Shoot to Kill by Brett Halliday Read Free Book Online Page A

floor.
    Shayne beckoned to the houseman, and asked over his shoulder, “Scotch or bourbon, Ralph? And how do you like it?”
    The young man shuddered and shook his head. “I couldn’t touch a drop. I think I’d vomit.” He hesitated with his young face working queerly. “I keep seeing him sitting there grinning at me,” he burst out. “I wanted to kill him. I enjoyed pulling the trigger. But now…” He shook his head dazedly and buried his face in his hands.
    Michael Shayne took two cubes of ice from Alfred’s proffered pitcher and dropped one of them in each of two tall glasses. He lavishly poured bourbon in one glass and Scotch in the other, added a dollop of water to each and took one glass in each hand, waving Alfred on to the others. He handed the bourbon highball to Rourke who continued to sit beside Larson, and muttered obliquely, “Don’t take it so hard, Tim. You did your best, damn it.”
    “None of that whispering,” said Powers sternly from his military stance in front of the door. “I guess it’s all right for all of you to have drinks, but there’s to be no private communications between suspects until you’ve each made your statements.”
    Shayne shrugged and turned away from the two reporters with a glass of watered Scotch in his hand. On the other side of the room Mark Ames had refused a drink, but the New York attorney was eagerly pouring Scotch with a shaking hand into a tall glass containing two ice cubes. He filled it nearly to the top and set the bottle back on Alfred’s tray, and lifted the glass to his mouth with both hands gripping it tightly.
    Shayne grimly watched him lower the contents by a good two inches before he took it away from his mouth, and he wondered whether Lawyer Sutter was going to still be sober enough to make a statement when Homicide arrived. Not that it mattered much, he told himself. Nothing that Sutter had to tell them could possibly change anything.
    Then he heard the low, discreet whine of a carefully controlled siren from the distance on Biscayne Boulevard and knew they hadn’t much longer to wait before the efficient technicians from Will Gentry’s Homicide Squad took over.

 
6
     
    SERGEANT GRIGGS WAS A SHORT SQUARELY-BUILT MAN in plain clothes, but his driver who entered the doorway behind him was in uniform. Griggs had an intelligent, weathered face, shrewdly cold eyes, and a completely bald head. He pivoted slowly, just inside the room, scrutinizing each man carefully, and not a flicker of surprise showed on his impassive features as his gaze slid over the detective and the reporter.
    With no indication of pleasure, he said, “Well, well. Miami’s gift to television and the demon reporter of the daily press. Just what goes on here?”
    “There’s been a shooting, Sarge. Upstairs,” said Powers eagerly. “These fellows claim that one sitting down there did it.”
    Griggs’ gaze rested briefly on the seated Ralph Larson, and then shifted back to Shayne. “Who’s the stiff?”
    “Wesley Ames,” Shayne told him.
    “They tell me your secretary called in the first alarm. What do you do… get printed announcements when a murder’s about to be committed?”
    “Not quite. This time it just happens…”
    “Skip it for now. Let’s go upstairs and get the picture straight. You may as well tag along, Rourke, so we can get full newspaper coverage. That way, you can write the facts for once without having recourse to your imagination. You stay here with Powers,” he directed his driver. “Send the other boys on up as soon as they get here.”
    He went toward the stairs and Shayne and Rourke followed him with their glasses in their hands.
    Griffin was standing importantly at attention outside the open door of the study. He said, “Not much work for you on this one, Sarge. Here’s the murder weapon.” He held out Larson’s .38. “I took it off that big redhead while it was still hot and smoking.”
    Griggs nodded and walked into the room