He glanced quickly over his shoulder: she lay with her knees bent, her feet raised in the air, and he saw the soles of her small white shoes, and the shine of his belt looped about her ankles. For the lime being everything was all right. “Just don’t worry about anything,” he said.
XI
IN the manager’s office of Howard Johnson’s No. I, Trask and O’Leary questioned the man in the leather jacket who had delivered the message to Sheila Leslie. “Let’s try it once more,” Trask said evenly, after the man told his story for the third time. They had checked his identification and knew he was a family man, steadily employed by a construction company in Philadelphia. He had a gasoline credit card in his wallet, snapshots of his wife and children, and seemed to be a responsible citizen. But Trask said, “Let’s go over it again from the start—every detail, everything you saw and heard and said.”
The man sat in a straight-backed chair under clear, soft overhead lights. He was about fifty, with thinning hair, work-roughened hands, and he wore jeans and a woolen shirt under his leather jacket “Well, like I told you.” he said, blinking his eyes nervously “First the man called to me, speaking nice and polite, and asked me to do him a favor. The car he was sitting in was one of the popular makes, but I can’t rightly say which one. It wasn’t new. Maybe a ‘Fifty or ‘Fifty-one. It was a dark color, like I already told you. So he asked me to tell this girl that’s missing that Trooper O’Leary wanted to talk to her.”
O’Leary closed his eyes and ran a hand over his face. She was gone, helpless in a killer’s hands, and it was his fault He hadn’t done his job; instead of questioning her swiftly and impersonally, he had blushed and simpered like a fool, letting his feelings for her come between him and his work.
“Well. I went into the restaurant and told her.” the man in the leather jacket said. “And she smiled real nice and thanked me and went outside. I sat down to my dinner, where I was when you got here and began asking for who gave her the message.” One of the waitresses had remembered that someone had spoken to Sheila just before she went outside; and Trask and O’Leary had shouted for silence in the restaurant, and when they explained what they wanted, the man in the leather jacket had got uneasily to his feel. “I didn’t think I’d done nothing wrong,” he said now, eyes swinging quickly from Trask to O’Leary. “I was just doing a man a favor.”
“You’re sure he used my name?” O’Leary asked him sharply. “You’re sure he said O’Leary?”
“Yes, I’m positive about that.”
“Let’s go back to the start.” Trask said. “H was a young man who gave you the message?”
“Nearly as I could make out, yes.”
“And he was alone in the car?”
“Well, there seemed a kind of shadow in the back, but I didn’t see anybody.” The man hesitated, then said. “The young guy sounded kind of funny, he talked fast, I mean, like he was speaking words he’d memorized.”
O’Leary forced himself to think; his emotions were roiling inside him, blunting his memory and judgment. While Trask went over the man’s story again, O’Leary paced the small office, the overhead lights shining on his pale, set features He got himself in hand with a conscious effort. It occurred to him once again that the killer’s pattern of action suggested a generous time schedule; twice he might have got off the pike—once in the white Edsel, again in the car he had commandeered to pick up Sheila. But he hadn’t made a break for it. This might mean he had some special plan for getting off the turnpike, that he had found a loophole in the pike’s defenses. but how to account for the fact that he had used the name O’Leary to lure Sheila outside? How had he known the name? And that Sheila would respond to it? Then O’Leary recalled the irrelevant bit of information he had gleaned from the gas-station attendant at Howard Johnson’s No. 2 Someone had mentioned O’Leary’s driving, and the attendant had told him that O’Leary was safer at a hundred than most people were at fifty. Or something to that effect. But had the attendant actually used his name?
Trask completed his questioning of the man in the leather jacket, thanked him and excused him. When the man had gone. O’Leary told Trask of the conversation with the attendant at Howard Johnson’s No. 2.
“You get back there,” Trask said. “We’ve got to get a lead, and fast,”
“He’s got the girl in his car,” O’Leary said desperately. “That’s a lead, isn’t it? We can search every damn car on the pike.”
Trask looked away from O’Leary, pained by what he saw in the big trooper’s face. He gestured impatiently at the flash of the turnpike traffic which they could see through the windows of the manager’s office.
“There’s twenty-five or thirty thousand cars rolling out there tonight. Doctors on emergency calls, pregnant women, businessmen making plane and train connections, parents hurrying to sick kids. How can we tie up that traffic? And where would we get the men to search the cars? The pike would be stalled bumper to bumper in a matter of minutes. We’d block the highways coming in from three states Maybe we could stop all cars of a certain kind—like we stopped those Edsels. Or pick up men answering to a fairly general description. But we can’t bring that traffic to a halt without something to go on, Dan. Now you get back to Number Two. Maybe that attendant can give us the lead we need.”
O’Leary covered the twelve miles in eight minutes, with his beacon flashing and siren screaming. The attendant he had talked with earlier recalled the incident. “I was just coming out of the office, and a man standing there said something about it looking like you were in a hurry. Well, I told him you knew how to handle your car, that’s all.”
“Think hard.” O’Leary said. “Did you use my name?”
“Well, sure, I thought I told you. I said Trooper O’Leary or maybe Dan O’Leary, but I know I mentioned your name.”
“What did this man look like?”
“He was standing kind of in the shadows. I just glanced over my shoulder at him; you know, the way you do when something doesn’t mean much. He was pretty big. I’d say. And he was wearing glasses. I saw ‘em flash when he turned his head.”
A big man with glasses, O’Leary thought with despair; a description that might tit half the men driving the pike tonight. He questioned the other attendants then, hoping someone might have seen the man leaving the shadows of the office. But he drew blanks; none of them had seen him or noticed any unusual activity around the pumps.
O’Leary returned to his patrol car and flashed Sergeant Tonelli at headquarters. He told him what he had learned, but his heart sank as he repealed the meager description—a big man with glasses.
“Check,” Tonelli said in his hard, impersonal voice, “You’ll proceed south now, O’Leary. Report to Sergeant Brannon at Interchange Five and take further orders from him. You’re going to be working the presidential convoy.”
O’Leary was filled with bitter guilt and despair; the plans being made to find the killer obviously didn’t include him. He wouldn’t have even the solace of trying to save Sheila. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Look, sergeant, just one thing. The killer isn’t in any hurry to get off the pike. Have you noticed that?”
O’Leary’s question was considerably out of line, but Sergeant Tonelli was a man who understood a number of things that weren’t spelled out in the department’s training manual and training directives. He said quietly, “We’ve noticed it. Dan. But we don’t know yet what’s behind it. You get moving now.”
“Check,” O’Leary said and turned his car into the curving approach to the dark turnpike. He felt helpless and miserable, consumed with a leaden fear.
XII
SHEILA had fought down her first panic, which had been like the fear or smothering she had known as a child. Once when she was very small her brother and his friends had locked her in a trunk during some game or other and had gone off and forgotten about her. For a long time afterward she couldn’t bear anything that threatened her breathing—swimming under water, a dentist’s wad
or cotton in her mouth, even the slight pressure of a locket at the base of her throat was enough to make her heart pound with terror. But she had finally conquered that dread; she had faced the issue with hard common sense, refusing to pity herself, refusing to let herself be shackled by morbid fears.
Now, lying helpless in the rear of Bogan’s car, she tried to apply the same therapy to her straining nerves. So tar nothing had happened to her; her body was cold and cramped, and dust from the carpeting had made her eyes water, but that was all. She knew she was safe as long as they were on the turnpike. After that she would be completely helpless. He could take her anywhere, do anything he wanted with her. She faced that fact clearly. It meant she must get away from him before he drove off the pike. Somehow she must make him stop. Dan had told her any stopped car would be quickly checked by the police, with the trooper concealed by his own headlights and emerging from their brightness with a hand on his gun.
It seemed a hideous irony that she had been amused by his earnest discussion of the various methods used in policing the turnpike—and just a tiny bit bored by his enthusiasm for his work—when that skill and energy might be the only thing that could save her life. She tried to stop thinking about Dan O’Leary. It would make her cry, she knew, and there was no time now for that kind of self-pity. She could think of him later; of his tall, alert way of walking, and the fine, dark hair on the backs of his big clean hands, and the way he got a joke a split second after she did and grinned a bit sheepishly at her swifter understanding.
Now she must make this madman bring the car to a slop. “Please,” she said in a weak voice. “I’m going to be sick. I feel dizzy.”
“Well, that’s too bad. But it’s not much longer.” Bogan glanced at his watch and then at a numbered milepost that gleamed ahead of him in the darkness. He was a bit behind schedule, but not seriously so. The rain had made him lose time. He smiled.
“Please,” she said again. “I’m freezing. There’s no circulation in my arms and legs. Please stop and untie my ankles.”
“You’re Trooper O’Leary’s girl, I know,” he said. “I saw the way you smiled at each other, Are you going to marry him?” He was still smiling. “Answer me. Are you going to marry him?” he said coldly.
She was silent; the changed tone of his voice sent a chill through her cramped body. She tried to guess at his thoughts, to form some picture of his needs and compulsions; but it was as hopeless as attempting a jigsaw puzzle blindfolded. “I’m not sure,” she said at last.
“You’re not sure,” he said, mocking her in a high, petulant voice. The lying little beggar. They would get married, all right, and buy a little house and pull all the blinds down so no one could see them. And keep everyone outside their little circle of pleasure.
He remembered how it had been in his own home, the long nights that belonged only to his father and mother, and finally his guilty relief and happiness after his father’s death. There was just his mother and brother then, and it was very nice. She baked sweet cookies and told them stories. It went on for such a long and pleasant time. Until his brother brought home a girl. They had fought about that; Bogan had warned him of the terrible thing he was doing, but his brother had got married anyway, and then there was just his mother and himself, and that was the best time of all. He worked as a night watchman because the sunshine hurt his weak eyes. She kept their apartment shaded in the daytime, and they watched television together, and she made his meals and took care of his clothes. When she died he asked his brother if he could live with him, but there were children now and no room for him. That was when he had got the tiny place on Third Avenue and begun to watch the couple in the furniture shop.
Bogan shook his head sharply; his thoughts were distracting him, flickering brightly and erratically against the quiet darkness of his mind.
“Please!” the girl cried again. “Fumes are coming up through the floor boards. I can’t breathe.”
“I’ll roll down the window,” he said, smiling. “I’m not going to slop, so you might as well forget your little tricks.”
The cold damp wind swept over her chilled body. She was suddenly dose to panic; this was what excited him, to toy with her in a cat-and-mouse fashion, relishing her helplessness. If she couldn’t get him to stop, there was no hope—unless a patrol car flagged him down. But the police obviously had no way of identifying him. Otherwise he wouldn’t be driving along so confidently. How could she attract the attention of the police?
To herself or to the car, it made no difference.
But she could do nothing at all while she was helpless. She began to strain at the bands about her wrists, twisting her hands until the skin was raw, exerting all her wiry strength against the silken fabric. The young man hadn’t done too efficient a job, and she blessed him for it. Perhaps he’d given her this chance deliberately. The knots were loose, and her struggles produced a precious half inch of slack. That was almost enough, for her hands were quite small. She tried again, twisting her wrists silently and desperately until the knots slipped again. This was enough. She freed her hands and put them over her mouth to silence the sounds of her rapid, shallow breathing.
But there was still not much she could do. She could unlatch the rear door, but to push it open against the wind stream would be almost impossible in her cramped position. And it wouldn’t serve any purpose unless she intended to throw herself from the car. That thought instantly led to another—if not herself, what else was there to throw from the car? Specifically, through the opened window—beside the driver’s seat? The crumpled silk tie that had bound her wrists probably wouldn’t attract anyone’s attention. She felt cautiously about the floor of the car, but found only a folded newspaper and what seemed to be an empty cigarette package. No good. It had to be something that would point to her.
She thought of removing a shoe but after a painful effort realized that it wasn’t possible. She could arch her back and grasp her ankles in her hands, but she couldn’t unbuckle the bell or untie the shoelaces in that position. And she couldn’t risk turning over and sitting up. He would be sure to see the top of her head in the rearview mirror. But the thought of shoes prompted her to take a personal inventory. Ring, small comb, hair ribbon, a pencil clipped in the pocket of her uniform. Thai was all; and none of these had any special significance. They would mean nothing to whoever found them.
“That’s enough air,” Bogan said, and began to roll up the window.
“No, please!” Her heart was beating wildly; she had just remembered the apron she was wearing, the short, white tea apron with the restaurant’s distinctive emblem emblazoned on it. Everybody associated the emblem with Howard Johnson’s; it was as identifiable as a signature “Please don’t close the window. I’m suffocating.” The terror in her voice was genuine; if he closed the window now her only chance would be gone.
“Well, we don’t want that,” he said and rolled the window down again. “We want you nice and healthy for your handsome trooper. You wouldn’t be pretty if you smothered to death.”
CONCLUSION
The maniac was trapped—but he could kill again.
Lying bound in the rear of Harry Bogan’s car, Sheila Leslie tried to control her nerves. She worked in a turnpike restaurant. Bogan, a maniacal killer, had kidnaped her because she could identify him. She knew she was safe as long as they were on the Tri-State Turnpike, but after that she would be helpless. Bogan had murdered three people, and he wouldn’t hesitate to kill again.
Sheila’s only chance was to attract attention by throwing something out of the open window, something that would cause the finder to call the turnpike police. She finally freed her hands, but she couldn’t think of anything to throw.
Then she remembered the apron she was wearing, the short white tea apron with Howard Johnson’s emblem on it.
XIII
SHE worked quickly to untie the knot that secured the apron about her waist. When it came free she raised herself cautiously on one elbow an
d looked up at the window, careful to keep her head below the top of the front seat. It wasn’t possible, she realized with despair; his big shoulder and arm completely sealed off the area between the back seat and open window. If she tried to push the apron past him, he would feel the pressure of her hand and sense that she was moving behind his back.
Bogan said, “We’re running a bit late. I’ll have to step on it. But don’t you worry. I won’t be caught speeding,”
The car swerved into the left, or passing, lane, body rocking on its springs, and she saw his head and shoulders move forward out of sight at the same time. He had hunched closer to the windshield to see more clearly while passing. Now the sway of the car told her they had cut back into the middle lane, and at the same time she saw his head and shoulders loom above her, returning to their customary position.
She breathed a soft prayer. When he moved forward, the open window was clear and unobstructed by his bulk. And if he passed another car he would be likely to push himself forward again.
She made a ball of the apron in her right hand, and raised her arm cautiously. When he passed another car she wouldn’t be able to look up to see if he had moved forward; he would be close to the rear-view mirror then and apt to notice any movement behind him. She would have to gamble—her only hope—shoving the apron up and out the window without looking, and praying that her hand didn’t strike his shoulder.
They drove for several minutes in the middle lane.
“That’s enough air,” he said with a vicious snap to his voice. “When I get around this truck, the window goes up and stays up. Why should I care whether you’re comfortable? Do you have any sympathy for me? Do you care about me at all?”
The car swerved to the left and gained speed, with the tires whining on the wet pavement. She counted to three slowly, trying to control the paralyzing fear that gripped her body. Now, she thought, but couldn’t force her hand to move. The car was swerving back into the middle lane, and she bit down viciously on her trembling lip and said “Now!” in a desperate little whisper.
Collected Fiction (1940-1963) Page 328
