Big Ed Wallington, known to fellow troopers in the State Police as ‘Moose’, hitched his chair around in front of the typewriter at the barracks and held big ham-like hands over the keyboard as he pounded out a condensed report of his activities on the previous day’s patrol.
Never particularly adept at punching the keyboard, Moose Wallington paused from time to time to take the cramps out of his fingers.
Seated beside him, a fellow trooper, who had a flair for conversation but no gift for written reports, was finding the going tough.
“Getting so there’s so much paper work in this organisation,” he said, “they’ll have to list writer’s cramp as an occupational hazard.”
“Uh-huh,” Moose said, flexing his fingers. “Had a blow-out last night. Guess it was soft for a while before it went out. But she let go with a bang. Surprising how hot one of those tyres get when it lets go. Believe me, I could hardly handle the thing.”
He returned to the keyboard, started writing names under the classification “Routine checks of driving licences.”
He came to the name Trenton, aged twenty-five, Noonville. Then as he started to type the name in his report he suddenly stopped, his middle finger held poised over the letter he had been about to hit.
“What’s the matter?” the other trooper asked. “Suddenly got a cramp, or is it an inspiration?”
“Darned if I don’t think it’s an inspiration,” Wallington said thoughtfully.
“How come?”
“This business of the tyre getting hot when there’s been a blow-out.”
“Well, what about it?”
“I came on this car last night,” Wallington said, “pulled off to the side of the road, and the driver said he was just getting ready to move on after changing a tyre. He’d had a blow-out all right … and something kept pounding away at the back of my mind about that guy all night. Something seemed to be wrong. I couldn’t figure what it was. Now it’s just occurred to me.”
“What was it?”
“He’d put the blown-out tyre on the spare and apparently had just let the car down off the jack. When I drove up he was putting the tools away and was ready to move on. But there was something about him. You know how you get to playing hunches. You just have a copper’s hunch that something is wrong and … well, hang it, I kept thinking about this fellow.”
“What did he look like?”
“It wasn’t that. It was just the whole set-up. But do you know, Don, I went over and punched that tyre a couple of times, the one that had gone flat with a blow-out. Well, it was flat all right, and I looked at the big hole in the side where the tube had blown out, and somehow something wasn’t right. And it was that blown-out tyre. It was cold as a rock.”
The trooper at the adjoining table was regarding him with questioning eyes. “What did you do about it?”
“Not a darned thing,” Moose Wallington admitted, crestfallen, “because I never noticed it … that is, I noticed it, but I didn’t think about it. Just when I touched that tyre I thought there was something wrong, but for the life of me there a the time I couldn’t think what it was.”
“You checked his licence?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, don’t let Lieutenant Tyler know about it. Put it in as a routine licence check. Shucks, the guy had probably been driving slow and it was night, and …”
“Nope, he was lying to me,” Moose Wallington said. “That tyre hadn’t blown out there. He’d had that blown-out tyre on the spare rim for quite a ways. Long enough so the cool night air had cooled the carcass of that tyre …”
“Or he’d stopped to look at the moon,” the other interrupted. “Go ahead, put it in as a routine licence check-up and let it go at that.”
Wallington shook his head. He ratcheted the sheet of paper down to the place calling for remarks and typed:
Remarks: On state highway 72, about two miles past the junction with highway 40, came on a Rapidex sedan being driven by Robert Trenton of Noonville. Driving licence seemed to be in order and there’s no pick-up order on his car. The party claimed to have stopped for change of blown-out tyre but there was no evidence on the ground that the stop had been for that purpose. Checked files again this afternoon just prior to going on duty to see if there was anything on the car.
Moose started to type ‘found nothing had been reported’, then with a grin decided he’d done enough faking and had better go and check the late bulletins.
Routine procedure required that in case of anything at all suspicious, he should call in on his two-way radio at the scene of the inspection, to find if there had been any late bulletins on the car. He trusted that the fact he had not done so would not seem too apparent to the eagle eye of Lieutenant Tyler, who would scan the report. But having listed Robert Trenton as subject worthy of ‘remarks’ rather than under the routine licence check, Wallington decided it would be highly advisable to make a careful check of the bulletin board.
He found an entry which puzzled him. “Anonymous telephone call from Falthaven reported theft of light, two-door Rapidex sedan, presumably registered in name of Linda Carroll, but with no data available on licence number or engine number. Party hung up in middle of conversation.”
Moose Wallington walked back to his typewriter and continued pounding out his report.
In view of bulletin on Rapidex from Falthaven, feel further investigation should be made of Robert Trenton and this occurrence.
Having signed the report, Big Ed Wallington picked it up and walked to the office of Lieutenant Tyler.