An hour later Michael Shayne and Timothy Rourke sat side by side on the sofa in Lucy Hamilton’s apartment, still waiting for a telephone call from Jim Gifford in New York. Lucy had efficiently served them drinks, and she was warming up some food in the oven in the kitchen, and now she sat across from the pair in a deep chair with her stockinged feet tucked up under her, and asked wonderingly, “Are you telling me, Michael, that they’re still not sure the woman in the automobile trunk is Mrs. Harris?” Shayne clawed at his unruly, red hair, and said, “Sure is a pretty positive word, Lucy. How can they be? Nobody can possibly identify a faceless woman. Of course, everything points to the body being Mrs. Harris. But that’s what bothers me. Whenever I see a corpse beaten up beyond recognition, discovered under circumstances where everything outwardly points to it being a particular person… I wonder if it was planned that way. To make us think it’s Mrs. Harris when it isn’t.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions, Mike,” Rourke warned him. “The rented car had been driven only forty-two miles. We know Mrs. Harris went for a drive before she came back to the Beachhaven at seven to pick up Gene Blake. The car must have been sitting in that lot since late Monday night. You know, the M.E. said she had been placed in the trunk of the car within a few hours after her death… before real rigor mortis had set in. And he placed the time as Monday or Tuesday night at the latest… judging by the amount of decomposition. She’s been missing since then. Who else could it be?”
Shayne growled. “I know all that. But why was her face and head so senselessly beaten into a pulp? I still don’t like it,” he said flatly.
“Can’t they tell by her fingerprints?” Lucy asked brightly.
“Painter will do that,” conceded Shayne. “He’s thorough when it comes to routine police procedure… and he doesn’t jump to conclusions no matter what else you say about him. He questioned Harris about any official record of her prints before we took the poor devil back to the hotel and got him a doctor and a sedative, and when Harris insisted his wife’s prints weren’t on record, he was quick enough to get the address of their New York apartment. If I know Petey as well as I think I do, he’ll have a set of the dead woman’s prints in New York tomorrow morning to be checked against those in the Harris apartment. Then we’ll be sure. But, until then, I’m still going to wonder why she was beaten so as to be unidentifiable.” He emptied his glass of cognac and Lucy jumped up to refill it.
“Somehow,” she said thoughtfully, “thinking about poor Mr. Harris in the office this morning, I think maybe this is easier on him than the other would have been. You know what I mean, Michael… if Painter had been right and it was just a matter of her sleeping out for a few nights.”
Shayne nodded and agreed. “You never know which is worse for the survivor in a case like that. At the same time, now that she’s dead, the whole tawdry story is going to come out. Everything I found out about her today indicates that she was just about the opposite of what her husband believed her to be. Instead of an ever-loving wife, the picture we get of her here in Miami is a sexy floozie who was ready to take up with the first man that looked at her. Herbert Harris is going to have to live with that knowledge for the rest of his life.”
Lucy Hamilton’s telephone rang as he finished. She padded across to answer it, and said, “Mr. Shayne is right here waiting for your call, Mr. Gifford.” She held the instrument out to her employer.
Shayne took it and said, “Hi, Jim.”
“Mike. I’m sorry to call so late, but I’ve been getting around. It’s a Saturday, you know, and people are hard to catch up with.”
“What have you got?”
“Just about negative, Mike. Nothing that I assume you hoped I’d get on Ellen Harris. All the dope I can gather here points her up as a plenty beautiful doll, but strictly on the up and up. I contacted a couple of models she knew before she married Harris, and they swear she never played around. Seems like she fell for him hard, and he was her one and only. Same dope from those who knew her after she was married. Strictly a one-man gal, and happy and contented with what she had. Seems they weren’t too social, but in a small circle of friends they were regarded as a veddy, veddy happily married couple. I’ve got a hunch that isn’t what you wanted, but that’s all yours truly turned up with a lot of leg-work today. Is the lady still among the missing?”
Shayne said, “No. We found her about an hour ago, Jim. Dead.”
Jim Gifford said, “Oh?” very thoughtfully.
“So here’s some more leg-work, Jim. I don’t know how much you can accomplish on a Sunday, but this time concentrate on Herbert Harris. His wife reached here by plane Monday afternoon and was probably killed late that night. Find out where he was Monday night. Check his personal life.”
“Like that, huh?”
Shayne said sharply, “It’s always like that when a married woman gets bumped off. The guy that did this job, by the way, wasn’t satisfied with just killing her. He frenziedly beat her beautiful face into a pulp just for the hell of it. That puts it close to home in my book.”
Gifford said, “Yeh. I’ll dig what I can, Mike.”
“You’ve got my apartment number… and Lucy’s,” Shayne told him. “One of us will be home tomorrow.”
“Yeh. Give Lucy my dearest love.” Gifford chuckled. “What’s she cooking up for dinner tonight?”
Shayne frowned at the telephone. “Whatever gives you that idea?”
Jim Gifford chuckled again. “I can smell it all the way up here over the telephone. Poor Boy Steak, huh? Remember that time she cooked it for us? Must have been five years ago, but I can still taste that garlic sauce. Tell her so, Mike. ’Bye.” And he hung up.
Shayne turned away from the telephone shaking his head. “You did say you were warming something in the oven for dinner, Lucy? What is it?”
“Some left-over porkchops, Michael. I’m going to make a garlic sauce to go with them… whatever are you laughing about?” she ended indignantly.
Shayne didn’t tell her. Instead, he relayed to Rourke, “You’ll have to write your story straight, Tim. Gifford didn’t turn up a single thing on Ellen’s past or present love life.”
“And now,” said Lucy indignantly, “you’ve got him digging into Mr. Harris’ personal life. Sometimes, Michael, I wonder how I ever manage to put up with you.”
He chuckled and returned to the sofa and his drink. “Judging from the smells coming from the oven, you’d better get your garlic sauce started. Check with me in the morning, Tim?” he added as the reporter finished his drink and got up to go.
Rourke promised he would and thanked Lucy for the drink.