Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 30, No. 13, Mid-December 1985

Murder in the Fast Lane by James A. Noble

“Mommy, how fast are we going now?” asked little Joel again, leaning across his older sister to get a glimpse of the speedometer.

“Will you quit bothering Mom?” Sissy scolded, pushing him back. “You can’t read the numbers anyway.”

Alice glanced over at her two children in the front seat and smiled. “Don’t be too critical of Joel, honey. Remember, someday when he’s your age, he may be a better reader than you.”

“That’s right,” agreed Joel, making a production of folding his arms across his chest and giving his sister a “smarter than you” look.

“Why all this sudden interest in how fast I’m driving, Joel?” asked Alice.

Joel turned away and looked at the tips of his shoes sticking out over the edge of his seat.

“Answer me, honey.”

“I can’t tell you,” replied the boy, defensively.

“Why not?”

Joel hesitated a moment and then said, “ ’Cause Charlie told me not to.”

Charlie again, thought Alice bitterly. The court had ordered him to stay away from the kids, and here he was sneaking behind her back and telling her children heaven knows what... her children.

She didn’t want them anywhere near Charlie. It was after five years of marriage that she discovered what a cruel, sadistic man he was. Even so, the marriage might have held together had it not been for her discovery that her husband was a gangland enforcer, inflicting pain and punishment on command from mobster bosses.

Alice no longer thought of him as her husband. Even the children called him “Charlie” instead of “Dad” or “Father.”

“When did you talk to Charlie, Joel?” The tone of her voice frightened the boy a little.

“Yesterday... outside the house.”

“What did he say to you?”

“He told me to give you something when you drove us to Mr. Happyland today.” Mr. Happyland was Joel’s name for the day care center.

“Well, why don’t you give it to me now?” asked Alice, giving her son a reassuring smile.

“Not until you’re going sixty,” said Joel.

“Sixty?... You mean sixty miles an hour?”

Joel nodded.

Alice glanced at the speedometer. “We’re going sixty-two miles an hour.”

Joel reached under his seat belt harness and removed a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. He held it out and Sissy opened it and passed it to her mother.

Alice began to read in glances while she drove.

Alice screamed and dropped the note. The car swerved off onto the gravel of the narrow shoulder, and she struggled to regain control and steer it back onto the highway. It fishtailed briefly, scattering gravel, then finally settled back onto the hard surface. She glanced at the speedometer. Fifty-three. She pressed the gas pedal to the floor and the speed climbed quickly. She held it at sixty-five.

“Sissy!” Her voice cracked. “Pick up the note and read it to me.”

“What’s the matter, Mom?” A confused, frightened expression was on the little girl’s face.

“Just do it,” ordered Alice in a trembling voice. Up ahead, a left-turn signal light of a semi blinked on.

Sissy retrieved the paper and began to read aloud.

“ ‘Dearest Darling. Don’t let your speed fall below fifty. I’ve put a bomb in your car and attached it to the speedometer cable coming out of the...’ ”

Sissy held up the paper and pointed at a word.

“Transmission,” said Alice, sharply.

“ ‘... transmission. Sixty miles an hour will arm the bomb, less than fifty miles an hour will det... o...’ ”

“Detonate,” said Alice, trying not to let her fear creep into her voice. A few hundred yards ahead, the semi pulled into the passing lane, suddenly revealing an equally large moving van in the other lane. Both were moving slowly. Alice let the speed drop to fifty-two. Because of the narrow shoulders and ditches on either side of the two lanes, there wasn’t enough room for Alice to get the little hatchback by.

“Come on,” she pleaded to the semi, “get around him, please. Hurry.”

Sissy continued reading.

“ ‘... detonate the bomb. You shouldn’t have left me. My life is ruined and you’re to blame. I hope you live just long enough to think about what you’ve done to me.

“ ‘Hope you remembered to fill the tank. Have a pleasant drive. Charlie.’ ”

Alice breathed a little gasp as she glanced at the gas gauge. Less than an eighth of a tank was left. At the moment, that was the least of her worries. The two big trucks were side by side, creeping along up a small hill, and she had almost caught up with them. Desperately, she leaned on the horn and began to flash the headlights.

She realized she was faced with a horrible decision. Outside the car, the road surface raced by. The mere thought of forcing Joel and Sissy to jump from the moving car made her tremble.

She considered the possibility that the letter was just a cruel hoax, perpetrated by the twisted mind of a man she once called her husband. If she slowed down... She shook her head. She knew Charlie. If he said he had attached such a bomb to the car, he did it. The bomb and the nightmare were both quite real.

The two huge trucks were now directly in front of the hatchback. Alice made her decision.

The biggest opening seemed to be between the two trucks, but even that space didn’t appear large enough. She pushed the accelerator to the floor and the car squeezed into the narrow gap.

The lower corner of the semi’s trailer tore the driver’s side mirror off the little hatchback while the undercarriage of the moving van snapped off the radio antenna and struck a glancing blow to the corner post of the passenger side window. A spider web pattern suddenly appeared across the right side of the windshield as the glass cracked. The speed of the little car began to drop off rapidly as it scraped its way between the thundering trucks.

The car was barely moving fifty-one miles an hour when suddenly the moving van jerked closer to the shoulder, enlarging the space between the two trucks. Freed from the vise-like grip, the little yellow hatchback picked up speed and passed the two cursing truck drivers.

Throughout the entire ordeal, Sissy and Joel had held on to each other and remained silent.

“Yea, Mommy!” yelled Joel, triumphantly.

Alice leaned on the steering wheel and looked at her brave little boy.

“Yea, Joel,” she responded in a exhausted voice.

“Mom, look!” cried Sissy, pointing through the shattered windshield. “There’s a police car up ahead.”

Alice pushed the pedal to the floor. “Hang on, kids. It’s time to get a speeding ticket.”

Officer Berry Walker and his partner, Frank Sheppard, looked at each other as the yellow hatchback sped by them doing eighty miles an hour.

“That’s the trouble with today’s world,” said Frank as he flipped on the lights and siren. “We get no respect.”

Alice wound down her window as the squad car pulled up behind. She stuck her arm out and motioned for the policemen to pull alongside.

“Fold up Charlie’s note and give it to me,” said Alice. Sissy obeyed quickly.

As the police car with its two confused officers came alongside, Alice held the piece of paper out. The policeman on the passenger side reached over and took it from her hand.

At first, Berry and Frank couldn’t believe what they were reading, but after they called in the license number of the hatchback and realized they were dealing with the ex-wife of a known gangland enforcer, there was little doubt that the threat was real. Just what they could do about it, they didn’t know. They called for assistance and then pulled the patrol car ahead of the hatchback to clear the highway ahead.

Alice looked at the gas gauge. The needle was resting just above “E.”

“Sissy, take my lipstick out of my purse and write ‘gas’ in big letters on the windshield.”

“But the glass is all cracked.”

“That’s okay. The policemen will still be able to read it.”

“Hey, what’s that kid writing on the glass?” asked Frank, looking back.

Berry glanced up in the rear view mirror. “It’s backwards writing to you. Look at it in your side mirror.”

Frank turned and looked in his mirror. “Oh, no. She must be running out of gas. What the hell we gonna do now?”

Berry pulled into the left lane and slowed down to allow the hatchback to pass. “We’re going to push her.”

Frank’s eyes grew big. “At fifty miles an hour?”

“No, fifty-five. We need a five-mile-an-hour margin of safety.”

“What happens when we run out of gas?”

Berry looked over at his partner. “Ka-boom,” he said, flatly.

Frank picked up the microphone and switched to the P.A. speaker to explain the plan to the driver of the hatchback.

Alice felt the gentle thump as the front bumper of the patrol car contacted the rear of the hatchback. She took the car out of gear and switched the engine off and then quickly switched to the “accessory” position to keep the steering wheel from locking. Alice breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the speedometer continue to register fifty-five miles an hour.

“Why’d you turn off the engine, Mom?” asked Sissy.

“We’ve got to save what little gas we have left, honey.”

“Why? Do you have an idea?”

“Yes, darling. I have an idea.” She gave her daughter a reassuring smile. Inside, she wanted to scream.

She realized it wasn’t much of a plan and the odds were against her. She knew they would be passing the beach area in a few minutes. She planned to turn off and drive the car into the ocean on the slim hope the bomb and triggering mechanism would fail in the salt water before it detonated. She realized the speed would drop quickly to zero when they hit the water and it was more likely that the bomb would work or, worse still, they might drown. Still, the plan was the best she could come up with at the moment.

When the beaches appeared off to the left, she restarted the engine and raced it as she slowly let off the clutch. A wave of her hand and the patrol car began to back away. She was on her own.

“Brace yourselves, kids,” she said as she slowed to fifty-two and turned off at the exit ramp. The ramp veered sharply to the right and the car skidded sideways into the curb. Two wheels jumped the curb and the car ran over a thin metal pole that marked the ramp for snow plows during the winter months. Alice jammed the accelerator to the floor and fought the steering wheel. Suddenly, steam appeared from under the hood. The overtemp warning light flickered and then shone bright red. The pole had punctured the radiator.

As the car left the ramp, it regained the highway leading straight to the beach. The hatchback became airborne briefly as it leaped a small mound separating the road from the beach. The rear hatch suddenly popped open as they came down on the beach. Black smoke began to mix with the steam coming from under the hood. Still, Alice held the gas pedal to the floor.

“Yippee!” yelled Joel.

Out of the corner of her eye, Alice spotted an answer to her silent prayers. She cut the steering wheel sharply to the right. The car slid sideways in the soft sand and began to slow. Still, the wheels were spinning at a furious rate and the speedometer was reading eighty even though they were only moving at about forty miles an hour.

She jerked the wheel suddenly to the left. The right rear tire struck a partially buried log and exploded. Then slowly the little hatchback began to climb the sand dune Alice had spotted earlier.

“Sissy, undo both your seat belts and get ready to jump!” screamed Alice over the roar of the dying engine.

As the driving wheels buried themselves in the soft sand of the dune, the car slowed to a stop. The smell of burning rubber filled the car as the tires spun wildly in the sand. The speedometer was indicating seventy and dropping rapidly.

“Get out!” yelled Alice. “Get your brother out of the car and run. Hurry!”

Sissy reached across her brother and pushed at the passenger door. Sand piled up outside prevented it from opening.

“Go out the rear hatch,” yelled Alice as she pushed harder on the gas pedal and lifted Joel over the back of the front seat. The speedometer read sixty. The engine began to miss and sputter.

“Mommy, Mommy, come on!” shouted Joel, half turning as Sissy pulled him away from the smoking vehicle.

Alice pushed at the driver’s door with all her strength. Slowly, she forced it open. She could see the patrol car sitting farther up the beach obviously stuck. The two policemen were running toward her. She glanced at the speedometer. Fifty-three. They wouldn’t reach her in time.

Quickly, she picked her purse up off the floor and wedged it between the gas and brake pedals, then carefully removed her foot from the accelerator. The speedometer had dropped to fifty-one.

She jumped from the car and tumbled down the side of the dune.

The force of the explosion sent a huge plume of sand skyward. A large fireball appeared from the center of the cloud of sand and raced upward. Alice covered herself as smoldering pieces of the hatchback landed around her.

When the blast had subsided, Alice struggled wearily to her feet and staggered over to Sissy and Joel. She dropped to her knees and took them both in her arms. “You guys all right?”

“Wow!” responded Joel.

“We’re fine, Mom,” said Sissy.

“Are we still going to Mr. Happyland?” asked Joel.

Alice laughed. “No way, hotshot. Today you guys are all mine.” And she hugged them a little harder.