Shayne said, “You’ll have to make a full statement to the Coast Guard about the circumstances of the fire. Right now I want to tell Painter how I think it happened. This is all hypothetical. You can indicate assent if you feel like it, but it’s not important.”
He lit a cigarette. “The people at the marina were awakened by loud noises on your boat. Mrs. De Rham was seen drinking gin from the bottle. Gin, or tap water in a Beefeater bottle. You’d been sitting in that berth for two weeks, and now all at once she wanted to go for a sail. You tried to talk her out of it, but she was a hard woman to talk out of things when she really wanted to do them.”
“Yes.”
“She wanted to see the sun come up over the water. And it turned out to be a very nice sunrise. I hope you noticed, Paul. It may be the last you’ll ever see.”
Brady’s hand moved.
“Yeah,” Shayne said, his face impassive. “It’s a bad acid burn and the chances are that nothing can be done about it. But maybe everything else worked out. Let’s see.” He turned to Painter. “There’s somebody else we’re going to need, a guy named Raphael Petrocelli. He’s at a motel in Biscayne Park, the Dunmovin, registered under the name of Sam de Angelis. Will you send somebody to get him? Or Tim will be glad to go.”
“I will not,” Rourke protested. “I want to hear this.”
After thinking about it longer than necessary, Painter nodded and one of the detectives went out.
“To continue, Paul,” Shayne said. “You made so much racket getting away that it makes me wonder if you wanted to be sure plenty of people saw you go. At this point, if you were being questioned in the usual way, you’d point out that Mrs. De Rham was making most of the noise, and she was well known to be a drunk.”
Brady’s hand moved.
“And not only a drunk,” Shayne said. “She had a well-authenticated history of mental disturbance, in which fire always played quite a part. I found that tape, incidentally, just where you thought I’d find it, in a Volkswagen a couple of blocks from Jennings Park, and the only reason I was around to pull you out of the water was that I have a thick skull and a nice girl named Helen scared the boys off before they could do any permanent damage. The tape proved that Mrs. De Rham burned down the Massachusetts factory for the insurance. The watchman saw a woman driving a white Oldsmobile convertible, and I think we’ll be able to establish that she owned a white Olds at the time. I expect to sell this tape to the insurance company for five percent of the amount they recovered, which is why I sound cheerful, in case you’ve been wondering.”
Painter stirred. Shayne silenced him with a look.
“To come back to what happened this morning. The sun was about to come up, and Mrs. De Rham, poor mad Mrs. De Rham, started playing with matches. You’ve been a little in awe of her because she’s the one with the money, and by the time you realized you had a serious fire on your hands it was too late. Now here’s a funny thing. The Coast Guard tells me they didn’t get an alarm from your boat. Why not? Luckily for you, I’d already put in a May Day call and they were on the way with a helicopter. We managed to save you. Don’t comment on this yet, Paul. I’m sorry about Mrs. De Rham. I did my best, but all I came up with was her wig and her jacket. The jacket had a bullet hole in it.”
He pulled the jacket out of the capacious pocket of his coveralls and tossed it to Painter, who held it to the light and looked closely at the edges of the hole.
Shayne continued, “You had a gun, Paul, and one of the things that’s been bothering me is why you needed it. To protect your privacy? People who are looking for privacy don’t tie up at that kind of marina.”
“Brady killed Mrs. De Rham?” Painter said. “Is that what you’re saying, Shayne?”
“No, that’s not exactly what I’m saying. But if you want to arrest him for it, go ahead. You might be able to make it stick even without the body.”
“I’m not about to arrest anybody before I know a little more,” Painter declared. He snapped his fingers. “Let’s have the rest, Shayne.”
Shayne gave him a direct look. “Your men have been involved in this from the start. You talked to Brady and the woman, and you know the situation. I’ve been reporting to Richardson. If you want somebody else to take over, fine.” Before Painter could answer Richardson said hastily, “Don’t stop, Mike. I’m learning things all the time.”
“All right, Petey,” Shayne said. “You probably realized that the woman on the boat, the drunk you talked to, wasn’t Mrs. De Rham.”
“She wasn’t?” Painter exclaimed. “Who was she?”
“Paul could tell us,” Shayne said, “but he has a very good out. All he has to do is stop moving and we’ll think he’s gone under. He put on a fine performance, one of the best pieces of acting I’ve seen. Every time I felt a little twinge of suspicion, he came out with something so perfectly right for the situation that I couldn’t help believing him. Of course it tapered off. He was getting rushed at the end.”
“Will you try to be more specific?” Painter said.
Shayne smiled amiably. “I’ve really been talking more to Paul than to you, Petey. I want him to understand that the curtain’s come down and he’s in trouble. The first time I talked to him, he told me just where to go to find the missing husband. The next time I was looking for a reel of tape. Paul made what turned out to be an excellent suggestion. I would have swallowed one of these, but not both. There’s a funny thing about that tape. It’s going to cost Mrs. De Rham or her estate considerable money, and if she’s still alive, which by now I think we all doubt, it could put her in jail. I warned her that if I found it I’d have to turn it in, and according to Paul she said to go ahead. He had to be lying, or else the woman throwing up in the head at the time wasn’t the real Mrs. De Rham.”
He glanced at his watch. Painter tapped his toe impatiently, and Shayne knew he couldn’t stall much longer. The International Airport was seven miles away. If Mrs. Brady had been picked up as she boarded the plane she should be here now. He lit a fresh cigarette, wondering how long he could make Painter hold still. He thought of another diversion, but before he could get it underway he heard a car pull up outside.
He jerked his head toward the door. Painter followed him. They met Mrs. Brady in the corridor.
“Mike Shayne,” she said. “Damn you. I knew you had something to do with this.”
CHAPTER 18
“Mrs. Brady?” Painter said. “I’m Peter Painter, Miami Beach Chief of Detectives. I have some questions to ask you.”
“I don’t have to answer any of your questions,” she told him scornfully, “and you’d better have some explanation for taking me off that plane. I’m one of those people who enjoy fighting City Hall.”
She turned back to Shayne. There were shadows under her eyes, but the eyes themselves were clear and untroubled.
“When did you wake up?” she said with a slight smile.
“About ten seconds after you left the cabin. I didn’t drink much of that mickey you gave me. I told you I didn’t like vodka-especially vodka laced with chloral hydrate.”
“That’s what I get for being soft-hearted enough to cut you loose. You might at least have finished the love making we started. I could easily resent that.”
“You didn’t have your heart in it.”
“You’re wrong about that, Mike,” she said softly.
“Now look here,” Painter said, “I want somebody to tell me-”
They continued to ignore him. Shayne picked her bag out of her hand. She grabbed for it, but Shayne took her arm and passed her along to Painter.
“Slug her if she makes any trouble.”
“Pretty transparent. Pretty crude provocation. Nobody’s going to accuse me of brutality.”
“I erased it, of course,” she remarked as Shayne took out the tape she had recovered with the aid of Teddy Sparrow.
“I think it’s too hot to erase. It won’t be hard to find out. The question Petey wants to ask you-did you kill a man named Thomas Moseley at about two-thirty this morning?”