Manhunt. Volume 2, Number 10, December, 1954

I shrugged. “It’s your car. I guess you can ride in it if you want.”

I picked up her bag and my own, waited while she flicked out the lights and opened the back door for me. Then I waited again while she locked the door behind us.

In the garage I set down the bags and asked her for the car keys. Silently she handed me a leather key case.

“Which is the trunk key?” I asked.

She pointed to one.

I slid it into the lock, but it wouldn’t turn. I tried it upside down, but it wouldn’t go in.

“The lock’s jammed,” I said.

Helena tried it with no more success than I had. Finally she said, “I’m sure it’s the right key,” and looked puzzled.

“The devil with it,” I said. “We haven’t got that much luggage anyway.”

I tossed our bags on the floor of the small back seat. The top of the convertible was still down, as it had been on the night of the accident, but I put it up before we started.

Apparently the only damage the car had suffered was body damage, because it drove perfectly. I noted with satisfaction the gas tank registered nearly three-fourths full, which should take us better than two hundred miles before we’d have to worry about refueling.

I didn’t figure there was much risk of us being stopped even in St. Louis by some cruising patrol car, because it was now six days since the accident and four days since John Lischer had died. I knew a routine order would have been issued to all cars to look for a damaged green Buick, but I had also ridden patrol enough back in my police days to know that by now this order would be filed ’way at the back of most cruising cops’ minds. They wouldn’t actually be searching for the hit-and-run car to the extent of carefully looking over every green automobile they saw. Even if we ran into a cop and he noticed the damage, there was a good chance it wouldn’t register on him immediately that our car was green or that it was a Buick.

It also helped that it was now dark and that the damage was all on the right side. Simply by keeping in the right-hand lane I could prevent any cars passing us in the same direction we were going from noticing it. The only real danger was in meeting a squad car coming from the opposite direction, for the front bumper was badly bent and the front right fender was crushed all out of shape.

To increase our odds, I skirted the congested part of town. My destination was Illinois, but instead of turning east, I took Lindell west to Skinker Boulevard, circled Washington University campus to Big Bend Road, turned right and drove north to the edge of town. Then I cut across to North Eighth, turned right again and headed toward McKinley Bridge.

Puzzled by this maneuvering, Helena said, “I thought we were going to Kansas City.”

“That was before I was accessory to a homicide,” I said. “We’re going to Chicago.”

“Chicago! That’s three hundred miles!”

“K. C. is two fifty,” I told her. “K. C. garages will be looking for a bent Buick. Chicago garages won’t. We’ll be there by morning.”

At that moment we had a bad break. Up to now we hadn’t seen a single radio car, but now, only five blocks from McKinley Bridge and relative safety, one suddenly appeared coming toward us. As it cruised by, it blinked on its highway lights, then lowered them again.

With my heart in my mouth I wondered if the two patrolmen in the car had noticed our damaged right front. In the rear-view mirror I saw them swing in a U-turn and start back toward us. I had been traveling at twenty-five, but I risked increasing the speed to thirty.

A siren ground out a summons to halt.

For a wild moment I contemplated pushing the accelerator to the floor and running it out. Then I realized there wasn’t any safe place to run. If I tried to dash over McKinley Bridge to Illinois, the cops would simply use the phone at this end of the bridge and we’d run into a block at the far toll gate. They’d have all the time in the world to set one up, because the Mississippi is nearly a mile wide at that point. And if I kept straight ahead instead of crossing the bridge, Eighth Street would shoot us into the most congested part of town.

I pulled over to the curb and stopped.

When the police car pulled next to us, neither cop got out. The one on the right said, “Haven’t you got any dimmers on that thing, mister?”

At first his words failed to penetrate, because I was expecting some question about our smashed fender. Then I flicked my eyes at the dashboard and saw the small red light which indicated my highway lights were on. My left foot felt for the floor switch and pressed it down.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t notice I had the brights on.”

The cop nodded peremptorily and the car swung left in another U-turn to go back the way it had been going. With shaking fingers I lighted a cigarette before starting on.

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