Night Freight

There is a tale behind this tale. It was nominated for an Edgar for best short story of 1978 by the Mystery Writers of America, and didn't win for one major reason: I didn't vote for it. It so happened that in 1979 I was chairman of the five-person MWA committee whose task it was to select five nominees and a winner from among the previous year's short story crop. "Strangers in the Fog" was nominated by one of the other committee members, received two first-place votes, and would have won on points if I'd put it at the top of my own list. Instead, suffering from a crisis of conscience, I cast my ballot for the story with the other two first-place votes, even though I wasn't convinced—still am not convinced after a recent rereading—that it was any better than mine. I've never won an Edgar, despite five other nominations in various categories, and chances are I never will. So . . . did I do the right thing, the wise thing? What would you have done?