Framed in Blood (7 page)

“Bert Jackson was a grown man,” he reminded her.

“But he wasn’t. He was just a boy in so many ways. Did that man kill him, Mr. Shayne? You haven’t even told me how Bert died.”

“What man?”

“That other man. You know—the one Betty—”

“Bert Jackson was shot,” Shayne told her harshly. “His body was found about three o’clock this morning out in the Northwest section.”

She shuddered and covered her face with both hands, weeping again. Shayne got up and stepped around the table, caught her wrists gently and pulled her hands away from her eyes. She gripped his fingers and cried desperately, “You must know who did it! With the information Bert gave you. He must have told you who the man was. You’ll see that he’s arrested and pays—even if Bert’s story about his political graft isn’t ever printed.”

“I don’t know who the man is,” Shayne told her.

“But Bert said that you—that he—”

“Your account of his telephone call clears up certain aspects of it,” he said soothingly. “If this man believes I have the information, he may come to me to buy it.”

“But if he does, you won’t deal with him!” She looked up into his eyes, her own wide and pleading. “You wouldn’t do that—not after—what happened to Bert.”

“If he killed Bert or had him killed,” Shayne promised soberly, “I give you my word he’ll pay for it. I wish you’d try to think back and recall all the things Bert must have told you about everything,” he urged. “Any names at all on this story of his, any facts. He must have talked about it to you, at least back in the beginning when he was so enthusiastic and didn’t realize quite what it might lead into.” Shayne put a small amount of whisky in her glass and sprayed it with soda, then resumed his seat and waited.

Marie lifted the drink with trembling hands, swallowed half of it, and said, “Bert didn’t talk to me about things like that.” A poignant sadness in her voice caused the detective to wince involuntarily.

What had they talked about, he wondered, these two young people caught up in a passion that could not be legalized. He raked blunt fingers through his hair as he compared Marie with Betty Jackson who vowed she was in love with her husband, and gave a forelock a savage jerk recalling Tim Rourke’s anomalous position in the situation. Tim, who had always preferred unattached blondes, had evidently beaten a triangle into a square, intentionally or not, and left Shayne with many unanswered questions, vague relationships, contradictions, and all because of a brunette.

Shayne came to his feet impatiently. The first light of dawn was streaming through the triple windows. He didn’t want Gentry to find him here when the police chief got around to connecting the lone key in Bert Jackson’s wallet with the Las Felice apartments.

Marie roused and stood up. In spite of her claim that she seldom drank, she was steady on her high heels after three stiff drinks of Scotch. She took a couple of steps and looked up at Shayne with a wan smile.

“The police will be here to question you about Bert Jackson,” he said, placing a big hand lightly on each of her shoulders. He kept his voice even, neither pleading nor warning as he continued. “Tell them as much of the truth as you wish about Bert being here last night—and so forth. But thus far, they don’t know anything about his extortion plan. You don’t have to tell them about it if you don’t want to. Not right away. I’d rather work on it alone.”

“Nothing matters very much to me now,” she murmured, lowering her lids.

“Nonsense,” said Shayne cheerfully. He shook her shoulders gently and took his hands away. “You’re young, and tomorrow is another day. I’ll be in touch with you.” He picked up his hat from the floor where he had tossed it and went toward the door, jamming it down on his heavy hair and pulling the brim low over his forehead. He stopped suddenly, turned, and asked, “Do you know Bert’s home address?”

“It’s not far from here,” she said, “on Sixtieth Street. I don’t know the house number. Only the telephone number.” She repeated the telephone number without hesitation.

Shayne hid his surprise by pretending to admire the lamp on the Japanese table. None of the figures Marie gave him coincided with the number Rourke had asked for in his apartment when he called the Jackson home to find out whether Bert had returned last night. “Are you positive?” he asked.

“Of course. I’ve called there often enough.”

“But—you must be mistaken,” he protested. “That’s not the number—”

“It is,” she interrupted loftily, “unless it has been changed in the last day or so. There’s the telephone book.”

The telephone was on a small stand that just missed the front door when it was wide open. Shayne stalked to it, picked up the directory, and began leafing through it, positive that he could not be mistaken.

He found Bert Jackson’s street address on Northwest Sixtieth Street in the directory, but a tingle crawled up his spine when he saw the telephone number. It was identical with the one Marie had given him. It was not the one Rourke had called.

Shayne kept his back turned to Marie as he scowled at the stippled wall. He had heard that number before, and recently. Very recently. He had not consciously memorized it, but the peculiar circumstance under which he had heard it had impressed it upon his memory.

Suddenly he knew.

Bert Jackson’s number was the one that Dirkson, Rourke’s city editor, had reluctantly given him when Bert insisted that he get in touch with Tim yesterday afternoon. A private, secret number that was to be called only in emergencies; and the deep-throated voice who had answered that call was Betty Jackson. She was the woman Rourke was with.

And Bert Jackson knew it!

A CLICKING TELEPHONE

SHAYNE SWORE UNDER HIS BREATH, and when Marie said, “It is the right number, isn’t it?” he began flipping through the book.

“Yes, it’s the right number, Marie, but there are a couple of others I want to look up.”

This made so many things clear to him that hadn’t made sense before. Timothy Rourke’s evasiveness, his disinclination to discuss Bert and Betty and his relationship with them, his reason for sending Betty to his apartment to pump him for information the moment he learned that Bert had been there.

It explained Bert Jackson’s arrogant self-confidence when he suggested that Shayne call Rourke and put the proposition to him. Conscious that the older reporter was visiting his wife, he had used the fact to try to force Rourke to go along with his blackmail scheme.

Where did Rourke stand?

One count against his old friend came with the stabbing recollection that he had not called the Jacksons’ number while ostensibly trying to find out whether Bert had come home. He had called an entirely different number, listened for a long time before hanging up and reporting that there was no answer and advancing the theory that Bert was not at home and that Betty was asleep under the influence of sleeping-tablets.

Bert was dead at the time. Did Rourke know?

Shayne thought of the blood on the cushion of the reporter’s car, and of Rourke’s refusal to discuss that, and other details of Jackson’s murder; and as these thoughts flashed through his mind an even deadlier realization came in their wake.

In attempting to shield Rourke from Gentry’s probing, he had accomplished exactly the opposite! Inadvertently, his lie to the police chief about Bert wanting divorce evidence against his wife now appeared to be too near the truth for comfort. By withholding information on the blackmail scheme in which he believed Rourke was somehow involved, however innocently, he had actually tipped Gentry off to a fact that would eventually put the police on the track of Rourke as the “other man.”

All because Rourke hadn’t been frank with him, Shayne thought furiously, remembering that Marie was standing back of him, waiting until he had found what he was looking for.

“There’s a pencil and pad in the drawer of the telephone stand,” she said. “Unless it’s true that you remember everything you see and hear—like I’ve heard.”

“Thanks. I don’t,” he said soberly. He took a pencil and memorandum book from his pocket and pretended to write down numbers, grinding his teeth and damning Rourke for his lack of faith and failure to tell the whole truth.

It was too late now. At any moment, and certainly before many hours, Gentry’s men would have Rourke pegged as Betty Jackson’s lover, through a confession by Betty or the sudden return of Marie’s memory about the “other man.” Add that to the known bad blood between the two men, the undeniable fact that Rourke had combed the bars for Jackson last night, and the police would have evidence of murder.

Shayne picked up the receiver and dialed Rourke’s apartment, clamping the receiver against his ear, then dropping it with an oath when he heard a busy signal.

He whirled around to face Marie.

She cried out in alarm at the expression on his face. “What is it? I don’t—”

“Is there a rear stairway and a door in this place?” he interrupted rudely.

“Yes. The stairway is past the elevator at the end of the hall. There’s a back door that goes out to the parking-lot where we leave our cars. But why?”

“I’d just as soon not meet the cops coming in the front,” he told her. “And if you really want Bert’s murderer caught you will forget that you ever saw me. Better get back in bed and pretend you’ve been asleep all night.”

She ran to him and impulsively threw her arms around his neck. “I want Bert’s murderer caught more than anything in the world. I’ll go right to bed—but when will I see you again? I’ll be thinking about you—and wondering, Michael.”

Shayne put one arm around her and quietly turned the doorknob with his free hand. She pressed against him, and he pushed the bolt, freeing the night latch. Then he patted her shoulder and promised, “I’ll be in touch with you, Marie. Get some sleep now, if you can.”

He put her away from him gently, went out and closed the door, strode down the hall a dozen steps, then turned and tiptoed back. He paused outside with his hand gripping the doorknob and listened intently. He was rewarded by the clicking of the telephone as Marie dialed a number.

He turned the knob silently, eased the door open a crack, then wider when he heard the low murmur of her voice. Her back was toward the door, and she held the mouthpiece close to her lips.

Shayne could not distinguish any words as he moved stealthily inside and approached her. She stopped talking to listen, and as though some inner intuition warned her that someone was listening, she glanced around. A strangled cry escaped her throat.

“’By—Ned,” she exclaimed, dropped the instrument on its prongs and whirled to face Shayne with dilated eyes. “How did you—what do you mean?”

“Ned Brooks,” said Shayne flatly.

“Well, what of it?” she flared.

“Why did you call him?”

“Because Ned is Bert’s best friend—and he’s got a stake in that story they’ve been working on.”

“How well do you know Ned?”

She turned away from his cold, demanding gaze and said indifferently, “He has been here a few times with Bert. That’s all.”

Shayne wondered if that was all, but he knew he would get no more from her now, so he went out and continued down the hall to the back stairway.

MIKE PULLS A FAST ONE

THE SKY WAS GROWING LIGHT when Shayne stepped from the rear exit of the apartment building into the enclosed tenants’ parking-lot and made his way to an opening in the high board fence that led to a side street.

He yawned widely, then twisted his wide mouth in a grim grin. There had been a time, he reminded himself disgustedly, when an hour or so of sleep was enough. Especially when he was working on a case. But he was getting older. Besides, this wasn’t his case. Not officially. Thus far there wasn’t a fee involved, but from what Marie Leonard had told him about Bert Jackson’s phone call from her apartment he felt pretty certain he’d receive an offer before long. Whoever had gone so far as to murder an elevator operator and ransack his office and apartment must be convinced that the data for Jackson’s graft story was in his possession.

It wasn’t difficult, now, to surmise approximately what must have happened after Jackson left the Las Felice at ten o’clock. He probably stopped some place to call Mr. Big back and foolishly made a date to meet him that night, trusting that his story about a detective named Shayne having possession of the material would hold as life insurance for him.

And it hadn’t worked out that way.

The only trouble with that theory, he corrected himself sourly, was that it failed to account for the smear of blood on the back of Rourke’s car seat. If that smear had any connection at all with Jackson’s death.

He wished now that he had forced Rourke to explain the blood as soon as he discovered it. There could be a dozen plausible explanations. But at that time, he excused himself, things had been so mixed up in his own mind that he had been unwilling to press his friend for an explanation for fear—he acknowledged—of what Rourke might have told him. It was one thing to go to bat for an old friend if you suspected, but did not know, he had committed a crime. On the other hand, if he took advantage of friendship and confessed, it became an entirely different matter.

So you went along and kept your mouth shut and hoped for the best.

Shayne shrugged off the unpleasant thoughts as he rounded the corner cautiously and glanced down the street to make certain his car was the only one parked in front of the Las Felice, realizing that it was only a matter of time before Will Gentry would connect the key marked Three A with Marie Leonard’s apartment. And he didn’t relish the thought of what would happen if the police found him in the vicinity.

His was the only car. He went to it briskly, got in, and pulled away fast in the direction of Timothy Rourke’s bachelor quarters.

The busy signal he had received when he called the reporter’s number bothered him. If he had been talking to Betty Jackson, it might already be too late to do anything about the mistake Shayne had made in lying to Will Gentry. It was quite possible that the police were at the Jackson house, hoping to pick up just such a lead as a call from Rourke would give them. He hoped to God Rourke would be at home.

His luck held. Rourke’s car was parked in front of the apartment building. Shayne didn’t stop, but went around the corner and parked on a side street near an alley which he knew could be reached via the fire escape from the reporter’s second-floor apartment.

Long-legging it back to the front entrance, he hurried in and up one flight. The door of Rourke’s apartment stood ajar, and Shayne pushed it open onto a disordered living-room, saw the reporter sitting at his desk with the telephone receiver at his ear.

Rourke dropped the instrument on the hook and exclaimed, “I’m worried about Betty. She still doesn’t answer. I’m afraid she took more than two sleeping-tablets.”

Shayne heeled the door shut and strode into the room saying, “You’ll both be lucky,” grimly, “if she swallowed enough of them to stop her talking to the cops for a long time. Dammit it, Tim! Why didn’t you speak up back at my place? I warned you I couldn’t work in the dark. Now I’ve messed things up, set the police right on your tail.”

“Give you what straight?” Rourke countered belligerently.

“Everything. You not only didn’t tell me about your bedding down with Betty Jackson, but you threw me off completely by making that phony call to a number you pretended was the Jacksons’.”

“Okay,” Rourke muttered. He moved to a worn armchair and dropped into it. “Knowing the way your mind works I was sure you’d take it this way if you found out I was with Betty when you phoned me yesterday afternoon. There’s no use telling you now that we’re just good friends.”

“It doesn’t matter a hell of a lot what you tell me,” Shayne agreed, sauntering over to the couch and sitting down. “You’ll find out that the police have got nasty minds, too. It didn’t help things a bit,” he went on savagely, “when I thought I was covering up on this other business for you by throwing Will Gentry a false lead in the shape of private information that Betty has been two-timing her husband with some guy.”

“You told him that?” the reporter exclaimed incredulously. “Why? It’s a damned lie. Betty is—”

“Because,” groaned Shayne, “I thought it was a lie. I had to think fast and give Will some reason for that crack you made about Bert Jackson in my office to stop him from slipping the cuffs on me.”

“Why didn’t you tell him the truth? About Bert’s blackmailing scheme. Damn your soul, Mike, I believe you’d sell your own mother for a piece of cash.”

Shayne’s gaunt features tightened. He exhaled a long breath and forced himself to speak calmly.

“Don’t say things you’ll be sorry for later, Tim. You can see the spot I was in. I had no intimation that there was anything between you and Betty Jackson—or between her and anyone. There were angles on this other thing in connection with you that worried me. I thought if I could send the cops off hunting for a nonexistent lover it would give me a free hand to chase down the real angles. Instead, I’ve turned them loose on you.”

“But I swear to you, Mike, that Betty and I—”

“It makes no difference whether you’ve been sleeping with her or not,” Shayne cut in swiftly. “You had a fight with Bert recently, spent all last evening trying to find him, after spending the afternoon with his wife. There are bloodstains in your car, and Bert Jackson was shot through the head with a twenty-two-caliber bullet. Where’s your target pistol?” he ended abruptly.

Rourke leaned back, his face drawn and haggard. “What’s that got to do with it?”

“Everything. If a test bullet fired from it does—or doesn’t—match the death bullet. Dozens of people know you took a prize in that tournament last month and own a long-barreled twenty-two,” said Shayne impatiently. “Including Will Gentry who was one of the judges. Give me the gun if you’re in the clear, and I’ll turn it over to Ballistics.”

Rourke said, “I can’t give it to you, Mike.”

“Why not? If you’re afraid to have it tested—”

“I haven’t got it. Somebody stole it soon after the tournament.”

Shayne studied his friend somberly, tugging at the lobe of his left ear. “I hope to God you reported the theft to the police,” he said slowly.

“I didn’t. It just didn’t seem important.” Rourke came to his feet, avoiding Shayne’s searching scrutiny. “Let’s have a drink.”

“If you’ve anything fit to drink,” said Shayne, watching the reporter’s curved spine as he went to the kitchenette.

Shayne was at the telephone with his hand on the receiver when Rourke came back with a bottle and glasses. “Do you know if the Jacksons have a regular doctor?” he asked, his stubby red brows drawn together in fierce concentration.

“I recommended Doc Meeker to them once when Bert was sick,” Rourke told him. “I think they’ve had him a few times. In fact, he gave Betty a prescription for the sleeping-pills.”

“Good old Doc Meeker,” Shayne said fervently, lifting the receiver and dialing a number while Rourke poured two drinks. The phone rang six times before a sleepy voice answered, and Shayne said, “Michael Shayne, Doctor. Are you awake enough to listen fast without interrupting?”

“I’m awake,” the doctor answered.

“This is an emergency, Doctor. A patient of yours, Mrs. Bert Jackson, needs you in a hurry. She has taken an overdose of sleeping-pills. Her husband was murdered a few hours ago, but she doesn’t know it yet. The police are probably on their way to her place now to question her.” He paused a moment before adding significantly, “As a detective who has her best interest at heart I’m very much afraid the shock might be fatal if she were awakened and questioned in her present condition. Do you agree?”

“It is possible,” said Doctor Meeker cautiously, “that under certain conditions it would be advisable to delay the shock.”

“Exactly,” Shayne broke in, and continued swiftly: “Under those conditions, wouldn’t you advise a strong sedative to take effect as the sleeping-pills wear off, something that might last a few hours at least?”

“I will go to Mrs. Jackson at once,” Doctor Meeker told him. “If my diagnosis confirms your opinion I will certainly see to it that she isn’t disturbed until—” He paused, a question in his tone.

“I’ll be in touch with you in a short time,” Shayne promised hastily. “And, Doc—if you’re asked, it might be just as well to say that Timothy Rourke called you.” Sweat was standing on Shayne’s brow. He sighed with satisfaction as he dropped the instrument on the prongs and took out his handkerchief. “That will take care of Betty Jackson for a while, at least,” he said. “If I know Doc Meeker, and I think I do.”

“You should,” said Rourke sharply. “He’s been doing your dirty work long enough.”

“But strictly ethical, Tim. You’ve got to admit that.”

Shayne mopped his face on the way to the couch, picked up his drink from the table, and made a wry face when he took a sip.

Rourke dropped into his chair and burst out, “You don’t believe a word I’ve said, Mike. You’re afraid Betty will tell the police about me and her.”

“I know police methods,” Shayne growled. “If they aren’t stopped they’ll barge in when she’s in a dazed condition and wring all sorts of admissions from her—twist the most innocent statements into damning revelations. Wake up, Tim. You know damned well that the minute they connect you two in any degree of intimacy they’ll stop looking elsewhere for her husband’s murderer. It’s the perfect pattern.”

Rourke sat slumped on his fifth vertebra, his legs crossed like sticks in ample trousers, and his head lolling back on the chair. His eyes, in their cavernous sockets, were closed, and he made no comment.

Shayne bent forward and said grimly, “That story about your pistol being stolen isn’t going to help any, Tim. It’s the oldest dodge in the world. Can’t you think up something better?”

“That,” said Rourke listlessly, “happens to be the truth.”

“Look, Tim, you’ve got to drop out of sight for a while,” Shayne said urgently. “For at least as long as Doc Meeker is able to keep Betty from being questioned. Give me one day with neither of you making damaging admissions to the police. But you have to get out of the way and stay there. I warn you, they’ll be pounding on your door within an hour or so.”

“Because of what you told Gentry,” said Rourke bitterly.

“All right. Because of what I told Gentry. That’s water over the dam. Right now we’ve got to think of some place for you to duck out of sight for a day or so.” Shayne got up with drink in hand and paced the floor restlessly. “It would be best if you’d get out of town, hole up in some small town upstate—”

The ringing of the telephone stopped him in midstride. Rourke sprang to his feet and went toward it.

Shayne growled a warning. “Hold it, Tim. We don’t know—”

The reporter’s face was set and inscrutable as he strode on, lifted the receiver, and said, “Tim Rourke speaking.”

An apologetic and worried voice came over the wire. “Ned Brooks, Tim. Sorry if I wakened you at this ungodly hour.”

“You didn’t waken me, Ned. What’s on your mind?”

“Two cops just left my place,” said Brooks rapidly. “I’m afraid, damn it, that they’re on their way to see you. I didn’t know what in hell it was all about, pounding at my door and throwing accusations at me—questioning me about Bert Jackson and his wife, wanting to know who were their close friends, and when did I see either of them last.”

“Well?”

“I told them the truth, damn it, and now I wish I hadn’t. Did you know Bert is dead?”

Rourke said, “Yeh. Go on, Ned.”

“I didn’t know what they were after, so I told them about running into Bert on the street last night a block from his house. That he was pretty drunk and raving about you and a big news story he’s planning to break. The same stuff he and I have been trying to dig up at City Hall, I gathered, except tonight he acted as though he was on to something I didn’t know about.

“Anyhow,” Ned Brooks went on rapidly, “he said he wanted to see you. I asked him if he’d tried his own house. But, hell, Tim, I didn’t mean anything. He was tight, and I thought he ought to get home.”

“You told the cops all this?” Rourke asked.

“Sure. Before I knew what was up. Honest to God—”

“Isn’t your wife out of town, Ned?” Rourke cut in sharply.

“Why, yes. Visiting her folks in New York. I’m batching it, and—”

“You’re going to have company if I can get away from here before the cops grab me. Sit tight, Ned. You can tell me the rest when I get there.” He slammed up the receiver and looked at Shayne with eyes that glittered with excitement.

“What’s up, Tim?” Shayne hadn’t moved. He had stood quietly, listening and gently massaging his ear lobe and staring bleakly into space.

“That was Ned Brooks—reporter on the
Trib
who was working with Bert on the City Hall run. Claims he doesn’t know much about the story Bert dug up, but if I pump him for details I might pick up something useful. His wife’s out of town, and he can put me up for a few days.”

“Is he a good friend of yours?” Shayne asked doubtfully.

“One of my best friends,” said Rourke with heavy irony. “Like you, he’s gone out of his way to tell the cops how friendly I am with Betty. He ran into Bert after he left the Las Felice tonight and he told the cops Bert was looking for me. They’re probably on their way here now.”