His eyes were very wide and he was saying hoarsely, “Sleepy. Fell asleep.”
I found a blanket in the back of his car and wrapped him in it and made him sit down, leaning against the bole of the tree he had hit. There was a big gouge in the bark and the white wood underneath was ragged and splintered.
Another car stopped and a man hollered out the window, “Trouble?”
“All under control, unless you’re a doctor. Are you?”
“No.”
He started to climb out. I said, “Run along, friend.” He got back in, slammed the door and drove off.
The kid I had sent to the gas station came back and told me he had put the call through. He had a flashlight. He stared at the dead woman while I set the flares out on the shoulder.
When I got back to the man he said, “Janet! Where’s Janet?”
He tried to get up. I put my hands on his shoulders and held him down. “Relax. She’s hurt bad. A doctor’ll be along in a minute.”
Sirens growled in the distance, singing over the hills and around the curves. They bounced to a stop on the shoulder. Two of the Pennsy state cops, young, blunt, and efficient. They gave the woman one look and turned to the man.
At their request he tugged his wallet out of his pocket and handed it to them. One flashed his light on the license and papers while I explained what I had seen and what I had done. The other looked the car over, got a camera and flash bulbs out of his car, and took pictures of the tracks in the mud, the scar on the tree, the overturned car.
The ambulance pulled over close to the tree, right through the shallow ditch beyond the shoulder.
The man was moaning again. They got a stretcher and made him stretch out on it. The intern went over him with quick, careful hands. More cars stopped. People got out, their eyes big with curiosity.
They carted the woman into the ambulance and one trooper told me to report to the barracks near Canton while they got a formal statement from me.
I sat in the small front room of the trooper station after the questions were finished. They had, of course, learned that I was one of the brotherhood, and, after a drink, they asked me to stay overnight; one of the troopers was on leave and I could use his bed. I was too tired to object.
In a short while the younger one of the two, named Sid Graydon, came back from the hospital in Canton. He tossed his hat on the hall table, came into the room, and sat down wearily.
The older one, Charlie Hopper, asked, “Get much, Sid?”
“Not a hell of a lot, Charlie. They gave him a drug to quiet him. He isn’t hurt. Just shock and being shaken up. A fool nurse told him his wife is dead. He cried like a baby. Damn fool to drive while he was sleepy.”
“Where’s he from?”
“Philadelphia. Upper Darby to be exact. He and his wife were driving up to Elmira to visit her cousin there. His name is Walker Drock. He’s a broker. Just another statistic to write up, Charlie. Nothing to pin on the guy. His wife’s death is enough punishment for him.”
Charlie sighed. “Probably both of them were asleep. According to the coroner, she didn’t even get her hands up in front of her face. Just slammed her face right into the dashboard beside the glove compartment. Dented it right in. Funny about him slowing down. Usually they speed up when they fall asleep.”
“Foot probably slid off the gas. By the way, Charlie, I’ve got to call Kell’s garage in the morning and tell them not to touch the car. Drock was insistent about that. He told me that about four times.”
“That’s funny.”
“No, these accident cases, they get an idea in their head and you can’t get it out. He probably heard about some guy who had his car towed away by the police and then got a couple of hundred-dollar repair bill. I don’t think anybody is going to do much repairing on that crate.”
They gave me another drink and I sat with them and talked about the homicide cases in Philadelphia. I didn’t tell them about the Miller kid. I won’t be able to talk about that case for quite a while.
In the morning I drove on to Jack Farner’s place, and spent two long weeks there. I put ten pounds back on and got a little tanned in the sun and cut Jack enough stove wood to last him for six months. The calluses on my palms felt good and the new strength in my shoulders felt even better.
I stopped off to see Charlie and Sid on the way back. Charlie told me that Drock had stayed in the hospital for two days and then had gone back to Philly with the body of his wife. The car had been counted out as a total loss, and sold for salvage value. The thing was open and shut. A simple, tragic accident.
And yet, somehow, it bothered me. Curiosity is an occupational disease with a cop, I suppose. I still couldn’t figure out why Drock had slowed down before hitting the tree, why the jar of going off the pavement hadn’t awakened him, why he was so insistent on the car not being touched.
Banning is the guy who taught me the cop business. Banning says to always assume the worst and work a case from that end. It was none of my business. And it was silly. If you want to kill your wife, and you drive your car head on into a tree, you’ll probably end up knocking yourself off, too.
It bothered me and I know how I’m put together. I have to follow every little thing up or I can’t sleep nights. Maybe that’s why I’m a cop.
I drove to Kell’s garage. A guy climbed out from under a car and looked at the records and told me that the Drock car had been sold to an outfit named Higgins and Rigo.
Higgins was a puffy little man with watery eyes and a soiled shirt. He gave me the busy-man routine and I flashed the badge and watched him become very affable. He left me alone with a boy named Joe Baydle who had pulled the Drock car apart.
Joe acted very nervous until he found out that I wasn’t interested in him. He leaned against the bench and said, “Anything funny about that Drock car? What do you mean?”
“I don’t know what I mean. You’ve got to help me, Joe. I don’t know what I’m looking for. They told me over at Kell’s garage that Drock had got his stuff out of the car while it was there, and that he had brought a suitcase to carry off tools and things in.”
“He must have had a hell of a lot of tools.”
“How so?”
“The crate hasn’t been sent to the bailer yet. It’s still out in the back. Come along and I’ll show you.”
It was barely recognizable as the same car I had followed on that dark foggy night. It had been stripped.
Joe yanked the front door open on the driver’s side and said, “Look here.”
I bent over and looked where he pointed. The car was a four-door and a wide special compartment had been built under the front seat with a drop door that would open right under the driver’s thighs.
I borrowed a flashlight and stretched out so I could look in there. It was empty. At first I thought there was no clue to what it had contained. Then I noticed a small fragment caught in a front corner. I pulled it out.
It looked to me like a piece of sponge. I showed it to Joe. He shrugged and I put it in my pocket.
The nurse at the hospital, a pretty little thing with a turned-up nose and wide, wise Irish eyes, said, “Yes, I took care of Mr. Drock. He was very upset about his wife.”
“Did he make any phone calls?”
“Why, yes, he did. The morning after he came in here. He called the garage where his car had been towed and told them not to touch the car or anything in it until he had seen it. He called his wife’s parents and her sister and her cousin in Elmira. He sent a few wires.”
“Was he hurt badly?”
“No, he was very lucky. He didn’t even get badly bruised. Just shock.”
“How do you tell about shock?”