So Tommy doubled back on his trail. He drove discreetly, well within the State speed limit, to Monrovia and there found a secondary paved road, State Highway No. 35. It was a poor road and wound its way tortuously through a series of foothills, but at length brought him into the city of San Fernando only a few miles from his starting point that morning in Van Nuys. Here he got onto a better road, Highway No. 6, the main inland route to the north.
It was a well-traveled road and Tommy felt uneasy driving on it, yet it led in the general direction he wanted and he kept to it through Newhall and on toward Palmdale.
And then Tommy’s luck began to run out. Passing a road marker that read:
The accident had apparently occurred only moments before; the wheels of the sedan were still spinning and the truck driver was running from his vehicle to help whoever was in the automobile.
Tommy slowed down his coupe, shifted to second to pass the truck on the left side. The truck driver by then had reached the car and hearing Tommy’s motor looked over his shoulder.
“Hey, Mister!” he yelled. “Help me here — they’re bad off!”
Tommy groaned. Common decency would not permit him to ignore the summons, yet his own safety demanded obscurity and flight. But he stopped his car on the left side of the road and ran across to help the truck driver.
There were two people in the car, a middle-aged man behind the wheel and a girl of twelve or thirteen who was on the right side of the car — the side on which the car was resting.
The man was unconscious, the weight of his body holding down the girl, whose face was bleeding. The girl was conscious, however, conscious and whimpering.
The left car door had become jammed and the truck driver was unable to force it open. Tommy, coming up, gripped the door handle with his right hand and turning it with some effort, took hold of the window sill with his left.
“Grab hold,” he said to the truck driver, “and we’ll pull together. One, two... three!”
Steel grated against steel and the car door came up. Letting the truck driver hold it up, Tommy clambered to the top of the car and reaching down, caught hold of the unconscious man’s arm. He pulled up on it, raising the body from the girl underneath, hooked both hands under the man’s armpits and heaved. He brought the man’s head and shoulders up to the door and then the truck driver helped lift him out and lay him on the ground.
Tommy started to climb up to the door again, but the girl’s head and shoulders appeared in the opening and he was able to help her out without climbing up.
He steadied the girl on her feet and then she caught sight of the man on the ground.
“He’s dead!” she wailed.
“I didn’t hit them,” the truck driver declared. “I was coming along, around the curve and the car was just ahead of me. I was about to pass, when all of a sudden the car seemed to go out of control. I had a hard time handling the truck, but I didn’t hit them.”
“I know,” the girl sobbed, “it was — Dad. He... he had an attack — fell over against me and then...” She shuddered. “We turned over.”
Tommy released the girl and, dropping to his knees, felt the unconscious man’s heart. There was no beat.
He got to his feet. A car, coming from the direction of Palmdale, was pulling up on the opposite side of the road and behind it, still several hundred yards away, was a white sedan. Even as Tommy looked the police car sounded off with the siren.
Tommy gritted his teeth and patted the girl’s shoulder. “Take it easy, sis,” he said, “he may be only unconscious.” It was a lie, but Tommy’s brain was already concerned with his own problem.
The car had stopped across the road, disgorged three people, two men and a woman. They came running across. Tommy stepped away from the girl, started across the highway, then the police car came to a screeching halt in the middle of the road, its siren expiring in a final wail.
Two policemen piled out of the car. One of them ran for the group by the wrecked car, the other cut off Tommy’s escape,
“Just a minute, mister!” the policeman said.
“Better call for an ambulance,” Tommy said quickly. “The man’s unconscious.”
The policeman nodded and stepped back to his car, but before he could climb in and put in his radio call, the other policeman got up from examining the dead man and waved to his partner.
The policeman at the car nodded and drew his report book from his pocket. “Your name, please?”
“I wasn’t involved,” Tommy said. “I came up a couple of minutes after it happened.”
“You saw it happen, though?”
“No.”
The truck driver came forward, accompanied by the second policeman. “It wasn’t anybody’s fault; the girl said he had a heart attack while driving.”
“We’ve still got to make a report,” said the policeman with the book. He looked at Tommy. “Your name?”
“James Robertson.”
“Let me see your driver’s license.”
