Summer Sisters

Appeared from Sunday, May 21, 1944 to Sunday, August 6, 1944

The Summer Sisters were two identical twin pickpockets, whose names were May and June. The Summer Sisters were “about nineteen years old, blond hair and dressed alike.”

These seemingly innocent, wide-eyed young women made the mistake of trying to pick Tracy’s pocket. He quickly arrested them and, at headquarters, they explained that they were from Hometon and come to the city without money to become actresses or singers on the radio. However, these were no innocent young women. They tied up Pat and stole his gun and wallet. They rejected Vitamin Flintheart’s offer of stage roles by slapping his face and brandishing Pat’s gun.

The Summer Sisters rented a room that overlooked the docks and found a pair of field glasses on their window sill. Their next door neighbor was arrested by Tracy for spying on US ship movements. Later, as they went
to hock the field glasses, they were roughly taken by Turtle, a member of Brow’s spy ring, to the underground hideout of the master spy, The Brow, who offered them both jobs to run message errands for him.

The Summer Sisters accepted and the Brow broke their right wrists to seal the bargain. Doc Zee, one of Brow’s agents, taped up their wrists. The Brow then used a spike machine on one of the sisters to guarantee that the other sister would return from her errand on time. As June sat with her leg in Brow’s slow closing spike machine, May was sent to retrieve a message from Doc Zee. May returned only moments after the spikes began to pierce June’s leg.

Tracy had located the Brow’s hideout and, that night, Tracy entered the Summer Sister’s underground room through a ventilator shaft. They begged him to free them from the Brow. Tracy said he would help them and climbed out the shaft. The next day, June went on one of the Brow’s errands while May sat with her leg in the spike machine. However, instead of completing her expected errand, June retrieved Pat’s gun from where she had hidden it, returned to the hideout and pointed it at the Brow and his men.

Turtle went for his gun and June shot and killed him, along with Joe, the Brow’s other henchman. As the Brow reached for his gun, June shoved the desk at him. The Brow fell backward and struck his head on the spike machine and knocked himself out. June freed May, put the Brow’s head and shoulder into the spike machine, turned it on and they both escaped.

Later, when they returned with Tracy and the police, they found the Brow gone. There was blood and coat fragments on the spike machine. Tracy warned the Summer Sisters that their lives were in danger and Chief Brandon sent Officer Murphy with them in a taxi to a hotel. On the way through the park, the Brow’s car, driven by Doc Zee, pulled up alongside the moving taxi. The Brow shot the driver and steered the taxi off a bridge and into a lagoon. Officer Murphy managed to escape and swam to the surface, but the Summer Sisters couldn’t open the taxi doors and drowned. Tracy retrieved the taxi from the bottom of the lagoon and recovered their dead bodies.

Reprinted with permission from the author Victor E. Wichert “The Dick Tracy Encyclopedia Oct. 4, 1931 – Dec. 25 1977″

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