A Match Made for Murder by Iona Whishaw (top 10 best books of all time txt) 📗

“I wouldn’t, sir.”

There was something about the way Terrell said this that suggested he wished to say no more about the subject.

Terrell turned right down the road that led to the lake and the ferry landing and stopped the car in front of the listing green two-door Chevy. The ambulance was close behind. The listing car was at least a decade old. The icy rain was still slashing down. Ames got out, pulling his jacket around him, and strode to the car to look in the window.

“Doors are both locked. He doesn’t look too well. We’re going to have to break in,” he said to the ambulance driver.

Ames gave the window a wipe with his lower arm to clear the water off. A man was slumped forward and against the door. His hat had been knocked off, perhaps as he fell forward, and was balanced on the steering wheel and dashboard. He certainly looked dead. The most the ambulance was going to do was take his body back to town. Still, there might be a chance he was unconscious.

“Go ahead,” Ames said. “I should really put a crowbar in the car.” Terrell had come up and offered Ames an open black umbrella, which was gratefully accepted.

The ambulance medic skirted the edge of the road and found a rock suitable to the job. He went around to the passenger side and smashed the window, then reached inside to open the door. Ames watched him gingerly brush the glass off the seat and lean in to feel for a pulse.

“Constable, could you get the camera?” Ames imagined the driver, taken suddenly by a heart attack, maybe clutching at his chest, losing control of the car. He’s not going very fast because he’s just come off the ferry, Ames thought, and he’s going to turn at the top of the road. The car slides down the short embankment and comes to rest, askew, its nose in the dense underbrush at the edge of the forest. He slumps forward, or even keels over sideways toward the passenger seat because the car is listing steeply in that direction. Ames shook his head slightly. This man was leaning forward, with only his right arm fallen, his hand open, on the seat beside him. His left arm seemed to be jammed between himself and the driver-side door. His position went against gravity and logic.

The ambulance driver backed out of the car and shook his head.

“Dead.” He wiped his hands on the back of his already rain-spattered trousers. “Most likely a heart attack. Strange that he’s leaning against the door like that. It’s like he was trying to get out in a hurry and couldn’t.”

Ames walked around the listing car, hunkering under the umbrella. “Nothing in the position of the car suggests he could have been injured by sliding into this ditch. We’d better get his wallet and confirm who he is. We’ll take a few shots, and then can you load him up.”

“Yes, sir!” said the driver with an exaggerated military salute, and then he made a beeline for the ambulance, pulling his hat down against the sleet.

“Oh, for God’s sake, this downpour is all we need! Terrell, give me the camera.”

The sudden clanging of the ferry gangplank made them both look up. Two cars were coming back to the north side. Both of them slowed down. The driver of the first one, a man in his fifties, stopped and rolled down the window, leaning his elbow on the ledge.

“Something wrong?” At an impatient honk from the car behind him, he waved his arm to have them go around, but Terrell, holding his black umbrella, moved to the second car and pulled out his identification with his free hand and asked the driver to wait.

Ames approached the driver of the first car, pulling out his own card. “I’m Sergeant Ames and that is Constable Terrell. Do you recognize this car? It’s likely he was on the other side earlier today.”

The man looked at Terrell, frowning, and said, “Oh.” And then hesitated.

“Sir, I’m going to go have word with the ferry driver,” Terrell said. “The guy in the other car is trying to get to an appointment in town.”

“Thanks. I won’t be a moment,” Ames said. He turned back to the driver. He could feel the rain on the backs of his trouser legs. “Recognize the car?”

“I’m surprised to see one of them on the police force.”

“I’m surprised you can’t answer a simple question,” Ames said. “Yes or no?”

The man turned his attention back to the car. “Well, no, now you ask. Is something wrong with the guy inside?”

“Do you live in Harrop or Procter?”

“I live out Ymir way, but I go visit my sister in Harrop. What’s wrong with him?”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll ask you to move on now, if you don’t mind.”

The man drove off, peeling onto the main road as if to show his ire at being kept out of the goings-on.

Ames waited while the second car pulled even with him. “Thanks for waiting, sir. We’re just trying to find out if anyone recognizes the car here. Did you see it on the other side?”

The driver, an older man with his wife, turned his mouth down and shook his head. “Don’t think so. Isn’t one of ours. Is that someone in it?”

“So you don’t recognize the car?” Ames pursued.

The man shook his head, but his wife, who had opened the passenger window and was staring through the rain at the car, said, “I recognize that licence plate.”

Ames leaned down to look across her husband at her. “Ma’am?”

“It’s unusual. I noticed it at the train station the other day.”

Ames stood up and looked at the plate. It was white with green numbers. 65-018. He couldn’t see how it was remotely unusual. “In what way?” he asked.

“Oh, well sixty-five minus eighteen is forty-seven. You see the small ‘forty-seven’ down the side, for this year.”

Astounded that anyone would go to the trouble of doing sums