Four headlights bore at him through the snow, a blinding whiteness that hid the metal shape behind it. The oncoming car forced Cogan’s to the shoulder as it slipped silently past on the snow-covered road, slewed for a moment, caught hold again and dragged its tail-lights into the night.
It was a green and white Ford.
Cogan slammed to a stop, cutting the wheel sharply with automatic reflexes. The cruiser’s rear wheels let go, and the front ones stood almost still waiting for them to catch up. In a moment, the car was pointed the other way, and the Sheriff tromped on the gas, his hand on the blinker switch, his foot grinding down on the siren button.
He knew the Ford’s driver would have trouble at the end of the road when he had to make the right-angle turn onto Terrace Drive. He was travelling too fast for conditions. Cogan could already picture the fugitive trying to take the corner at speed and spinning out into a utility pole or burying himself in a snowbank. No need to speed after him, really.
Cogan slowed down long before the intersection, peering intently for signs of his man. Just as he spotted the Ford, its nose snuffling deeply into a drainage ditch, he caught a glimpse of the figure racing awkwardly down the wide road that led out of town. The cruiser’s lights caught the short-jacketed, thin back, and a white face turned for a second. Then the lightly-clad runner made a hunched spurt to outrun the car behind him.
Cogan accelerated lightly, passed his prey, then cut the wheel sharply to the right, forcing the runner into the V of car and snow bank. He unlimbered his 38 Special and was out of the car before it had come to a complete stop.
It was just a kid, perhaps seventeen years old. He stared open-mouthed at the Sheriff, then twitched his shoulders as if ready to flee the way he had come.
Cogan closed the gap between them with quick strides. He caught the boy by the arm, whirled him around and drove the gun’s barrel hard into his belly. “Hold it!”
The boy stood still, his mouth still open. Wheezing from the exertion, the big man let go of the tensed arm and fumbled for the flashlight in his belt holster. He caught it in the palm of his hand, flicked it on and poked the beam into the boy’s face.
“You son of a bitch! You goddam rotten kid!”
The kid closed his mouth and let a small, crooked smile show. He said nothing, but caught his thumbs in his wide belt. The probing light caught the bloodstains on his sleeves and pantlegs. He said nothing when the lawman ground the handcuffs hard on his wrists and shoved him into the cruiser.
Familiar with what was in the minds of would-be escapers, Cogan took a large paper bag out of the glove compartment, flapped it open, and dropped it over the boy’s smirking face.
No one got any sleep after that except the boy, shoved into a cell in the basement of the jail. While he stretched his length on the clean-sheeted cot, a look of indifference on his smooth face, the sheriff had to deal with newspapermen from all over the western part of the state. He had to answer the questions of a thousand friends, neighbors, and the many others who always had to know the inside story so they could pass it around — along with their boastful tales of never getting a ticket.
By eleven p.m. the next day, only twenty-four hours after the girl had been found, the initial curiosity had worn off, and Cogan had managed to catch a few hours of sleep at home, while his three deputies basked in the publicity before becoming irritated by the annoyances that went with it.
Long past midnight Cogan returned to his overheated office and dropped wearily into his swivel chair behind the ancient oak desk. Grateful for the quiet finally brought by night, he grunted when Millis shoved a cup of coffee toward him and mumbled something about the life of a small-town cop.
“Thanks. How’s the kid?”
Millis shrugged. “His mother came to see him. She’s getting him a lawyer. The District Attorney talked with him awhile, and we’ve been giving him his three squares a day. That’s about it.”
“What do you think of the little bastard?”
“You know what I think, sir; I just can’t figure out what gets into a kid like that, from a good home and all. I just can’t figure it.”
“Neither can I, Millis.” The sheriff yawned. “Why don’t you knock off for the night? I’ll cover ‘til Morgan comes on at six.” He wanted to be alone.
The deputy hung his keys on the board, signed the book and trudged out of the office, grateful for an understanding boss.
The kid was reading a girlie magazine, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He didn’t look up when the sheriff came downstairs and stood before the bars.
“Kid?”
The boy dropped the magazine on the floor and scratched his chin negligently. “What’s up?”
“Why’d you do it?”
“I dunno, Mr. Dillon. Just sort of happened, I reckon.” The boy laughed at his TV-inspired drawl.
“You want to talk about it?”
“No, but sure as hell you do.”
Cogan gripped the bars until his knuckles turned white. “You’re going to hang for this, you know. It isn’t like the car you stole last year or all the other things you’ve done.”
The boy laughed softly, more to himself than to the somber-faced old man staring at him. He said nothing for awhile, just playing with his cigarette.
“It’s not funny!” The words were hard, icey.
“Mr. Dillon, sir; they ain’t agoin’ to hang me; they ain’t.” Another laugh followed, a hollow, self-satisfied one. “A fellow what kills a girl, he gets hung, but a fellow what cuts her up like Martha was... Well.” He swung to his feet and came closer to his captor. He looked him squarely in the face. “I’d say a fellow was sort of nuts to do a thing like that, wouldn’t you?” He tucked his chin into his long hand and tilted his head to one side. “And they don’t hang people who are nuts, now do they?”
Cogan felt a chill across the back of his neck and turned wordlessly away.
He was poring over the lab reports when the phone at his elbow jumped.
“Hello? Cogan here.” He listened intently for several minutes while the voice at the other end spoke in staccato tones that fled past his ear and seemed to fill the small, cluttered office.
“You’re kidding!” he finally said, half believing, half doubting. “He’s sane as can be. You know it. I know it. Everybody knows it!” Cogan ran a heavy hand over his thining, gray hair. He was sweating.
“OK. Thanks.” He slammed the receiver down and buried his head in his hands. No, they wouldn’t hang the little bastard. His mother’s lawyer had already seen Judge Wiznoski and talked him into a quick diagnostic committal to the State Hospital in Farrington. By noon they’d pick him up and by three he’d be under the care of helpful, solicitous doctors and psychiatrists.
Killing someone was one thing, but cutting them up after they were dead... “I’d say a fellow was sort of nuts to do a thing like that, wouldn’t you?” The boy’s words echoed in his head.
Cogan cursed softly and leaned back in his swivel chair to turn on the radio. Perhaps he could drown out his thoughts, drown out the growing knowledge that the killer in the cell below him would probably never see the inside of a prison.
His fingers were at the knob when the chair plunged backwards on its casters. The sheriff clawed for the desk, missed, and crashed hard to the concrete floor.
The blow of his head on the floor made his vision swim, blanking out the present for what seemed like a year. When he finally sat up, he ran an exploratory hand over the back of his head. It came away with an ugly smear of blood that oozed out of a painful, throbbing lump.
He struggled to his feet, righted the chair, and dropped into it cautiously. Suddenly his mind functioned clearly again, and whatever thought pushed its way through brought a broad smile to his ruddy, lined face.