- [first lines]
- Lt. Rod Blake: Oh, hello. I'm Rod Blake, chief investigator for the Nevada state troopers. I know a lot of you have read this book and I'm sure all of you have at least heard of it - it's 'Joe Miller's Joke Book'. Well, in this case we have a joke - a morbid one. It isn't in this book, but in our books it's called "This One'll Kill Ya".
- Johnny Garth: There's a reservation for you in my name at the door.
- Lt. Rod Blake: Well, thanks.
- Johnny Garth: Oh, Lieutenant, check your gun. I tell some pretty stale jokes. You may be tempted.
- Kay Wallace: You'll die laughing, Major... I hope.
- Kay Wallace: I overheard you and Johnny talking, Waldo.
- Waldo Sims: So?
- Kay Wallace: Well, I just wondered what you did for a living before you started freeloading off of Johnny... because whatever it was you better start getting back in training for it.
- [Jill Benton has been found murdered]
- Lt. Rod Blake: Do you have any idea who did kill her?
- Kay Wallace: Meaning besides myself, of course?
- Lt. Rod Blake: Yes, of course.
- Kay Wallace: You're the cop, sergeant, I'm just a chorus girl. You stay out of my racket and I promise not to muscle into yours.
- Lt. Rod Blake: [narrating] Five days after Jill Benton's murder I went to Sheriff Anderson with a new twist to my plan. Anderson bawked; he called it dangerous. I called it a calculated risk, which was probably just another way of saying the same thing.