Heads You Lose Read Online Free PDF Page B

muttered, his gray eyes morose and his voice glum.
    Captain Ott’s keen eyes snapped. “Why? Don’t tell me I was mistaken in the old man,” he grated. “If he has crossed me up I’ll never trust another human being to play fair.”
    Shayne squinted at him through smoke roiling from flared nostrils. “You weren’t mistaken in Clem Wilson,” he said. “He hasn’t crossed you up.” He crushed his cigarette out viciously. “If you had had a guard over the house you might have prevented murder tonight.”
    “Murder? Who?”
    “Clem Wilson. He was shot down in his filling station at midnight.”
    Captain Ott sprang up and paced the floor, came back to the desk and demanded, “Did the boy have anything to do with it? What do you know about it?”
    Shayne crossed his knobby knees, leaned back in his chair and calmly gave a detailed recital of all that had happened, beginning with the urgent telephone call from Clem Wilson.
    “I’m explaining this to you,” he ended with a rueful grin, “because I don’t want the Army on my neck when the morning paper comes out. Actually, that telephone conversation told me nothing. But as long as I can make the murderer think it did…” His broad shoulders lifted in a significant shrug.
    Captain Ott resumed his seat after listening to Shayne with intense interest. He nodded approvingly and said, “Using yourself for killer-bait, eh? It might smoke them out at that. But what’s this about Bob Wilson? Why did you come here to inquire about him?”
    “Two or three small things that added up into a hunch. In the first place, I know Bob. He’s weak. I pulled him out of a jam about a year ago. And tonight Mrs. Wilson seemed to be suffering from something more than grief over her husband’s death. She was deeply troubled and anxious. Then… there was a photograph of the boys taken together. Bob’s picture had been cut away. After talking with her, I made up my mind that Bob…”
    “I remember that picture,” Captain Ott broke in soberly. “Mr. Wilson showed it to me when I first started discussing the boys… before I had told him the truth. His pride in them was extraordinary.”
    “That’s what started me thinking,” Shayne admitted. “I couldn’t conceive of Clem destroying the picture of Bob unless he had brought some drastic disgrace on the family. Mrs. Wilson seemed afraid of something Clem might have told me over the telephone, and when I asked for Bob’s present address, she pretended she didn’t know.”
    Captain Ott emerged from deep and furrowed contemplation to ask, “Do you think the son might have murdered his father?”
    “I’m pretty sure Mrs. Wilson thinks he may have,” Shayne admitted heavily.
    The captain stood up and began buttoning the neck of his blouse and straightening his tie. “I’d better see Mrs. Wilson at once. If that boy is in Miami…”
    “Wait a minute,” Shayne said swiftly. “Will you let me handle it?”
    Captain Ott looked at Shayne in astonishment. “You should know the Military Intelligence handles its own cases, Shayne. You work on your murder case. The Army is after a deserter.” He spoke bluntly and with authority.
    Shayne stood up. “I appreciate all that fully,” he said placatingly, “but hear me out before you see Mrs. Wilson. You see, Ott, I know Miami. And I know Mrs. Wilson. I’ll grant you this… she’s a mother and would probably do everything in her power to protect a deserting son, but she wouldn’t protect her husband’s murderer. I don’t believe any of this necessarily means that Bob is here,” he went on slowly. “Bob’s desertion is preying on her mind, of course. It may be that she just fears he might have returned and gone to his father… had an argument with him and shot him.”
    Captain Ott sat down on the edge of the desk and lighted a cigar. He asked, “What do you propose to do?”
    “If I tie Bob up to the murder or make Mrs. Wilson think he’s mixed in it, then she’ll