Then we looked at a box of evidence. Everything from the inside of Mike's car was there, including Richard's tape recorder and all the Inspector Hawkins tapes (the first two were in their boxes, the plastic removed; the third was still in the player; the fourth hadn't been opened), and a little trash bag, which contained a receipt putting him at Elmer's Shell at 6:57 pm.

"Where is Elmer's Shell?" asked Richard.

"Findlay, Ohio," Lt. Gable answered. "About thirty miles north of here."

"North?" I echoed. "Why would he get that far, then turn around? Like he was coming back..."

"Forgot his toothbrush," Steve said.

Richard ignored Steve. "Where is the car now?"

Gable told us the car was impounded at a "secure" lot in town, but he had all the statistics recorded in a file, including the AM radio frequencies that had been punched into the buttons on Mike's radio, the odometer reading, and the position of everything in the car, right down to Richard's tape recorder, which had been upside down in the backseat floor.

"Have you listened to the tape?"

Lt. Gable had. There had been no SOS message, just Lt. Hawkins, 27 minutes into Side 2, saying something about finding his man "face-down in a ditch with a bullet through his brain."

On that cheery note we left, with a promise to check back the next morning.

"The mileage was too high," Steve announced, in the car.

"How do you know?" asked Richard, surprised.

"I checked it before Mike took off: 72,249. Gable said it's 72,682 now. That's what, 430 miles? And from Benville to Lima, even if he did drive up to Findlay and back, that's, oh..."

"258 miles, counting the state road where the car was found. Why didn't you report this to Lt. Gable?"

"He didn't ask me. He only had ears for you, Sahib."

Richard frowned. I knew his brain was telling him to go back inside the police station and tell Lt. Gable, but it was dinnertime. He grunted and started the car.

© Copyright David T. Jarvis 1997, 1998, 1999

All Rights Reserved.