Read Murder by Proxy for Free Online Page B

Harris. I don’t pretend I know all about this. I’m just a hired hand here. All I really know about the whole situation is what I’ve told you. Mrs. Harris just hasn’t been seen back here since Monday evening. Maybe there’s a lot more to it that I don’t know. My boss, Mr. Merrill, will be in his office at eight o’clock. He’s Chief Security Officer here, and there isn’t much goes on in the Beachhaven he doesn’t know about. A lot of it he doesn’t tell me. Now what I suggest is that you finish that drink and then take another one just like it. Take off some of your clothes and lie down and relax an hour or so. Leave a call for seven-thirty and get yourself a shave and a shower, and maybe things will begin to look a hell of a lot better. I don’t know what further dope Mr. Merrill may have on Mrs. Harris.” He shrugged his heavy shoulders ponderously.
    “In the meantime,” said Harris bitterly, “nothing’s being done about finding my wife. God knows where she is… what’s happened to her. The police should be notified.”
    “Now, look, Mr. Harris.” Johnson tried to be understanding and sympathetic. “It’s just good daylight. There’s no one on duty at police headquarters except some punks like me. This isn’t any sudden emergency. It’s been four-five days already. Now, we got a hell of a detective chief here on Miami Beach. Peter Painter, his name is. He’s the one you want to talk to. Mr. Merrill first, and then Chief Painter. Hell, like I say, Mr. Merrill may have all the answers right on his desk already. You just relax for a couple of hours, and when you wake up the sun will be shining and maybe everything will look a lot different.”
    Herbert Harris emptied his glass and dropped it onto the floor with a dull thud. He rested his head wretchedly on his hands with elbows propped on his knees. “I’m just… knocked out,” he muttered as if to himself. “I can’t believe it. Not Ellen. Goddamnit!” he exclaimed hoarsely, swinging his head up to glare at Johnson. “You don’t know her. You wouldn’t talk that way if… you knew her…”
    “No,” said Johnson. “Maybe I wouldn’t, Mr. Harris.” He got up and retrieved the New Yorker’s empty glass from the floor, put ice cubes into it from the pitcher and filled it to the brim from the whisky bottle. He carried it back to the distressed man sitting on the edge of the bed and said as cheerfully as he could, “Drink this down. Then let me help get some of your clothes off. I’ll check with Mr. Merrill the moment he gets in his office, and the chances are we’ll have Mrs. Harris back here before you ever wake up.” Harris accepted the glass and slopped some of the drink down his chin as he drank from it. He held it out in front of him with the fingers of both hands laced tightly around it, and stared at it, and tears formed in his eyes and ran unabashedly down his cheeks.
    He dropped the glass to the floor and sank back onto the bed, sobbing like a frightened child.

 
6.
     
    Lucy Hamilton had not come in, and Shayne answered the phone when it rang on Saturday morning. A man’s voice asked, “Will Mr. Shayne be in today?” When Shayne told him “until noon,” the voice said, “I’ll be right over,” and a few minutes after eleven o’clock that morning, Herbert Harris strode into the waiting room of Michael Shayne’s office on Flagler Street. He had shaved and changed to a clean shirt, and the hotel valet had pressed his gray suit. His eyes were still a little bleary from lack of sleep, but he looked self-contained and determined as he advanced toward Lucy Hamilton and demanded, “Is Mr. Shayne in?”
    At her desk behind the low railing, Lucy appraised him as a young man with a lot on his mind. She got up from her chair and said pleasantly, “Yes. Whom shall I say?”
    “Mr. Harris. From New York. It’s extremely urgent that I see Mr. Shayne at once.”
    She unlatched the gate and went past him to a closed