Free In a Deadly Vein by Brett Halliday

overheard between Joe Meade and Christine Forbes, with Phyllis prompting him and dragging it out of him.
    “Which gives us just one more headache,” he ended in disgust. “I gather that Joe is a frustrated playwright who might well think up a plot like that to give Christine her chance. On the other hand, he may be an opportunist who seized on Nora’s absence to put himself in solidly with the girl he loves.”
    A waiter brought drinks for the three. Shayne seized his avidly, muttering, “I need this.”
    Phyllis propped her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her hands. “With all this dither about Nora Carson, aren’t you forgetting her father? He’s the corpse in the case. I thought you always concerned yourself with the murderer to the exclusion of everything else, Michael.”
    Shayne was staring straight in front of him. He mused, “In this case, I’ll ask nothing more than to keep the murders down to one.”
    Phyllis nudged him by placing her foot on his under the table. “Look—Michael!” she whispered.
    Sheriff Fleming said, “Pardon me, Mr. Shayne,” lifting his broad hat from his silvery hair. “I heard there was a rumpus out here.”
    Shayne turned his head slightly. “Yeh. There was, sort of, sheriff.”
    Phyllis smiled up at him brightly. “Wherever there’s a rumpus, Sheriff Fleming, there you’ll find Michael Shayne.”
    Shayne stood up. “You remember my wife, Sheriff. And this is Pat Casey, of the New York police.”
    “I remember Mrs. Shayne, all right,” the sheriff drawled, bowing slightly. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Casey. New York police, eh? On business or pleasure?”
    Shayne grinned and said, “He came on business and stayed for pleasure, after meeting my wife. Anything new on Nora Carson?”
    “Not a thing. Looks like she just flew the coop without telling anybody. Her husband has been giving me fits.” Fleming paused, then continued diffidently, “I’ve been checking around on Screwloose Pete like you said. I reckon you’d be interested to hear what Cal Strenk’s got to say. That’s his partner I told you about. If you’re not busy right now—”
    “I’m not.” Shayne reached for his brandy glass and emptied it. He shook his head at Phyllis when she started to get up. “I wish you’d stick around, angel, and try to get acquainted with Christine Forbes—and with Celia Moore. Get them to talk if you can. It shouldn’t be hard, with so much informality at this hour. You needn’t tell Christine you’re the wife of the guy who had a run-in with Joe Meade”
    Phyllis sank into her chair and made a wry face. “I could find out more from her boy friend,” she challenged in a hurt tone.
    Shayne turned to Casey and asked, “Want to sit in on this?”
    Casey waggled his round head negatively. “I’ll have to tend to my own knitting. Two-Deck will feel neglected if he’s without a tail too long.”
    Shayne patted Phyllis’s shoulder as he turned to go with the sheriff. He noted, in passing, that Celia Moore and Jasper Windrow were no longer at their table.

 
CHAPTER NINE
     
    “NO, SIREE, ol’ Screwloose Pete wasn’t as screwy as most folks thought,” Cal Strenk said firmly. His faded blue eyes held a knowing gleam. He drank noisily through lips flattened against toothless front gums and wiped beer foam from drooping mustaches with the back of a gnarled hand. “Reckon I knowed Screwloose better’n most, and Mister, you git to know a man when you prospect these hills ’longside him for nigh on ten years.”
    The aged prospector sat opposite Shayne and Sheriff Fleming in a booth at the rear of a musty beer joint on Main Street. The din of a string orchestra and the bang and whir of slot machines from an adjoining building almost drowned his nasal twang. Across the aisle from the booths, the crowd at the bar were mostly natives, with a sprinkling of tourists who had dropped in for local color.
    Strenk was bareheaded. Thin, gray hair