Уильям Питер Макгиверн: Murder on the Turnpike

Lieutenant Biersby was on duty in Communications when Sergeant Tonelli’s message was brought to his desk. Biersby, short, plump and methodical, walked with no evidence of haste into an outer room where a dozen civilian clerks under the supervision of state troopers worked at batteries of teletypewriters and radio transmitters.

Lieutenant Biersby’s special talent was judgment; each message Hashed from his office required a priority, and it was his responsibility to establish the order of precedence to be given the thousands of alerts and reports which clattered into the office on every eight-hour shift. A smooth flow, based on relative importance, was essential; lapses in judgment could jam the mechanical facilities and burden already overworked police departments with trivial details and reports.

As Lieutenant Biersby walked toward a teletypewriter operator, he considered the facts: A killer was loose on the pike, a sketchily identified man who had murdered two persons in New York City and another in the parking lot at Howard Johnson’s No. 1 south. It was a reasonable inference that he had killed the third time to get possession of another car. But there was another possibility which didn’t escape the lieutenant; the killer might have left the turnpike on foot. This would be difficult, since the pike was guarded by a nine-foot fence designed in part to keep hitchhikers from getting onto the highway between interchanges. But a strong and agile man might manage it.

It was Biersby’s decision — reached as he walked the twenty feet from his desk to the teletypewriter machine — to alert every police officer fifty miles from the spot the Buick had been abandoned; if the killer had left the pike on foot, he’d be within that circle. All hitchhikers, prowlers and suspicious persons would be picked up for investigation. This was a routine and probably fruitless precaution, Biersby thought; because his judgment, which was blended of experience, instinct and vague promptings he had never succeeded in analyzing, told him that the killer was still on the pike. Speeding safely through the night, an anonymous man in an anonymous car, lost in the brilliant streams or traffic.

He said to the teletypewriter operator, “This is a Special. Get it moving.”

The dead man was in his sixties, small, gray-haired, seemingly respectable; his clothes were of good quality, and a Masonic emblem gleamed in the lapel button-hole of his suite coat. He had been strangled; his face was hideous. He lay in an empty parking space that gaped like an empty tooth in the row of night-black cars. Near one outflung hand was an empty coffee container and one of the small cardboard cradles that were used Tor take-out orders of French fries or frankfurters. There was no identification in his clothes; his pockets had been stripped.

An ambulance had arrived, and the two interns were examining the body in the light from Lieutenant Trask’s flashlight. Three white-and-blue patrol cars blocked off the immediate area, their red beacons swinging against the darkness, and troopers were posted about the parking lot to keep traffic moving. A crowd had gathered in front of the restaurant to watch the police activity.

Dan O’Leary stood behind Trask, frowning faintly at the empty parking space. When Trask turned away from the body, O’Leary touched his arm. “I’ve got an idea,” he said. “The killer took the car that was parked here, that’s obvious. Well, we might get a line on what kind of a car it was from the people who parked beside it. They arrived after he did probably, since their cars are still here. Maybe they can—”

“Yes,” Trask said, cutting him off. “Get those people out here. Fast.”

O’Leary took down the license numbers from the cars on either side of the empty parking space and ran toward the restaurant.

The car on the left was a Plymouth sedan owned by a thin young man with horn-rimmed glasses and a nervous stammer. The owner of the car on the right was a middle-aged woman, a peaceful, padded sort of person, with the kind of composure that seemed to deepen under tension.

Lieutenant Trask, realizing that their memories might be short-circuited by haste or pressure, squandered a few seconds in lighting a cigarette. Then he said quietly, “We’re trying to get a description of the car that was stolen from this space about fifteen minutes ago. It was here when you arrived. You parked alongside it. Now take your time; do you remember anything about it? Any detail?”

“I wa... was in a hurry,” the young man said shrilly. “I’m supposed to be in Cantonville by eight-thirty. I just ra... ran for a cup of coffee. I wa... wasn’t thinking about anything else.”

“Well, it was big,” the woman said, nodding with impeccable assurance. “Its tail stuck out of the line. I had to make two tries before I could get in beside it.”

Their recollections came slowly, haltingly. The young man recovered a remnant of poise and mentioned details of the bumper; the woman remembered something about the lights and fenders. They agreed it was a station wagon, and finally, after what seemed interminable indecision, settled on the color — either white or light yellow. Trask glanced at O’Leary. “Well?”

“If they’re right, it’s an Edsel station wagon,” O’Leary said. “Can’t be anything else.”

“How far is the next interchange?”

“Twenty-eight miles,” O’Leary said sharply. “And he’s only been gone twenty minutes. He can’t possibly make it. And he’ll be easy to spot in a white Edsel station wagon A Ford, Chevy or Plymouth would be another matter.”

“Flash your dispatcher,” Trask said, but O’Leary was already running to his car.

At headquarters Captain Royce, senior officer of the turnpike command, stood behind Sergeant Tonelli checking the reports coming in from interchanges and patrols. The tempo of the office had picked up a sharp, insistent beat in the last half hour; every available off-duty trooper had been ordered back to the pike, and riot squads had been dispatched to substations Central and South. Royce was in his fifties, tall and sparely built, and with a look of seasoned toughness about his sharply chiseled features. As a rule there was little suggestion of tension or impatience in his manner, but now, as he filled a pipe and struck a match, a tight, anxious frown was shadowing his hard gray eyes.

Trooper O’Leary’s report had come in a half hour ago. Within minutes the turnpike had been transformed into a hundred-mile trap; every patrol had been alerted, every interchange had been instructed to watch for the white Edsel station wagon. But so far there was no trace of the killer. Patrols had stopped three Edsels, but in each case the passengers were above suspicion — a carload of college girls, a Texan with a wife and four children, and four Carmelite nuns being transported at a stately speed by an elderly Negro chauffeur.

Royce looked at the big clock on the wall above the dispatcher’s desk. It was eight-ten. The Presidential convoy would swing onto the pike at nine-forty. In just ninety minutes...

Sergeant Tonelli looked up at him and said, “Trooper O’Leary asks permission to speak to you, sir.”

“Where is he?”

“At Interchange Twelve.”

This was twenty-eight miles from Howard Johnson’s No. 1. The killer might be miles beyond that now; he’d beer gone from the Howard Johnson’s more than forty-five minutes. “I’ll take it in my office,” Royce said, and went with long strides to his desk. As he lifted the receiver he saw that it had begun to rain; the turnpike flashed below his windows, and he could see the slick gleam of water on the concrete and the distorted glare from long columns of headlights.

“This is Captain Royce. What is it, O’Leary?”