though he had climbed a long flight of stairs.
“There’s been a terrible accident,” he said in a strained voice as Shayne reached him.
He made a distracted gesture and pressed both clenched fists to his chest. Shayne stooped and looked into the blind.
Walter Langhorne lay on the muddy duckboards. A magnum charge of 4’s had caught him in the left cheekbone and there was nothing left of that side of his head.
CHAPTER 3
An intelligent-looking Labrador retriever whimpered beside the body. One shotgun, a fine lightweight English weapon, hung from a nail at the back of the blind. Another, a full-choked 20-gauge, lay on the boards at Langhorne’s feet. Shayne’s quick scrutiny of the blind picked up one other object of interest-a silver pocket flask on the bench.
Forbes, at Shayne’s shoulder, made a sound as though he had been hit. Shayne turned back to the father. Hallam had dropped his hands and seemed to cringe away. A drop of saliva glistened at the corner of his mouth.
“How did it happen?” Shayne asked quietly.
“I don’t know.” Hallam stared at the water at his feet. “I just don’t know.”
He drew a long shuddering breath. His eyes started slowly up the redhead’s rangy body. When they met Shayne’s eyes he gave his head a short shake, as though awakening from a hard sleep.
The detective took out his pint of brandy. “Take some of this. You have to talk about it sooner or later. You might as well get it over with.”
Hallam went on shaking his head. His hand started up to take the bottle, but he dropped it again.
“No. If they smell it they’ll think I’m drunk. I’m cold sober. I drink very sparingly, Shayne. Four ounces of whiskey before dinner, sometimes a weak Scotch afterward. I never touch alcohol before lunch.”
“Then that’s Langhorne’s flask in there?”
Hallam blinked again and his back straightened. He was beginning to recover, though both fists were still clenched. His son was vomiting into the long reeds at the end of the blind.
“The flask,” Hallam said. “A silver flask. Yes, it’s Walter’s, of course. It cost a hundred and twenty-five dollars at Tiffany’s in New York. I happen to know. A hundred and twenty-five dollars!” He made a quick, convulsive motion. “Shayne, he just sat there drinking, making barbed remarks. I’ve known him since I was ten years old. Stop that!” he told his son sharply. “Or go farther away.”
His tall brother-in-law, Jose Despard, emerged from the next blind in the line. After a moment he came toward them, an awkward figure in too-large waders. Hallam scooped up a double handful of salt water and dashed it over his face. After doing this twice more, he straightened, dripping. This time he came back to his full height.
“Despard,” he called, “What’s the reason for the kaffeeklatsch? You people make one holy hell of a decoy. Especially you, Shayne, with that red hair.”
Hallam said steadily, in something approaching his usual tone, “I just shot Walter.”
“What?”
“The damn fool popped up in front of my gun.”
Despard looked blank. He swiveled from Hallam toward Shayne. The detective told him, “We’ll need the sheriff. Go in and phone.”
Despard looked back at Hallam. “You shot Walter?” he said stupidly. “Walter?” Suddenly his eyes sharpened. “What makes you think he’s the one? Have you gone out of your mind?”
“It was an accident,” Hallam said coldly. “Let’s everybody get that straight. Call the sheriff.”
After a moment, Despard turned and headed for the jeep. Shayne offered Hallam a cigarette. Again the older man shook his head. Forbes, at the end of the blind, came erect. He was pale and shaken.
“The sheriff knows me,” Hallam said. “His name’s Banghart. What’s his first name?” He thought for a moment. “Ollie Banghart. I think we put some money in his campaign last year. I’d give anything if this hadn’t happened. I was swinging on the duck. I was low to start with. Much too low. When the gun came around, there Walter was, falling toward me. It was too late to do anything.”
“Falling?” Shayne said.
Hallam brushed his forehead. “No, he couldn’t have been falling. He was coming toward me, his arms out. But why was he there at the front of the blind? He hadn’t moved off the bench all morning. I need to sit down.” He took a step toward the blind. “No. Not in there.”
Shayne summoned young Hallam with a movement of his head. “Take him to the lodge. I’ll wait for the sheriff.”
“We’d been arguing,” Hallam said. “He was intense about it, as usual. Why couldn’t I just let it go? Once he got an idea in his head, you couldn’t get it out unless you used dynamite.” Forbes started to take his arm. He pulled away. “I’m all right. Bring my gun, Shayne.”
“Yeah,” Shayne said, and watched them go off across the marsh toward the road.
When they were out of sight, he stepped into the blind again and studied the body, checking the angle of the shot. The flies were already gathering. Shayne took off his canvas hunting vest and spread it over the bloody head.
He returned outside and lit a cigarette. The tide was going. He heard a rustle of wings overhead and a shotgun banged in the last blind, off by itself a quarter mile to the south.
Half an hour passed. Finally a car came down the gravel road, traveling very fast, and skidded to a stop. Three men got out. They were all heavily built, and at that distance they looked somewhat alike, but it was easy to see that the man in the middle was the sheriff.
Shayne walked into a constrained silence in the lodge an hour later. It was a low, unpretentious building of split cypress logs, one large central room separating the kitchen from a bunkhouse. Shayne took a quick head count. Begley was still missing.
The senior Hallam, in a chair in front of the big fireplace, was intent on a crossword puzzle. Shayne went over to him.
“I’d like to see you outside for a minute.”
Hallam looked up. After a pause, he completed lettering the word he had begun. Then he crumpled the newspaper and threw it in the fireplace.
“Where’s the sheriff?”
“He’ll be along in a minute.”
They went outside and got into one of the two open jeeps. Hallam’s normal color had returned, but he still gave the appearance of being so wound up that a touch would send him spinning out of control.
“What did the sheriff have to say?”
“Not much,” Shayne told him, “and he took his time about saying it. He’s a slow talker.”
“Yes, Ollie’s slow.”
“He’ll want to take you through it step by step, but I can’t waste that much time. What were you and Langhorne arguing about?”
Hallam gripped the wheel in both hands. “The usual thing. The way I run the company. We’ve had the same argument at two-week intervals for fifteen years.”
“Specifically.”
Hallam hesitated. “He didn’t like the idea of taking the T-239 investigation outside the company. The whole thing is my fault, for not moving into production on the strength of the preliminary tests. That was a hard decision to make. But if I’d hurried, if trouble had developed later, the board would have been justified in asking for my resignation. Walter worked himself up to quite a pitch. Finally, for the nth time, he told me he was quitting. I made some slighting comment, and then the duck came over. When I brought the gun around, there he was in front of me.”
