In a Deadly Vein (8 page)

It wasn’t pink. It was orchid.

He stumbled forward, holding the flashlight extended before him. The bundle of discarded clothing took shape—the shape of a slender young girl.

Shayne slowed to a walk. It was far too late for hurrying now. Nora Carson was quite dead.

THE TOP OF THE ACTRESS’S HEAD was smashed in, the edges of the gaping wound showing clean and unbloody under the light of the flash. She lay curled about the base of an old tree stump as though she embraced it in dying. Her shoulders and arms were bare, creamy-smooth in the bright light; the orchid evening gown was twined tightly about her body from the knees upward.

Cal Strenk and the patrolman came up behind Shayne quietly. The miner’s breath made a faint slobbering noise in the stillness. None of them said anything.

Shayne bent and touched one of Nora Carson’s bright blond curls and her gown. Both were soggy. A few inches from her feet the creek water swirled and foamed over small boulders. The rocky bank surrounding her was clean-washed, with no sign of blood anywhere.

Shayne sent the beam of the flashlight up the steep slope, muttering, “She wasn’t killed here. Might have rolled down from above and lodged against this stump.” The light reached upward to the path leading to the cabin without revealing anything to indicate where the murder had occurred.

“Might of,” Cal Strenk agreed in a curiously choked voice. “But looks like her purty dress would of got torn on the rocks if she rolled down. With her bein’ so wet, looks like she was doused in the crik.”

Shayne played the light up and down the slope above the present water-line. “I don’t see any high-water marks. Do you think the water’s been above this stump tonight?”

“I reckon it has, all right. Turn your light down here again.” Strenk bent over the stump and nodded. “Yep. It’s soakin’ wet, too. She might of been washed downstream hour or so ago.”

“Or else placed here while the water was high in a position to indicate she’d been washed downstream. But hell!” Shayne rubbed his chin irritably. “Could the creek have fallen this far since eight-thirty? It doesn’t seem possible.”

“It’s not only possible, but it’s quite probable.” The young patrolman spoke for the first time since his light had touched the girl’s body. “Easterners don’t understand our mountain cloudbursts. I’ve seen a twenty-foot wall of water roll down a dry creek bed—and in thirty minutes it would all be past.”

“That’s right,” Strenk corroborated. “Depends on how much it rains up in the mountains.”

Shayne grunted sourly and circled the body and stump, holding his light on it. He decided, “Her body was either placed there carefully, or it was washed down the creek during high water and lodged against the stump. In either case, it was done while the water was high, else there would be some indications of blood on the rocks. That leaves us a nice wide-open question as to where the murder was actually committed. She might have been dumped into the creek any goddamned place above here while the water was high and roaring down.”

“Is it necessarily murder?” the state officer asked respectfully. “Couldn’t she have fallen in the creek—struck her head against a rock?”

Shayne laughed shortly. “Could have, but I’m betting a thousand-to-one it’s murder. Such things follow each other, you know.” He dropped on his knees beside the girl, made a close and careful examination of the head wound.

“I was thinking of that previous murder—wondering if we might not be jumping to conclusions. There isn’t necessarily any connection, is there?”

Shayne rocked back on his haunches and demanded, “Do you know who this girl is?”

“One of ’em from the opry house, ain’t she?” asked Cal Strenk when the patrolman shook his head.

Shayne stood up and with apparent carelessness flashed his light into the miner’s face. “Her name is Nora Carson. She identified Screwloose Pete as her father a few minutes before he was murdered tonight.”

The old man clawed at his whiskers and blinked into the bright light. “Do tell? I’d look for a jackass to pappy a thoroughbred colt quicker’n I’d expect ol’ Screwloose to beget a purty actress daughter.”

“That’s your connection,” Shayne told the officer. “One of the reasons why it’s a cinch for murder. And this blow on the top of her head wasn’t accidental. It’s too much like the wound that killed her father.” He turned the light back on Strenk and demanded:

“Are you backing Jasper Windrow in his attempt to prove she lied about Pete being her father?”

“Is that what he’s up to?” The miner sounded properly indignant. “Might know he’d wanta grab Pete’s share, too. After puttin’ up not more’n five-six hundred dollars all told, he ain’t satisfied with a third share of a million-dollar mine. No, sirree. I ain’t throwin’ in with Windrow. Not ’less he splits with me, I don’t. Pete allus said if he died fust he wanted for me to have all his share in our claims.”

“He never mentioned having any heirs to you?”

“Nope. Never said nothin’ about none.”

“He didn’t put that in writing, did he? That you should have what he left?” Shayne’s voice was hard, biting.

“Nope. I don’t reckon Pete could write much. He could make out to read a mite.”

Abruptly, Shayne said, “To hell with dividing up an estate before the bodies are buried.” He handed the patrolman his flashlight. “Wish you’d stay here with the body while I go up and tell Sheriff Fleming his grief has just begun. While you’re waiting, you might look around for a coat Nora Carson was wearing when she left the hotel.”

It was a steep rough climb up the rocky slope. Strenk followed Shayne in silence. The cabin door was open and they went in.

Two-Deck Bryant leaned negligently against the wall near the stove. He gave Shayne a cold, tight-lipped stare. Neither of his torpedoes was present.

Shayne stopped in the doorway and asked, “What are you doing here?”

The gambler’s smile was insolent. “I’ve always wanted to watch a gumshoe at work when he wasn’t trying to pin something on me. Go right ahead. I want to see you detect something.”

Shayne said, “Don’t be too sure you’re in the clear.” He glanced at Fleming and Windrow. The sheriff looked mildly curious at this interchange, but Windrow’s rugged face was enigmatic. He might have been backing four aces or bluffing with a busted straight.

Shayne stepped aside and motioned for Cal Strenk to come in. He asked the miner, “Do you see one of the three men you were telling me about in the barroom?”

Strenk pointed to Bryant. “Yep. That’s one of ’em. The other two—”

Shayne said, “I know all about the other two.” In a flat tone, he advised Bryant, “That gives you a pretty definite stake in my gumshoeing, so you’d better stick around.” He turned to the sheriff. “I’ve got another murder for you, Fleming.”

“Another one? God ’lmighty, Mr. Shayne. We’ve never had anything like—”

“I thought you said it was suicide,” Windrow interrupted.

Shayne’s brooding gaze went slowly to Jasper Windrow’s face. “You’re jumping to a lot of conclusions. In the first place I haven’t said Joe Meade tried to commit suicide. I don’t know. In the second place, this one is a girl. Down on the bank of the creek. Her name is Nora Carson.”

Not a flicker of emotion showed on Windrow’s face. He nodded almost imperceptibly, pleasurably, perhaps. “The actress who tried to claim Pete as her father.”

“The girl,” Shayne corrected, “who positively identified Pete as her father. I’ll swear to that in court.”

Sheriff Fleming interceded hastily. “No matter about that now. Down by the creek, you say? Right here at Old Pete’s cabin?”

Shayne nodded. “We found her when we were looking for footprints across the creek. The state cop is waiting down there with his flashlight.”

The sheriff said, “I guess I better go see.” He went heavily across the cabin and out the door.

Bryant approached Shayne, asking in an even, menacing tone, “What’s the idea of having this old gink put the finger on me? How do you figure that pulls me into the picture?”

Shayne dropped one hip onto the center table again and lit a cigarette. “I’m wondering what prompted your interest in Screwloose Pete this past week.”

A mocking grin twitched the gambler’s saturnine features. “I’ve been thinking about taking a little flyer in the mining game. Looks to me like a chance to hit a real jackpot without laying too much sugar on the line.”

Shayne shook his head. “You know an easier way of making money, Bryant—with all the percentages in your favor. Casey tells me that clip-joint of yours on the Parkway is wired so heavy that the only play you get nowadays is from out-of-town suckers who don’t know the ropes. Storekeepers in town on buying trips from jerkwater towns like this.”

Again, he failed to get a rise out of Jasper Windrow. If the barbed shaft struck home, the man wasn’t giving out. He interrupted impatiently, “I’ve still got a bone to pick with you, Shayne. Your championship of the Carson girl’s claim against Pete’s estate isn’t going to mean very much. The sheriff and I failed to find a single thing among his effects to indicate he was her father.”

Shayne glanced sardonically around the orderly cabin.

“And I suppose you ripped everything to pieces trying to find some such evidence?”

Windrow reiterated, “We found nothing. Perhaps you’d like to look for yourself—while I’m here to see you don’t plant something to support her contention.”

That, Shayne agreed, would be a hell of a good idea. “I’ll at least try, which is more than I think you’ve done.” He turned to Cal Strenk. “You batched here with Pete. Any idea where to start looking for private papers?”

“I don’t reckon Pete never had no papers. Never showed me none.”

Shayne slid off the table and went to cupboards behind the stove. He rattled pots and pans to reach back behind them, then began a slow circuit of the four mud-chinked walls of peeled logs, feeling into crevices in the corners and studying the bare wooden floor for signs of a cache as he moved about.

Bryant stood spread-legged on the brick hearth in front of the fireplace when Shayne finished his search without finding anything. The gambler laughed softly. “Looks like you forgot your magnifying glass, Sherlock. Oughtn’t you to pick up samples of the dirt and cigarette ashes from the floor to test in your laboratory?”

Shayne frowned and tugged at the lobe of his ear, refusing to let himself be disturbed by Bryant’s taunts. As he stared slowly around the room, Bryant stepped forward, opening his lips to speak again. A hearth brick creaked under his foot as he lifted his weight from it. He glanced swiftly downward, then stepped back and began speaking rapidly:

“I’m glad I came up to get some lessons. Are you all done, Shamus, or have you got some more tricks up your sleeve?”

“I think,” said Shayne, “I’m going to pull a brood of rabbits out of the hat for you.” He stalked forward purposefully. “That sounds like a loose brick you’re standing on, Bryant. They say it’s difficult to teach an old dog new tricks—and fifty years ago half the valuables in this country were stashed under a brick in the hearth. Step aside and let’s take a look.”