Michael Shaynes' 50th case ms-50 Page 4

  While waiting for the train to reach Sunray Beach, Marvin planned everything carefully. It was most important, to avoid the slightest possibility of scandal involving Sissy’s mother, that no one should ever guess that Marvin Blake had come home this night.

  There would be a police investigation, of course, and he realized they would discover that he had checked out of the Miami hotel that afternoon. There was even the possibility that they would discover the return half of his ticket had been used.

  To meet that contingency he had decided to take the train back to Moonray Beach about thirty miles south, and get off there. He would get a room at the hotel, giving a fictitious Miami address, and while checking in he would mention something about having reached town on the earlier train from Miami.

  In his room he would write a suicide note saying that he had started home that afternoon, but before reaching Sunray had realized he could not face his wife and daughter with the terrible weight of guilt he had on his conscience. He would intimate that he had been unfaithful to Ellie at the convention, and did not consider himself fit to go on living. And he would beg the forgiveness of Ellie and Sissy for what he was about to do.

  He even knew exactly how he would commit the act. After writing the suicide note he would take off all his clothes and get in the bathtub and open the arteries in his wrists with a razor blade and let his life-blood ooze down the drain.

  He was very careful to remain out of sight until the train came through. Sunray Beach had one night policeman who casually patrolled the streets at night in his police car, but he was just about the only local resident awake after midnight, and Marvin did not even see his car making the rounds while he skulked at the far end of the deserted parking lot at the depot, and he watched the dimly lighted station nervously as train-time neared, hoping that no one else had decided to catch the early morning train into Miami.

  No car had driven up to the station and there was no sign of life there when he heard the oncoming train whistle loudly in the distance, a mournful, eerie sound in the night silence which sounded to him like a dirge for Marvin Blake who was soon to die.

  He remained hidden in the shadow of a palm tree while the short train wheezed in, and was relieved when the single day coach stopped almost directly in front of him.

  A trainman stepped down swinging an electric lantern, and Marvin stepped forward with his suitcase and climbed aboard without looking at the man.

  The rear seat of the coach was vacant and he dropped into it with his suitcase beside him and leaned back with his hat tipped down over his face and with a dollar bill ready in his right hand.

  The train pulled out toward Miami smoothly almost before he was comfortably settled, and he waited a long time, watching beneath the brim of his hat until he saw the conductor’s feet pause in the aisle beside him.

  He extended the bill toward him and muttered sleepily, “One way to Moonray Beach, please.”

  The bill was whisked from his grasp, and he kept his hand extended, palm upward, until the conductor dropped his change and receipt into it and moved away.

  He waited until the train came to a full stop before getting up from the seat and stepping off the train. Moonray Beach was almost twice as large as Sunray, and there were half a dozen people standing around the station, but none of them so much as glanced at Marvin as he carried his suitcase briskly to Main Street.

  He had vaguely hoped to find a bar open where he could stop for a few drinks before going on to the hotel, but in this he was disappointed. Everything was closed, and he trudged the block and a half to a dingy hotel which had known better times and was putting up a listless struggle against the competition of modern motels which had sprung up on the outskirts.

  The small lobby was ill-lighted and empty except for an old man dozing behind the registration desk with a streak of tobacco juice running down his chin from the corner of his mouth.

  He blinked rheumy eyes open and stood up slowly when Marvin rapped on the desk in front of him, and he yawned widely and reckoned he did have a vacant room when Marvin asked for one.

  He signed a registration card, “Marvin Blake,” and added the name of the Miami hotel at which he had been staying. As he pushed the card back he said carelessly, “I came in on the ten o’clock train, but didn’t know I was going to be stuck for the night,” and the clerk nodded without interest and slid a key numbered 201 across to him and mumbled, “Right up at the head of them stairs.”

  Marvin took the key and started to turn away, then hesitated and said, “I need a night-cap real bad.” He got a ten-dollar bill from his wallet and spread it on the counter. “That’s yours if you can scare up a bottle I can take to my room.”

  The old man looked down at the bill avidly and said, “No place open in town this time uh night. Tell yuh what though, Mister. If you don’t mind a couple of drinks off the top of a bottle of Four Roses, I reckon I might fix you up.”

  Marvin told him he didn’t mind at all, and the clerk went around behind the switchboard and came back with an opened fifth. The couple of drinks that were missing had been healthy slugs, but there was still more than enough left in the bottle to get Marvin drunker than he had ever been in his life, so he took it and shoved the bill over and picked up his suitcase in the other hand and went up the stairs to his room.

  Inside, the room was fairly clean and as impersonal as every hotel room. Marvin set his suitcase down at the foot of the bed and took off his hat and coat, then carried the bottle of whiskey into the bathroom. He found two water-glasses there, and uncorked the bottle and poured one of them half-full. He was surprised to see how his hand shook as he did so, and he realized that he really did need that bottle.

  He filled the glass to the brim from the tap, and stood there and forced the entire glassful down his throat without taking it away from his lips.

  It hit the pit of his stomach like fire, and slowly spread through the rest of his body.

  He poured the glass almost half-full a second time and added water, and carried bottle and glass back and set them on top of the bureau.

  Then he unfastened his suitcase and opened it, and got out a pad of yellow, ruled paper and a fresh packet of razor blades.

  He sat on the edge of the bed with the blades lying beside him and the pad on his knees, and got out his pen and wrote as firmly as he could: “To whom it may concern.”

  He paused, staring down at the words, trying to get them into focus, angry because his hand was still so unsteady. He decided he needed another drink before he could get on with the job.

  He went to the bureau and slowly emptied the glass again, shuddering convulsively as he did so, then sat on the edge of the bed again and laboriously began composing his death message.

  5

  Timothy Rourke, star reporter for the Miami News, awoke that next morning languidly and slowly, with an almost unbelievable sense of physical well-being flooding through him as he became pleasantly aware of bright sunshine and fresh sea air flooding through the open window beside his bed, and listened to the unexcited twittering of birds in a tree just outside.

  He had no semblance of a hangover, no taste of dry asbestos in his mouth. He had no idea what time it was and, very happily, he did not care to know. He blinked up drowsily at the low ceiling of the motel room and consciously willed himself to drift into a self-congratulatory reverie that was half-sleeping and half-waking.

  This, by God, was what happened to a man when he went to bed stone, cold sober, all by himself in his own monastic bed, and slept the entire night through without a single nightmare, without once waking to the taste of sour retching in his throat.

  He ought to do this sort of thing oftener, he told himself sternly; and he wondered sleepily why he didn’t, and he vaguely pitied himself because he knew very well why he didn’t do it more often.

  It was because he just didn’t have the requisite willpower. Last night, for instance, had required no will-power at all. It was purely accidental and no
t of his own volition that he had turned in at eleven o’clock without a drink in his belly except the two cocktails he had allowed himself at dinner in Jacksonville. He had held himself down to those two at dinner because he wanted to cover another hundred miles or so toward Miami before stopping to spend the night, and he did have enough common sense and willpower to keep himself fairly sober while driving on the highway, and it had given him something to look forward to as he drove southward through the night.

  So it was that when he pulled off the road and turned in at the Sunray Beach Motel a little after ten o’clock it had been with the happy anticipation of belting down half a dozen or more fast slugs before turning in for the night. But he made the mistake of signing the register and paying for his room before casually asking the motel clerk where he would have to go to find a drink.

  The clerk had appeared slyly pleased to inform him that Sunray’s only bar closed promptly at ten o’clock and the nearest place open at that hour was thirty-three miles down the road.

  And, Nossir, said the clerk, he sure didn’t have a bottle around the place. He didn’t have a license to sell liquor, and he never touched the stuff his own self.

  Timothy Rourke lay in bed and grinned now as he recalled how angry and outraged he had been at that sorry state of affairs last night. He had killed his own travelling bottle in Atlanta the previous evening, and had stupidly neglected to buy another during the day. He had been sorely tempted to drive on thirty-three miles, but a small streak of self-respect had refused to allow him to give the clerk the satisfaction of demanding his money back so he could go on to where a drink would be available.

  He wasn’t a dipso, damn it. He had always said he could take the stuff or leave it alone. Who the hell had to have a drink? So he had stalked out of the office and driven around in front of the empty unit and gone to bed. And to instant, dreamless sleep.

  And now he felt blissfully pleased with himself and deliciously hungry, and he lay in bed another five minutes savoring the pleasant sensation and wondering why he didn’t try it more often.

  His watch on the bedside table said it was nine-thirty when he finally threw off the light cover and slid out of bed. He showered swiftly, and shaved, and as he dressed he planned what he would have for breakfast. By God, he was hungry. And not even slightly thirsty. He righteously told himself he didn’t give a whoop in hell when Sunray’s only bar opened for business in the morning. What he wanted was food, in huge quantities.

  He had noticed a coffee shop next to the motel office last night, and he strode out impatiently into the bright sunlight and crossed the parking area toward it. This morning there were only three cars besides his own in the rectangle although it had been almost full when he turned in last night.

  The coffee shop was bright and clean and cheerful, with a long lunch counter and a row of unoccupied stools in front of it. There were tables along the wall, and a young couple with two small children sat at one of them in the corner.

  Rourke went blithely to the counter and sat down, and the waitress opened a dog-eared breakfast menu in front of him. She was big-busted and big-butted, and had a pleasantly bovine face, and she asked cheerfully, “What’s it going to be this morning?”

  “Food,” the reporter told her with gusto. He pushed the printed menu away and said, “Toast. With lots of butter spread on while it’s hot. Do you have any sausage?”

  She nodded. “Country-style patties. It’s home-made and real tasty.”

  “Just what the doctor ordered,” he told her happily. “Three patties of tasty sausage, well done and very crisp. And three scrambled eggs. Do you think you could use your influence with the cook,” he added earnestly, “to get the eggs scrambled lightly… so they’re real fluffy? He spread out his hands appealingly and smiled, and she smiled back and said, “You just bet I will. If there’s anything makes me sick to my stomach in the morning it’s old, tired, tough scrambled eggs.” She started to turn away and asked over her shoulder, “Hash-brown potatoes with that?”

  “Lord, yes,” he told her enthusiastically. “Hash-browns, certainly. And a cup of coffee to start, if you don’t mind.” My God, he thought as he watched the wriggling of her wide buttocks as she went back to give his order, how long had it been since he could even face the thought of fried potatoes for breakfast. Now his mouth actually watered at the prospect.

  She returned with a large china mug of fresh, very hot and very strong coffee and placed it in front of him, and took a step backward from the counter and folded her arms across her ample bosom and said, “Isn’t it just awful about last night?”

  Rourke took an appreciative sip of the good coffee and wondered why they didn’t make it like that in Miami any more. “What,” he asked, looking across the rim of the steaming cup at her, “is awful about last night?”

  “Didn’t you hear about it?” she asked eagerly, planting both hands on her hips and leaning forward. “It’s been on the radio since seven o’clock.”

  “What’s been on the radio?”

  “Murder. That’s what. Right here in Sunray. Can you beat it? Lordy, it sends the shivers up and down my spine every time I think of it.”

  “It happens,” said Rourke sententiously, “in the best of communities.”

  “I guess so, but you just never think… you know? Like that book somebody wrote: ‘It can’t happen here’. But it did happen here. Right last night. While everybody was sound asleep.”

  Timothy Rourke tilted the thick mug in both hands and drank as deeply as he dared of the hot liquid.

  “Everybody in town wasn’t asleep,” he argued gently. “There was the murderer and the murderee. Who were they?”

  “Mrs. Blake. That’s who. One of the nicest, sweetest women you’d ever know. You’re a stranger in town, aren’t you?” She half-closed her eyes to study his thin and deeply-lined face. “Just stopping through?”

  Rourke nodded. “On my way to Miami. Tell me more about your murder. I’m a newspaper reporter.”

  “Are you, now? From Miami? I guess it’ll make the headlines, all right. Put Sunray right on the map. Maybe you’ll write it up for your paper, huh?”

  “Maybe. If so, I’ll want to quote you, of course. In an exclusive interview this morning, this reporter was told by… what is your name?”

  “Me? Mabel Handel. But you wouldn’t put my name in, would you? I don’t know anything except what I’ve heard.”

  “You’re my exclusive source of information,” he assured her solemnly. “Except you haven’t told me very much yet. A woman named Mrs. Blake was murdered in Sunray last night. When? Where? How? By whom? Why?”

  “Well, I… sometime in the night. I guess they don’t know just when. Sissy found her this morning. Imagine that? Isn’t it just horrible? Sissy’s the Blakes’ little girl. Six years old, I guess. She’s a darling little girl. Think of it! Her own mother murdered in the bedroom right next to hers in the night, and she never knew. Not until this morning. Not until she got up and peeked in her momma’s room and saw her lying there. Stiff and cold and strangled. Naked, they say. Naked as a jaybird in her own bed. Can you imagine?”

  Rourke said, “You’re doing all right, Mabel. That’s the when, where, and how. Now: by whom, and why?”

  “Nobody knows who did it. Must have been a tramp, they think. A sex maniac, I say. Ellie Blake was a mighty pretty woman. Young enough to… you know? Not more than thirty, I guess. Why else would anybody do it? In bed like that… and naked. You can’t tell me it wasn’t a sex crime.”

  “Where was her husband at the time?”

  “That’s just it. At an automobile dealers’ convention in Miami. He’s got the Ford agency here. One of our prominent citizens. He’s real nice, Marv is. Stops in here for coffee sometimes. Always got a comeback when you kid him. Not smart-alecky or fresh, you know. He and Ellie were the sweetest couple. Neither one of them ever looked at anyone else. And is he crazy about his Sissy? That’s the little girl, you know. Poor Marvin! I don
’t know how he’ll face this. Just think of it!”

  The ping of a bell from the kitchen drew her attention, and she returned with a tray loaded down with more breakfast than Timothy Rourke had looked in the face for many years.

  The toast was a beautiful golden brown and each slice was inundated with fresh country butter. The sausage patties were darkly crisp on the outside and tenderly tangy underneath; the eggs were, indeed, gently and lovingly scrambled to a creamy and fluffy deliciousness, and the hashed-brown potatoes were definitely a culinary triumph.

  After setting the dishes out in front of him, Mabel had to go to the cash register to ring up the bill for the young couple and their two children who were leaving, and Rourke had an opportunity to sample each item and miraculously discover that his appetite was unimpaired before Mabel returned and stood before him again and asked, “You going to write up a story about it, for your paper in Miami?”

  Rourke chewed fast and swallowed deeply and gulped some hot coffee. He said firmly, “Anything that will give me the slightest excuse to linger in Sunray for another night and expose me to food like this tomorrow morning will be a gift from the Gods. Certainly, I think the Miami News needs a special correspondent to handle the Blake murder case, and I just happen to be it.” He demolished another slice of toast and forked more scrambled egg into his mouth and chewed vigorously. “Where do I find your local police department?”

  “Right down the highway four blocks and turn to your left on Main Street. It’s right on your left… the City Hall and all. Gee, it’s exciting, isn’t it? Will my name really be in the paper?”

  “Mabel Handel,” Rourke assured her, “will be prominently featured as this reporter’s most reliable source of information. Now then. How about some more background on the Blakes? Marvin and Ellie? And you call the little daughter Sissy? Did you say she’s six?”

  “Everybody calls her Sissy,” Mabel told him vaguely. “I suppose she has another name, but I never heard it. Ellie and Marvin… they were sweethearts in high school, and got married a couple of years after he graduated and went to work in Mr. Harper’s garage. That was Ellie’s papa. But it wasn’t like he married the boss’s daughter trying to get ahead in the world,” she hurried on. “Right after they got married, Marvin leased a shop of his own, and then got the Ford Agency. He’s done real well, I guess. Everyone likes him… and Ellie, too. They’re about as much as what you might call society as Sunray Beach has, I guess. Were, I should say. My goodness, I just can’t get it through my head that Ellie is actually dead. When I think of poor little Sissy without any mama any more, it just about breaks my heart.” Big tears welled out of her eyes and streamed down her cheeks. She sniffled loudly and put her apron up to her face and turned her back on Rourke with heaving shoulders.