Shoot to Kill ms-49 Read online

  “What’s going on here, huh? Stand still all of you. Nobody make a move.” He swung his revolver around, pointing it at first one and then the other, pouting his thick lips and drawing himself up with an air of ponderous authority on wide-spread flat feet.

  “Been a shooting, huh?” He sniffed the air with satisfaction, nodding his head slowly. Behind him a younger officer peered over his shoulder, and in the hallway behind him Shayne could see the man whom they had passed in the living room downstairs and the houseman, and another round-faced man who had appeared from nowhere. The trio were drawn together in a little knot, speaking anxiously to each other in low voices.

  “Yep. Been a shooting, all right,” the first officer announced with finality. “You, there!” he snarled suddenly at Michael Shayne. “What’s that I see in your hip pocket?”

  “It’s a gun,” Shayne told him quietly. He dropped his hand to the butt of the. 38 to pull it out, but the policeman shouted, “None of that. Keep your hands up, hear me?” He swung his revolver around so the barrel was leveled at the redhead’s belly and said, “There’s been enough shooting. Just keep your hands up and turn around slowly, Mister, and face the wall.”

  Shayne turned slowly as he was directed, and Timothy Rourke burst out impatiently, “For God’s sake, Officer, that’s Mike Shayne. We came here…”

  “I don’t care if he’s Jesus Christ, and I figure to find out why you came here. You just keep your mouth shut while I handle this here according to regulations. Step forward about three feet from the wall,” he directed Shayne, “and lean forward and put your hands out flat so they’re holding up your weight.”

  Shayne followed his instructions silently.

  “Now then, Powers,” the big cop ordered his companion with satisfaction, “you step up there and take that gun off his hip while I keep him covered.”

  He stepped aside and the younger man passed in front of Rourke to lift the. 38 out of Shayne’s pocket.

  “Hand it over to me,” the bulky man directed, and he took the revolver and smelled the muzzle of it and announced, “Been fired just recently all right. I guess we got the murder weapon, Powers. You better take a look at that man behind the desk,” he added as an afterthought. “He looks dead enough from here, but in a case like this we got to make sure.”

  Shayne pushed himself up erect from his awkward position and folded his arms across his chest and watched sardonically while Powers circled the desk and knelt down to take the victim’s dangling left wrist between his fingers and feel for a pulse. “He’s shot right square through the middle of the chest,” he announced. “There’s a hole and some blood but not very much it looks like to me. He’s dead all right, Griffin.” He let go of the wrist and rocked back on his heels and averted his eyes from the corpse. “What do we do now?”

  “What you’d damn well better do,” Shayne grated savagely between his teeth, “is get down to your radio and call in to Headquarters. This is a job for Homicide and nothing should be touched in this room until they get here.”

  “You telling me how to handle this?” Griffin swung a broadly amazed face toward the redhead.

  Shayne said, “I’m telling you. And you’d better listen if you don’t want to go back to pounding a beat.”

  “Is that so, Mister? And just who in hell do you think you are?”

  “I told you who he was,” said Rourke disgustedly. “He’s Mike Shayne. And I’m Rourke from the News for Chrissake. We’re the ones who called in the report in the first place and tried to get here in time to prevent a killing.”

  “I think that redhead is Mike Shayne, Griff,” said Powers anxiously. “You know, the private dick that’s such good friends with Chief Gentry. We should call in to Homicide, I guess.”

  “I don’t care whether he’s a private dick or not, or who he’s friends of,” said Griffin ominously. “I know we got a dead man here and him with a gun that was still smoking in his pocket. Sure, go down and call in to Homicide,” he decided magnanimously. “Tell ’em we got their killer rounded up and dead to rights.”

  The younger officer got to his feet and hurried out of the room, the three men still clustered in the doorway drawing back to let him pass.

  “Now then,” said Griffin importantly. “You there, sitting on the floor with your face in your hands. What do you know about this. Come on, speak up,” he added impatiently as Ralph Larson took his hands from his face and looked up at him dazedly. “Were you a witness to the shooting?”

  Shayne squared his wide shoulders, then stepped over beside Larson and reached down to take hold of his arm and help him stand up. “Don’t answer any questions,” he advised the young man. “You’ll just have to repeat your answers later when Homicide gets here. All of us,” he announced firmly, “should get out of this room and leave it exactly as it is. You know that much, Griffin. Quit throwing your weight around. And just so you won’t look like a complete fool when Sergeant Griggs gets here to take over, this is Ralph Larson standing beside me. He’s a reporter on the News with Tim Rourke who is standing behind me. Tim and I got here about sixty seconds too late to prevent him from shooting Wesley Ames. Two of those men in the hallway will tell you the same thing. I don’t know who the other one is or how much he saw. Now, can we all go downstairs and rustle up a drink, maybe?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me all this in the beginning?” demanded Griffin. “How was I supposed to know…?”

  “You aren’t supposed to know anything,” Shayne told him disgustedly. “Come on Ralph, and Tim.” Still holding firmly to Larson’s arm he went toward the door that was sagging inward on its hinges, and Griffin moved aside uncertainly to let him pass.

  In the hallway, Shayne nodded to the three men there who had drawn back in a huddle and told them, “We should all go downstairs and wait for the arrival of the Homicide Squad. They will want statements from all of you, but in the meantime I advise you to keep quiet. Mr. Ames is dead,” he went on with a shrug of his shoulders. “We can’t do anything for him up here.” He went toward the head of the stairs with Ralph wavering along beside him and Rourke on the other side of the reporter.

  After a moment’s hesitation the three men followed along behind them, and Officer Griffin appeared in the doorway of Ames’ study to announce loudly, “I’ll stay on guard here to see that nothing’s disturbed. None of you are to leave the premises, do you understand?”

  None of them bothered to reply to him as they went down the stairs. Suddenly, Michael Shayne had assumed control of the situation and was tacitly accepted as the one in authority despite his lack of uniform or badge.

  Downstairs the silver tray, broken glasses and two bottles still lay on the floor where they had fallen. Shayne stopped beside them and looked down at the two corked bottles. One was Scotch and one was bourbon. The white-coated Puerto Rican knelt beside the tray and began picking up pieces of glass. Rourke went on across the room with Larson toward a settee, and the other two men hesitated at the foot of the stairs behind Shayne.

  Shayne asked the houseman, “What’s your name?”

  “Alfred, sir.”

  “As soon as you pick up the bigger pieces of glass, do you suppose you could find us some fresh ones in the kitchen… with some ice?”

  Looking past him at the two men to whom he hadn’t been introduced and to whom he hadn’t spoken previously, Shayne went on pleasantly, “I don’t see any reason we should stand on ceremony. We’ll all have to give statements to the police when they arrive, but I don’t think a drink will hurt any of us. I’m Michael Shayne, by the way.”

  One of the men stepped forward with hand outstretched. He was tall and in his forties, with a deeply lined face and an engagingly diffident smile. He said, “I felt I recognized you when you sprinted past me while I was lying on the floor a few minutes ago. I’ve seen your pictures in the papers, Mr. Shayne. I’m Mark Ames. Wesley’s brother.” His handshake was surprisingly warm and strong. “If I had reacted more effectively, my brother wo
uld still be alive,” he said ruefully. “But I was bowled over, you might say, and I was that, literally, when that young man burst into the room waving a pistol in his hand and with murder in his eye. I tried to stop him, but…” He shrugged expressively. “I wasn’t very good at football even in college.”

  “I’m completely in the dark about all this,” the pudgy, round-faced man standing behind Mark Ames declared unhappily. The strong odor of whiskey came from him and his eyes were bloodshot behind rimless glasses which were settled firmly on his bulbous nose. “I was upstairs resting in my room waiting for Alfred to bring me a drink when I heard all this commotion downstairs and then in the hallway. A shocking affair. Disgraceful,” he told Shayne firmly. “Citizens shot down in cold blood in the privacy of their own homes. A commonplace in Miami, no doubt. Certainly it would not be countenanced in a civilized community. I am told you are a detective, Mr. Shayne. Who is that vicious young murderer across the room?”

  Shayne said gravely, “His name is Ralph Larson. What’s yours, by the way?”

  “This is Mr. Sutter, Shayne,” interposed Mark Ames quickly. “An attorney from New York City. He flew down this afternoon to consult Wesley on some legal matter and I’m afraid he’s gotten a poor idea of our mores here in Miami.”

  “There have been murders committed in New York, I believe,” Shayne commented drily. He turned away as Alfred got to his feet with his burden of broken glass and scurried toward the rear, presumably in the direction of the kitchen.

  The outer door opened and Patrolman Powers stepped inside. He looked around the living room and at the five men in some surprise to see them there, and announced loudly, “The Homicide Squad is on the way. Everyone is to stay put until they get here.”

  “You stay down there, Powers, and keep an eye on them and see that they don’t get their heads together and make up any stories,” came Griffin’s voice booming down from the head of the stairs. “I’m standing guard at the scene of the crime to see that nothing is touched… the way it says in Regulations.”

  Powers called back loudly, “Yes, sir. I’ll see to it.” He stood with his back against the door and his thumbs hooked inside his pistol-belt, and looked them over sternly. “Just take it easy the way Officer Griffin says,” he advised them. “That way, everything will go smooth and we won’t have any trouble.”

  Shayne grinned at him and then crossed the wide room to the settee where Timothy Rourke was seated beside Larson. The younger man sat bolt upright and defiant. He asked bitterly, “What’s all this silly rigmarole about? I killed Ames, goddamnit. He deserved killing and I’m glad he’s dead. So why in hell don’t they put the handcuffs on me and take me off to jail?”

  “There’s a certain protocol to be followed,” Shayne told him. “Take it easy. You’ll end up in jail all right. In the meantime, relax. This is probably the last drink you’ll have for a good long time,” he added as Alfred reentered the room stiffly carrying his silver tray with a pitcher of ice cubes and a carafe of water and an assortment of unbroken glasses on it, in addition to the two bottles of liquor which Alfred had retrieved unharmed from the floor.

  Shayne beckoned to the houseman, and asked over his shoulder, “Scotch or bourbon, Ralph? And how do you like it?”

  The young man shuddered and shook his head. “I couldn’t touch a drop. I think I’d vomit.” He hesitated with his young face working queerly. “I keep seeing him sitting there grinning at me,” he burst out. “I wanted to kill him. I enjoyed pulling the trigger. But now…” He shook his head dazedly and buried his face in his hands.

  Michael Shayne took two cubes of ice from Alfred’s proffered pitcher and dropped one of them in each of two tall glasses. He lavishly poured bourbon in one glass and Scotch in the other, added a dollop of water to each and took one glass in each hand, waving Alfred on to the others. He handed the bourbon highball to Rourke who continued to sit beside Larson, and muttered obliquely, “Don’t take it so hard, Tim. You did your best, damn it.”

  “None of that whispering,” said Powers sternly from his military stance in front of the door. “I guess it’s all right for all of you to have drinks, but there’s to be no private communications between suspects until you’ve each made your statements.”

  Shayne shrugged and turned away from the two reporters with a glass of watered Scotch in his hand. On the other side of the room Mark Ames had refused a drink, but the New York attorney was eagerly pouring Scotch with a shaking hand into a tall glass containing two ice cubes. He filled it nearly to the top and set the bottle back on Alfred’s tray, and lifted the glass to his mouth with both hands gripping it tightly.

  Shayne grimly watched him lower the contents by a good two inches before he took it away from his mouth, and he wondered whether Lawyer Sutter was going to still be sober enough to make a statement when Homicide arrived. Not that it mattered much, he told himself. Nothing that Sutter had to tell them could possibly change anything.

  Then he heard the low, discreet whine of a carefully controlled siren from the distance on Biscayne Boulevard and knew they hadn’t much longer to wait before the efficient technicians from Will Gentry’s Homicide Squad took over.

  6

  Sergeant Griggs was a short squarely-built man in plain clothes, but his driver who entered the doorway behind him was in uniform. Griggs had an intelligent, weathered face, shrewdly cold eyes, and a completely bald head. He pivoted slowly, just inside the room, scrutinizing each man carefully, and not a flicker of surprise showed on his impassive features as his gaze slid over the detective and the reporter.

  With no indication of pleasure, he said, “Well, well. Miami’s gift to television and the demon reporter of the daily press. Just what goes on here?”

  “There’s been a shooting, Sarge. Upstairs,” said Powers eagerly. “These fellows claim that one sitting down there did it.”

  Griggs’ gaze rested briefly on the seated Ralph Larson, and then shifted back to Shayne. “Who’s the stiff?”

  “Wesley Ames,” Shayne told him.

  “They tell me your secretary called in the first alarm. What do you do… get printed announcements when a murder’s about to be committed?”

  “Not quite. This time it just happens…”

  “Skip it for now. Let’s go upstairs and get the picture straight. You may as well tag along, Rourke, so we can get full newspaper coverage. That way, you can write the facts for once without having recourse to your imagination. You stay here with Powers,” he directed his driver. “Send the other boys on up as soon as they get here.”

  He went toward the stairs and Shayne and Rourke followed him with their glasses in their hands.

  Griffin was standing importantly at attention outside the open door of the study. He said, “Not much work for you on this one, Sarge. Here’s the murder weapon.” He held out Larson’s. 38. “I took it off that big redhead while it was still hot and smoking.”

  Griggs nodded and walked into the room past him, disregarding the gun. “You hang onto it, Griff. Maybe you’ll get a citation for discovering important evidence.” He stopped and surveyed the sagging door with its DO NOT DISTURB sign still hanging from the knob, then turned his attention to the inner door jamb where a heavy brass socket for a bolt still dangled from one half-withdrawn screw.

  “Looks like we not only got murder, but a breaking and entering rap to boot,” he observed sourly.

  “I’m guilty, Sergeant,” Shayne admitted cheerfully. “It seemed like a good idea with shooting going on inside.”

  Griggs shrugged and walked on into the room, coming to a halt beside the dead man behind the desk and looking down at him fixedly. “He looks dead enough,” he observed without emotion.

  Wesley Ames did look very dead. In life he had had sharp features, and in death they were tight and pinched. He wore a white shirt without a tie and unbuttoned at the throat, and a heavy, fancy waistcoat of garish red that was tightly buttoned up the front with a row of large silver buttons. The cent
er button was missing. In its place was a round hole where the. 38 bullet had entered his body. Around the hole was a wide stain of darker red. Slumped sideways out of the chair as he was, the white leather-cushioned back of the arm-chair showed another round hole where the bullet had come out of the body and entered the chair. Griggs said, “Right through the heart, it looks like. He probably died instantly.”

  Shayne said, “He was like that when Tim and I busted in not more than sixty seconds after the shot was fired, and he wasn’t moving a muscle. I guess he didn’t know what hit him.”

  Griggs straightened up and looked around the room alertly. “This the only entrance?”

  “I don’t know anything about the set-up and I haven’t asked any questions. I’m just an innocent bystander on this one, Sergeant.” Shayne looked around the room with Griggs. “That door in the back must open out onto a balcony.”

  There was a door at the rear of the room on the left that had a wooden bottom and the top half of glass. To the right of the door there were two wide windows, evenly spaced, and both of them were tightly closed and latched on the inside.

  Griggs and Shayne walked over to the door together while Rourke watched and listened alertly and made an occasional note. The door had a heavy brass bolt on the inside similar to the one that was fitted to the other door. The bolt was securely pushed inside the hasp. There was an outside light turned on over the door, and peering through the glass they could see a narrow balcony with a wrought iron railing, and a stone stairway leading down to the ground at the side of the house. It was pseudo-Moorish architecture, such as had been much the vogue in Miami in the early twenties.

  Sergeant Griggs turned back and investigated the locked windows and muttered, “Everything locked up tight as a drum, with a don’t disturb sign on his door.” He went back and glanced at the flat top of the big desk. Wesley Ames had evidently been a very orderly man. There was no ashtray, no evidence that he had smoked. A chromium electric coffee percolator stood on a round, heat-resistant pad near the right side of the desk. It had an electric cord plugged into the base that dropped off the side of the desk and was plugged into an extension cord leading to a wall socket. It was the automatic type with a built-in thermostat that shuts it off when it has finished percolating and keeps the contents just below boiling for as long as it is left connected.