Killers from the Keys by Brett Halliday

car had come from behind the arc of cabins, and it swung around the side of No. 1 as he stood there, and into the winding road leading out to the Trail.
    Shayne watched its taillights disappear among the palmettos, and then stalked back to the motel office. It was empty when he entered this time. There was a bell on the counter with a card in front of it that said, “Ring for Manager.” Shayne hit the top of it sharply with his palm three times, and it made a loud, pinging noise, but nothing else happened.
    There was a hinged wooden flap at the end of the counter. Shayne lifted it and went around behind where there was a telephone on a shelf. He lifted the receiver and dialed Chief Will Gentry’s home telephone number.
    The chief, himself, answered.
    “Mike Shayne, Will. Got a pencil?”
    “Sure, Mike.”
    “I’m at the Pink Flamingo Motel… off the Trail, west.”
    After a pause, Gentry said, “And…?”
    “I’ve got a dead man in Cabin Number Three. The occupant of the cabin is registered as Fred Tucker, Will.”
    “Hell. That goddamned Syndicate…?”
    Shayne said, “Maybe. But it doesn’t look like a Syndicate kill. Also… there’s a couple other things.” He sighed unhappily. “I thought you’d want to look at it yourself, Will.”
    “Stay right there.”
    “Of course. Don’t I always when I turn up a body for you? See you.”
    Shayne hung up the telephone. He hesitated and then opened a door leading into a corridor behind the office. It was lighted by a ceiling bulb, and he followed it back to a door opening into what was evidently the manager’s living quarters. The room was lighted, and Shayne stood in the doorway without entering. There was an open suitcase on the bed with some shirts and underwear in it, which looked as though it had been abandoned by the owner in his haste to get away. The top bureau drawer sagged open, and from where Shayne stood he could see it was empty.
    He turned away from the open door and followed the corridor back to a rear exit with a carport. It was empty now, and tire tracks through the sand led around the rear of the cabins. Shayne pulled the door shut behind him and trudged through the sand, following the tracks around to the side of Cabin No. 1, where they circled to join the paved road leading out through the palmetto hummocks to the main highway. He stopped at this point, convinced that the car he had seen round the row of cabins and disappear had been driven by the bushy-haired motel manager.
    The wail of a siren came faintly through the night from the Tamiami Trail, and then it lingered away to silence as the patrol car turned off on the side road toward the motel.
    Shayne turned and walked slowly back to No. 3. He stood outside the open door, his rangy figure bathed in the light from inside as a radio car came up fast from the palmettos and braked to a stop in front of him. A uniformed policeman leaped out of the far side of the car and came around through the headlights toward him. The driver got out more slowly.
    The first officer was young and appeared excited. He stopped in front of Shayne and asked truculently, “You report a murder?”
    Shayne jerked his head toward the open door and said, “Inside.”
    The driver was older and more phlegmatic. He said, “Hold it, Johnny,” as the other started to rush inside the cabin. He stopped beside the redhead, sighing gustily. “Mike Shayne, huh? We got it over the radio. Don’t mess anything up, son,” he advised his younger partner mildly. “Leave that for the dicks.”
    “I just wanted to see for sure.” Johnny stood outside the door peering inside curiously.
    “If Mike Shayne says there’s a stiff, there’s pretty sure to be a stiff. In fact it’s a pretty good bet there’ll always be a stiff where this guy turns up. That right, Shamus?”
    Shayne said, “Somebody has to find your bodies for you.”
    “Sure. Or make ’em for us? Ha-ha.” The officer told his younger colleague, “If