Yours Truly Johnny Dollar Show

Johnny Dollar - The Nick Shurn Matter Episode 3

https://www.solgoodmedia.com - Listen to hundreds of audiobooks, thousands of short stories, and ambient sounds all ad free! Step into the shoes of America's favorite freelance insurance investigator with Yours Truly Johnny Dollar Show. This series captures the essence of the golden age of radio, featuring Johnny Dollar as he tackles deceptive insurance cases with charisma and intelligence. A must-listen for lovers of detective stories and classic radio dramas.

Duration:: 16m
Broadcast on:: 07 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Hey there, listeners. Are you ready to unlock a world of captivating stories, soothing sounds, and enlightening lectures? At Solga Media, we believe in the power of audio to enrich your life. And now we're offering you a chance to experience it all for free. For a limited time, you can get a one-month free trial to our premium, ad-free service. Imagine having unlimited access to over 500 audiobooks, meditative sounds, and exclusive shows, all at your fingertips. Just head over to SolgaMedia.com and sign up to start your free trial today. No ads, no interruptions, just pure, immersive audio content. Don't miss out! Transform your listening experience with Solga Media. Visit SolgaMedia.com and start your free trial now. We can't wait for you to join our audio community. Happy listening! Ready for an audio experience like no other? Dive into the world of infinite sounds with crystal clear high fidelity, only on Solga Media. Visit SolgaMedia.com today and start exploring the boundless universe of sounds that will soothe, inspire, and revitalize your senses. Start listening today and experience uninterrupted serenity at SolgaMedia.com. From Hollywood, it's time now for... Johnny Dollar. Dan Martin here. I was up the street when you called. Listen, Sheriff, they've traced Kathie O'Dear here to your nice little town of Brambury. Nick Schern's boys, one of them a trigger man named Benny Stark, came out to the sawmill hella a few minutes ago. I traded a couple of shots with him, but he got away in a car. Did he hit north or back toward town? Toward town, I think you can't see the turn off from here. All right, dollar. You're packing a gun. Will you take the pickup truck and blackbed turn off, hold it until I can get somebody out there to relieve you? Right. How many deputies you got? Deputies. Uh-oh. What about volunteers? Is this Benny Stark, the man Kathie's afraid of? He's one of them. Then I'll have volunteers. Twenty men within a half hour armed with dare rifles, and every one of them a dead shot. Tonight, and every weekday night, Bob Bailey and the transcribed adventures of the man with the action-packed expense account, America's fabulous freelance insurance investigator. It's truly Johnny Dollar. From special investigator Johnny Dollar, location Brambury, Michigan, to the home office, prime mutual insurance limited Hartford, Connecticut, assignment, the Nick Shurren matter, expense account continued. Item eight, $3.60 for two packs of cigarettes and a pint of applejack borrowed from the foreman's locker at the sawmill. I figured these as standard equipment for holding down a roadblock at 10 degrees above zero. And Mike O'Dare agreed with me a hundred percent. I'll tell you one thing. They can make it out of corn, rye, barley, make it a little gold if they want to. But they'll never come up with anything better than what they make out of apples. Here, have a short one, Johnny. No, no. Thanks. I'll save it for a later. Well, I'll just... It's got the taste of Indian summer in it. You ought to see this country around that time of year, Johnny. Break your heart. It's so beautiful. Oh, it's beautiful now with the snow on. And it would be more so if there wasn't a killer running loose in it. Johnny, I want to ask you something about my daughter. And I want you to answer me honest. All right. No use trying to fool you. She's here all right. I know. But she hasn't told me what it was that happened in New York, but she ran away from it. Somehow, I figured it was just as well not to ask her. You're sure if Dan Martin said practically the same thing. Dan's been in love with Kathy since she was 12 years old. He's a good man. So old. So old. I figured. Anyway, she was scared. Scared half to death. And she'd come home for help, so we tried to help her. What was it you wanted to ask me, Mr. O'Dere? You mentioned a murder case, Johnny. You didn't give any of the details just said that Kathy was her witness. Is she mixed up in this murder? And you wanted an honest answer. All right. I'm not sure. Hey, see. That's why I wanted to talk to her. Get her story, the truth. I realize when the start she might be guilty. I don't think so, but it's a possibility. You may as well know about it. I guess you realize it wouldn't make any difference. Not to me or today. Oh, yeah, I figured. In other words, you're with me as long as I'm trying to protect you. But you'll fight me if I find reason to think she's guilty. It's about it, Johnny. Yeah, well, at least we know where we stand. And I hope it won't come to. What's the matter? Car coming. Light on the trees. They're at the bend. Yeah. Do you suppose maybe... Probably not, but you can't tell. Better get behind the truck just in case. You'll have to shift into low to edge past us. Let me get that spotlight on me. I guess I'll just have another quick one. That wind cuts right through your bones. It's a dark colored sedan, it might be him. Funny. I'd been hoping for two months that Cathy'd come home for Christmas. And I didn't figure I'd be out here in the woods. I'd been behind a truck waiting to shoot it out with somebody that wanted to kill it. It's a crazy world. Yeah, keep your head down, Mr. Oterre. Yeah. Oh, just the driver by himself wearing a dark can't. I don't know. You know. That kind of looks like... Huh? Right. Curly it is. What? That's Ted Perkins, old Rick. No doubt about it. Wouldn't it? All right, shoot. Better wave him out past. He probably thinks we need help. Okay. It's all right, Ted. It's my good day. Go ahead. Go ahead. We don't need anything. Yeah, we're all right. Thanks anyway. And there's one thing about people around here. They mind their own business and don't ask no questions. And they don't answer them often either. How's that applejack holding out? Two long hours went fast. Only three cars came out from the village. And each time a long moment of tension while we waited to identify the occupants. But all of them were townspeople. Many didn't show. One truck came down the logging road from the back hills loaded with dwarfs, spruce, and fur. Peace on earth, good will, toward men. We were waiting for an assassin, but the truck only carried Christmas trees. The night was crystal clear with bright stars hanging low on the blackness, but it kept turning colder and colder until even the applejack didn't help much, and the wind, too, changed gradually in blue, fitful, and gusty and strange. It's going to storm, come a blizzard, maybe. Not tonight, tomorrow, sometime, or tomorrow night. I know this country, I know this sign. There's a nod feeling in the air, all right? There's an even odder wind in my leg. Law growled over on it, put in it six years ago. Well, there's me, some in the winter. 'Til at worst, so all right before a storm. That's kind of a handy thing to have. Well, that's one way of looking at it, I guess. Like one time, when Kathy was little, when her maw was still alive, contrast to so. We had a big measles epidemic here in Brambury, and every night Kathy used to add a line to her prayers. Kids say, "And please, let me catch the measles so I can stay out of school like the other kids." Now she's wanted as a witness in a murder case, and somebody's prowling out there in the dark, trying to find her and kill her. Little Kathy, who never harmed anybody in her whole life. Some things just don't make sense, Johnny. Some things never have. There was another time once when men like Benny were prowling in the dark, trying to find a little child and kill him, and he hadn't harmed anybody either. And I was nearly 2,000 years ago. Yeah. So it was. I like you, Johnny. Kathy, I like you, too, and a little jingle. Oh, oh, there's a pair for them. That kid looks more like her mother did at her age. Another car coming, Mr. Altair. Yeah. So there is, and this just might be the one. Maybe. I sure wish that applejack hadn't run out. But it was only a couple of men Deputy Martin had sent out from town to relieve us and take over. Big men, calm and quiet, wearing plaid maconos and heavy lace boots and carrying Winchester 94s over their arms. They told us Benny Stark had been seen. He'd come up from the west, driven onto one of the roadblocks unexpectedly, and a flurry of shouncy broken through. The men couldn't understand his persistence. They thought he'd run for it, get out of the area once his presence was known. I didn't bother to explain to put him straight, but I knew Benny had never run, not now. He was a trigger man, a professional killer with a reputation at stake. And he had his orders to silence Kathy O'Dare. Half hour later, we were back in town, turning into the main street around the village square. Strings of colored lights and a tall pine in the center of the square blinked and sparkled as they swayed in the wind. Around a hundred cars and trucks were parked in the street and then the lot behind the town hall. And the sound of singing drifted out from inside. The practice and carols and things for the big doings and Christmas eve, ain't it beautiful? The men at the roadblock had given the description of Benny's car and the license number. It was just barely possible. That's something in mind, Johnny, let's take a look through those parked cars. I don't know, if it was me I sure wouldn't be hanging around here. I'd stick to the tall timber. Yeah, but you're not a city boy, Mike. Tall, timber, as foreign soil to Benny, he's only comfortable when he's close to a crowd. Either fellow that's supposed to have done that murder? No, it was the man he works for, a cafe owner, ex gangster, a man named Nick Schern. Let's check that lot around at the side. I don't think he'd show here in front. He'd be taking a big chance showing anywhere, in a town this size, people know each other. It's his job to take chances, and he probably doesn't realize, wait a minute. Let's sit down against the building with a side window broken. Shiven? Cool. Cool. One. That's his car, Johnny. Yeah, wait here. My knees went gun out of the holster and started toward the car. There were no lights in the lot, only the soft glow reflected from the packed snow under foot. When the car itself stood in the dark shadows next to the building, I couldn't see whether anyone was in it or not. The singing seemed to swell louder as I approached. I moved slowly, watching for any sudden movement. The car was empty. It was time, past time, to talk to Cathy O'Dare, and with the pressure tightening the day we came here close to home now, her father was ready to take me to her. We drove over to Dan Martin's house where it turned out Cathy and her daughter was staying. Dan's mother had been looking after her. Dan was there when we arrived, busy on the phone. Yeah, I know the car, all right. The one Jed Bart last spring down in Bay City. Seven, three, nine, two. Oh, where was it parked? All right, keep an eye out, Charlie. So long. Benny Stark stole himself another car. Huh? Took Jed Ward and station wagon. What for? That was a better one he had. Charlie says the steering gear was sprung. I guess it happened when he crashed that roadblock. Well, how was Cathy in the youngen? Oh, fine. There were sleep upstairs. Mom's next door, helping Mrs. Barton stuff a turkey. Journey, your, uh, you figure it could wait two more. I'm sorry, Mr. O'Dare. I've got to talk to her tonight. All right. I'll go wake her up. Mr. Daller, no matter what she's done, don't hurt her anymore than you have to. As far as I know at the moment, Dan, all she's guilty of is withholding information. And most people would have done the same thing. Nick Schurren's a rough boy to tangle with. She was scared that's all I lost her head. She never did belong in a city. She belongs right here in Brambury. This is her kind of life. Why did she leave? Well, we argued one day, and she said she'd show me. So she ran off and married that fellow. He treated her bad, finally he left her. But she was too proud to come back. She wouldn't have come back now. She hadn't been so scared. Well, maybe it'll work out now. She ought to stay. Her kid ought to grow up here, learn the outdoors in the woods like Cathy used to know it. Why, she roamed through those hills like a young Indian, knew every trail in that forest. Every timber camp and trapper's cabin from here to the ridge. I remember one time the two of us were up toward-- What's the matter? What is it, Mr. O'Dare? You said-- you said-- and Cathy was asleep upstairs. Ain't that what you said, Dan? Of course that's what I-- Mike-- What's happened? They're not up here. They're not up there anywhere else in the house. They're gone. There'll be another intriguing episode in our story of the next sure matter tomorrow. Tomorrow, a little girl who believes in Santa Claus, a big girl who believes in very little, and both of them facing death. Join us, won't you? Yours truly, Johnny Dollar. [MUSIC PLAYING] Yours truly, Johnny Dollar, starring Bob Bailey, is transcribed in Hollywood, written by Les Crutchfield. It is produced and directed by Jack Jon Snow. Be sure to join us tomorrow night, same time and station, for the next exciting episode of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, Roy Rowan speaking. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] (upbeat music)