Уильям Питер Макгиверн: Murder on the Turnpike

“What was it’?” she asked in the same high, frightened voice. “What did those fools throw from the window?”

“Well, it’s still tangled in the wiper,” he said, and he began to extricate the soggy piece of cloth which had blown from the car ahead of him to plaster itself across his windshield. He spread it out on the hood. “Well, how about that?” he said, and pushed his hat up on his forehead.

The flaring red light of a patrol was already bearing down on him, swerving expertly through the lanes of heavy traffic. The time was nine-thirty-five.

At headquarters Captain Royce stood with Sergeant Tonelli and Lieutenant Trask studying the large map of the turnpike on the wall of his office. There had been no trace of the killer in the last forty-five minutes. Captain Royce knew that he had left Howard Johnson’s No. 1 with the girl at approximately eight-fifty. Forty-five minutes meant forty-five miles; and in forty-five miles the killer had had opportunities of leaving the pike anywhere between Exit 12 and Exit 5. All those interchanges were under surveillance, of course; a car-to-car search wasn’t possible, but Ford, Plymouth and Chevrolet sedans were being given close attention, particularly those that were driven by large men wearing glasses. The killer might have slipped by, but Royce was reasonably certain he was still on the pike.

He glanced at the big clock on the opposite wall, and Sergeant Tonelli checked his wrist watch.

In two more minutes the presidential convoy was scheduled to enter the turnpike at Interchange 5.

Tonelli cleared his throat. “Those reporters are still outside, captain,” he said.

“Good place for ’em,” Royce said.

Newspapermen and TV and radio reporters had been streaming into headquarters in the last hour. They might give Royce and the turnpike a bad time if he didn’t brief them on what was going on and what plans had been put into effect to trap the killer; but Royce was prepared to accept this. All off-duty troopers were now back on the pike; it was a hundred-mile trap, guarded by every marked and unmarked patrol car that was certified for service. Three special riot squads were cruising at twenty-mile intervals, read to converge on any alarm with tear gas and shotguns. And Lieutenant Biersby at Communications had alerted all police within a hundred miles of the pike, and this net was being widened with every passing minute. The toll collectors, who were not police officers but unarmed civil servants, had been replaced by special details of State Police who had been transferred to Royce’s command.

If this information were phoned in by a reporter to a radio or TV station, it would be on the air in a matter of minutes. And it would sound very good, Royce thought. People listening in would nod approvingly, no doubt, and decide the cops were doing a job after all. It might even allay a bit of their indignation the next time they got a ticket for speeding. But against the advantages of a good press, Royce placed one all-important fact — the killer might have a radio in his car, and he would certainly be interested in the details of the plans being made to trap him.

A bell rang at the dispatcher’s desk, and they heard the crackle of the radio, a distant voice reporting. The dispatcher turned quickly and glanced at Captain Royce who had walked to the doorway of his office.

“Interchange Five reporting, sir,” he said. “The President is on the pike. An eight-car convoy, with our patrols at the front and back. Traveling in the right lane at about fifty-five.”

“All other patrols reported in position?” Royce said.

“Yes, sir.”

Royce nodded and rubbed a hand over his damp forehead. Then he walked back to the map. He could visualize the progress of the convoy, and he knew the density of the surrounding traffic and the weather conditions on that stretch of the pike. None of it was favorable; the highway was slick with rain, and the traffic was both sluggish and heavy.

“Captain Royce!” the dispatcher in the outer office called in a rising voice. “Would you come here, sir?”

Royce, with Tonelli and Trask at his heels, reached the dispatcher’s desk in long strides.

“Car Sixteen just reported, sir,” the dispatcher said quickly. “He’s just checked a stopped car. The driver pulled off the pike because a Howard Johnson’s apron was thrown from the car ahead of him and hit his windshield. The apron came from the driver’s window of a ‘Fifty-two Ford with New York tags. The wife got the last three license numbers: six-four-two.”

“Where was this?”

“Patrol Sixteen stopped at milepost fifty-four at—” The dispatcher checked his pad. “I got his request to pull off the pike two minutes ago.”

Royce made a swift calculation; the ‘52 Ford had those two minutes, plus the time it had taken the stopped motorist to hail a patrol. A total of five minutes, say, which would take him down to milepost fifty, at Interchange 5.

“Who’s closest to fifty?” he asked sharply.

“O’Leary, patrol Twenty-one. He’s tailing the President by a couple of hundred yards.” He added unnecessarily, “Keeping the traffic behind the convoy slow.”

“Flash him. Tell him to pick up that Ford. And alert our unmarked cars in that area.”

When O’Leary received his orders from the dispatcher at headquarters, he was traveling in the middle column of southbound traffic at milepost forty-eight. The presidential convoy a few hundred yards ahead of him rolled smoothly in the right lane; he could see the red beacon of the tail patrol car flashing in the darkness.

O’Leary sat up straighter, big hands tightening on the steering wheel. He repeated the three digits the dispatcher had given him, then said, “Check!” and replaced his receiver. His heart was pounding with hope and excitement. He had been slowly closing the distance between himself and the convoy in the last five minutes, and he was fairly certain he hadn’t passed any ‘52 Ford sedans. Which meant the killer was ahead of him, somewhere in the lines of traffic between himself and the convoy. Checking his rearview mirror, O’Leary swung into the left lane, controlling the smoothly powerful car as if it were an extension of his body. He flashed by three slower cars and, after checking their license plates, swung back into the middle lane. He remained there long enough to inspect the plates ahead of him, and to his right, then swerved back to the high-speed lane and passed the cars he had eliminated. The rain made his work difficult, but he made his moves with deliberate precision, sweeping in and out of the traffic with effortless skill.

It was at milepost forty-three that he made contact; the Ford was traveling in the middle lane, fifty yards behind the presidential convoy, but gaining slowly on it.

O’Leary dropped back discreetly and grabbed the receiver from beside tile post of the steering wheel, “O’Leary, twenty-one,” he snapped to Sergeant Tonelli. “I’ve got him. Milepost forty-three south, middle lane.”

“Hang on, here’s the captain.”

Captain Royce said sharply, “O’Leary, did you get a look at the driver?”

“No, sir. I’m three or four car lengths behind him.”

“Any sign of the girl?”

“No, sir.”

“Pull on past him. We’ll cover with unmarked cars from now on.”

“Check!” O’Leary was ready to turn, into the left lane when he saw the Ford suddenly pick up speed and pull abreast of the presidential convoy. The eight-car convoy was proceeding at fifty-five, with intervals of perhaps one hundred and fifty feet between each sedan.

“Good Lord!” O’Leary muttered softly. The Ford was moving to the extreme right of the middle lane, angling slowly toward one of the intervals that separated the cars in the convoy. He picked up his receiver and cried harshly, “Tonelli, he’s trying to get into the convoy. That’s what he’s been wailing for!” It was a wild, desperate plan, but there was a spark of brilliance to it; if the Ford sliced into the convoy ahead of a carful of Secret Service agents, it would be detected instantly. But if it moved into an interval between newspapermen or presidential aides, it might not be noticed. And once in the convoy the killer was assured of a safe exit from the pike; the President wouldn’t be stopped at a toll gate — the entire convoy would be waved on with deferential salutes.