VI
At eleven the next morning Shayne arrived at police headquarters. After dictating his statement of the night’s previous events to a stenographer and signing it, he dropped by the police chief’s office.
Chief Will Gentry looked up from some papers he was reading and gave the detective a cordial nod. “Morning, Mike. I was just looking over Sam Mosby’s report about last night. He notes that you disagreed with his conclusions.”
Shayne dropped his lanky frame into a chair. “I just can’t see Trimble falling off the wagon so soon after he told me he was permanently through with the stuff, Will.”
Gentry shuffled the papers in front of him until a different one was on top. “Here’s the post mortem report. He had enough alcohol in his bloodstream to knock the average man out. It’s a wonder he was able to stand on that chair.”
Shayne frowned. “Were they able to fix the time of death any closer?”
After examining the report, Gentry said, “A little. Between ten thirty and twelve-thirty. That fits, Mosby figures he hanged himself around midnight.”
The redhead gave his left earlobe an irritable tug. “I still don’t like it, Will.”
Gentry said patiently, “Just for the sake of argument, let’s assume it was rigged, Mike. Look at the impossible time table the killer would have had to keep. At eleven thirty he breaks into the Cole home. He takes at least five minutes to strangle the woman, gets out again about eleven thirty-five. Mosby says it’s a fifteen-minute drive from the Cole place to Trimble’s house, even with the siren wide open. Give him the benefit of the doubt and get him there at ten of twelve. Twenty-five minutes later the stakeouts have the place covered, so he had to finish his business and be gone by then. You think he could get Trimble dead drunk and hang him in that time?”
“Maybe he knew Trimble was already drunk, so all he had to do was walk in and hang him.”
Will Gentry grinned. “Now you’re contradicting yourself. Your objection is based on the premise that Trimble wouldn’t have fallen off the wagon on his own hook, isn’t it?”
Shayne irritably ran a hand through his coarse red hair. “All right, I’m contradicting myself. I still don’t like it, Will. I have a feeling that it’s too pat.”
“Well, you must have an alternate suspect, then. Who do you think rigged it?”
Shayne shrugged. “The obvious one comes to mind. Who’s always the first suspect you consider when a woman is murdered?”
Gentry nodded. “I thought of that when I saw Mosby’s note that you disagreed with him. We don’t think you’re a fool, Mike. We’ve got a pretty healthy respect for your opinion in matters like this around here. It occurred to me that if it was rigged, it was just the sort of frame a husband might pull to prevent us from looking any farther. There wouldn’t be any point in pushing the blame onto Trimble if the real killer was someone we wouldn’t automatically suspect anyway. So we checked Norbert Cole’s alibi.”
“And it stood up?”
Gentry shook his head. “He was supposed to be bowling. He hasn’t showed to bowl with his team in five weeks.”
Shayne’s eyebrows went up. “He rigged an alibi?”
“Yeah,” the chief said dryly. “But not for our benefit. For his wife’s. For five weeks on the nights he was supposed to be bowling, he’s been at the apartment of a TV writer named Lydia Mason. When we busted his first alibi, he broke down and confessed where he really was. She confirmed it. She says he was with her from nine until midnight. If he’d never missed bowling before, we might suspect that she was just covering for him. But with the pattern of his spending every bowling night at her place, it rings true.”
Shayne gave his earlobe a thoughtful tug. “I guess that eliminates my prime suspect,” he said reluctantly. “The only other possible is Marie’s brother, Harlan Wright. And he’s a cripple.”
Gentry nodded. “We thought of him, too. Norbert Cole steered us Wright’s way when he realized he was under suspicion. According to Cole, Wright hated his sister’s guts. Cole says Harlan half suspected that it was really Marie instead of Trimble who pushed him down the steps five years ago. Cole claims Wright accused her of it on a number of occasions during arguments. But Wright couldn’t even get up the stairs, let alone drive across town and lift a guy as heavy as Trimble up on a chair. We’re closing the case as murder and suicide, Mike.”
Shayne rose to his feet. “You do as you like, Will. But I think I’ll poke around a bit more before I close my personal file on it. See you around.”
Will Gentry frowned after the redhead as the latter walked out of the office.
By then it was nearing noon, and on a sudden impulse Shayne drove to South Portage. Entering Swartz’s Cafe, he sat at the counter and ordered a blue plate special of roast beef, potato and vegetable.
As Trimble had told him, the food wasn’t very good, but at least the place was clean. After finishing his meal, the redhead beckoned to the little blonde waitress who had waited on him.
Coming over, she said, “Dessert, sir?”
“No thanks,” he said. “Did you work with Barry Trimble yesterday?”
“Yes,” she said. “Wasn’t that terrible what he did? Did you know him?” Then her eyes widened in sudden recognition. “Hey, you’re Mike Shayne, aren’t you?”
“Uh-huh,” he admitted.
“Barry told us you dropped in on him yesterday. Gee, I never thought I’d meet a real celebrity. My name’s Helen Gorka.”
“How are you, Helen?” he said solemnly. “I suppose Barry ate his evening meal here last night, didn’t he?”
“Sure. We sat down together. We were both on duty until eight, so we took our dinner break at seven.”
“Exactly at seven?”
She nodded. “Seven until seven-twenty. All we get is twenty minutes.”
“What did he have to eat?”
Her eyebrows went up in surprise at the question. “Stuffed peppers, mashed potatoes, string beans. Yesterday’s blue plate special. Why?”
“Just wondered.” He stood up. “Thanks, Helen. You’ve been a big help.”
“It’s been a pleasure,” she assured him.
There was a phone booth in the restaurant. Shayne used it to call police headquarters. He asked for Chief Gentry.
When the chief answered his phone, Shayne said, “This is Mike, Will. Last night the M.E. told me that if I could give him the time that Trimble last ate, and what he ate, he could pinpoint the time of death to within a few minutes.”
“Yeah, they can do that,” Gentry agreed. “They estimate it by the stage of digestion.”
“Well, you can pass on to him that Trimble had stuffed peppers, mashed potatoes and string beans at seven o’clock and finished eating at seven-twenty.”
Gentry said in a puzzled tone, “We already know about when he died, Mike.”
“Pass it on anyway, will you?” Shayne said.
“All right, Mike,” Gentry said in the irritatingly agreeable tone of a man humoring a friend he believes is entirely wrong. “I’ll pass it on.”
“You don’t have to sound as though you’re doing me a favor,” Shayne growled. “I’m trying to do you one.”
After hanging up, he mused for a moment, then pulled from his pocket the piece of paper on which he had written the Coles’s address and phone number. Dropping another coin, he dialed the number. It was answered almost immediately by Harlan Wright.
“This is Mike Shayne,” the detective said. “Mr. Cole there?”
“Oh, hello, Mr. Shayne. No, he isn’t. He had to stop by the funeral parlor to make arrangements for Marie, then he was going to the TV station. Something about a contract termination because of Marie’s death.” There was a pause, then he said in a diffident voice, “I guess I was pretty hammy last night, breaking up like that. I’m embarrassed.”