He set up a midnight rendezvous to which I agreed reluctantly. What assurance have I that he will not meet me and forcibly take my payment without delivering the documents?”

Shayne said, “It has been done. How is the pay-off set up?”

“He gave me definite instructions. At midnight exactly I am to walk out the front entrance of my hotel and hail a cab… the first one waiting in line at the cab-stand or the first one that cruises by if none is waiting. He warned me that I would be under observation from the moment I stepped out the door and got into the taxi, and that if it were followed by another car the deal would be off. He gave rather elaborate instructions to prevent the possibility of my being followed unknown to him, and I confess I cannot see how you can circumvent them. But I suppose private detectives have a great deal of experience in such matters and I hope you may arrange to be on hand when I turn the money over to him.”

Shayne said, “Go on. What were his instructions?”

“To proceed north from my hotel at a moderate speed to Sixty-seventh Street. Left on Sixty-seventh for five blocks, and I am to instruct the driver to slow down in the middle of the fifth block and pull into the curb on the right and stop there for at least a full minute. I am then to tell the driver I have changed my mind about getting out there, and for him to drive on to the next corner where he is to turn south and drive slowly in that direction until we are hailed by a car and directed to pull over and stop. He will be in that car with the documents.”

Shayne had been jotting these directions down as the New York attorney gave them to him. Now he said, “I’ve got all that, Sutter. If you want to take that dope back to Murchinson in New York I advise you to do exactly as he says.”

“And you?” asked Sutter anxiously.

“Don’t worry about me. This is my town and this sort of thing is my business. Don’t look for me out of the cab. Don’t expect to see me following you. Remember that if you are able to see me, your man will too. Just have your driver do exactly what he told you lo. I’ll be in on the payoff, don’t worry about that, and you’ll be fully protected all the way.”

“Very well. I confess I don’t see how… but that is your business, isn’t it? Shall I take the full sum with me, or only twenty thousand?”

“All of it,” Shayne directed him. “In two envelopes will be best. You’re going to owe me the five if all goes well and you turn the twenty over to him.”

“Yes, I… I was afraid you’d drive that sort of bargain,” said Sutter sadly. “But I don’t care. If I can just conclude this unsavory business successfully and get back to New York I shall be most happy.”

“One more thing,” Shayne said sharply. “Have you been contacted by Sergeant Griggs?”

“The policeman who came to the Ames house? Not since I came to the hotel. I understand that he had no further interest in me.”

“That situation has changed,” Shayne told him. “He’s going to be looking for you to ask some more questions.” He looked at his watch and went on, “If you want to be certain to be free to leave your hotel at midnight, I suggest you get out of your room right away and stay out of it. There’s a cocktail lounge downstairs in the Costain. Go down there and settle yourself in a booth with a drink until twelve o’clock, and don’t pay any attention if you’re paged. Later on, if Griggs does contact you, you needn’t tell him I warned you to keep out of his way.”

“Of course not, Mr. Shayne. But why on earth…?”

“We’d better not waste time discussing it now. The sooner you get out of your room the better. Griggs is likely to be sending a man around for you at any moment.” Shayne hung up and sat back comfortably to finish his drink and to wonder who it was that had the Murchinson papers in his possession, and how he had come by them.

AT FIVE MINUTES BEFORE TWELVE A BELLBOY CAME through the cocktail lounge of the Costain Hotel in downtown Miami sing-songing, “Call for Mister Sutter. Mister Alonzo Sutter. Call for Mister Sutter.”

Seated alone in a shadowed booth near the entrance, Alonzo Sutter turned his head slightly and put his left hand up to instinctively shield his face from the passing boy. He had a feeling that everyone in the bar was looking at him and wondering why he did not answer the summons, though he knew that was utter nonsense because no one in the lounge could possibly know his name was Alonzo Sutter.

It was the second time within half an hour that he had been paged like that, and it gave him a guilty feeling to realize it must be the police who were looking for him. The two envelopes in his pocket containing five thousand and twenty thousand dollars added to his guilt feelings. He wasn’t accustomed to carrying large sums in cash, and the fact that the money was earmarked as a blackmail payoff made him feel like a furtive criminal as he sat in front of an untasted drink and waited for the final minutes to pass.

It had been bad enough when he first accepted the assignment in New York, but at that time it had seemed a relatively simple matter to fly to Miami and deliver an envelope to a well-known syndicated columnist, with a return reservation at ten o’clock which he had deemed would give him ample time to conclude the unpleasant affair.

He looked at his watch and sighed, realizing that he would have been in New York right now had things gone according to schedule. But there had been that infuriating delay at the Ames house when he arrived shortly before six. Wesley Ames’ secretary had admitted that he was expected to arrive from New York, although he implied he did not know the exact nature of Sutter’s business, but the man absolutely refused to disturb his employer’s privacy to announce Sutter’s arrival.

He would simply have to cool his heels and await the great man’s convenience, he was informed, and both Conroy and Mrs. Ames had been vague about the time Ames could be expected to emerge from his study and make himself available. They had been kind enough to give him dinner and offer him a room for the night when it became apparent that he was likely to miss his return flight.

In his irritation, Alonzo Sutter had drunk more cocktails than he was accustomed to before dinner, and had emptied his wine glass several times during the excellent meal.

Then had come the disgraceful shooting affair, with the house filling up with private detectives and reporters and the police, and with Sutter’s realization that he had failed to accomplish his mission in Miami.

And now it was one minute and thirty seconds until midnight, and he reluctantly began to slide out of the booth to keep his appointment with a blackmailer who was unknown to him. He had paid for his drink when it was served him, and he left a modest tip beside the still untouched glass. He nervously checked his watch again as he went from the dimness of the cocktail lounge into the well-lighted lobby, and he strolled toward the street door at a pace calculated to bring him out onto the sidewalk precisely at midnight.

There was no doorman on duty at this hour and Sutter walked to the curb and stood there in the bright light of a street lamp and looked to his left toward the taxi-stand. There were no empty cabs waiting, but as he stood there he saw one approaching, and he waved to it and it pulled in and stopped in front of him.