Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 34, No. 5, April 1974

“Glad to meet you,” Buzby said, and then turned back to Sheriff Hill. “Not only was old Harvey greedy, he was mean. He liked to make his people squirm and see them hurt. That’s the biggest way he got his kicks. They all hate — I mean they hated him.”

“Not enough to kill him, though,” Mike Shayne said. “Or at least not enough to kill him night before last and here in the Florida Keys.”

Both men turned to him.

“What makes you say that?”

“The skiff,” Shayne said. “You tell me the old man was found floating north of here and hear the Gulf Stream. You also say there’s a skiff missing.

“These men you’re talking about are westerners, not boatmen. They wouldn’t know what to do in a skiff. It needs somebody familiar with Florida to put a body in the Gulf Stream, or even know where the Gulf Stream is. Even if one of those cowboy types had tried it, he’d have brought the skiff back. That’s the way he’d have come back himself. Anybody trying to land along the Keys and walk back would have had to give himself away when he came in through the gatehouse, wouldn’t he?”

“I never thought of that,” Buzby said.

“I did,” Sheriff Sam Hill told them. “Go on, Shayne. What happened to the skiff? Suppose Peckinbaugh took it out himself and ran into a lobster boat? There’s been lobster poaching and trap stealing back and forth to the Bahamas for months. Suppose he got caught close to the traps and knifed for a thief?”

“A lobster thief in a two hundred dollar sports jacket and hundred dollar shoes?” Shayne said. “I read the description of the corpse in the papers and saw it on teevy. Those lobstermen aren’t idiots. If they’d found Harvey, they’d just have pointed him back to shore, skiff and all.”

“What do you think did happen then... and where’s that ever-loving skiff?” It was one of the Monroe detectives who asked the question.

“I think Peckinbaugh was killed right here on Key Paradiso,” Mike Shayne said. “I think whoever killed him put him in the skiff right here. Then he bolted an outboard motor to the skiff. He could get it out of the boathouse at the same time. One of those little electric one-horsepower jobs would be perfect and I’ll bet there’s a rack of them in the boathouse.

“Then the killer used his knife to punch a couple of small holes in the bottom of the skiff. Just enough to start slow leaks. He pointed the skiff out to sea, and shoved it off, but he didn’t go with it. He just started the skiff out with the dead body in it and a weight tied to the body. He probably figured the slow leaks he started wouldn’t actually sink the boat till it got out of the Gulf Stream.

“If he was right we never would have found Peckinbaugh even with the rope breaking. The Stream is deep and the currents would keep shoving the body on North till the sharks finished it. Where he went wrong was the boat sank well this side of the Stream in shallow water. The body came up and was found. Otherwise we’d just have a mystery instead of a murder.”

“I have to, admit that was clever,” Buzby said. “I’d never have figured it out.”

“Neither would most of old Harvey’s midwestern friends,” Sam Hill agreed. “I think we may be able to let them go after a short interrogation. Anyway, we’ll talk to them first.”

“Keep an eye out for one who has local friends who could have given him the idea,” Shayne said. “Come along, Tim. We’ll leave the gentlemen to their business.”

“Where did you ever think up all that?” Rourke asked as they left the group at the head of the table.

“What stuck in my craw was the skiff was missing but the murderer wasn’t,” Shayne said. “At least nobody mentioned anybody around here not accounted for. If the killer left with the body, he’d have brought the skiff back.”

“Wouldn’t that have been the smart thing to do anyway?” Rourke asked his friend.

“I think it would,” Shayne said, “because then there’d have been nothing to indicate what had become of the body. Just go all the way out and put the body in the Gulf Stream and then come back. Nothing missing but old Harvey.”

“Why wouldn’t he do it that way?” Rourke persisted.

“Only two reasons I can think of,” Shayne answered. “One would be a stupid killer, and I don’t go for that. The other is the killer was somebody who didn’t want to make the trip in the skiff because it would take a couple of hours and he’d be missed. Then when it was found Harvey was gone, the killer would have fingered himself by being gone.”

“Who misses anybody at a party like this one was?”

“Only if the missing one is very prominent,” Shayne said, “that narrows the list of possible suspects. Right now I want you to introduce me to what you called Harvey’s Harem. Start with the widow Peckinbaugh. It’s time I let her know I’m here.”

Mrs. Della Peckinbaugh had not confined herself to the master suite of the waterfront mansion that morning, but was having a substantial breakfast at a small table set for two on the wide verandah. The second seat had been occupied by Bill Buzby before he had left to join the sheriff and his detectives.