Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 29, No. 4, September 1971

“Your friends them cops didn’t tell you much when you was up at the big house, did they? Well, no mind. I guess it ain’t no secret around here. I worked for old John for thirty years. Cooked and washed and cleaned for him, I did. Yes, and nursed him when he got old and sick. Nobody else in the world he could trust like old Jane. If only he’d sense enough to know it, that is. More’s the pity he didn’t.”

“You have some idea who might have wanted him dead then?” the big detective asked her.

“Ideas? Course I got ideas! So does everybody else ever knew that mean old man. Every living soul ever came close to John Wingren wanted him dead one time or other.”

“So?”

“Don’t look so surprised, you big cop. Ask around and you’ll find out for yourself. He was a mean man, John was. A nasty, mean old man.”

“Was he mean to you, too?”

She looked up at the big redhead out of beady, suspicious old eyes. “I ain’t talking about that. Think you’re going to blame something on me, don’t you? I know how you bums work it. Well, I ain’t going to take the rap for nobody. I said I used to work for John, not that I did lately. Oh, no. I wised up. I did, and good riddance to him. It’s two full years since I been inside that house.”

“What happened?” Shayne asked. “Did you have a fight with the old man?”

“You go on, get out of here,” she said. “Sure, I had fights with him. Everybody did. But ‘a fight,’ something big I’d want to kill him about? No, indeed. No. You ain’t going to make no murder suspect out of me that way. Now go on, get off my property before I call a real cop to put you off. You want I should do that?”

Mike Shayne stepped back and she slammed the door in his face.

“Old John wasn’t exactly popular with that one,” he told himself as he went on down the walk to the street. “Chances are if she knew who killed him she’d just want to pin a medal on the guy’s chest. Let’s hope somebody else around here will want to be a little more cooperative.”

The next house he stopped at was a duplicate of old Mrs. Mullen’s place, but whoever lived there had kept it up better. The place had had a coat of blue paint not more than a year or so back, and there was an expensive teevy aerial bolted to the side of the chimney.

An old man answered the door. He was thin. One of his legs had been broken and poorly set in the past so that he leaned on a heavy, old-fashioned natural oak cane to support himself as he talked.

“You here about old John being killed?” he said. “Come in. Come right in. I’ll gladly tell you anything I know, though it’s not much. It sure isn’t much.”

“You didn’t see or hear anything suspicious the night of the murder then?”

“Sure. Sure I did, mister, but not to do with the killing of old John. I watch out. This whole side of town is dangerous after dark.” The man’s face was intent, his lips pulled back in what might have been a smile or just a nervous affectation. His eyes fairly glittered. Shayne was wary. He’d seen just that look on emotionally disturbed patients in Jackson Memorial Hospital.

“Maybe you better tell me what you mean,” Shayne said. “By the way, I didn’t get your name.”

“Smith,” the old fellow said. “Just Smith. Buck Smith, to be exact. Corporal Buck Smith, used to be.”

He gestured toward the rock fireplace at the back of the room. Above it on the wall was a faded photo of a troop of cavalry in turn-of-the-century uniforms and a tattered guidon.

More to the point, a long rifle leaned against the corner of the mantel. Shayne recognized it as a government issue 1903 Springfield. He walked over to pick it up.

“Watch out now,” Smith said. “That gun’s loaded. You take care, mister. Wouldn’t want nobody hurt.”

“Neither would I,” Mike Shayne said. He checked the gun. It was loaded, all right, and when he sniffed the muzzle he could tell by the acrid tang that the weapon had been fired recently.

“It’s all right,” he told Smith. “I understand guns. How come you keep this one loaded anyway?”

“Because I got good sense, that’s why,” the crusty old veteran said. “Like I was going to tell you, this neighborhood has got real dangerous after dark. Prowlers. Hoodlums. Crazy kids with their dope. Robbers. I tell you a man ain’t safe unless he’s ready to defend himself.”

“Have you actually seen any prowlers?” Mike Shayne asked.

“Of course I have, mister. So has everybody this side of town, if they was honest with you about it. Sneaking, thieving, murdering prowlers. They comes round at night, but they leave old Buck alone.”

“Because you’ve got the gun?”

“Because I’m ready for him, that’s why. Had old John Wingren kept a gun he’d be alive right now, most like.” The old fellow started snickering.

“What’s so funny?”

“What’s funny is old John’s dead and I ain’t. All that money he stole and cheated from folks don’t do him no good now. No good at all. I told him I’d spit on his grave, and I will. I surely will.”

“You aren’t sorry he’s dead then?”