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

to find a licence plate out of the ordinary, he leaned down again. “Are you certain, ma’am?”

Her husband shook his head. “The wife loves puzzles. And she used to teach mathematics, if you can believe it, back in the day, before I married her. So if she says it, you can count on it.” He chuckled, and Ames guessed he’d made that joke more than once. The man looked at Ames impatiently. “Anyway, is that all? We’re going to have to hurry.”

“When did you see the car at the station?”

“I like to have coffee with friends a couple of times a week at that little café near there. I’ve seen it most days, I think, only I just noticed the numbers about a week ago,” the woman answered.

Ames took their names and then touched the brim of his hat. “Thanks, sir, ma’am.” He looked back to where the ferry sat idle in the drenching rain. Terrell was leaning into the tiny cabin holding his umbrella and talking to the ferryman. Ames turned back to the scene. The medics were inside the ambulance smoking. Ames slid the camera bag out of the police car—Terrell had replaced it to keep it dry—and took out a couple of flash bulbs to illuminate the inside of the damaged car. He stepped to the now-gaping passenger door and, propping the umbrella on his shoulder and the roof of the car, gingerly leaned in to snap some photos.

Terrell came back and walked around to where Ames was trying to get a close-up of the man’s torso. “The ferryman is adamant that that car was not on his ferry today, either going or coming,” he said.

Ames frowned and pulled himself upright, looking back toward the ferry. “That’s odd.”

“Yes, sir. I thought so as well. But I did find something else, if I can show you.”

They walked toward the lake and then Terrell stopped and pointed. What Ames saw was a clear indication that a car had swerved violently in a way that left gravel splattered in an arc as it evidently had turned away from the water. Recent traffic had obliterated some of the tracks, but the swerve picked up again at the other side of the road and nearly disappeared off the side.

“Good catch, Constable. So it looks like someone must have sped down this road toward the ferry stop and then swerved violently so that he was heading back toward the main road. It could have been anyone, but my money is on our corpse up there.” They walked toward the other edge of the road.

“He turns violently to stop himself from going into the lake, swings around facing back up the road and nearly goes off the edge here.” Terrell pointed. “And then somehow he gains control of the car enough to get back on the road here but loses it again up there where we found him.”

“So what we have is a dead man, in a locked car that is positioned as though it has come off the ferry. But it hasn’t. Instead it’s careened around and back up here. No car keys in evidence, by the way, though they may be on the floor under the seat or somewhere, and I think the way he’s slumped, almost against the driver-side door, is a bit strange.”

“I’m wondering if he felt some sort of attack coming on and turned down here to be off the main road? Then he realizes he’s headed for the drink and turns the wheel desperately and ends up over here.”

Ames looked up and tried to imagine this. It certainly looked plausible. “The way his left arm and leg are jammed between the door and the steering wheel may have kept him from falling onto the passenger side, either when he died or when the car tilted when he went into the ditch.”

Pictures done, the medics took the dead man onto a stretcher and put him in the ambulance.

Ames searched the man’s car and found nothing, except to note it had an unpleasant but vaguely familiar smell, as if he hadn’t given the car a good cleaning in a while. They’d have to get into the trunk when they got the car towed to the station.

“You boys can help yourselves to his pockets,” one of the medics said.

Ames climbed into the back of the ambulance and gingerly went through all of the dead man’s jacket and trouser pockets, but they were empty. Frowning, he jumped back onto the road and repositioned his umbrella, looking at the space between the two vehicles.

Terrell called out from the car. “No sign of the keys, sir.”

“And no sign of a wallet. Something is very strange here.”

“Do you mind if we get going?” asked the driver. “We’ll drop him at the hospital morgue and you fellows can figure out what to do with him after.”

“Yes, of course.”

As the ambulance drove off, Ames began looking around the car. “No wallet. No keys. Doors locked. Trunk locked. We’ll have to get into that when we get the car back. Was this a robbery?”

“Man’s dying of a heart attack or something, someone’s with him, takes advantage of the situation by robbing him. But why not just roll the driver out and take the car as well?” Terrell asked. “A hitchhiker?” He too began a search, focusing on the shrubby edge of the forest.

“A hitchhiker would have taken the car too,” Ames suggested.

“Unless he can’t drive,” Terrell said.

Ames walked toward the turnoff onto the main road. I’ve got a ride with someone who’s suddenly keeled over with a heart attack; I’ve robbed him, he thought. I’ve locked him unnecessarily inside the car. I need to get away. Have I grabbed the wallet and stripped its contents and thrown it into the bush, or have I taken it with me?

He was surprised when he found it. It hadn’t even been thrown, just dropped at the corner where the main road met the ferry turnoff. It was sitting in a pool