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

“He also was observed driving away from the house this afternoon at a high rate of speed. In fact, I’m told you were one of the observers. Now, I must also consider that this quick departure seems to have taken place some time after Tina Polk had entered the house.”

“Well, yes, it did.”

“So perhaps Walter Shanks is frightened and running, too. Are you a photography buff, Miss Lennon?”

“I dabble. I have a darkroom. Why?”

“And you’ve been taking pictures this afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“When they are printed, I’d like to have a set of those you took here.”

She frowned prettily again.

Sam grinned suddenly and plunged. “I’d like to see the pictures tonight. There’ll be compensation, of course. I’ll take you to a movie some time.”

Connie Lennon seemed mildly startled; then she laughed softly. “I assume the city will reimburse you for the cost of the movie.”

“Naw, I’ll stand it.”

“We could go Dutch, of course.”

“I hadn’t considered that,” Sam said thoughtfully.

Connie Lennon, leaving a phone number, went off to develop and print her pictures, and Sam, briefly lighthearted over the only good thing to happen to him this muggy holiday day, came back to earth when Ben Martin appeared and said, “There’s a Negro boy outside, Sam, who wants to talk to us. He won’t come into the house.”

Oliver Johnson was nervous and worried. He knew Tina Polk was dead, but no one would tell him more, no one would even talk to him. What had happened? Why were the cops called to the house?

The cops explained and Oliver Johnson found what they told him difficult to believe. Wow, this was strictly a bad trip! Oliver Johnson suddenly had to see Mr. Caldwell.

And why did Oliver Johnson suddenly have to see Mr. Caldwell?

Well, maybe Mr. Caldwell should tell the cops about that.

The cops preferred to get it from Oliver Johnson.

You see, Oliver Johnson was a college boy, that is, he had completed one year at JC here in the city. He was going back to school in the fall, but there was the summer, see, and he hadn’t had a job and, well, he needed the bread and this job driving for Tina Polk had sorta dropped in his lap—

Aw, hell, tell it like it was. Oliver Johnson had nothing to hide, not really, not when Tina Polk had been murdered. Roger Caldwell Sr. was on the college board of trustees and one day he had gone through the files at school and found a Negro boy who needed work and he had approached Oliver Johnson with the offer to drive for Tina Polk.

Oliver Johnson had grabbed. but then, it developed, Roger Caldwell Sr. wanted a little footsie work done on the side, he wanted Oliver Johnson to sort of be a spy for him, keep an eye on Tina Polk, tell him who she went out with, where they went, that kind of jazz, for which Roger Caldwell Sr. had paid extra. And Oliver Johnson, needing bread bad, had sort of gone along with the plan, even though it made him feel down sometimes.

That is, Oliver Johnson occasionally got the blues when he let himself think about how he wasn’t being square with Tina Polk, because Tina Polk was an all right cat, man, none of that looking down the nose jazz, not like the doctor. The doctor was bad, bad news. Oliver Johnson was low in this moment. He thought he would go back to his garage quarters and pack and cut, if it was all right with the cops.

The cutting, however, did not meet with the approval of the cops. The cops liked to keep everyone nice and available while they were investigating a murder. The cops got funny notions about people who cut and disappeared, especially when they might have a sex crime on their collective hands.

Sex crime? Oh-oh. Bad news! The cops were all of a sudden scaring hell out of a Negro boy.

Did the boy have reason to be frightened?

Not this boy, man! Ollie Johnson was clean, except maybe for that footsie bit for Caldwell. Oh, how had Ollie Johnson got himself into that one?

Well, Tina Polk had been an attractive woman.

Get off that, man! Ollie was in his quarters all afternoon, not paying any attention to the party folks, let ’em ball in the hot sun, who cared? No siree, Ollie Johnson had not left his quarters until he heard all the commotion at the pool and knew that something had happened. Ollie Johnson had figured maybe somebody had drowned. Only then had he ventured outside.

Ollie, said the cops, we’re gonna give it to you straight. No extra bread this time around, but we want to know about the men Tina Polk has been seeing since your employment.

One man, man. The tennis man.

No play on the side?

No play.

Well, maybe somebody has been coming to her door in the middle of the night. Of course, the doctor has been in the house; he probably would shoo off anyone who came to the door.

With a cannon, man.

The doctor owned a gun? The doctor was a man leaning to violence?