Bodies Are Where You Find Them by Brett Halliday

back to get a good run at him.
    “A black limousine, I think.” He gave the best description possible. “Looked as big as a fire truck and must have been just about as heavy to do this job to my car and get away under its own power.
    “Hell, no. I didn’t get the license number,” he snapped in answer to the uniformed man who was taking notes. “I was busy getting my door open and trying to make a leap for it. It was all over before I knew it was happening. You’ll have to look for a black limousine with a smashed left fender and radiator grill.” He edged away from the officers and curious onlookers crowding the sidewalk, managing a disinterested glance at the hedge to see that the girl’s body was not in evidence.
    He breathed a deep sigh of relief that the hedge was thick and matted, the fine soft needles of the pines forming a solid mass from the ground up to the level, clipped top.
    Pushing through the throng, Shayne ambled up the street mopping his face with a handkerchief. The accident had been contrived with fiendish and perfect timing. If he had been injured or knocked unconscious for half a minute, no one would ever have believed his fantastic story—even with Rourke to back him up. Against them there would be Chief Gentry’s positive evidence that the girl was alive in his apartment at six o’clock. It would tie in with the kidnaping note, a perfect chain of circumstantial evidence with a noose dangling at the end of it.
    He had seen other innocent men writhing ineffectually in the coils of circumstantial evidence, had helped some of them beat the rap. There was no one to help him. If he didn’t get the answer quickly—or if Helen Stallings’s corpse was discovered—
    Perspiration streamed from his face. His handkerchief was soggy with sweat as he went over the setup. The Parkview Hotel was a block and a half beyond where his car had been wrecked, but Shayne felt that he had walked miles from the scene before reaching it.
    He swung into the lobby and saw Timothy Rourke seated comfortably in a corner talking with the house detective. Rourke’s eyes brightened as he took in Shayne’s appearance. House Detective Cassidy removed the frayed butt of a cigar from his mouth and rumbled, “Looks like you’ve been in a rough game of tag, young fella.”
    Shayne stopped in front of them and glared at their complacent faces. “I could die a block away and neither of you’d stir off your rumps to say a prayer for me,” he complained.
    Rourke sighed. “Praying for you would wear out a rosary a week. I might’ve known it was you when we heard the crash down the street. I’ve been waiting for you to wreck that jalopy ever since you took out junk insurance on it.”
    Shayne sank down in a leather chair. He growled, “Phyllis will be happy about it. She’s been after me to buy a new one ever since we were married.”
    “What’d you hit, a milk truck?” Rourke asked. “Sounded like two milk trucks.”
    “It was a black sedan and it wasn’t an accident. They had something they wanted to unload on me, and it wasn’t milk.”
    Rourke’s lean body twitched with apprehension. The grin faded from his face. “You don’t mean—”
    “Yep.” Shayne forestalled further revelations in the presence of Cassidy. “I managed to ditch it for the time being,” he added cryptically. “We’ll have to attend to it later. How about Marlow? Did you locate him here?”
    Rourke nodded. He looked wholly unhappy but he didn’t pursue the subject. “Whit Marlow,” he amplified. “Checked in from New York shortly after noon.”
    “What have you got on Marlow?” Cassidy interposed. “Anything I ought to know, Mike?”
    “I don’t know yet. Is he in his room?” Shayne looked at his watch. How long would it take the police to finish a report on the wreck and leave the scene?
    Cassidy said, “Marlow went out right after he checked in and hasn’t showed again.”
    “How about checking his room?”
    “All