The basket ball game was being played away, in this town on the other side of the county jail from Prairie Cross.  At the jail, they were holding this man for transport to the prison a few hours away.  He was a murderer, and he had only one hand.  The other hand had been cut off in an accident when he was working on a farm, so he had a hook instead.

This murderer got away from his escort when they were putting him in the car, and took off into the fields.  They chased him, but it was dark and they lost him.  They went back to the jail and put out a bulletin on him.

When the basket ball game was over with, the guy and this girl got in his car and started driving back.  They had the radio on.

Of course, every so often the station would play the announcement about the escaped murderer.  The girlfriend got frightened and cuddled closer to her boyfriend.

He thought this was great.  He hadn't expected much for a first date, maybe a kiss good-night.  But if he pulled over, she might be scared enough to get really close, then he could distract her by necking.

He pretended the car was acting up and pulled into a turn-out by a field.  It was really dark, and there were trees along the drive.  He pulled under the trees and shut the engine off.

The girl was really worried.  She'd been listening to the reports about the escapee, and she knew they were getting close to the county seat.  She locked her door, and reached around him to lock his.

He took his chance then and pulled her close to him and started kissing her.

She pushed him away.

He tried arguing with her that the convict wouldn't stick around, he would take off across the river into the next county.  But she didn't believe him.

They were arguing about it when she thought she heard a noise.  He said he hadn't heard anything and kept trying to kiss her.  But she was sure she'd heard something and demanded that he take her home right away.

He got really upset that he didn't get some necking done, but he really wanted another date with her.  So he started the car and swung around back to the road and started driving back to town again.

They were just outside the county seat when they were pulled over by a road block.  The officer came up to the car and the guy rolled the window down.

"Where were you two parking?"  the officer asked him.

The guy tried telling the officer that they hadn't been parking, since he didn't want the girl to get angrier than she already was.  But the officer told him he knew they'd been parking, so the guy finally told him.

The officer told them to wait, and he went over to the other officers.  They got in their cars and took off back the direction the guy and girl came from.  The officer who'd stopped them came back to the car and told them to get out.

Then he said,  "Look at the door handle."

They turned around and saw that a hooked hand was hanging from the car's door handle.  It had locked, and there was a shirt cuff still attached to it.

"He must have had his hook on the door handle when you drove off,"  the officer told them.

They found the escaped murderer in the field near the turn-out and took him off to prison.