Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson Read Free Book Online

older. He gets to like her a lot and when she says let’s get married, he says, well, why not? What should he do — draw himself up proudly and say, no, my dear, you and I could never be happy because of your money? Baloney! Money never made anybody miserable. It’s not having it that makes you miserable. Of course, what this guy doesn’t know is that the girl’s father doesn’t figure on her ever marrying anybody. No, Dad plans to keep her around to entertain him in his old age. And when the shoe clerk finds this out, he’s ready to call it off but the girl won’t let him, because she needs him so bad. So that leaves this guy right in the middle. What would you do, Holt?”
    “The question is, what did you do?”
    Shayon had been leaning forward intensely. Now he sat back and his face resumed its mocking sneer. “Why, everybody knows that. Tara and I blew her father up, of course. What else could we do?”
    Holt said, “Mr Shayon, you ought to know by now that there are a number of people who think that is precisely what you did do, and you don’t help your own cause by treating it as a joke. You’d be better off to start thinking about your defence. And Tara’s.”
    “Maybe you’d better talk to our lawyer. That’s his job. Name is Wahl.”
    “Are you sure he’s representing both of you?” Holt asked pointedly.
    Shayon looked surprised. “Well, I guess so. Why shouldn’t he?”
    Holt knew that Tara’s attorney, Wahl, had represented Rudy Linneker and would naturally consider himself to represent Linneker’s daughter. But it was likely that Wahl shared the dead man’s opinion of Shayon and felt no loyalty to the young man in this situation. Holt sensed an opportunity to drive a wedge between the suspected pair, play one off against the other, yet he hesitated. He wanted the truth, not merely to be clever and score a point. “What does Tara say?”
    “Well, I haven’t talked to her about it. We’re not seeing each other for a few days.”
    “Was that her attorney’s suggestion?” Holt asked and got a grudging nod. As he had suspected, Wahl was still working for the dead father rather than the young couple. Tara and Shayon stood more alone than they really knew. “How long have you known Tara Linneker?”
    “Oh, four or five months, maybe a little longer.”
    “Since about last October, then. I’d like to ask you one direct question and you can answer it or not, as you choose. Did anything particular happen about the first of December between you and Tara, or between you and Rudy Linneker?” It was the same question he had put to Tara earlier.
    He got a different answer. “Did it!” said Shayon and chuckled. “That was when the lid blew off. Tara and I got engaged on December first.”
    Holt was taken aback by his candour. Whatever else he might be, Shayon was not stupid. Yet to admit to a violent quarrel with the murdered man the same week that the dynamite had been purchased was stupid in the extreme, unless … He said slowly, “Can I borrow your phone?”
    Shayon indicated the instrument on an end table. “Help yourself.”
    Since the hour was late, there was no use trying to locate McCoy at police headquarters. Holt looked up his home number — a rural exchange east of the city — and waited for the operator to connect him Shayon, watching him, began to fidget when he realized whom Holt was calling.
    McCoy was surprised to hear from Holt. “Getting anxious, huh? I remember when I was young and eager myself.”
    “I was curious as to what you found out in Seacliff,” Holt said, more loudly than the telephone connection demanded. He kept his eyes fixed on Shayon. But there was nothing in the other man’s face or the movement of his hands to betray that the name of Seacliff held any significance for him.
    “We’re doing fine,” said McCoy with satisfaction. “We got a probable on the Shayon picture. We’d have gotten a positive but, just our luck, the clerk who sold Shayon