I said, “I think we can get quite a bit. If Holgate’s car wasn’t smashed at four-thirty in the afternoon, if Vivian Deshler’s car was smashed at three-thirty, that’s pretty damned good evidence that the report of the accident was a fake.”
“Would Holgate get murdered on account of it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think that Holgate contemplated the fact that his girl friend, Vivian Deshler, was going to put in a whopping big claim against the insurance company for a whiplash injury. I think that the minute that happened, Holgate realized he was involved in a criminal conspiracy, in obtaining money under false pretenses, that he could go to prison, and that he’d got himself out of the frying pan and into the fire. I think perhaps Holgate began to get cold feet and wanted to get out.
“I think that when Holgate realized the insurance company wasn’t satisfied with the explanation he had made about how the accident occurred, he became terribly apprehensive, and since a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, the people who were mixed in it with him—”
“You mean Vivian Deshler murdered him in order to keep him from blabbing?”
“I don’t know who murdered him,” I said. “The murder may have no connection with the hit-and-run accident. On the other hand, it may all be tied in together.
“What I’m doing is tying up loose ends, and what you’re interested in is getting this hit-and-run accident solved.”
“Am I interested in it!” he said. “That’s the understatement of the year. That damned hit-and-run may cost me my job if I can’t solve it.”
“Mind telling me about it?” I asked.
“Hell, no,” he said. “I was driving along the street going home when I saw this car coming behind me and I didn’t like the way it was driving. It didn’t occur to me that the man was drunk but I thought it was reckless driving. I pulled off to the side of the road and just as the man came up I held out my arm for him to stop. I was going to flag him down, take a look at his license, throw a scare into him and maybe give him a ticket.
“Instead of doing what he should have done, he swerved the car directly toward me, smashed into the left rear of my car, pushed me clean over into the ditch. Then his car glanced off and away he went.
“I was shoved off the road so far I thought I was going over. I was fighting the steering wheel for a matter of seconds. My left rear tire had blown out under the impact. I couldn’t chase him and under the circumstances I didn’t get any kind of a description.
“It’s one of those things. No one could have secured a description, but because I’m chief of police and because I’m always yelling about keeping your presence of mind and getting a description of any car that acts suspicious — well, I don’t need to draw a lot of diagrams for you. Now that’s the situation.”
“All right,” I said. “You’ve been anxious to solve it. You’ve got evidence.”
“You’re damned right I’ve got evidence,” he said.
“How much evidence?”
“Quite a bit. When the car hit me it smashed the right headlight. We have part of the lens. Some of the paint came off and we have a piece of grill — the stuff was from a Buick. If we could ever have found the damned car we could have made a case all right. But we couldn’t find the car.”
“You covered repair shops?”
“Of course I covered repair shops. What the hell! I had every repair shop that did any work on a car, particularly a Buick of that model, make a detailed report to the police.”
“All right,” I said, “then the accident was investigated.”
“That’s right.”
I said, “Let’s see if you have a report on work that was done on Holgate’s automobile.”
He studied my face for a minute, then began to grin. “Lam,” he said, “there’s just a chance — just a chance, mind you, that you’re a lifesaver.
“I don’t know as I’d buy this if it weren’t for the fact that I am personally involved. It’s a farfetched theory and I don’t know, I have an idea you may be trying to cut yourself a piece of cake and get yourself out of a murder case.
“Before I look, I’m going to ask you one question. I want a frank answer. The authorities feel that you were in that place of Holgate’s before you went back there with Holgate’s secretary, apparently to discover the wreckage. Now, I’m going to give you one test question: Were you in there or weren’t you?”
I looked him in the eyes and said, “I was in there.”
“And then you went back the second time for a cover-up?”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t know what had happened, but I had made an affidavit that I’d seen that accident of Holgate’s—”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because,” I said, “I wanted to smoke the thing out in the open. I felt that if I made an affidavit that I’d seen the accident, that would start putting on pressure. You see, someone had been advertising for witnesses to that accident, offering first one hundred dollars and then boosting the ante to two hundred and fifty.”
“Holgate, in desperation, trying to buy a perjured witness?” he asked.
“That was my theory at first,” I said, “but after I made the affidavit I was satisfied that it was someone who was trying to cover up for Holgate.”
“Who would cover up for him?” he asked.
“Two people,” I said. “One of them, his partner, and the other one, Vivian Deshler.”
“His partner. You mean Chris Maxton?”
“That’s right.”
“And you think he might have?”
“There’s evidence indicating he did. He paid me two hundred and fifty dollars when I convinced him that I’d been a witness to the accident.”
Dale sat at his desk and thought things over. “You’re rather unconventional and rather daring, Lam,” he said. “You’ve stuck your neck into a lot of nooses trying to help a client.”
“If my theory of what happened is right, my head will come out of the noose,” I said.
“And if it isn’t?”
“I’ll get my damned neck broken,” I told him.
“You sure will,” he told me, and got up and went to a filing case. He pulled out a manila envelope, took it over to his desk and started pulling out papers.
“Hell, yes,” he said, “the Holgate accident was reported, but our traffic department didn’t look into it.”
“Why?”
“Repairs were made in a garage in Los Angeles and the investigation was made over the telephone. The garage reported that it was a Buick automobile all right, but that the damages to the car were all accounted for, that both cars were in there being appraised by representatives of the Consolidated Interinsurance Company, and that all details of the accident had been verified, and the insurance company had admitted liability and ordered the cars fixed up.”
“The detailed injuries were not described?”
“Sure, they were described,” he said. “The whole front of the Buick car was caved in. Both headlights were smashed. All of the grill was gone.”
I said, “If you want to keep anyone from identifying a hole in a garment, all you have to do is to take a pair of scissors and make the hole bigger. All Holgate had to do was to take a hammer and add to the injuries.”
Dale said, “Lam, you fascinate the hell out of me. I’m not going to buy this wild-eyed theory of yours, but I’m sure as hell going to investigate it, and man, oh, man, how I hope you’re right!”
I said, “You know there’s a cover-up going on. When do you start investigating?”
“When do I start investigating?” he said. “Right now.”
He dialed the phone again and said, “Sorry, honey, but I’m not going to be home. No, this is important. I can’t tell you about it on the phone and... I’m sorry, you’re just going to have to make apologies to the guests. They know that I’m on call twenty-four hours a day and this is one of those things... Atta girl, I knew you’d co-operate... You carry on and do the best you can.”