Hit and Run

'I just couldn't bear to go to prison.'

'You won't go to prison. You've got to stop working yourself into a panic. We'll discuss it tomorrow.'

She seemed to make an effort to pull herself together.

'Well, all right. I'll wait until tomorrow if you say so,' she said. 'But, Ches, if you don't think you can handle it, I must go to Roger.'

'I'll handle it. Now go to bed and leave it with me.'

For a long moment she stared at me, then turned and began to walk unsteadily up the drive towards the house.

I watched her go until I lost sight of her.

Then I got into the Pontiac and drove back to the bungalow.

While I drove, fear like a misshapen gnome, sat silently on my shoulder.

CHAPTER FIVE

I

BY ten minutes to ten the following morning, I was in such a state of jitter, I did something I have never done before. I drank two double whiskies, one after the other, in an attempt to steady my nerves and quell the sick apprehension that had been gnawing at me all night.

I had had very little sleep, and at seven o'clock I began to prowl around the bungalow, waiting for the boy to deliver the newspapers. For reasons best known to him, he didn't arrive until past eight. As I went out to pick up the papers he had tossed on to the porch, Toti, my Filipino servant, arrived.

Afraid to look at the paper, while he was around, I told him to wash up the coffee things and then get off.

'I'm not going to the office this morning, Toti.'

He looked at me in concern.

'You sick, Mr. Scott?'

'No. I'm just taking the weekend off,' I said, moving towards the terrace, the newspapers burning my hand.

'You look sick,' he announced, continuing to stare at me.

'Never mind how I look,' I snapped. 'Get rid of the breakfast things, and then get off.'

I was frantic to look at the papers, but I somehow managed to control myself. Toti was a smart boy. I didn't want him to suspect anything was wrong.

'I planned to clean up the kitchen this morning, Mr. Scott,' he said. 'It needs it. I won't be in your way.'

Speaking slowly and controlling my voice with an effort, I said: 'Leave it till Monday. It's not often I have a weekend off, and I want to potter around here on my own.'

He shrugged his shoulders.

'Okay, Mr. Scott, anything you say.'

Again I started towards the terrace.

'Oh, Mr. Scott ...'

'Well? What is it?'

'Could I have the key to the garage?'

My heart skipped a beat. He would naturally want to know what the Pontiac was doing there and where the Cadillac was. The Cadillac was one of his great prides. He kept it clean, and it was due to his continual attention that the car still looked brand new after eighteen months of hard driving.

'What do you want it for?'

'There's some cleaning rag in there I want to take home, Mr. Scott. My sister said she'd wash it out for me.'

'For the love of Mike, don't bother me with that!' I snarled at him. 'Forget it! I want to read the papers.'

I went out on to the terrace and sat down. I didn't move until I heard him go into the kitchen, then with an unsteady hand I unfolded the papers.

In banner headlines splashed across the front pages, the newspapers screamed that this was the hitand-run case to end all hit-and-run cases. This, they yelled, was the most callous, ruthless motor killing of all time.

According to the Palm City Inquirer, Patrol Officer Harry O'Brien, the dead man, had been one of the most popular officers on the City's force. All three newspapers carried a picture of the dead man who looked a typical hard, brutal cop: a man around thirty years of age with small, granite-hard eyes, a lipless mouth and coarse heavy features.

The Palm City Inquirer said he was a good Catholic, a good son to his parents and a hard-working, conscientious police officer.

'Only two days before he was so ruthlessly struck down, O'Brien had told friends that he was planning to get married at the end of next month,' the account went on. 'It is believed his fiancée is Miss Dolores Lane, the popular entertainer at the Little Tavern nightclub.'

The editors of all three newspapers shrilly demanded that the City's Administration should find the driver of the car and punish him as he deserved.

But it wasn't the hysterical yapping of the press that really scared me. The attitude of the police was far more menacing.

John Sullivan, Captain of Police, in a press interview held late last night, said that not one of his men would rest until they had found the driver who had killed O'Brien.