Sarah finished the last of her coffee and reached for her coat on a hook behind the counter. “I’ll come now,” she said. “Jenny can handle things here until I get back.” Jenny was a sallow-complexioned bottle blonde already serving coffee and doughnuts to four drivers at the far end of Wright’s long counter.
“Good,” said Randall, “I’ll drive you in. Come along.”
It was 6:24.
When Amos White arrived at 6:45 to open up his gas station for the day, he found a Plymouth sedan stuck in the snow right beside the apron to his place with a young woman sitting alone in the front seat, her chin in her upturned coat collar for warmth and a very worried look in her eyes.
Amos unlocked his service room. The young lady climbed out of the car and came in and asked in a timid voice if she could use his telephone. Amos said yes, and heard her call the police. And he kindly helped her over the first awful moments when she discovered from the police that she was a widow... that Hub Grant, her husband, had been killed by a hit-run driver, identity so far unknown.
Amos’ watch said seven o’clock.
All these events occurred in a little more than an hour in Washingtonville on the morning of December 16th. Then, for the subsequent six hours until one o’clock, nothing happened at all.
At least, it seemed that way to Lieutenant Randall. Of course, he flashed his meager description of the wanted car to State, County and Turnpike Police and asked their cooperation in spotting and holding the car and driver. And he fine-tooth-combed the stretch of Highway 78 between the shopping center and the eastern ridge in the forlorn hope of locating another witness who could come up with a better description of the hit-run car than Sarah Benson had been able to supply.
But he had no luck.
That is, he had no luck until one o’clock, at which time he was eating a ham-on-rye at his desk at headquarters waiting for some word on the car. The desk sergeant downstairs called him and said there was a woman to see him. When she came into his office, it was Sarah Benson.
He hastily swallowed the bite of sandwich he was working on and stood up awkwardly. “Well,” he said. “You again, Sarah.”
She raised smooth brows at his use of her first name but didn’t comment on it. She sat in a straight chair across from his desk. “Me again, Lieutenant. I’ve thought of something that may prove helpful.”
“Good for you,” he said. “What is it?”
“You remember my statement about the car...” she began tentatively.
“Sure.” He took the typed statement off his desk and handed it to her. “What about it?”
She read slowly from the statement: “A cloud of white steam was coming out of the car’s exhaust and I couldn’t see the license plate or any other identifying marks.”
Randall stared at her. “So what? You told me that this morning. The car smoked. Probably needs a ring job. I’ve already given the boys that information.”
A lively animation marked her manner now. “That cloud of steam,” she said, leaning forward in her chair, “wasn’t an oily kind of smoke. It was whiter, like mist, as I told you. Or the white vapor that your breath makes on a cold morning.”
Randall said, “Yes? And what about this white vapor?”
She replied indirectly. “You know Wright’s, where I work? It’s right across the highway from Jensen’s trucking depot, where all his trucks stand waiting for loads.”
He nodded.
“Well, I’ve watched those trucks go out on cold days. And it occurred to me that after they’ve sat in the yard all night in the cold, their exhaust smoke looks just like what the hit-run car was giving out this morning.”
Randall merely stared at her in puzzlement.
“And when trucks drive into our place after running all night, they never give out that white exhaust vapor.”
Randall’s eyes widened and he sat bolt upright in his chair. “Hey!” he exclaimed.
She smiled at him. “That’s right,” she said. “I called my brother on the phone to check it. He’s a mechanic in a garage in Pittsburgh. And he says that’s right.”
Randall swung around in his chair, grabbing for his phone. Over his shoulder he said, dismissing her, “Thanks a million, Sarah. I’ll call you.”
When he called her later, at her home, she answered herself. “Oh, hello, Lieutenant Randall,” she greeted him. “Any news?”
“Plenty,” he said with satisfaction. “The State Police picked him up outside of Allentown an hour ago, thanks to you, Sarah. His car has a dented front end, a broken grill that ought to match up with the piece of metal we found in the road, and traces of blood and hair. We’ve got the whole thing lined out.” He hesitated in unaccustomed embarrassment. “I’d like to tell you about it, Sarah.”
“Go ahead, Lieutenant,” she answered. “I’m listening.”
“Well, I mean...” he rubbed a hand over his hair irritably. “Personally.”
She ignored that. “Then the clue of the white vapor did help?” He thought he detected a teasing note.
“Sure it helped.” His own voice was laced with chagrin. “Until you called it to my attention, it never occurred to me that white steam from an exhaust pipe in cold weather usually means that the car motor has only very recently been started. I kept thinking of the hit-run car as one from a distance, passing through here without stopping. But the white exhaust vapor made it clear that the guilty driver was either a local, or somebody who had stayed here all night. Because it showed that his car engine had just been started before the accident... and had been sitting in the cold for some time quite close to the accident scene, I tried the simplest thing first, and hit pay dirt right away.”
“Where did the car start from?” she asked.
“The Buena Vista Motel. The fellow pulled in there at three yesterday afternoon from the west, slept till five this morning and started out again. His was the only car that left any of our local motels or hotels that early this morning. He was driving a dark blue Ford sedan, Pennsylvania license number VN 167. It was all on the record at the Buena Vista. After I fed that information to the boys, they had him in twenty minutes.”
“Good,” she said.
He changed the subject abruptly. “Why did you go to all that trouble — to telephone your brother and so on — just to be helpful to the police?”
“Because I wanted to help you catch that hit-run driver.” Remembered horror was in her voice. Then she laughed a little. “And besides,” she added, “I took a liking to you, Lieutenant.”
“Good,” said Randall. “Fine. I hoped that might be part of it. I’ve got another idea I’d like to check with you now.”
“If it’s the same idea that my truck drivers get about me, you can forget it,” she said.
He cleared his throat. “I think you have a flair for police work, Sarah. Can’t I take you to dinner tonight so we can talk it over?”
She hesitated only long enough to worry him slightly. Then she said softly, “That would be lovely.”
Randall cradled his phone and glanced at the round, discolored police clock on his office wall. It said 5:45.
A Slight Miscalculation
by Arthur Porges
Calculation is an exact and exacting process, essential to everyday transactions. By how slight a miscalculation a well-laid plan may become a blunder, is clearly shown here.