Бретт Холлидей - Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 34, No. 3, February 1974

“You killed Stanley in bed. You were clever enough to figure the heat factor and that’s why you moved him to the hottest point in the house. You needed that heat to bake Stanley, to dry him out.”

“But that doesn’t make sense, Mister Scape. If his temperature was warmer wouldn’t that place the time of his death later?”

“It’s confusing until you think about it. When the medical examiner came over from Madrid he saw a body that had been dead for days and a body that had been refrigerated waiting for his examination. Temperature was no factor at all. In a person just dead it may be, but Stanley hadn’t just died. So the time of death was determined by dehydration. Stanley rarely ate, he drank his meals, so the contents of his stomach were nothing. The dehydration of the tissue and organs of the body was how it was determined and you and the Monasteria, we now see, were the ones who’d cooked the juices out of poor pickled old Stanley.”

“It’s interesting as a theory. Can you prove it?”

“That’s easy. It’s hot now. According to the tourist office it’ll cool down soon. Delgado can use a whole battery of instruments or even a dead animal to test it. I think it’ll be enough to take it to court. It was vicious murder for very obvious gain,” Scape said, admiring the almost nude Ewa Crop again, “and I don’t see a Spanish court giving you the benefit of the doubt — if there would be any.”

Michael Randolf-Wilson and Ewa Crop looked at each other.

“If I sign your paper— If I give up the money, you won’t go to Delgado?”

“I’m not a policeman. He’s responsible for doing his own job.”

“It wasn’t premeditated, Mister Scape. Stanley caught me with Michael. He yelled and screamed and threatened. We sent Stephanie in but he didn’t want her. Then it happened. And afterwards we realized how hot it was.”

Scape took out his pen and the paper and put them on the hood of the car. “He was going to throw you all out, huh?”

Ewa Crop nodded. She walked forward, read the paper, picked up the pen.

“Two hundred and forty thousand dollars,” she said, sadly. “You swear you won’t tell the police?”

“I’m going right to the airport. Mike, you want to witness this.”

They both signed.

Scape looked at the paper, folded it, carefully put it away.

“Well, it was nice doing business with you,” he said. Then he turned to the wall. “Gentlemen.”

Delgado and two armed Guardia Civil came from behind the wall.

“You are under arrest for the murder of Stanley Crop.”

Both Randolf-Wilson and Ewa Crop looked at Scape. He shrugged, smiled. “I didn’t say a word to Delgado. All I did was call his office. Inspector,” he said, getting into the car.

“I am going to see the three of you prosecuted to the limit of our law. You foreigners are more than welcome here,” Delgado told them. Stephanie had been brought up from the beach by two more Guardia. “But perhaps the severity of your convictions will be a meaningful deterrent. If you want to murder people, do it at home, in your own countries.” He gestured to the Guardia and they came forward to make the arrests.

“Good-by, Mr. Scape,” Delgado said. “You have plenty of time to catch your plane.”

Hate drove Julie’s sister, hate and an unleashed urge to expose Julie’s murderer. The police didn’t know where to start, but she did. And she would follow through to the violent end... her own, if necessary.

It had been a cold, raw night in Zachary, and throughout the entire county the curse of a freeze looked down upon its residents.

Sheriff Quinn Strowe could feel a freeze as well as anyone, because he was too close to these farmers and he was close to the land. Dairy farmers, his neighbors were, and the Holsteins would be inside this night, where there was warmth.

There was also warmth at the Zachary High Gym, where the Zachary Tigers and the Forks Seahawks were battling to break away from each other in a two-way first-place tie.

Strowe listened to the game on a portable radio in his office. Lonnie Davenport, a kid with firepower and talent, was making a serious assault on Strowe’s own musty Zachary High individual game scoring record. Strowe hated to see his record fall because he’d sweated and practiced himself to exhaustion to set it.

To a kid like Lonnie Davenport, everything came as easily as a stroll in a park. Good student, solid social mixer. 12-letter sports star. That ease of acquisition and accomplishment overlapped to include the steady companionship of Zachary High’s most sought-after coed.

Julie Knight was bright, beautiful and tenacious when it came to acquiring her own special feminine honors: head cheerleader, vice-president of the girls’ club, secretary of the student council, and chief organizer for the Tiger Pep and Rally Club. It all made Quinn Strowe feel suddenly older than he’d felt in his lifetime.

The announcer and the crowd were in a frenzy. Forks had knotted the game at 60–60. Lonnie Davenport had 31 of those. And Quinn Strowe had 41 for the record. A record that would be his not much longer than a few minutes of a final quarter of basketball.

The lead see-sawed, as Lonnie Davenport’s total continued to creep in on Strowe’s. It was tied again at 76–76. And Lonnie Davenport was moving in at 39.

Forks held the ball for the last shot to break the tie as seconds vanished. And then the fluke happened. A Forks pass went astray and Lonnie Davenport smelled it like a wolf smelling out the chicken house. A Forks player had Davenport in his sites, but Davenport had him on his hip, all the long race down the floor.

Strowe could sense it coming. The trailing Forks player would purposely foul Davenport long before he reached the basket, giving him two free throws for the flagrant foul and pray for two misses, like lightning miraculously striking twice.

Davenport didn’t have a chance. The Forks player submarined him, cutting the star Zachary guard to the floor. Both players skidded across maple into a heap at the feet of the Zachary band. Both benches emptied. Punches filled the air. Whistles screamed for order. Strowe had four patrolmen at the game for crowd and traffic control. He hoped his men were on the job.

Slowly order was restored and the players untangled. Lonnie Davenport, surprisingly, was awarded three free throws: two for being fouled in the continuance of a shot and a third as a technical for the flagrant foul.

He made all three with automatic ease, blood streaming from his nose, the announcer said.

Sheriff Strowe felt something go out of him. His record was gone. They keep pushing you out, he sighed to himself, though without malice. They keep pushing you out and farther into history. What the hell. Records were made to fall and Lonnie Davenport was a good kid, one who never lost his cool and in this situation he could have lost it very easily. He was an all right kid.

Soon the town was alive with horn honking and cheers. Strowe didn’t think there would be related trouble over the game’s tense ending, but wasn’t going to take the chance. He radioed two of his day-shift deputies and instructed them to head out on a four-hour emergency patrol of town. They had both been listening to the game and didn’t need to be informed why.

The emergency passed without serious altercations. There was a strong rivalry, no one needed to be told that. Forks was beef cattle country, and Zachary dairy oriented. A thing could have developed. But it didn’t.