In Cold Pursuit
had known that he would be working late. The detective was sorry to have to ask this question, but it would be vital to their search for her killer. Had they friends aware that she would be alone? Sometimes an evening visit, by invitation or not, was misconstrued, got out of hand . . .He had restrained himself, already hoarding his hatred because it was clear that the police knew nothing of that failed bid for sanctuary. He pointed out that they had been living in the city for less than a month, and that he did not think that his wife’s garb of jeans and one of his old shirts with the sleeves rolled up could be considered provocative. He was spared any more by the entrance of an officer with a wallet incredibly dropped at the scene—during the struggle? Somehow entangled with the knife?
The wallet belonged to a boy out on bond, awaiting trial for the stabbing of a tourist who had declined to give him a cigarette on demand. A factor as incalculable as lightning, and as random in its choice of victim.
He was free to go home then. The cat, Dietrich, was waiting for him on the front step, sneezing reproachfully, and he did not seize it up and hurl it with back-breaking force against a tree. He let it in, instead, and fed it with a curious gentleness. Without even a glance at the clock he telephoned his sister almost calmly to tell her what had happened, and firmly overrode her suggestion that she and her husband come around at once. He said that he couldn’t bear the house at the moment, but would be all right if he went off for a day or two by himself.
Because otherwise the pair of them would take it in turns to be with him every minute, and he could not have that.
His sister had a key to the house, and would undoubtedly be called upon to do whatever had to be done in these instances, and she also had an observant eye. He took a suitcase from the bedroom closet and thrust his shaving kit and some clothes inside, leaving three hangers conspicuously bare and a bureau drawer a little open.
At one point, thinking of a lamp-lit face snapped into darkness, he found himself humming.
His stomach reminded him that he had had nothing to eat since lunch, and he took his ossified dinner from the oven and ate it ravenously before he sat down in the living room with a map of the city spread before him on the coffee table. Dietrich, who had made himself an untidy bed in the yellow knitting, opened his eyes warily at the crackle of paper and then squeezed them tightly shut to render himself invisible; needlessly, because he had been observed without interest.
Three streets over, the driver of the pick-up had said, so here—the tracing finger followed the marked irrigation ditch and paused—was the only place it could be. Sleep now, arid then . . . ? But he could not sleep until he had seen and identified the house with the wagon-wheel gate.
He had the night to himself at this hour, and he found the house easily. It was as dark and tranquil as if nothing had happened there; evidently the woman slept, unperturbed. A sudden eruption of barking drove him away somewhat prematurely, but he had accomplished most of his auxiliary mission. Back in his own living room, he took a copy of the city directory from the bookcase and looked up 843 Hounslow Road.
He set the alarm clock then, to allow himself a few hours of sleep. The police knew the name^of his wife’s assailant, but he had found and would undertake the punishment of her real murderer.
According to the directory, Mary Vaughan.
They were nearly a mile beyond the outskirts of the city when the engine checked, checked again, slowed, and died. Although the symptoms were unmistakable, Mary gazed incredulously at the gas gauge needle standing on zero before she switched off the ignition. She usually took an automatic look at the gauge when there had been any length of time between service-station stops; this morning, with the clear recollection of having the tank filled and the oil and battery checked the day before, she hadn’t.
Into the enormous and final silence of a car travelling fifty-five miles an hour and then standing immovable, Jenny asked curiously, “What do we do now?”
All that barking in the night, thought Mary suddenly. Someone had drained her gas tank. It had happened to her once before, and she had meant to buy a cap with a lock, but things not done in the heat of the moment seldom did get done. She had considered, that other time, keeping a reserve can of gas in the trunk, but then envisioned a rear-end collision in which she and the car would go up in a sheet of flame.
“I walk back to a gas station,” she said, “and you stay here with the doors locked. It can’t be even a mile.”
“No, thanks,” said Jenny, speedily undoing her seat belt. “We both walk back.”
They locked the car. The morning which had felt pleasantly cool was chilly in the blasting wind on the highway, the pebbly shoulder had a faint tilt. It was going to seem a very long walk, thought Mary when they had accomplished perhaps a fifth of it—but here, unmistakably slowing, came one of the vehicles she had half-hoped for: a Volkswagen van, legendary Samaritan of the road. Was it going to turn in at the official-looking building just ahead?
It wasn’t. It honked imperatively at a car bumper starting to nose out from under firs and pulled up on the shoulder. The driver, a blond giant with wavy golden hair and a headband, leaned across a girl holding a baby on her lap and glanced from Jenny to Mary. “You in trouble, ma’am?”
Mary explained about her gas, and the boy said cheerfully,