What's So Funny?
Page 29
“Yes, sir.”
“I had less than seven K on that car.”
“Just over seven K now, sir. But at least they didn’t bang it up.”
“I’ll want my garage to do a complete diagnostic on it, as soon as I get it towed down here.”
“That’s up to you, sir.”
“But you got the thieves, did you?”
“We do have two individuals in custody, yes, sir, but we’re still sorting that out.”
“What do you mean, sorting out?”
“Well, there’s little question about the man who was operating the vehicle when it was stopped. Chester Wilcox doesn’t deny he took it, sir.”
“He was driving it! How could he deny it?”
“Exactly, sir. The one oddity is, he claims he didn’t pick it up in New York City, but down in Massachusetts, in some estate down there.”
“Massachusetts! I don’t even know anybody in Massachusetts. He took it from the hospital parking lot, right here on Third Avenue, yesterday morning. You say he was with a woman?”
“She claims to be a hitchhiker who boarded the vehicle this morning near New Lebanon, just this side of the New Hampshire state line.”
“Is she telling the truth?”
“That’s hard to say, sir. Wilcox claims she was with him at the estate, that she was the one, not him, who knew how to find the place, and that it was in fact her idea to take your vehicle, but he doesn’t seem to know much about her, other than her first name. He may be telling the truth, but I doubt we’ll develop sufficient cause to hold her.”
“Just so he’s put away, and I get my car back. What is he up to, Trooper, claiming he stole my car in some other state and saying some hitchhiker put him up to it? Is he hoping for an insanity defense?”
“I think what Wilcox mostly has is a stupidity defense, sir,” Trooper Hemblatt said. “But let me go over the rest of it, if I may.”
“There’s more?”
“We want to be sure there’s nothing missing from the vehicle, sir. Your garage door opener and cell phone and medicated cushion are all there, and the chess pieces are still in the trunk.”
“The what?”
“Chess pieces, sir, a full chess set, but without the board. They’re pretty heavy, they could be made of cement.” This rural part of northern New Hampshire was too remote to know or care about some stolen chess set way down in New York City.
“I don’t have a chess set.” The doctor, on the other hand, was too self-centered to pay much attention to the news.
“It’s in the vehicle, sir, in the trunk. Red pieces and black pieces.”
“I don’t even play chess.”
“Well, sir, the pieces are there.”
“I don’t want them. They’re not mine, I don’t want them.”
“I don’t think we’re gonna get a straight answer from Wilcox, sir. If he says the pieces came from the estate it won’t help because he claims he doesn’t know where the estate is, and the woman claims never to have been there.”
“Trooper, I really don’t want that chess set.”
Trooper Hemblatt considered. “I tell you what,” he said. “If you don’t want the set, do you mind if we give it away? There’s an old age home in town here, run by the Little Sisters of Eternal Misery. They could probably make a board out of a piece of plywood or something, put some pleasure in the old folks’ lives.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you, Trooper,” the doctor said. “You do that.”
“I will, sir.”
“I’ll let you know when I’ve arranged for the tow.”
“Yes, sir. Sorry for all this trouble, sir.”
“Oh, well,” said the doctor. “All’s well that ends well.”