didn’t come home last night and the Beach police just called. She has to go to the morgue to… identify him. I thought if you’d go with her…” Lucy Hamilton’s voice trailed off, and Shayne said swiftly:
“Right away. Hold the fort.”
He threw back the covers and stood up, unbuttoning his pajama top with one hand while he rumpled his bristly red hair with the other. He dressed in a hurry, splashed water in his face and on his hair so he could comb it into some semblance of order, then strode into the living room and glanced longingly into the kitchen and the dripolator standing on the drainboard. But he had told Lucy “right away,” so he compromised by hastily downing a couple of ounces of cognac to fortify him, then hurried out to get his car from the hotel garage.
Driving north on Biscayne Boulevard through the cool pre-sunlight of the spring morning, Shayne scowled as he recalled everything he could about the Fitzgilpins, who occupied an apartment on the floor above Lucy.
He had met both of them once, he recalled vaguely, having a drink with Lucy in her apartment. There were children, he thought, and he knew Lucy liked the family… particularly the wife. What was her name? He couldn’t bring it to mind, but he did remember that she was red headed and lissome, and a good ten years younger than her husband. A nice, quiet, inoffensive guy. Some sort of small business on the Beach, Shayne thought.
So, now he was in the morgue; and there was a sorrowing, red-headed widow and a couple of fatherless children. His scowl deepened. Why did such things happen to nice, quiet, inoffensive people? There were thousands of no-goods infesting Miami and the Beach who wouldn’t be missed by anybody if they suddenly kicked the bucket. But they were still alive this morning, and a nice, little guy like Jerome Fitzgilpin (yeh, that was his name… Jerome. And his wife’s name was Linda) wasn’t around any more.
Lucy Hamilton opened the door of apartment 3-B when he rang the bell. She had no makeup on, and her curly brown hair was a mess, and she had been crying. She wore bedroom slippers and a fluffy chenille robe over a pair of white silk pajamas, and she put out her hands to him and said, “Oh, Michael,” in a stifled voice as he came through the doorway.
He put his arms around her and held her closely and understandingly while she pressed her face against his shoulder and cried some more. She drew back after a moment and looked up into his face with tear-wet eyes and said simply, “I don’t know why. But when something like this happens… so close to home… it makes you want to… be sure you still have someone.”
Shayne patted her shoulder and said gruffly, “I know, Angel.” And he did know. He had been close to violent death so often, had seen the reactions of so many people suddenly confronted with the fact of death. There was an instinctive groping toward someone close… someone whom you cared for… who cared for you.
He closed his big hand on Lucy’s shoulder and squeezed it hard, then pulled the door shut and glanced about the living room with ragged red eyebrows lifted inquiringly.
“Linda is in the bedroom getting dressed,” Lucy told him. “The two children are still asleep. I thought if you’d drive her to the Beach, I could stay here with them. They know me and won’t be frightened if they wake up and Linda is gone.”
He said, “Of course. What happened?”
“Linda doesn’t know. Except Jerome didn’t come home last night, and they phoned her this morning to say they’d found his body close to his parked automobile and they wanted her to come and identify him. He always keeps his office open late on Friday nights. It’s an insurance business, you know, and the majority of his clients are salaried people who carry small policies and pay premiums weekly in cash. He stays open on Friday nights to accommodate them, and brings the cash home. Several hundred dollars generally. He often stops off at a tavern for a beer or two… that’s all he ever drinks when he’s away from home… and doesn’t get home until about midnight. So Linda thought nothing of it last night when she took a sleeping pill and went to bed at eleven. And she didn’t wake up until the phone rang this morning. The police told her that Jerome’s wallet was missing, and they had to check the car registration to get his name. He was such a nice little man, Michael. So gentle and friendly. I never knew a friendlier, nicer man.”
The tears came into Lucy’s eyes again. “Who would do a thing like that? Just for a few hundred dollars. You’ve got to find out, Michael.”
He patted her shoulder again and said absently, “Sure, Angel. We’ll get the bastard that did it,” his gaze going past her to the bedroom door that was opening to admit Jerome Fitzgilpin’s widow.
She looked ten years younger and a hell of a lot prettier than he remembered her from that one brief encounter in Lucy’s apartment. She was tall and slender, with softly waved, copperish red hair, and there was a fine-drawn look about her face which betrayed an emotional tension which she otherwise concealed admirably. She wore a simple black sheath dress belted tightly at the waist, with no adornment. Her lips were lightly rouged and her voice was muted and composed as she advanced with a faint smile on her lips and with hand outstretched, saying, “Mr. Shayne. It was good of you to come.”
He took her slender hand and received a firm pressure from it, and told her, “I’m very happy…” He paused awkwardly and corrected himself in a gruff voice, “I’m very glad to do anything I can.”
Linda nodded her head slightly and turned to Lucy. “The children will probably sleep for another hour. You’re sure you don’t mind staying with them?”
“Of course not.” Lucy’s voice was warm and reassuring. “What else are friends for?” She hesitated, glancing down at her robe and slippers. “Why don’t you and Michael sit down for a minute while I slip downstairs and change?”
Linda nodded again and said abstractedly, “Of course. I’m sure there’s no… hurry. The sergeant said… to come any time.”
She moved back to seat herself carefully on the sofa while Lucy went out. All her movements were somewhat mechanical, as though she were consciously thinking them out in advance, consciously willing each muscle to act.
Shayne got out a pack of cigarettes and shook one loose, advanced toward her with the pack held out. “Will you have a cigarette, Mrs. Fitzgilpin?”
“Thanks.” She accepted it and glanced briefly up into his face with haunted, gray eyes. “Please call me Linda. I don’t feel like Mrs. Fitzgilpin this morning.”
Shayne struck a match and held it for her. Then he lit one of his own and moved back to a chair by the window. “I don’t want to sound Pollyanna-ish or anything like that, Linda, but Lucy tells me there’s no positive identification yet. Just the fact that your husband’s car was found near a body. There may be a dozen other explanations.”
“No.” Her voice was strong and positive. “Jerome would never stay away from home all night. He never has in all the years we’ve been married. He was very considerate and always phoned me even if he was only going to be half an hour later than I expected him.”
“He didn’t phone last night?”
“No. Fridays he stays late at the office. Until nine usually. Then he usually stops off at some bar for a beer or two, and he often gets interested talking to people and doesn’t get home until midnight. Friday night was… was sort of his night to do that, you see, and I didn’t object. I urged him to stay out one night a week. He’d never drink more than two or three beers,” she went on strongly, as though feeling a deep need to establish this fact, “no matter how late he stayed out. So I never worried about him. He loved people. Different kinds of people. The sort he’d meet on Friday nights in a neighborhood bar.” Her voice was musing now, her eyes lowered as though she were talking to herself. “He was so friendly and interested, he’d draw them out to talk about themselves. Tell him all sorts of personal things.
“Why… why?” she cried out suddenly, lifting tragic eyes to stare at him. “Why would anyone hurt him, Mr. Shayne? He never hurt anyone in his life. He didn’t have an enemy in the world.”
Shayne said, “If it’s going to be Linda, you’d better start calling me Mike.” He shook his head angrily and rumpled his red hair with knobby fingers.
The buzzer sounded and he got up to admit Lucy who had changed into a light print dress. Linda got up too, mashing out her cigarette. “If the children wake up before I get back, Lucy, tell them… oh God, I don’t know what you should tell them.”
“Better not tell them anything until we know for sure,” Lucy said briskly. “Just that something came up and you both had to go out. Luckily, I’ve babysat before, so they won’t be surprised to find me here.” Lucy met Linda in the middle of the room and squeezed her arm tightly. “Go along with Michael and don’t worry about the children.”
