John D. MacDonald
Hit and Run
The stove in the state troopers’ station was turned too high; Carney had a headache. And the crash picture he was examining depressed him. This one had been a carload of teenagers trying to pass a truck on the blind corner out beyond the Rucker turnoff. He sighed and pushed it aside, hearing a woman’s quick, light voice in the hallway, then Tillotson’s rumbling reply.
As the woman came in, followed by the trooper stamping snow from his boots, Carney made a swift appraisal. Middle thirties, attractive, assured, just hesitant enough to indicate that any kind of police setup was a new experience.
“Why don’t you go right over by the stove there, ma’am?” Tillotson said. “This lady’s name is Mrs. Fairliss, Del. Mrs. Peter Fairliss. Pardon me, ma’am. This is Sergeant Carney.”
“How do you do, Sergeant.” The woman was trying to control her shivering. Her lips had a bluish look as she turned, keeping her hands outstretched toward the stove, to give Carney a quick apologetic smile. She was a smallish, neat-figured woman with a smooth young face, short nose, quiet eyes. She had the look of a woman loved and well cared for. Expensive tweed suit, fur jacket.
Tillotson murmured something about snow being unusual this late in the year, early May, think of it, and Carney asked, “What seems to be the trouble?”
“A little after eleven. Del, I turned onto Route 83 over near Verrick, just cruising, and I see this big green ’52 Buick with New York plates parked on the shoulder, with the dim lights on. I go by slow and see tire lady inside, alone, so I went over. She said they’d run out of gas, she and her husband, and he’d started walking up the road to bring some back. She was about froze, being there over an hour and a half with no heat, on account of the heater not working without the motor running. I took the keys and locked up the Buick and brought her along while I went looking. There’s a gas station about four miles up the road toward Verrick, but he hadn’t been there and we didn’t see anything along the road, so I thought I’d better bring her back here to wait.”
“I can’t understand what happened,” the woman said with deep concern. Her teeth were still chattering a little, but her voice was low and controlled.
Carney got up and placed a chair for her near the stove. He said to Tillotson, “Bob, you’re sure there wasn’t anybody walking down the road?”
“We went on and checked the gas stations in Verrick. I went slow, and we watched both sides of the highway, coming and going. Still snowing pretty hard, you know.”
The woman bit her lip. She seemed close to tears.
“Put some coffee on, Bob; then go and look for him some more. Turn your spot on the ditch. Look for anything that might be a man covered up with snow. Sorry, Mrs. Fairliss, but we’ve got to think of a hit-and-run driver, or a heart attack.”
“He’s quite healthy; he just had a check-up recently. And he’s intelligent enough to step off the highway when a car is coming toward him in the snow, Sergeant.”
“Where were you bound, Mrs. Fairliss?”
“Oregon. We left Syracuse early this morning.”
“You came quite a way in weather like this.”
“Peter is an expert driver. I’ve never known him to run out of gas before though. I guess he was watching the weather so closely he forgot.”
“What time did you run out of gas?”
“It was exactly twenty minutes to ten by Peter’s watch. I know because he checked it so he could estimate about how long it would take him to walk to a gas station. He bundled me up in the car robe and a blanket and got some brandy out of the suitcase. It helped a little, but not enough. The car got terribly cold inside.”
“Has he been depressed or anything?”
“Oh, no! I suppose you’re thinking of amnesia, or that he just walked out on me. No, we get along very well. His children are away at school. I’m his second wife; we’ve been married nearly two years now. His first wife died, quite suddenly, four years ago.”
“How old is he?”
“He’ll be fifty his next birthday.” She smiled. “He’s a little upset about that. He says fifty sounds so decrepit.” The smile faded quickly, and she bit her lip again.
“Was he carrying much money?”
“Several hundred dollars.”
“There’s the possibility, Mrs. Fairliss, that he got a ride and whoever picked him up may have taken him somewhere to rob him and leave him.”
“He’d be a difficult man to do that to. He’s quite quick and strong. He keeps himself in good shape, Sergeant.”
He heard the coffee perking and went to turn the flame down. When he came back, she was standing up. She smiled. “I’m just too nervous to sit still, I guess. And I’m warm now. That’s a lovely stove.”
They both jumped when the phone rang. Carney scooped it up. The dispatcher said, “Tillotson says to tell you he can’t find anything. What do you want him to do?”
“Tell him to look some more. He couldn’t have covered the area thoroughly in this length of time. Can you release anybody to help him?”
“Could be. I’ll check. Want to know?”
“Just do it if you can, and thanks.”
Carney hung up and gave Mrs. Fairliss what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Nothing to report, as I guess you could figure out. Would you mind if I finished a little paper work?”
“Please go ahead, Sergeant.”
He went back to the crash pictures, typing out description slips and pasting them on the photographs. As he typed with two fingers, in slow cadence, he was aware of her roaming restlessly back and forth near the stove. When he glanced over, he saw that she had taken off her fur jacket and hung it on the back of the chair, She stood by the Window looking out at the snow, It was a nice tweed suit, he decided. And she had that square-shouldered, trim-hipped, long-waisted look that made clothes look good.
In fifteen years of duty, Sergeant Carney had gained a sixth sense. He knew now with certainty that something had happened to Peter Fairliss. Something unpleasant, And he guessed that the pretty woman shared that certainty but was telling herself she was being morbid. It would be kind to take her mind off it a little.
“That’s that,” he said heartily, slipping the photos into an envelope, When she turned he said, “There’s always paper work, it seems.”
“Peter’s always complaining about reports to make out.”
“This is what we call a substation. It’s pretty small, and I get stuck with all the paper work. They tell me I’m in charge, I guess that’s to soften the blow.”
“Do you have many men here?”
“Just four.”
“The man who brought me back was nice.”
“Bob Tillotson. He’s coming along. Two years of it he’s had.”
She was looking at him with polite attention, and he felt a sudden unreasoning jealousy of this Fairliss. who at — what was it? — forty-seven had found this woman and married her. It had been a long time since he had felt jealousy toward any man.
She glanced at the wall clock and murmured, “Half past twelve.”
“Mrs. Fairliss, you’ve got to start thinking of what you’ll do if this hunt isn’t ended soon. It seems a little pointless to stay up all night.”
“I couldn’t possibly sleep, Sergeant. Of course if I’m in your way here—”
“No, no,” he said hastily.
“What on earth could have happened?” she said, with the petulant anger of the sorely troubled. Why has it happened to me? Why has God stopped smiling?
The phone rang and he picked it up. knowing at once what the voice on the other end would say. Looking at her, he saw that she knew too. She stood with feet parted, braced almost, the way a child who is expecting punishment stands. He looked away, toward the window.