Ross MACDONALD - The Moving Target

Jumping out of the Studebaker, I could see beyond the line of cars to the edge of the swath of light. My car was there, its nose crumpled into the bank. I took off at a run and elbowed my way through the crowd around the wreck.

A highway patrolman with a seamed brown face put his hand on my arm. I shook it off. “This is my car.”

His eyes narrowed, and the sun wrinkles fanned back to his ears. “You sure? What’s your name?”

“Archer.”

“It’s yours all right. That’s who she’s registered to.” He called out to a young patrolman who was standing uneasily by his motorcycle: “Come here, Ollie! It’s this guy’s car.”

The crowd began to re-form, focusing on me. When they broke their tight circle around the smashed car, I could see the blanket-covered figure on the ground beside it. I pushed between a pair of women whose eyes were drinking it in, and lifted one end of the blanket. The object underneath wasn’t recognizably human, but I knew it by its clothes.

Two of them in an hour were too much for me, and my stomach revolted. Empty of everything but the coffee I had drunk, it brought up bitterness. The two patrolmen waited until I was able to talk.

“This woman steal your car?” the older one said.

“Yes. Her name is Betty Fraley.”

“The office said they had a bulletin on her–”

“That’s right. But what happened to the other one?”

“What other one?”

“There was a man with her.”

“Not when she wrecked the car,” the young patrolman said.

“You can’t be sure.”

“I am sure, though. I saw it happen. I was responsible in a way.”

“Naw, naw, Ollie.” The older man put his hand on Ollie’s shoulder. “You did exactly the right thing. Nobody’s going to blame you.”

“Anyway,” Ollie blurted, “I’m glad the car was hot.”

That irritated me. The convertible was insured, but it would be hard to replace. Besides, I had a feeling for it, the kind of feeling a rider has for his horse.

“What did happen?” I asked him sharply.

“I was tooling along about fifty a few miles south of here, heading north. This dame in the convertible passed me as if I was standing still, and I gave chase. I was traveling around ninety before I started to pull up on her. Even when I was abreast of her, she went right on gunning down the road. She didn’t pay any attention when I signaled to pull over, so I cut in ahead. She swerved and tried to pass me on the right and lost control of the car. It skidded a couple of hundred feet and piled up in the bank. When I pulled her out of it she was dead.”

His face was wet when he finished. The older man shook him gently by the shoulder. “Don’t let it worry you, kid. You got to enforce the law.”

“You’re absolutely sure,” I asked, “there was nobody else in the car?”

“Unless they went up in smoke– It’s a funny thing,” he added in a high, nervous voice, “there was no fire, but the soles of her feet were blistered. And I couldn’t find her shoes. She was in her bare feet.”

“That is funny,” I said. “Extremely funny.”

Albert Graves had forced his way through the crowd. “They must have had another car.”

“Then why would she bother with mine?” I reached inside the wreck, under the warped and bloody dashboard, and felt the ignition wires. The terminals had been reconnected with the copper wire I had left there in the morning. “She had to rewire my ignition to start the engine.”

“That’s more like a man’s work, isn’t it?”

“Not necessarily. She could have picked it up from her brother. Every car thief knows the trick.”

“Maybe they decided to split up for the getaway.”

“Maybe, but I don’t see it. She was smart enough to know my car would identify her.”

“I got to fill out a report,” the older patrolman said. “Can you spare a few minutes?”

While I was answering the last of the questions, Sheriff Spanner arrived in a radio car driven by a deputy. The two of them got out and trotted toward us. Spanner’s heavy chest bounced almost like a woman’s as he ran.

“What’s been happening?” He looked from me to Graves with moist, suspicious eyes.

I let Graves tell him. When he had heard what had happened to Sampson and Betty Fraley, Spanner turned back to me.

“You see what’s come of your meddling, Archer. I warned you to work under my supervision.”

I wasn’t in the mood to take it quietly. “Supervision, hell! If you’d got to Sampson soon enough, he might be alive now.”

“You knew where he was, and you didn’t tell me about it,” he yammered. “You’re going to suffer for that, Archer.”

“Yeah, I know. When my license comes up for renewal. You said that before. But what are you going to tell Sacramento about your own incompetence? You’re out at the county hospital committing a loony when the case is breaking wide open.”

“I haven’t been out at the hospital since yesterday,” he said. “What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t you get my message about Sampson? A couple of hours ago?”

“There was no message. You can’t cover yourself that way.”

I looked at Graves. His eyes avoided mine. I held my tongue.

An ambulance with its siren whooping came down the highway from the direction of Santa Teresa.

“They take their time,” I said to the patrolman.

“They knew she was dead. No hurry.”

“Where will they take her?”

“The morgue in Santa Teresa, unless she’s claimed.”

“She won’t be. It’s a good place for her.” Alan Taggert and Eddie, her lover and her brother, were there already.

Graves drove very slowly, as if the sight of the wreck had had an effect on him. It took us nearly an hour to get back to Santa Teresa. I spent it thinking – about Albert Graves and then about Miranda. My thoughts were poor company.

He looked at me curiously as we entered the city. “I wouldn’t give up hope, Lew. The police have a good chance to catch him.”

“Who do you mean?”

“The murderer, of course. The other man.”

“I’m not sure there was another man.”

His hands tightened on the wheel. I could see the knuckles stand out. “But somebody killed Sampson.”

“Yes,” I said. “Somebody did.”

I watched his eyes as they turned slowly to meet mine. He looked at me coldly for a long moment.

“Watch your driving, Graves. Watch everything.”

He turned his face to the road again, but not before I had caught its look of shame.

Where the highway crossed the main street of Santa Teresa, he stopped for a red light. “Where do we go from here?”

“Where do you want to go?”

“It doesn’t matter to me.”

“We’ll go to the Sampson place,” I said. “I want to talk to Mrs. Sampson.”

“Do you have to do it now?”

“I’m working for her. I owe her a report.”

The light changed. Nothing more was said until we turned up the drive to the Sampson house. Its dark mass was pierced by a few lights.

“I don’t want to see Miranda if it can be helped,” he said. “We were married this afternoon.”

“Didn’t you jump the gun a little?”

“What do you mean by that? I’ve been carrying the license for months.”

“You might have waited until her father was home. Or decently laid away.”

“She wanted it done today,” he said. “We were married in the courthouse.”

“You’ll probably be spending your wedding night there. The jail’s in the same building, isn’t it?”

He didn’t answer. When he stopped the car by the garages, I leaned forward to look into his face. He had swallowed the shame. Nothing was left but a gambler’s resignation.