The Corpse Came Calling Read Online Free Page A

turned out the door and hurried toward the stairway.
    Shayne turned back into the room slowly. There was the lingering scent of heliotrope perfume in the air. He went into the bathroom and rubbed a trace of rouge from his mouth, then came back tweaking the lobe of his left ear.
    He went out after a moment’s hesitation, walked to the end of the corridor and down the stairs to the ground floor and a private side entrance.
    He let himself out onto the sidewalk, strode briskly to the front of the building. Two police cars and an ambulance were parked in front. One of the police cars was from Miami’s sister city across the bay, Miami Beach.
    Shayne stalked into the lobby, whistling cheerily. The desk clerk tried to signal for his attention, but Shayne waved to him and went on to the elevators.
    The elevator boy’s eyes bugged at him when he stepped into the car. He breathed, “Gee, Mr. Shayne, what d’yuh think? The cops’ve been lookin’ all over for you.”
    Shayne grinned and said, “That’s nothing new, Henry.” He got out and strode down the hall toward the open door of his office.
    Two harness cops stood outside. He frowned and asked them, “What the hell’s going on?”
    One of the uniformed men said, “It’s Mr. Shayne himself,” and jerked his thumb toward the open door, muttering, “Watch your step, Mike. It’s Peter Painter inside and he’s on the warpath for sure.”
    Shayne winked at him and strode in. He stopped just inside the door, staring down at the corpse of Jim Lacy which lay just where it had fallen.
    In a pained voice, he asked, “Why doesn’t someone tell me these things?” He looked up and saw Phyllis pushing forward between a couple of Miami detectives, and he stepped over the body to gather her into his arms.

CHAPTER THREE
     
    “WHAT’S THIS ALL ABOUT, ANGEL?” Shayne had his arms tightly about Phyllis’s shaking shoulders. “Who’s the stiff messing up my office? Did you blast him? For God’s sake, Phyl, what is this?”
    She relaxed against him, sobbing, pressing her face against his chest. He looked over the top of her head wonderingly at a group of detectives from the homicide squad, at the medical examiner who sat lazily in a deep chair with his physician’s bag beside him, and lastly at a slim, erect figure who strutted forward with an unpleasant gleam of triumph in his snapping black eyes.
    This was Peter Painter, chief of detectives from Miami Beach, and Michael Shayne’s pet aversion in the form of a law-enforcement officer.
    Painter stopped in front of the detective with both hands thrust deep into the slash pockets of a belted sport coat. The threadlike black mustache on his upper lip quivered exultantly as he said:
    “It’s up to you to do the explaining this time, Shayne. You can’t kill a man and then just duck out—”
    “Wait a minute.” Shayne carefully kept his voice to a normal level. He looked past Painter to a Miami detective and asked, “Where’s Will Gentry?”
    “Gentry was out when the call came in. I left word for him to come up.”
    Shayne growled, “What’s Painter horning in for?” continuing to ignore the spruce detective chief. “This isn’t his territory.”
    The homicide man from Gentry’s office spread out his hands placatingly. “But it looks like it’s pretty much his case, Mike. He was in the office getting out a local pickup on the corpse when your wife phoned in.”
    Shayne transferred his gaze to Painter. “You wanted this guy?” He jerked his head toward the corpse.
    “For the FBI,” Painter told him with malicious relish. “I have a wire from J. Edgar Hoover saying that it’s a matter of supreme importance to detain him for questioning for a special agent who’s flying down from Washington.”
    Shayne looked down at Jim Lacy with no show of recognition. He demanded, “Who the devil is he? What’s he doing here? Who shot him full of holes?”
    “Those,” said Peter Painter precisely, “are the same