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

No, no, man. Ollie Johnson didn’t say that. Cannon, man, that’s an expression. Ollie Johnson didn’t know about any gun or the doctor’s temperament toward strangers in the night. Ollie Johnson stayed as far away from the doctor as he could. In fact, that’s why Ollie Johnson would like to cut now.

The cops returned to the downtown squadroom in thoughtful states of mind. They had sandwiches brought in and they got coffee in paper cups from the vending machine. Ben Martin was hot on Richard Ramirez as the killer since Ramirez had bolted. But Sam wanted to know why Ramirez had waited until the cops were on the premises and then bolted, it seemed to Sam that Ramirez could have killed and run.

“Well, maybe he, Ramirez, was going to fake it out with us at first but things got piling up too high in his mind and so he took the second opportunity to fly,” Ben Martin said.

“Possible,” Sam admitted.

Randy Howell wanted to talk to Walter Shanks. Had Shanks been inside the house when Tina Polk entered, had he moved in on her, been rebuffed, killed her in frustration? Even under attack, Tina Polk might not have cried out for help. Randy Howell had the impression that Tina Polk had figured she could handle her own problems — if she considered a sexual advance a problem at all.

Sam Champagne grunted and said they also could theorize that Tina had set up a rendezvous with someone — almost any male — at the party. Someone had locked the game room door — perhaps it was Tina — consented to a little horseplay, then found the horseplay going too far, attempted to back out, had been smacked down, raped and killed.

A spontaneous killing, nothing planned. So maybe what the cops needed to do was pick out males who had not been at the pool when Tina Polk was inside the house and speculate on motive, although it seemed no one really wanted Tina Polk dead, everyone wanted her alive.

However, the cops might as well begin with the male absences they knew about. There was Ramirez, who had had an argument with Tina over a marriage announcement, there was Shanks who supposedly lusted, there was Oliver Johnson who may have lusted too and who professed to have been in his garage quarters.

A technician entered the squad-room, carrying the preliminary lab report on the deceased. Tina Polk had not been sexually attacked, even if she had lost the bottom of her purple bikini.

Well, now, there went a bunch of theories into a cocked hat.

“So maybe someone stole Tina Polk’s bottoms to make us think her death was a sex crime,” said Sam. “How many doors does that open, gentlemen?”

The phone rang. Sam scooped it up, identified himself.

“Hey!” said the cheery voice in his ear. “Just the guy I wanted. I heard your name on the radio newscast. Tina Polk has been killed, huh, and you’re the chief honcho investigating? Walter Shanks here. I was at that festival for a while this afternoon, then I had to fly. Had a little business down the street, you know?

“In fact, she’s right here beside me now, cute little thing, too. But tell me, man what’s the scene? Who did that dastardly thing to Tina-baby? Boy, that guy’s gotta be unbalanced! Does he know what he removed from this planet?”

Randy Howell shot like a rocket out to converse with Walter Shanks, who said he wouldn’t move an inch. Among other things, he wasn’t finished with his “business” yet.

Ben Martin went downstairs to see if he could jack up the prowl boys, who supposedly were keeping an eye out for one Richard Ramirez, tennis professional.

Sam Champagne used the phone again, talked briefly with Connie Lennon, and then drove out to Apple Drive thinking that Connie Lennon had a very nice telephone voice too.

A bolt of lightning, in reality, can come out of almost any dark cloud to split a tree. Once in a while, just once in a while, a bolt of lightning can be a rookie detective working a frustrating homicide on a steamy holiday night in the presence of a beautiful young woman he wishes to impress and said rookie detective, slipping through a thick stack of freshly printed photographs taken at a pool party, noticing that one man in several of the photographs seemed to have changed bathing trunks in the middle of the pool party.

The girl said. “Well, yes, he did change. He was wearing red trunks early in the afternoon — the trunks are dark in those prints you’re holding in your left hand, you notice — and yellow trunks after he changed. Look again at those prints in your right hand, his trunks seem white, actually were yellow, but in black and white photography—”

“This is important,” said the detective. “Are you positive that these pictures in my left hand were taken before you developed your headache and these in my right hand were taken after you had received medication?”

“I’m sure,” said the woman, “but look. Can t a man change swim trunks? After all, some people don’t like to sit in wet suits.”

“If that was the reason he changed,” said the detective, “then he has no problem.”