He would be able to put it in his pocket. Denims were common enough, and his coatlessness on a cold and snowy night could be explained by the overheating of most terminal buildings; he might have checked it, or left it with a companion. The neatly blocked dark blond wig was transforming. How likely was it in any case, more than forty-eight hours after Ellie Peale had been forced into a van, that the police would be monitoring points of exit?
It all added up to a reasonably safe escape for Claude and also for Dickens, who could pick his moment to deposit Rosie on a bench and vanish, if there were no witness. Then Amanda must not get near the terminal, she—
The night was suddenly alive with a two-noted warble, rising into a more imperative siren. In the icy and echo-carrying air it was impossible to tell its direction. Claude twisted in his seat and said, “Get into that driveway, fast. Lights off,”
Dickens had fallen back at once. Amanda obeyed, turning in between bordering poplars, heart thumping in a mixture of terror and hope. A second emergency vehicle burst into sound and then both died, blocks away to the east and north: an accident, frequent in this area even when the roads were clear. Claude relaxed out of his tensity. “Move. Blink your lights.”
The house to which the driveway belonged slept tranquilly. Amanda backed and turned, forcing away another wave of trembling, and signaled with the headlight knob. Dickens had found a driveway of his own, and in moments the pickup was sending its warning stings after her.
How far now? Or rather, how long?
“Left,” said Claude as they approached a wide fourway stop, and then, when Amanda was in the middle of the intersection, “No, right!”
She turned the wheel, but not fast enough for him. He seized it, and instinct sent Amanda’s foot to the brake. The snow was not innocuous here; ice had formed in traffic-melted spots and the car went spinning, carrying the night with it. A stretch of adobe wall reeled by and the snow-sculpted bark of an immense cottonwood trunk loomed through the windshield before she got the Rabbit to a halt.
Incredibly, Claude swore at her. Amanda did not bother to reply that the skid had been his fault. Chest still thudding, she glanced into the rearview mirror to await Dickens’ reaction to this apparent rebellion.
They were alone, in a matter of seconds, the pickup with Rosie in it had vanished.
The light gray 1972 Chevrolet van now reposing in the police garage was registered to Claude Eggen, 281a Sevilla, in the northwest quadrant. It said nothing to the naked eye, and an exhaustive examination would wait until morning. What did not wait was a warrant entitling the police to knock at Eggen’s door in the small hours and search the premises if this should be indicated.
In view of the nature of the crime and the extensive publicity, plus an editorial in that evening’s newspaper taking the authorities to task for the initial delay, the warrant wasn’t difficult to obtain. The state police had assisted the sheriff’s department from the second day on, and a unit went along as backup.
In summer, Sevilla Road was green with fields of grapes and patches of chili, its small houses deep in cottonwood shade. Less lovely sights obtruded from the snow: tractors that looked as if they had never run, a broken and dangling swing, a shack which seemed composed of tar paper and aluminum foil. Detective Carroll, in charge tonight, had made inquiries here the year before in connection with the vandalizing of a local school and remembered the atmosphere as tightly buttoned-up: These were hard-working people, it said, who kept out of trouble by minding their own business.
Two hundred-eightv-one was a cut above the rest, recently painted white cement block with, as their headlights showed, unfortunate pink scrollwork around the door. The mailbox said Patterson. The next mailbox, at the head of a long narrow driveway, said 281a and nothing else.
The very small house at the end of it, evidently a rental unit, was as totally dark as its neighbors. The driveway continued around one end to what was, in the headlight dazzle, a backyard containing a number of vehicles. The deputy with Carroll got out and walked to the rear of the house; Carroll approached the front door and knocked, even though the unflawed snow was suggestive.
Deputy Garcia came back, swinging his heavy flashlight. “He’s got four heaps and a kind of garage setup back there,” he reported. “Looks like he fixes them up and sells them.”
Which might explain a bothersome point: Unlike most people, Eggen was not identified exclusively with a single vehicle.
A brief conference with the state police officer followed. They had the warrant and the back door was a flimsy one; equally, the law was full of loopholes and Garcia volunteered that he knew a woman named Claude, in which case . . . The numbering would seem to indicate that the Pattersons were the landlords of 281a, and Carroll and the deputy presented themselves under the ornamental pink scrollwork of the house next door.
Mrs. Patterson, announcing her unhurried arrival by a series of switched-on lamps, proved to be a widow in her trim and well-preserved fifties. She had the fawn-gold hair widely adopted by women of her age, and either slept in her makeup or had taken time to apply it.
She was indeed the landlady of 281a. Informed of the warrant, she widened her round brown eyes and said, “Oh, but that’s ridiculous. For one thing, Mr. Eggen’s been in Denver for the past couple of days, his sister’s very ill there. He had a friend call me
