In the afternoon Police Lieutenant Bill Riskin came to see me. If the nurse hadn’t told me
he was a police lieutenant I wouldn’t have believed it. He was a little guy, around fifty, with a
sad, wrinkled face and bright little eyes that peered at me through a pair of horn spectacles.
He carried his hat in his hand, and he walked on tiptoe, and when he spoke, his voice was soft
and gentle. By this time I was as jumpy as a nervous horse. I was ready to go into a flat spin
at the drop of a hat. Maybe that’s why they picked Riskin. If they had unleashed that fat
sergeant on me again I’d have flipped my lid.
He pulled up a chair beside me and crossed his short legs. I saw he was wearing boots and
white socks, and his ankles were as thin as match-sticks.
“Well, boy, how’s the head?” he asked.
I said the head was fine. I was clutching on to the sheet, and sweating, suspicious of him,
suspicious of everyone. At the back of my mind I was beginning to wonder if they weren’t
going to tell me I was crazy.
“Doc said you were upset,” he went on. “You’ve got nothing to be upset about. You’re not
the first fella who had a crack on his head and has got confused. You want to take it easy, and
let us boys do the worrying. All we want to do is to get this straightened out. The girl died. If
someone hit you, they didn’t stop, and that makes it a hit-and-run job. It’s our business to find
the fella and teach him not to do it again. We’ll find him more quickly if you can help us.
You want us to find him, don’t you?”
50
That sounded reasonable enough, but he wasn’t kidding me. I’d seen that guy’s car turn
over and smash into a tree before I had blacked out. If they had found me five minutes after
the crash, as the doctor had said, they would have found him, too.
I said I wanted them to find him,
Riskin nodded and peered at me.
“Is it right you were hitch-hiking?”
“Yeah.”
“And the girl let you drive the car?”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t understand why they were so anxious for me to admit
driving the car, unless they wanted to pin Della’s death on me. I began to get the jumps again.
He repeated his question in his mild voice, and even gave me an encouraging smile.
“I was not driving!” I exclaimed, raising my voice. “She was driving. I was sitting at her
side, and her husband was sitting at the back! How many more times do I have to tell you
guys?”
I expected him to start yelling at me, but he didn’t. He just nodded his head and looked a
little sadder.
“I’m sorry, boy. You want to take it easy. You don’t want to get worked up. I guess there’s
been a misunderstanding about who was driving.”
“There damn well has!” I said. “That sergeant of yours …”
“Never mind about the sergeant. He’s been taught to bawl people out. It’s the system. I
never could cotton on to it myself,” and he grinned at me.
I was still a little suspicious of him, but in spite of that, I was beginning to like him.
“Where did she pick you up, boy?” he went on. “You were walking along some road and
she overtook you and you showed her your thumb. Is that what happened?”
“No; you’ve got it all wrong. Look, will you let me tell you what did happen: right from the
start?”
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“That’s just what I want you to do,” he said, and took out a notebook. “Mind if I make a
few notes? I’m not as young as I could be, and my memory ain’t what it was,” and he winked
