A little unsteadily she said, “Yes, I want to go through with it.”
“You sure you can? I don’t want you coming apart at the seams on me.”
“I’ll be all right,” she said. “I won’t come apart at the seams. What’s the plan?”
I examined her dubiously, wondering how well she would stand up under police examination, if it ever came to that. I said, “It has to look like an accident. The simplest thing would be to rig an automobile accident. Nobody’s likely to question a highway accident. They happen all the time.”
“Rig it how?”
“Have the car go over a steep bank somewhere. We can make it look as though I was thrown clear and Hannah was killed.”
Mavis looked at me with such an odd expression on her face, I asked, “What’s the matter?”
She said, “You haven’t planned this out very carefully yet, Sam. It isn’t like you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Where do you find a steep bank alongside the highway around here? It’s all flat country.”
I felt myself grow a little red. What she said was true. Apparently the idea of murder had such a paralyzing effect on me, my mental processes weren’t working properly. My planning was panicky instead of cool and dispassionate as it usually was when I was setting up a bunco dodge.
Running a distraught hand through my hair, I said, “We’d both better get our feet on the ground, or well botch this. Maybe we’re not up to murder.”
“We’re up to it,” Mavis said quietly. Realizing that I was as nervous as she was seemed to have a steadying effect on her. “Just start thinking, Sam. Approach it just as though it was only a bunco dodge. You’re smart enough to think up something foolproof.”
Her words calmed me down a little. I was smart enough, I told myself. The scores we had made in the ten months since we met proved it. It was merely a matter of carefully figuring every angle.
“Let’s go for a reconnaissance ride,” I suggested. “Well look for the right spot and plan what kind of accident to have according to the spot.”
We took the car Mavis had rented, a new Ford sedan. I had her drive in the direction of the Louisiana state line.
As Mavis had suggested, there weren’t any steep banks lining the highway in this section. But cutting the road there was an occasional gully that had to be spanned by a bridge. We stopped to examine two which were mere depressions a few feet deep, and where the road was as straight as a string. Neither seemed likely places for a fatal accident.
The state line is only a few miles from Beaumont. We found what we wanted just beyond it.
The gully was perhaps fifteen feet deep and a dozen wide, with nearly-horizontal banks. The road curved to the left just before the bridge — a gentle curve, but nevertheless a curve. The guard-rail, a wide metal strip attached to concrete posts, looked impossible to break through except at terrific speed, which is hardly feasible in a rigged accident unless the rigger is prepared to die too. But the approach to the bridge was guarded only by a series of slim steel reflector rods that could easily be pushed over by a car bumper. The ground alongside the road was flat and hard, though it looked a little bumpy. It would be possible to push down one of the reflector rods and drive right to the edge of the gully, then jump clear just as the car went over.
“It hardly looks like a dangerous spot,” Mavis said critically,
“Any spot’s dangerous when the driver goes to sleep at the wheel,” I said. “That will be my story. We’ll do it here.”
“When?” she asked.
“Tonight, between two and three A.M. I’ll get Hannah to bed by eight. There won’t be any problem there. She’s always willing to go to bed. About two in the morning I’ll wake her up, tell her I can’t sleep any more and suggest we might as well hit the road again and reach New Orleans for breakfast.”
“What do I have to do?”
“Just wait about a hundred yards this side of the bridge until we get here. I’ll park behind you.”
Mavis’s face looked a little pinched. “She’ll still be alive then?”
“Of course,” I said. “It can’t be done until the last minute, just before the wreck. They can tell by an autopsy when somebody dies.”
“I see,” Mavis said.
She didn’t inquire as to why her presence would be necessary at the scene. She must have known that it really wasn’t, as I could easily have worked the plan without her assistance. She could have stayed in Houston. She seemed to know she was there primarily as moral support, because I couldn’t bring myself to murder alone.
Neither of us mentioned this. We both acted as though her part in the plan were as important as mine.
Chapter VIII
I was gone from the motel over three hours. It was six P.M. when I returned. Hannah seemed neither suspicious nor impatient when I got back, though.
She merely laid aside the magazine she was reading, smiled and asked, “Get it fixed, dear?”
“Yeah,” I said. “It was the fuel pump, all right. Let’s go find a place for dinner.”
As I had told Mavis, I had no trouble getting Hannah to go to bed early. She seemed to think it was a natural suggestion on a honeymoon. We were in bed by seven-thirty, though it was some time after that before she was willing to go to sleep. Nevertheless, by eight-fifteen she was snoring lustily.
I had no desire to sleep, even if I could have. I lay next to her without moving as the hours ticked by, my body so tense it ached. Every so often I checked the luminous dial of my wristwatch. The hands seemed to creep forward at a fraction of their usual pace.
An eternity passed before my watch told me it was midnight. It seemed as long again before the hands showed one A.M. I had meant to let Hannah sleep until two, but at 1:45 I couldn’t stand the wait any more. I switched on the bedlamp and shook her awake.
“What’s the matter?” she inquired sleepily.
“I’m all slept out,” I said. “It’s only two A.M., but we’ve been in bed six-and-a-half hours. Let’s get up and get on the road. We can make New Orleans for breakfast.”
Hannah stretched and yawned. “All right, honey,” she said agreeably.
Twenty minutes later we pulled away from the motel. I hoped Mavis would be in place in time, as we were a good quarter-hour ahead of the schedule I had set.
Apparently Mavis had allowed herself leeway. Our headlights picked up her car parked on the shoulder just where I had told her to be. The only other vehicle in sight at the moment was a semi-trailer coming toward us. I slowed until it zoomed past, then swung over on the shoulder to park a few yards behind the Ford.
“What’s the matter?” Hannah asked. “More car trouble?”
“Feels like a flat,” I said. “Take a look at the tires on your side while I check the others.”
Opening her door, she climbed out. I climbed out the other side, reached onto the floor in back and drew out the jack handle I had previously laid there. I walked around the rear of the car to Hannah’s side, holding the jack handle behind me.
It was a dark night, but I had left the dim lights on and Hannah was peering at the tires by their reflected glow.
“They look all right on this side,” she announced. Straightening up, she cast a curious glance at the Ford a few yards ahead of us, parked with its lights out. “Maybe that’s some more honeymooners,” she speculated.
I moved a step closer to her.
Then I paused. In the distance headlights appeared. They neared rapidly as the car zoomed toward us at high speed. I waited, my hand still behind my back.
Hannah turned to look at me just as the car drew abreast. In the sudden glare of light she saw the expression on my face.