“Vicky”
4
Michael Shayne stared down thoughtfully at the sheets of paper in his hand for a long moment after he finished reading them. Then he sighed and laid the four pages down on the table in front of him and turned to look at the woman seated at the other end of the sofa.
She was sitting very erect with her hands twisted together in her lap. Her gaze was fixed and intense, directly in front of her, and she appeared completely unaware of his presence. Her clean-cut profile was like a tragic mask. She did not start or perceptibly move a muscle when he spoke quietly:
“Is the man her father?”
“Yes.” Still immobile. Still staring straight ahead.
“Why didn’t she recognize him at once?”
“She’s never seen her father. She thinks he’s dead. In fact, I thought he was dead.” She turned her head slowly. “It’s a long drab story, Mike. Are you willing to listen to it?”
“In a moment. First: Where’s Vicky now?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been waiting for her to call… praying for her to… and yet, dreading it. What am I going to say to her? What shall I tell her to do?”
“Tell her to get back here,” Shayne said flatly. “You can’t run away from reality. Once you start running, you can never stop. This isn’t so bad. A clear case of self-defense if her story is true.”
“She killed her own father.”
“Unknowingly and to protect herself. She has to face it now, Carla.”
“All right,” she agreed submissively. “When she calls I’ll tell her. I guess we’re in your hands now, Mike Shayne. I’m at the end of my rope. Maybe I shouldn’t have called you,” she went on wildly. “Maybe I should have taken a chance…”
“Calling me was the best thing you ever did,” he told her quietly. “Now: Before we get the police in on this I’d like to have all the background I can get.”
“The police? Oh, God, I thought… I hoped that maybe you…”
“Not a chance,” Shayne told her calmly. “This is homicide even though it is self-defense. I’m sticking my neck out as it is by not reporting it immediately. But I don’t see that a few minutes either way can make much difference. Actually, it will look a lot better for Vicky if she is here to give herself up when the police come. How old is your daughter, by the way?”
“Twenty-one, Mike. Just past twenty-one. She… was to be married tomorrow. That’s why she was in Miami. I flew in for the wedding… my darling, little girl. Oh, God, I can’t realize yet…” Her face broke into pieces as she fought for self-control. She won the battle and smiled wanly, a ravaged and pitiful smile.
“But I promised to tell you about Al… Donlin was his name. I was just eighteen when I eloped with him from a little farm in Ohio. I think the only reason he married me was because he hoped to stay out of the draft. But it didn’t work and they took him in the army anyhow… a few months before Vicky was born. I was glad. I didn’t want her to know her father. He was mean and sadistic and shiftless. I went home when Vicky was born and he didn’t write from the army. They forced him to give us part of his pay as an allotment, but that stopped when the war was over and he was discharged.
“I left home then, with Vicky and went to Denver and found a job to support the two of us. I used my maiden name and made my parents promise to never tell Al where I was. And they didn’t. He came back and pestered them some, and then drifted away, and I heard later that he’d been sent to prison for knifing a man in a drunken brawl, and I was glad and put him out of my mind.
“And I made a new life for Vicky and myself in Denver. I got into a newspaper job and was finally doing feature articles for the Woman’s Page on the Denver Post. Then, about seven years ago… Vicky was fourteen, I remember, they ran a little story about me in the paper with a picture of Vicky and me at home. I thought nothing of it. I believed Al was still in prison… had practically forgotten that he existed… until he turned up in Denver one day.
“He’d seen the story and our picture in the paper some place, and hitch-hiked to Denver. He wanted to move in with me, demanded money, threatened all sorts of things. I stalled him off… promised to borrow money the next day and give him a thousand dollars… and that night I packed up and left Denver.
“You say it never pays to run, Mike. Well, I ran that time and I think it paid off. I couldn’t stand the thought of Vicky ever seeing him… knowing him as a father. I didn’t tell her the truth. I told her I’d had an offer to write for the movies in Hollywood and we had to go at once. That very night. We made an exciting game out of it. I told her a vague story about being under contract to the newspaper and the mean old editor wouldn’t release me to take the movie job, and so we were going anyhow. I had a car and we drove straight through to Los Angeles, and I used that story as an excuse to Vicky for changing our name when we got there… and I became Carla Andrews, and, by God, I made it pay off, Mike.
“From my newspaper experience I knew enough about writing to get some small assignments and wangle my way in to see producers… and within a year I was doing scripts for some of the top shows.
“That’s how I met Brett Halliday. I wrote several segments for the television series at Four Star featuring Richard Denning as you. I read practically all the books Brett had written about you and had several story conferences with him, and got to know him quite well… the way people do in Hollywood. I worked at my job of writing, Mike. I felt I could do a better script if I knew about you. The real you. What sort of man you were and what made you tick. And from things Brett told me, and things he had written about you, I felt you were the one man in the world I could turn to tonight when I walked in here and saw Al dead on the floor. I thought to myself: In all the world there’s only Mike Shayne who could help me out of this mess… and by the damnedest coincidence it had happened right here in your home-town and all I had to do was pick up the phone and call you and everything would be all right.”
Shayne lifted a big hand uncomfortably as she ended. He said drily, “Brett’s a fiction writer and he has a way of exaggerating about me. You didn’t hear from your husband after leaving Denver?”
“Not directly. Months later my folks wrote me that they’d heard rumors that Al had tried to rob a filling station in Western Kansas and been killed in the attempt. I accepted that gladly and proceeded to forget that I had ever been Mrs. Al Donlin. I did well in Hollywood and sent Vicky East to school. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence with honors and then took a job in New York where she met a young lawyer from Miami who became her fiance. I told you… the wedding is scheduled to take place tomorrow.” She paused and corrected herself fiercely, “was.”
“How do you suppose Al came to this hotel tonight?”
“Only God can answer that. I’ve thought and thought. I don’t see how he could have known. If he had been aware that I was Carla Andrews… making good money in Hollywood… I’m certain he would have been after me long ago. But if he didn’t know the name I was using, I don’t see how on earth… Her voice trailed off. “I guess it doesn’t matter… really. Somehow, he found his way here tonight. I don’t know whether he’s been living in Miami… what he’s been doing over these years… whether he’s still using his own name. I don’t know whether he’s got cronies here… whether anyone else knew he was coming here tonight… or anything.”
Shayne got to his feet. “It won’t hurt to take a look while we’re waiting for Vicky to call you.”
He went into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. When he returned a few minutes later he had the folded newspaper clipping in one hand and the parking ticket in the other. “Looks as though he has a car and drove it here tonight.” He laid the ticket down and unfolded the clipping she had torn from the paper and she watched his face breathlessly while he studied it.
“This may be the answer.” He sat down beside her and spread the clipping out for her to see. “It’s yesterday’s paper. Is that a good likeness of your daughter?”
“Oh, yes! It’s perfect.” Tears came into her eyes as she studied the picture and she resolutely brushed them away. “Such a happy couple,” she breathed. “It’s the first picture I’ve seen of him except a tiny snapshot Vicky sent me months ago.” She began reading the story beneath the picture, her lips moving slightly as she read.
“I mean,” said Shayne patiently, “would he be likely to recognize her from it? It even mentions what hotel
