Chapter 23


Erica Trenton's affair with Pierre Flodenhale had begun early in June. It started shortly after their first encounter, when the young race driver accompanied Adam Trenton home, following the weekend cottage party at Higgins Lake.

A few days after that Sunday night, Pierre telephoned Erica and suggested lunch. She accepted. They met next day at an out-of-the-way restaurant in Sterling Heights.

A week later they met again and this time, after lunch, drove to a motel where Pierre had already checked in. With a minimum of fuss, they got into bed where Pierre proved an entirely satisfactory sex partner, so that when she went home, late that afternoon, Erica felt better, physically and mentally, than she had in months.

Through the remainder of June, and well into July, they continued to meet at every opportunity, both in daytime and during evenings, the latter when Adam had told Erica in advance that he would be working late.

For Erica the occasions were blissful sexual fulfillments of which she had been deprived far too long. She also relished Pierre's youth and freshness, as well as being excited herself by his lusty pleasure in her body.

Their meetings were sharply in contrast with the single assignation she had had, months earlier, with the salesman, Ollie. When Erica thought about that experience - though she preferred not to - it was with disgust at herself for letting it happen, even though she had been physically frustrated, to the point of desperation, at the time.

There was no desperation now. Erica had no idea how long the affair between herself and Pierre would last, though she knew it would never be more than an affair for either of them, and someday would inevitably end. But for the moment she was enjoying herself uninhibitedly and so, it seemed, was Pierre.

The enjoyment gave each of them a sense of confidence which led, in turn, to a carelessness about being seen together in public.

One of their favorite evening meeting places was in the pleasant colonial surroundings of the Dearborn Inn, where the service was friendly and good. Another attraction at the Dearborn Inn was a cottage - one of several on the grounds - a faithful replica of the one-time home of Edgar Allan Poe. Downstairs, the Poe cottage had two cozy rooms and a kitchen; upstairs, a tiny bedroom under the roof. The upstairs and downstairs portions were self-contained, and rented separately to Inn guests.

On two occasions when Adam was away from Detroit, Pierre Flodenhale occupied the lower portion of the Poe cottage, while Erica checked in upstairs. When the main outside door was locked, it was nobody's business who went up or down the inside staircase.

Erica so loved the historic little cottage, with its antique furnishings, that once she lay back in bed and exclaimed, "What a perfect place for lovers! It ought not to be used for anything else."

"Uh, huh," had been all that Pierre had said, which pointed up his lack of conversation and, in fact, a general absence of interest in anything not connected with motor racing or directly involving sex. About racing, Pierre could, and did converse animatedly and at length. But other subjects bored him. Confronted with current affairs, politics, the arts - which Erica tried to talk about sometimes - he either yawned or fidgeted like a restless boy whose attention could not be held for more than seconds at a time. Occasionally, and despite all the satisfying sex, Erica wished their relationship could be more rounded.

Around the time that the wish was developing into a mild irritation with Pierre, an item linking their names appeared in the Detroit News.

It was in the daily column of Society Editor Eleanor Breitmeyer, whom many considered the best society writer in North American newspaperdom.

Almost nothing which went on in the Motor City's social echelons escaped Miss Breitmeyer's intelligence, and her comment read:


***

Handsome, debonair race driver Pierre Flodenhale and young and beautiful Erica Trenton - wife of auto product planner Adam - continue to relish each other's company. Last Friday, lunching tete-a-tete at the Steering Wheel, neither, as usual, had as much as a glance for anyone else.


***

The words on the printed page were a startling jolt to Erica. Her first flustered thought as she read them was of the thousands of people in Greater Detroit - including friends of herself and Adam - who would also see and talk about the column item before the day was out. Suddenly, Erica wanted to run into a closet and hide. She realized how incredibly careless she and Pierre had been, as if they were courting exposure, but now it had happened she wished desperately they hadn't.

The News items appeared in late July - a week or so before the Trentons' dinner with Hank Kreisel and their visit to his Grosse Pointe home.

The evening the item was published, Adam had brought the Detroit News home, as he usually did, and the two of them shared it, in sections, while having martinis before dinner.

While Erica had the women's section, which included Society, Adam was leafing through the front news portion. But Adam invariably looked over the entire paper systematically, and Erica dreaded his attention turning to the section she was holding.

She decided it would be a mistake to remove any part of the newspaper from the living room because, however casually she did it, Adam would probably notice.

Instead, Erica went to the kitchen and served dinner immediately, taking a chance that the vegetables were done. They weren't, but when Adam came to the table he still hadn't opened any of the newspaper's back sections.

After dinner, returning to the living room, Adam opened his briefcase as usual and began work. When Erica had cleared the dining room, she came in, collected Adam's coffee cup, straightened some magazines and picked up the pieces of newspaper, putting them together to take out.

Adam had looked up. "Leave the paper. I haven't finished,"

She spent the remainder of the evening on a knife edge of suspense.

Pretending to read a book, Erica watched covertly each move which Adam made. When at last he snapped his briefcase closed, her tension mounted until, to Erica's unbelievable relief, he went upstairs to bed, apparently forgetting the newspaper entirely. She hid the paper then, and burned it next day.

But burning a single copy would not, she knew, prevent someone else showing the item to Adam or referring to it in conversation, which amounted to the same thing. Obviously, many on Adam's staff, and others he associated with, had read or been told about the juicy piece of gossip, so for the next few days Erica lived in nervous expectation that when Adam came home he would bring the subject up.

One thing she was sure of: If Adam learned of the item in the News, Erica would know. Adam never dodged an issue, nor was he the kind of husband who would form a judgment without giving his wife the chance to state her case. But nothing was said, and when a week had gone by Erica started to relax. Afterward, she suspected what happened was that everyone assumed Adam knew, and hence avoided the subject out of consideration or embarrassment. For whatever reason, she was grateful.

She was also grateful for an opportunity to assess her relationships with both men: Adam and Pierre. The result - in everything except sex and the small amount of time they spent together, Adam came out far ahead.

Unfortunately - or perhaps fortunately - for Erica, sex continued to be important in her life, which was the reason she agreed to meet Pierre again a few days later, though this time cautiously and across the river in Windsor, Canada. But of all their rendezvous, this latest proved the least successful.

The fact was: Adam had the kind of mind which Erica admired. Pierre didn't. Despite Adam's obsessive work habits, he was never out of touch with the sum of life around him; he had strong opinions and a social conscience. Erica enjoyed hearing Adam talk - on subjects other than the auto industry. In contrast, when she asked Pierre for his views on a Detroit civic housing controversy, which had been headline news for weeks, Pierre had never heard of it. "Figure all that stuff's none of my business," was a stock reply. Nor had he ever voted. "Wouldn't know how, and I'm not much interested."

Erica was learning: An affair, to be successful and satisfying, needed other ingredients than merely fornication.

When she asked herself the question: Who, of all the men she knew, would she soonest have an affair with, Erica came up with the revealing answer - Adam.

If only Adam would function as an entire husband.

But he rarely did.

The thought about Adam stayed foremost in her mind through several more days, carrying over to their evening at Grosse Pointe with Hank Kreisel.

Somehow, it seemed to Erica, the ex-Marine parts manufacturer managed to bring out all that was best in Adam, and she followed the talk about Hank Kreisel's thresher, including Adam's cogent questioning, with fascination. It was only afterward, going home, when she remembered the other part of Adam she had once possessed - the eager lover, explorer of her body, now seemingly departed - that despair and anger overwhelmed her.

Her statement, later the same night, that she intended to divorce Adam had been real. It seemed hopeless to go on. Nor, next day or during others following, had Erica's resolve weakened.

It was true she did nothing specific to set the machinery of divorce in motion, and did not move out of the Quarton Lake house, though she continued sleeping in the guest bedroom. Erica simply felt that she needed a chance, in limbo, to adjust.

Adam did not object - to anything. Obviously he believed that time could heal their differences, though Erica did not. Meanwhile she continued to keep house, and also agreed to meet Pierre, who had telephoned to say he would be briefly in Detroit during an absence from the racing circuit.


***

"Something's wrong," Erica said. "I know it is, so why don't you tell me?"

Pierre appeared uncertain and embarrassed. Along with his boyishness, he had a transparent manner which revealed his moods.

He said, in bed beside her, "It's nothing, I guess."

Erica propped herself on an elbow. The motel room was darkened because they had drawn the drapes on coming in. Even so, enough light filtered through for her to see the surroundings clearly, which were much like those of other motels they had been in - characterless, with mass-produced furniture and cheap hardware. She glanced at her watch. It was two in the afternoon, and they were in the suburb of Birmingham because Pierre had said he would not have time to drive across the river into Canada.

Outside, the day was dull and the midday forecast had predicted rain.

She turned back to study Pierre whose face she could see clearly too.

He flashed a smile, though with a touch of wariness, Erica thought. She noticed that his shock of blond hair was mussed, undoubtedly because she had run her hands through it during their recent love-making.

She had grown genuinely fond of Pierre. For all his lack of intellectual depth, he had proved agreeable, and sexually was every inch a man, which was what Erica had wanted after all. Even the occasional arrogance - the star syndrome she had been aware of at their first meeting - seemed to fit the masculinity.

"Don't mess about," Erica insisted. "Tell me whatever's on your mind."

Pierre turned away, reaching for his trousers beside the bed and searched in their pockets for cigarettes. "Well," he said, not looking at her directly, "I guess it's us."

"What about us?"

He had a cigarette alight and blew smoke toward the ceiling. "From now on I'll be more often at the tracks. Won't get to Detroit as much. Thought I ought to tell you."

There was a silence between them as a coldness gripped Erica which she struggled not to show. At length she said, "Is that all, or are you trying to tell me something else?"

Pierre looked uneasy. "Like what?"

"I should think you'd be the one to know that."

"It's just . . . well, we've been seeing a lot of each other. For a long time."

"It certainly is a long time." Erica tried to keep her voice light, knowing hostility would be a mistake. "It's every bit of two and a half months."

"Gee! Is that all?" His surprise seemed genuine.

"Obviously, to you it seems longer."

Pierre managed a smile. "It isn't like that."

"Then just how is it?"

"Hell, Erica, all it is - we won't be seeing each other for a while."

"For how long? A month? Six months? Even a year?"

He answered vaguely, "Depends how things go, I guess."

"What things?"

Pierre shrugged.

"And afterward," Erica persisted, "after this indefinite time, will you call me or shall I call you?" She knew she was pushing too hard but had become impatient with his indirectness. When he didn't answer, she added,

"Is the band playing, 'It's Time to Say Goodbye'? Is this the brush-off?

If it is, why not say so and have done with it?"

Clearly, Pierre decided to grasp the opportunity presented. "Yes," he said, I guess you could say that's the way it is."

Erica took a deep breath. "Thank you for finally giving me an honest answer. Now, at least, I know where I stand."

She supposed she could scarcely complain. She had insisted on knowing and now had been told, even though, from the beginning of the conversation, Erica had sensed the intention in Pierre's mind. At this moment she had a mixture of emotions - the foremost, hurt pride because she had assumed that if either of them chose to end the affair it would be herself. But she wasn't ready to end it, and now, along with the hurt she had a sense of loss, sadness, an awareness of loneliness to come. She was realist enough to know that nothing would be gained by pleading or argument. One thing Erica had learned about Pierre was that he had all the women he needed or wanted; she knew, too, there were others whom Pierre had tired of ahead of herself. Suddenly she felt like crying at the thought of being one more, but willed herself not to. She'd be damned if she would feed his ego by letting him see how much she really minded.

Erica said coolly, "Under the circumstances there doesn't seem much point in staying here."

"Hey!" Pierre said. "Don't be mad." He reached under the bedclothes for her, but she evaded him and slipped from the bed, taking her clothes to the bathroom to dress. Earlier in their relationship, Pierre would have scrambled after her, seized her, and forced her playfully back to the bed, as had happened once before when they quarreled. Now he didn't, though she had been half-hoping that he would.

Instead, when Erica came out of the bathroom, Pierre was dressed too, and only minutes later they kissed briefly, almost perfunctorily, and parted. He seemed relieved, she thought, that their leave-taking had been accomplished with so little trouble.

Pierre drove away in his car, reaching speed with a squeal of tires as he left the motel parking lot. Erica followed more slowly in her convertible.

Her last glimpse of him was as he waved and smiled.

By the time she reached the first intersection, Pierre's car was out of sight.

She drove another block and a half before realizing she had not the slightest notion where she was going. It was close to three in the afternoon and was now raining drearily, as the forecast said it would. Where to go, what to do? . . . with the rest of the day, with the rest of her life. Suddenly, like a pent-up flood released, the anguish, disappointment, bitterness, all of which she had postponed in the motel, swept over her. She had a sense of rejection and despair as her eyes filled with tears, which she let course down her cheeks unchecked. Still driving the car, mechanically, Erica continued through Birmingham, uncaring where she went.

One place she did not want to go was home to the house at Quarton Lake.

It held too many memories, an excess of unfinished business, problems she had no capacity to cope with now. She drove a few more blocks, turned several corners, then realized she had come to Somerset Mall, in Troy, the shopping plaza where, almost a year ago, she had taken the perfume - her first act of shoplifting. It had been the occasion on which she had learned that a combination of intelligence, quickness, and nerve could be rewarding in diverse ways. She parked the car and walked through the rain to the indoor mall.

Inside, she wiped the rain and the tears together from her face.

Most stores within the shopping plaza were moderately busy. Erica wandered into several, glancing at Bally shoes, a display of F.A.O. Schwarz toys, the colorful miscellany of a boutique. But she was going through motions only, wanting nothing that she saw, her mood increasingly listless and depressed. In a luggage store she browsed, and was about to leave when a briefcase caught her attention. It was of English cowhide, gleaming brown.

It lay on a glass-topped table at the rear of the store. Erica's eyes moved on, then inexplicably returned. She thought: there was no reason in the world why she should possess a briefcase; she had never needed one, nor was ever likely to. Besides, a briefcase was a symbol of so much that she detested - the tyranny of work brought home, the evenings Adam spent with his own briefcase opened, the countless hours which he and Erica had never shared. Yet she wanted the briefcase she had just seen, wanted it - irrationally - here and now. And intended to have it.

Perhaps Erica thought, she would give the briefcase to Adam as a parting, splendidly sardonic gift.

But was it necessary to pay for it? She could pay, of course, except that it would be more challenging to take what she wanted and walk away, as she had done so skillfully the other times. Doing so would add some zest to the day. There had been little enough so far.

Pretending to examine something else, Erica surveyed the store. As on other occasions when she had shoplifted, she felt a rising excitement, a heady, delicious combination of fear and daring.

There were three salespeople, she observed a girl and two men, one of the men older and presumably the manager. All were occupied with customers. Two or three other people in the store were, like Erica, browsing. One, a mousy grandmother-type, was examining luggage tags on a card.

By a roundabout route, pausing on the way, Erica sauntered to the display table where the briefcase lay. As if noticing it for the first time, she picked it up and turned it over for inspection. While doing so, a swift glance confirmed that the trio of salesclerks were still busy.

Continuing her inspection of the case, she opened it slightly and nudged two labels on the outside into the interior, out of view. Still casually, Erica lowered the case as if replacing it, but instead let it swing downward below the display table level, still in her hand. She looked boldly around the store. Two of the people who had been walking around were gone; one of the salesclerks had begun attending to another customer; otherwise, everything was the same.

Unhurriedly, swinging the briefcase slightly, she strolled toward the store doorway. Beyond it was the terraced indoor mall, connecting with other stores and protecting shoppers from the weather. She could see a fountain playing and hear its plash of water. Beyond the fountain, she noted, was a uniformed security guard, but he had his back toward the luggage store and was chatting with a child. Even if the guard saw Erica, once she had left the store there was no reason for him to be suspicious.

She reached the doorway. No one had stopped her, or even spoken.

Really! It was all too easy.

"Just a moment!"

The voice - sharp, uncompromising - came from immediately behind. Startled, Erica turned.

It was the mousy grandmother-type who had seemed to be engrossed with luggage tags. Except that now she was neither mousy nor grandmotherly, but with hard eyes and thin lips set in a firm line. She moved swiftly toward Erica, at the same time calling to the store manager, "Mr. Yancy! Over here!" Then Erica found her wrist gripped firmly and when she tried to free it, the grip tightened like a clamp.

Panic flooded through Erica. She protested, flustered, "Let me go!"

"Be quiet!" the other woman ordered. She was in her forties - not nearly as old as she had dressed herself to look. "I'm a detective and you've been caught stealing." As the manager hurried over, she informed him,

"This woman stole that case she's holding. I stopped her as she was leaving."

"All right," the manager said, "we'll go in the back." His manner, like the woman detective's was unemotional, as if he knew what to do and would carry a distasteful duty through. He had barely glanced at Erica so that already she felt faceless, like a criminal.

"You heard," the woman detective said. She tugged at Erica's wrist, turning toward the rear of the store which presumably housed offices out of sight.

"No! No!" Erica set her feet firmly, refusing to move. "You're making a mistake."

"Your kind of people make the mistakes, sister," the woman detective said. She asked the store manager cynically, "Did you ever meet one who didn't say that?"

The manager looked uncomfortable. Erica had raised her voice; now heads had turned and several people in the store were watching. The manager, clearly wanting the scene removed from view, signaled urgently with his head.

It was at that moment Erica made her crucial mistake. Had she accompanied the other two as they demanded, the procedure following would almost certainly have fitted a pattern. First, she would have been interrogated - probably harshly, by the woman detective - after which, more than likely, Erica would have broken down, admitted her guilt and pleaded for leniency. During the interrogation she would have revealed that her husband was a senior auto executive.

After admitting guilt, she would have been urged to make a signed confession. She would have written this out, however reluctantly, in her own handwriting.

After that she would have been allowed to go home with - so far as Erica was concerned - the incident closed.

Erica's confession would have been sent by the store manager to an investigative bureau of the Retail Merchants Association. If a record of previous offenses was on file, prosecution might have been considered.

With a first offense - which, officially, Erica's was - no action would be taken.

Suburban Detroit stores, especially those near well-to-do areas like Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills, were unhappily familiar with women shoplifters who stole without need. It was not the store operators' business to be psychologists as well as retailers; nonetheless, most knew that reasons behind such stealing included sexual frustrations, loneliness, a need for attention - all of them conditions to which auto executives' wives were exceptionally vulnerable. Something else the stores knew was that prosecution, and publicity which the court appearance of an auto industry big name would bring, could harm their businesses more than aid them. Auto people were clannish, and a store which persecuted one of their number could easily suffer a general boycott.

Consequently, retail businesses used other methods. Where an offender was observed and known, she was billed for the items taken, and usually such bills were paid without question. At other times, when identity was established, a bill followed in the same way; also, the scare of being detained, plus hostile questioning, were often enough to deter further shoplifting for a lifetime. But whichever method was used, the Detroit stores' objective, overall, was quietness and discretion.

Erica, panicky and desperate, left none of the quieter compromises open.

Instead, she jerked her wrist free from the woman detective and - still clutching the stolen briefcase - turned and ran.

She ran from the luggage store into the mall, heading for the main outer door by which she had come in. The woman detective and the manager, taken by surprise, did nothing for a second or so. The woman recovered first. She sped after Erica, shouting, "Stop her! Stop that woman! She's a thief!"

The uniformed security guard in the mall, who had been chatting with a child, swung around at the shouts. The woman detective saw him. She commanded, "Catch that woman! The one running! Arrest her! She stole that case she's carrying."

Moving quickly, the guard ran after Erica as shoppers in the mall stood gaping, craning for a view. Others, hearing the shouting, hurried out of stores. But none attempted to stop Erica as she continued running, her heels tap-tap-tapping on the terrazzo floor. She went on, heading toward the outer door, the security guard still pounding behind.

To Erica, the ghastly shouts, people staring as she passed, the pursuing feet, now drawing closer, all were a nightmare. Was this really happening? It couldn't be! In a moment she must wake. But instead of waking, she reached the heavy outer door. Though she pushed hard, it opened with maddening slowness. Then she was outside, in the rain, her car on the parking lot only yards, away.

Her heart was pounding, breath coming hard from the exertion of running and from fear. She remembered that fortunately she hadn't locked the car. Tucking the purloined briefcase under her arm, Erica fumbled open her handbag, scrabbling inside for car keys. A stream of objects fell from the handbag; she ignored them but located the keys. She had the ignition key ready as she reached the car, but could see that the security guard, a youngish, sturdily built man, was only yards away. The woman detective was following behind, but the guard was closest. Erica realized - she wouldn't make it! Not get inside the car, start the engine and pull away before he reached her. Terrified, realizing the consequences would be even greater now, despair engulfed her.

At that moment the security guard slipped on the rain-wet parking lot surface and fell. He went down fully, and lay a moment dazed and hurt before he scrambled up.

The guard's misfortune gave Erica the time she needed. Slipping into the car, she started the engine, which fired instantly, and drove away. But even as she left the shoppers' parking lot a new anxiety possessed her: Had her pursuers read the car license number?

They had. As well, they had the car's description - a current model convertible, candy apple red, distinctive as a blossom in winter.

And as if that were not enough, among the items spilted from Erica's handbag and left behind, was a billfold with credit cards and other identification. The woman detective was collecting the fallen items while the security guard, his uniform wet and soiled, and with a painfully sprained ankle, limped to a telephone to call the local police.


***

It was all so ridiculously easy that the two policemen were grinning as they escorted Erica from her car to theirs. Minutes earlier the police cruiser had pulled alongside the convertible and without fuss, not using flashing lights or siren, one of the policemen had waved her to stop, which she did immediately, knowing that anything else would be insane, just as attempting to run away to begin with had been madly foolish.

The policemen, both young, had been firm but also quiet and polite so that Erica felt less intimidated than by the antagonistic woman detective in the store. In any case, she was now totally resigned to whatever was going to happen. She knew she had brought disaster on herself, and whatever other disasters followed would happen anyway because it was too late to change anything, whatever she said or did.

"Our orders are to take you in, ma'am," one of the policemen said. "My partner will drive your car."

Erica gasped, "All right." She went to the rear of the cruiser where the policeman had the door open for her to enter, then shrank back when she realized the interior was barred and she would be locked inside as if in a cell.

The policeman saw her hesitate. "Regulations," he explained. "I'd let you ride up front if I could, but if I did they'd likely put me in the back."

Erica managed a smile. Obviously the two officers had decided she was not a major criminal.

The same policeman asked, "Ever been arrested before?"

She shook her head.

"Didn't think you had. Nothing to it after the first few times. That is, for people who don't make trouble."

She entered the cruiser, the door slammed, and she was locked in.

At the suburban police station she had an impression of polished wood, and tile floors, but otherwise was only dully aware of the surroundings.

She was cautioned, then questioned about what happened at the store.

Erica answered truthfully, knowing the time for evasion was past. She was confronted by the woman detective and the security guard, both hostile, even when Erica confirmed their version of events. She identified the briefcase she had stolen, at the same time wondering why she had ever wanted it. Later, she signed a statement, then was asked if she wished to make a telephone call. To a lawyer? To her husband? She answered no.

After that, she was taken to a small room with a barred window at the rear of the police station, locked in, and left alone.


***

The chief of the suburban police force, Wilbur Arenson, was not a man who burried needlessly. Many times during his career, Chief Arenson had found that slowness, when it could be managed, paid off later, and thus he had taken his time while reading several reports concerning an alleged shoplifting which occurred earlier in the afternoon, followed by a suspect's attempted flight, a police radio alert and, later, an interception and detention. The detained suspect, one Erica Marguerite Trenton, age twenty-five, a married woman living at Quarton Lake, had been cooperative, and further had signed a statement admitting the offense.

Under normal procedure the case would have gone ahead routinely, with the suspect charged, a subsequent court appearance and, most likely, a conviction. But not everything in a Detroit suburban police station proceeded according to routine.

It was not routine for the chief to review details of a minor criminal case, yet certain cases - at subordinates' discretion - found their way to his desk.

Trenton. The name stirred a chord of memory. The chief was not sure how or when he had heard the name before, but knew his mind would churn out the answer if he didn't rush it. Meanwhile, he continued reading.

Another departure from routine was that the station desk sergeant, familiar with the ways and preferences of his chief, had not so far booked the suspect. Thus no blotter listing yet existed, with a name and charges listed, for press reporters to peruse.

Several things about the case interested the chief. First, a need of money obviously was not a motive. A billfold, dropped on the shopping plaza parking lot by the fleeing suspect, contained more than a hundred dollars cash as well as American Express and Diners cards, plus credit cards from local stores. A checkbook in the suspect's handbag showed a substantial balance in the account.

Chief Arenson knew all about well-heeled women shoplifters and their supposed motivations, so the money aspect did not surprise him. More interesting was the suspect's unwillingness to give information about her husband or to telephone him when allowed the opportunity.

Not that it made any difference. The interrogating officer had routinely checked out ownership of the car she was driving, which proved to be registered to one of the Big Three auto manufacturers, and a further check with that company's security office revealed it was an official company car, one of two allocated to Mr. Adam Trenton.

The company security man had let that item of information about two cars slip out, though he hadn't been asked, and the police officer phoning the inquiry had noted it in his report. Now, Chief Arenson, a stockily built, balding man in his late fifties, sat at his desk and considered the notation.

As the police chief well knew, plenty of auto executives drove company cars. But only a senior executive would have two company cars - one for himself, another for his wife.

Thus it required no great deductive powers to conclude that the suspect, Erica Marguerite Trenton, now locked in a small interrogation room instead of in a cell - another intuitive move by the desk sergeant - was married to a reasonably important man.

What the chief needed to know was: How important? And how much influence did Mrs. Trenton's husband have?

The fact that the chief would take time to consider such questions at all was a reason why suburban Detroit communities insisted on maintaining their own local police forces. Periodically, proposals appeared for a merger of the score or more of separate police forces of Greater Detroit into a single metropolitan force. Such an arrangement, it was argued, would ensure better policing by eliminating duplication, and would also be less costly. The metropolitan system, its advocates pointed out, worked successfully elsewhere.

But the suburbs - Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Troy, Dearborn, the Grosse Pointes and others - were always solidly opposed. As a result, and because residents of those communities had influence where it counted, the proposal always failed.

The existing system of small, independent forces might not be the best means of providing equal justice for all, but it did give local citizens whose names were known a better break when they, their families or friends transgressed the law.

Presto! - the chief remembered where he had heard the name Trenton before.

Six or seven months ago, Chief Arenson had bought a car for his wife from the auto dealer, Smokey Stephensen. During the chief's visit to the dealer's showroom on Saturday, he recalled - Smokey had introduced him to an Adam Trenton from the auto company's head office. Afterward and privately, while Smokey and the chief made their deal about the car, Smokey mentioned Trenton again, predicting that he was going higher in the company, and one day would be its president.

Reflecting on the incident, and its implications at this moment, Chief Arenson was glad he had dawdled. Now, not only was he aware that the woman being detained was someone of consequence, but he had the further knowledge of where to get extra information which might be helpful in the case.

Using an outside line on his desk, the chief telephoned Smokey Stephensen.

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