Murder on the Turnpike

I

The headlights rushed at him like long yellow lances. They swept by on his left in a formation of threes, each pair of lights following its own lane; but they might change direction at any instant, he thought, and plunge straight at his car. There was always the unknown enemy to fear...

He was traveling south on the Tri-State Turnpike. New York was a dozen miles behind him. Now he was safe, an innocent, anonymous unit in a vast complex of speeding cars and flashing lights. In the rear-vision mirror the lane behind him stretched emptily for several hundred yards. And ahead of him, less than a quarter of a mile away, was a Howard Johnson’s restaurant and service station, gleaming like a necklace of diamonds in the darkness.

He pumped the brakes and swung off the pike, stopping on the graveled roadbed that flanked the highway. Now he was about two hundred yards from the restaurant.

The traffic rushed by him, the headlights splintering on his thick glasses. He blinked his large eyes. The noise and movement confused him — the spinning tires, the flashing lights and the exhaust fumes of roaring traffic. But one thing was untouched by the bewildering racket of the turnpike — the plans he had made. They were like a rock of purpose in tossing, uncertain seas.

He climbed from his car, removed his hat and bulky tweed overcoat, and threw them into the back seat. Then he switched off the headlights, took the key from the ignition and hurled it with all his strength into the black fields bordering the pike. Let them figure that out, he thought, smiling.

He was tall and broad, heavily and powerfully, built, with an iron-gray crew cut and strong, harshly cut features. When he smiled, his teeth flashed in the darkness, white and pronounced. Everything about him projected a sense of purpose and determination. Everything, that is, but his eyes; they were mild and clear, and when he was excited, they glittered with a childish sort of anticipation and malice.

As he walked swiftly from his car, legs churning powerfully and shoulders hunched into the wind, he was conscious of only two needs. The first was for another car. That was terribly important. He must have a car. And second, and equally important, was the need for something hot and sweet to drink. After what he had done, his whole body ached for the comfort and reassurance of steaming, heavily sugared coffee.

It was not quite seven o’clock.

Trooper Dan O’Leary spotted the abandoned car five minutes later as he swept along with the northbound traffic. He speeded up to give himself room for a turn, then drove up onto the wide lane of grass which separated the north-and southbound streams of traffic. When the highway was clear, he bumped down into the southbound lane and pulled up behind the apparently empty car, the headlights of his patrol car bathing it in yellow radiance. O’Leary picked up the phone that hung on the right side of the steering post and reported to the dispatcher at Turnpike Headquarters, sixteen miles south at the River head Station.

“Patrol Twenty-one, O’Leary, I’m checking a stopped Buick, a ’Fifty-one sedan. New York plates.” He repeated the numbers twice, then glanced at a numbered milepost a dozen yards or so beyond the Buick. The turnpike was marked by such mileposts from the first exit to the last, and O’Leary had stopped at No. 114. He gave that information to the dispatcher and stepped from his car with a hand resting on the butt of his revolver.

This action was reflexive, a result or training which had been designed to make his responses almost instinctive under certain circumstances. There was seldom anything casual or whimsical about his work He had stopped behind the parked car for good reasons; he could approach it under the cover of his own lights, and he was in no danger of being run down. His report to the dispatcher was equally a matter of training and good sense; if he were fired on or if the car raced away from him, its description would go out to a hundred patrols in a matter of seconds And it was the same thing with his gun; the car looked empty, but O’Leary approached it ready for trouble. He flashed his light into the front and rear seats, noted the tweed overcoat and gray felt hat. There was no key in the ignition. He touched the hood and found it warm. Probably out of gas. He went around to take a look at the trunk.

While O’Leary made this preliminary investigation. Sergeant Tonelli, the dispatcher at the Riverhead Station, checked the license number O’Leary had given him against the current file of stolen cars. Tonelli, a tall, spare man with graying hair and thick, white eyebrows, sat in the middle of a semicircular desk in the headquarters office. Strong overhead lights flooded the room with noonday brightness, pushing back the darkness beyond the wide, high windows. The glare of the turnpike swept past the three-storied headquarters buildings, six lanes of traffic flowing smoothly into the night. Directly behind Tonelli a door led to Captain Royce’s office. The captain was at his desk checking certain arrangements and plans which he had submitted weeks earlier to the Secret Service, The plans had been approved, and Captain Royce was presently giving them a last, careful inspection.

The current file of stolen cars was impaled on a spike near Tonelli’s big right hand, and he flipped through the lists with automatic efficiency while continuing to monitor the reports crackling from the speaker above his switchboard. Sergeant Tonelli was responsible for approximately one third of the hundred-mile length of the turnpike. This area was designated as Headquarters North. Two subsidiary stations, Substation Central and Substation South, divided the remaining sixty-odd miles between them; their responsibility was limited to traffic, and in all other matters they look orders from headquarters and Captain Royce.

Under Sergeant Tonelli’s direct control were eighteen patrol cars, assorted ambulances, tow trucks, fire and riot equipment. In his mind was a faithful and imaginative picture of the turnpike at this exact moment; he knew to the mile the location of each patrol car and what it was doing; he knew of the speeding Mercedes-Benz being chased ten miles north; he knew of the accident that had plugged up the slow and middle lanes beyond Interchange 10, and he knew, of course, that Dan O’Leary, Car 21, was presently investigating a Buick parked at Milepost 114.

In addition to this routine activity, Sergeant Tonelli was considering certain areas of the problem that faced Captain Royce. The President of the United States would be riding on the turnpike tonight, entering in convoy at Interchange 5 and traveling south to the end of the pike, a distance of about fifty miles. Sergeant Tonelli would dispatch certain of his patrol cars to that area in an hour or so, and he was turning over in his mind how best to take up the slack that would be caused by their departure.

But meanwhile he continued his check of the stolen-cars file, a check which proved futile.

Trooper O’Leary returned to his patrol car and called headquarters. He said to Tonelli, “Car Twenty-one. O’Leary. Looks like the Buick’s out of gas. The driver must have walked up to the Howard Johnson’s. I’ll check and see if he needs help.”

“Proceed, Twenty-one.”

O’Leary drove into the service area and pulled up to the gas pumps. A wiry, gray-haired attendant hurried to his car.

O’Leary rolled down his window, “Anyone been in for a can of gas, Tom?”

“Not a soul, Dan. Not since this morning, anyway.”

“O.K., thanks,” O’Leary said and drove back to the parking area that flanked the restaurant. The owner of the disabled car might have slopped for something to eat, he thought. O’Leary straightened his shoulders and dark-green jacket before walking into the warm foyer of the restaurant, but both of these corrective gestures were unnecessary; his back was straight as a board, and his uniform was trig and immaculate. O’Leary was twenty-eight, solidly and powerfully built, but his stride would have pleased a drill sergeant. There was almost a touch of arrogance in the set of his head and shoulders, and he handled his body as if it were a machine he understood and trusted completely. He had short black hair and eyes as cold and hard as marbles, but there was something boyish about the seriousness of his expression and the clean, wind-scrubbed look of his skin.

O’Leary had one fact that might help him find his missing motorist; he probably wasn’t wearing a hat or overcoat. He had left them in the car.

But the hostess who escorted diners to tables remembered no such person. “Not in the last ten or fifteen minutes, Dan.” She glanced around the restaurant, which was divided into two large wings, one on either side of a long soda fountain and take-out counter. Both were crowded; the air was noisy with conversation and the clatter of cutlery and dishes. “Of course, he might have come in while I was seating someone.”

“He couldn’t have found a table for himself?”

“Not when it’s crowded like this. But he might have gone to the take-out counter.”

“Thanks. I’ll check that.”

O’Leary stood patiently at the take-out counter while the waitress took an order for hamburgers, French Tries, milk and coffee from a thin young man who seemed vaguely embarrassed at putting her to so much trouble, He smiled nervously at O’Leary and said, “The kids are too little to bring in here. They’d play with the menus and water glasses instead of eating. My wife thinks it’s easier to feed them in the car.”

“She probably knows best,” O’Leary said. “Anyway, eating in a car is pretty exciting for kids.”

“Yes, they get a kick out of it.” The young man seemed relieved by O’Leary’s understanding air. When he went away with his sackful of food, O’Leary asked the waitress if she had served a man recently who wasn’t wearing a hat or overcoat.

“Gee, I don’t think so, Dan.” She was a plain and plump young woman, with mild brown eyes. Her name was Millie. “How come he wasn’t wearing an overcoat?”

“He left it in his car, which is out of gas about two hundred yards from here. I guess he figured he wouldn’t freeze in that time.”

At this point it was a routine investigation, a small departure from O’Leary’s normal work of shepherding traffic along the pike, of running down speeders, of watching for drivers who seemed fatigued or erratic, of arresting hitchhikers, or assisting motorists in any and all kinds of trouble. A car out of gas, the owner not in evidence at the moment; that’s all it amounted to. He might be in a washroom, might have stopped in the service-station office to buy cigarettes or make a phone call. There was no law against his doing any of these things. But O’Leary wanted to find him and get his car back in operation. The safety of the pike depended on smoothly flowing traffic; any stalled car was dangerous.

“Do you want a cup of coffee?” the waitress asked him.

“No, thanks, Millie.” There would be little time for coffee breaks tonight, he knew. A threat of rain was on the cold, damp air, and that meant the hazards of thickening traffic and difficult driving conditions. Also there was the convoy; every trooper on the pike had been alerted to that responsibility.

But at that moment there was an interruption which took O’Leary’s mind off his missing motorist; a dark-haired girl came up beside Millie and said breathlessly, “Has Dan told you about the glamorous date he has tonight?”

“Now, Sheila,” O’Leary said, and ran a finger under his collar.

“Tonight and every night,” Sheila said with an envious sigh, which O’Leary knew was about as sincere as the average speeder’s excuse and contrition. “You see, Millie,” Sheila went on, “Dan and I had a date last Tuesday, and before we went home he took me up to Leonard’s Hill. We could see the turnpike below us, the headlights blazing like long strings of diamonds in the darkness. And do you know what he told me?”

“Now, Sheila!” O’Leary said helplessly.

“He told me he loved the turnpike. Isn’t that lucky for him? Night after night he’s close to his one true love — a hundred miles of asphalt.”

“It’s concrete,” O’Leary said miserably; he knew it was a token point, but he disliked inaccuracies about the turnpike, major or minor. The fact was, he did love that hundred-mile stretch of concrete. And sitting in the darkness with Sheila the other night, it had seemed natural to put the thought into words. Why was he such a fool? And why did she make him feel so helpless and vulnerable? The top of her head barely reached his shoulders, and he could swing her hundred-odd pounds into the air as easily as he would a child, but these things made no difference; he was clumsy and inept with her, driven to silly talk by something intangible and mysterious that radiated from her personality. It wasn’t mere beauty, he knew that much; as an Irishman he was also a poet, and while he appreciated her green eyes and elegantly slim body, his heart and soul responded to more than these physical attractions. There was a quality of grace and strength about her, a thread of steel and music permeating her whole being, and because of this — and because I’m a fool, he thought — he had blurted out his feelings to her that night as they sat watching the traffic on the pike.

In his eyes the turnpike was a fascinating creation, a fabulous artery linking three mighty states, a brilliant complex of traffic rotaries, interchanges and expressways which carried almost a quarter of a million persons safely to their homes and offices each and every day of the year. Consider it, he had urged her, unaware that she was smiling at the clean, boyish line of his profile. This on their fourth date. She was not a regular waitress, but a part-timer filling in on evenings and weekends to help pay for her last year in college. Their fourth date and probably their last, he thought, for he had got on the subject of speeders.

As a logical corollary to O’Leary’s affection for the turnpike was his dislike of those who abused its privileges; and speeders topped this list by a country mile. O’Leary always thought of them as small and shifty-eyed, although the last one he had caught was built like a professional wrestler. They regarded the turnpike as a challenge and troopers as natural enemies. They didn’t have the brains to realize that the checks and safeguards, the radar and unmarked police cars were designed solely for their protection. Instead they acted like sullen, sneaky children, behaving only as long as the parental eye was on them. O’Leary knew their works very well; he had stood dozens of limes at the scene of wrecks, with the moans of the dying in his cars, and seeing the wild patterns of ruptured steel and broken glass, and the nightmarish contortion human bodies could assume after striking a concrete abutment at seventy miles an hour.

He felt strongly about these matters and had tried to make Sheila understand his convictions; but after completing his lecture with an interesting recital of various statistics, he had turned to find her peacefully asleep, with shadows like violets under her eyes and still the faintest trace of a smile on her lips.

Millie had turned to wait on another customer. A woman with two children was trying to catch Sheila’s eye. O’Leary adjusted his cap. Then he said quietly, formally, “I simply wanted you to understand—”

But she didn’t let him finish. “I understand,” she said, smiling up at him. “I couldn’t resist teasing you a little. I’m sorry.” She moved a sugar bowl, and the back of her fingers touched his hand. “It wasn’t very nice of me. I’m afraid.”

“Next Saturday?” he said, smiling with relief and pleasure. “Same time?”

“I’d love to.”

The man who had abandoned the Buick twenty minutes earlier stood in the shadows of the parking lot watching O’Leary and the dark-haired waitress. It was like a movie, he realized with pleasure, the big plate-glass window and the people behind it outlined starkly by the restaurant’s bright lighting. A silent movie, of course. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could see their shifting expressions and the smiles that came and went on their lips.

They weren’t talking business, he thought, and took a deliberate luxurious sip from his container of hot, heavily sweetened coffee. But the big trooper had been very businesslike until the slim, dark-haired girl came along. Talking to the attendant at the gas pumps, then going into the restaurant and quizzing the hostess and the stupid-looking little blonde at the take-out counter. Very serious and efficient. The man watching through the window had seen all that. But now the trooper’s manner had changed. He and the girl were smiling at each other, trying to be impersonal, of course, masking their feelings; but it was nakedly apparent, disgustingly evident to the man sipping the sweet coffee in the dark parking lot. His name was Harry Bogan, and despite his irritation at their intimate, suggestive smiles, he was still grateful they weren’t talking business. The trooper’s business, that is. For it was from this slender, dark-haired girl that Bogan had bought his coffee and frankfurter. And the trooper hadn’t asked her about it; that was obvious.

Without his overcoat Bogan was cold. But he stood motionless in the shadows until the trooper turned away from the counter after giving the girl a last quick smile and a soft salute. Then Bogan walked the length of the parking lot and moved silently into the opening between two cars. He ate his frankfurter in quick, greedy bites, savoring the tart bite of the mustard on his tongue, and dropped the empty, cradlelike container to the ground. Then he finished the coffee, tilting the cardboard cup high to let a little stream of liquefied sugar trickle into his mouth. He let the cup fall at his feet and drew a deep, satisfied breath. Sugar or honey usually made him feel grateful and at peace with himself.

He watched the doors of the restaurant as he pulled a pair or black-leather gloves over his thick, muscular hands. His eyes were bright with excitement. He shivered with pleasure as he found a crumb of sugar on his lip. His tongue moved dexterously, then flicked the tiny sweetness into his mouth.

Bogan did not have long to wait. Within a matter of seconds a plump, elderly man came hurrying along the line of parked cars, fumbling in his pockets for his keys. Bogan shifted his position slightly, moving into the deeper shadows until only his thick glasses glinted in the darkness, as steady and watchful as the eyes of a crouching cat.

O’Leary returned to his patrol car and reported to headquarters. Sergeant Tonelli said. “Captain Royce wants to talk to you, O’Leary. Hold on.”

The captain’s voice was hard and metallic, as arresting as a pistol shot. “O’Leary, did you get a lead on the man who abandoned that Buick?”

“No, sir. I drew blanks with the gas-pump attendants and the waitresses in the restaurant. He probably wasn’t wearing a hat or overcoat — that’s all I had to go on.”

“Get back to that car. Don’t let anyone near it. Lieutenant Trask and the lab men are on their way. That Buick was used in a double murder in New York not more than an hour ago. Get moving, O’Leary.”

Lt. Andy Trask was short and muscular with shoulders that bulged impressively against his black overcoat. At forty-five, the lieutenant was a study in somber tones — broad, tanned face, brown eyes and black hair that only in the past year had faded to silver along the temples. As the lab technicians went to work on the car, searching trunk and glove compartments, fingerprinting and photographing, Trask gave O’Leary an account of the information that headquarters had received in a three-state alarm from New York.

“We’ve got no description on the murderer, except that he’s big, and was wearing a light-colored tweed overcoat and a gray hat. Here’s what he did: Around six-thirty this evening he walked into a little furniture-repair-type shop on Third Avenue in Manhattan and shot and killed the owners, a young married couple named Swanson. It wasn’t a robbery: he just shot ’em and ran out The Buick belongs to a druggist who’d parked it about a half block from the furniture shop, with the keys in the ignition. The killer was seen running from the shop by an old woman in an apartment across the street; but she’s an invalid with no phone.

“It took her half an hour to get hold of her landlady. The landlady, like everybody else in the neighborhood, was down in the street talking about what had happened. So — half an hour later — the invalid tells her story. She described the clothes the guy was wearing and the license number of the Buick. But by that time the murderer had got through the Lincoln Tunnel and onto our pike.” Trask turned and jerked his thumb at the Buick. “Now he’s ditched this crate and more than likely is looking for another one. We’ve got to find him before somebody else gets hurt.”

“With no description,” O’Leary said slowly. “He’s got rid of the tweed coat and gray hat. We’ve got nothing to go on. He could be off and running by now in another car.” He glanced helplessly at the streams of traffic rolling smoothly past him. “Any car, lieutenant. With a gun he could force his way into a station wagonful of college kids. Or climb in with a nice little family group where he’d look like innocent Old Uncle Fred. He could be in a truck, or in a trailer, holding a gun against some woman’s head while her husband drives him off the pike. It’s like chasing ghosts blindfolded.”

The radio in Trask’s black, unmarked car cracked a signal sharply. Trask slipped into the front seat and picked up the receiver. He listened for a few seconds, a frown shading his somber features, and then said, “Check. We’ll get at it.” He dropped the receiver back on its hook and looked sharply at O’Leary. “You called it, Dan. He’s off and running. There’s a dead man up at Howard Johnson’s, and an empty space where his car was parked. Come on.”

The body of the dead man had been discovered by a young couple returning to their car after dinner. The woman almost fell over his legs. Her husband flicked his cigarette lighter to see what was wrong. She began to scream then, and her husband ran back toward the bright lights of the restaurant, shouting for help.

Sergeant Tonelli received the report of the murder from the manager of the Howard Johnson’s and relayed it immediately to Lieutenant Trask. He dispatched Trask and O’Leary to the restaurant and then flashed the information to the communications center at State Police Headquarters in Darmouth.

This was the nerve center of a communications web which embraced every patrol car, station and substation within the state-police organization. In addition it was linked in a master net with the facilities of sin nearby states; under emergency priorities Darmouth could alert the full resources of police departments from Maine to South Carolina, throw its signals across the entire North Atlantic seaboard.

Lieutenant Biersby was on duty in Communications when Sergeant Tonelli’s message was brought to his desk. Biersby, short, plump and methodical, walked with no evidence of haste into an outer room where a dozen civilian clerks under the supervision of state troopers worked at batteries of teletypewriters and radio transmitters.

Lieutenant Biersby’s special talent was judgment; each message Hashed from his office required a priority, and it was his responsibility to establish the order of precedence to be given the thousands of alerts and reports which clattered into the office on every eight-hour shift. A smooth flow, based on relative importance, was essential; lapses in judgment could jam the mechanical facilities and burden already overworked police departments with trivial details and reports.

As Lieutenant Biersby walked toward a teletypewriter operator, he considered the facts: A killer was loose on the pike, a sketchily identified man who had murdered two persons in New York City and another in the parking lot at Howard Johnson’s No. 1 south. It was a reasonable inference that he had killed the third time to get possession of another car. But there was another possibility which didn’t escape the lieutenant; the killer might have left the turnpike on foot. This would be difficult, since the pike was guarded by a nine-foot fence designed in part to keep hitchhikers from getting onto the highway between interchanges. But a strong and agile man might manage it.

It was Biersby’s decision — reached as he walked the twenty feet from his desk to the teletypewriter machine — to alert every police officer fifty miles from the spot the Buick had been abandoned; if the killer had left the pike on foot, he’d be within that circle. All hitchhikers, prowlers and suspicious persons would be picked up for investigation. This was a routine and probably fruitless precaution, Biersby thought; because his judgment, which was blended of experience, instinct and vague promptings he had never succeeded in analyzing, told him that the killer was still on the pike. Speeding safely through the night, an anonymous man in an anonymous car, lost in the brilliant streams or traffic.

He said to the teletypewriter operator, “This is a Special. Get it moving.”

The dead man was in his sixties, small, gray-haired, seemingly respectable; his clothes were of good quality, and a Masonic emblem gleamed in the lapel button-hole of his suite coat. He had been strangled; his face was hideous. He lay in an empty parking space that gaped like an empty tooth in the row of night-black cars. Near one outflung hand was an empty coffee container and one of the small cardboard cradles that were used Tor take-out orders of French fries or frankfurters. There was no identification in his clothes; his pockets had been stripped.

An ambulance had arrived, and the two interns were examining the body in the light from Lieutenant Trask’s flashlight. Three white-and-blue patrol cars blocked off the immediate area, their red beacons swinging against the darkness, and troopers were posted about the parking lot to keep traffic moving. A crowd had gathered in front of the restaurant to watch the police activity.

Dan O’Leary stood behind Trask, frowning faintly at the empty parking space. When Trask turned away from the body, O’Leary touched his arm. “I’ve got an idea,” he said. “The killer took the car that was parked here, that’s obvious. Well, we might get a line on what kind of a car it was from the people who parked beside it. They arrived after he did probably, since their cars are still here. Maybe they can—”

“Yes,” Trask said, cutting him off. “Get those people out here. Fast.”

O’Leary took down the license numbers from the cars on either side of the empty parking space and ran toward the restaurant.

The car on the left was a Plymouth sedan owned by a thin young man with horn-rimmed glasses and a nervous stammer. The owner of the car on the right was a middle-aged woman, a peaceful, padded sort of person, with the kind of composure that seemed to deepen under tension.

Lieutenant Trask, realizing that their memories might be short-circuited by haste or pressure, squandered a few seconds in lighting a cigarette. Then he said quietly, “We’re trying to get a description of the car that was stolen from this space about fifteen minutes ago. It was here when you arrived. You parked alongside it. Now take your time; do you remember anything about it? Any detail?”

“I wa... was in a hurry,” the young man said shrilly. “I’m supposed to be in Cantonville by eight-thirty. I just ra... ran for a cup of coffee. I wa... wasn’t thinking about anything else.”

“Well, it was big,” the woman said, nodding with impeccable assurance. “Its tail stuck out of the line. I had to make two tries before I could get in beside it.”

Their recollections came slowly, haltingly. The young man recovered a remnant of poise and mentioned details of the bumper; the woman remembered something about the lights and fenders. They agreed it was a station wagon, and finally, after what seemed interminable indecision, settled on the color — either white or light yellow. Trask glanced at O’Leary. “Well?”

“If they’re right, it’s an Edsel station wagon,” O’Leary said. “Can’t be anything else.”

“How far is the next interchange?”

“Twenty-eight miles,” O’Leary said sharply. “And he’s only been gone twenty minutes. He can’t possibly make it. And he’ll be easy to spot in a white Edsel station wagon A Ford, Chevy or Plymouth would be another matter.”

“Flash your dispatcher,” Trask said, but O’Leary was already running to his car.

At headquarters Captain Royce, senior officer of the turnpike command, stood behind Sergeant Tonelli checking the reports coming in from interchanges and patrols. The tempo of the office had picked up a sharp, insistent beat in the last half hour; every available off-duty trooper had been ordered back to the pike, and riot squads had been dispatched to substations Central and South. Royce was in his fifties, tall and sparely built, and with a look of seasoned toughness about his sharply chiseled features. As a rule there was little suggestion of tension or impatience in his manner, but now, as he filled a pipe and struck a match, a tight, anxious frown was shadowing his hard gray eyes.

Trooper O’Leary’s report had come in a half hour ago. Within minutes the turnpike had been transformed into a hundred-mile trap; every patrol had been alerted, every interchange had been instructed to watch for the white Edsel station wagon. But so far there was no trace of the killer. Patrols had stopped three Edsels, but in each case the passengers were above suspicion — a carload of college girls, a Texan with a wife and four children, and four Carmelite nuns being transported at a stately speed by an elderly Negro chauffeur.

Royce looked at the big clock on the wall above the dispatcher’s desk. It was eight-ten. The Presidential convoy would swing onto the pike at nine-forty. In just ninety minutes...

Sergeant Tonelli looked up at him and said, “Trooper O’Leary asks permission to speak to you, sir.”

“Where is he?”

“At Interchange Twelve.”

This was twenty-eight miles from Howard Johnson’s No. 1. The killer might be miles beyond that now; he’d beer gone from the Howard Johnson’s more than forty-five minutes. “I’ll take it in my office,” Royce said, and went with long strides to his desk. As he lifted the receiver he saw that it had begun to rain; the turnpike flashed below his windows, and he could see the slick gleam of water on the concrete and the distorted glare from long columns of headlights.

“This is Captain Royce. What is it, O’Leary?”

“Just this, sir. He’s had time to make Exits Twelve or Eleven by now — if he’s thinking about getting off the pike.”

“What do you mean, if? What else could he be thinking about?”

“He made a mistake taking a white Edsel. Maybe he’s realized it. Also he took it from the middle of a row of cars which gave us a lead on it. Maybe he’s realized that too. My guess is he won’t try to get off the pike in that car. I think he’ll try to ditch the Edsel before making a break.”

“Hold on a minute.” Royce glanced quickly at the turnpike map which covered one wall of his office. The interchanges were marked and numbered in red, the Howard Johnson’s restaurants in green. Captain Royce saw instantly what O’Leary meant — before Exit 12 there was another Howard Johnson’s restaurant and service area. This was designated Howard Johnson’s No. 2; it was only twelve miles from No. 1. The killer might have driven only from No. 1 to No. 2; with the fifteen-minute head start he could have made it comfortably — and found another car.

“O’Leary, get back to Number Two on the double. Tonelli will dispatch help.”

Harry Bogan had done as O’Leary had guessed — driven the white Edsel station wagon only as far as Howard Johnson’s No. 2, then abandoned it in the parking lot. Now he stood in the shadows, watching the activity at the gas pumps, a slocky, powerful figure, with the light glinting on his thick glasses and the rainy wind brushing the wiry ends of his gray crew cut. He was smiling faintly, foil lips softly curved, large mild eyes bright with excitement. The police would be sniffing around the exits now, he knew, the long blue-and-white patrol cars lined up like hungry cats at a mousehole. Waiting to pounce.

Bogan knew he had made a mistake in taking the white Edsel station wagon, but he hadn’t time to be choosy. The important thing was to get away from the area where he had left the Buick. But now he could be more discriminating. He had special requirements, and he was prepared to wait until they were satisfied. Time wasn’t important, and in that lay his safety. The police would think he was frantic, ready to bolt at the first whiff of danger. But that wasn’t the case. The feeling of power and control sent a heady flash of warmth through his body.

He heard the thin cry of a siren on his right, the sound rising and Tailing like the howl of an animal. On the turnpike he saw the red beacon light of a police car sweeping with brilliant speed through the orderly lanes of traffic. And he heard other sirens approaching on his left. The first patrol car made a u-turn over the grass strip that divided the turnpike and swerved into the restaurant service area. An attendant coming from the gas-station office stopped within a few feet of Bogan to watch the patrol car flash past the pumps and pull to an expert stop at the parking area in front of the bright restaurant.

Bogan was amused. He said, “Seems to be in a hurry, doesn’t he?”

The attendant glanced toward Bogan’s voice, but saw only the suggestion of a bulky body in the shadow. “Looks like it,” he said.

Bogan recognized the trooper; it was the one who had been simpering at the dark-haired waitress from whom he had bought his coffee and hot dog. Watching him stride along the row of parked cars gave Bogan a curious flick of pleasure. The attendant said, “Well, he’s safer driving at a hundred than most guys are at fifty. That’s Dan O’Leary, and he can really handle that heap.”

The attendant returned to the gas pumps, and Bogan continued his patient examination of the cars lining up for service. He soon found what he wanted, an inconspicuous Ford sedan driven by a young man with horn-rimmed glasses. A college boy, Bogan guessed, noting a bow tie and crew-cut blond hair. This would do nicely. The car was like one of thousands rolling along the pike, and the boy looked intelligent. That was important. There was a lot to explain, and it would be tiresome explaining things to a fool.

By then two more patrol cars had arrived. The troopers had joined the one called O’Leary. Bogan saw. And O’Leary was standing beside the white Edsel, inspecting it with his flashlight. Bogan laughed softly. They thought they were so clever; strutting pompous fools with their uniforms and guns. They’d learn nothing from the big white station wagon. He had parked it off by itself; no one had seen him leave it. They could rip it to pieces, and it would tell them nothing. They had no way to identify him, no way to know what kind of car he would presently ride off in.

The young man was paying for his gas now, and Bogan moved slowly from the shadows. This would require nice timing, he realized. The attendant gave the young man his change and walked back to the next car in line. The young man rolled up his window and started the motor.

Bogan opened the door just as the car began to move. He slid onto the front seat and showed the young man his gun. “Now let’s go,” he said quietly. “We’ve got a nice little ride ahead of us.”

Harry Bogan murdered a young couple in New York and drove to the Tri-State Turnpike. He abandoned his car to avoid identification by the police and started looking for an inconspicuous car to drive.

At the service station near Howard Johnson’s No. 2 he found what he wanted: a Ford sedan driven by a young man with horn-rimmed glasses. The boy looked intelligent. That’s important, Bogan thought. There was a lot to explain, and it would be tiresome explaining things to a fool.

After the young man paid for his gas, the attendant walked back to the next car in line. Bogan opened the door just as the car began to move. He slid onto the front seat and showed the young man his gun.