Wheels (56 page)

Erica gasped, "All right
.”

She went to the rear of the cruiser where the
policeman had the door open for her to enter, then shrank back when she
realized the interior was barred and she would be locked inside as if
in a cell.
The policeman saw her hesitate. "Regulations," he explained. "I'd let
you ride up front if I could, but if I did they'd likely put me in the
back
.”

Erica managed a smile. Obviously the two officers had decided she was
not a major criminal.
The same policeman asked, "Ever been arrested before
.”

She shook her head.
Didn't think you had. Nothing to it after the
first few times. That is, for people who don't make trouble
.”

She entered the cruiser, the door slammed, and she was locked in.
At the suburban police station she had an impression of polished wood,
and tile floors, but otherwise was only dully aware of the surroundings.
She was cautioned, then questioned about what happened at the store.
Erica answered truthfully, knowing the time for evasion was past. She
was confronted by the woman detective and the security guard, both
h
ostile, even when Erica confirm
ed their version of events. She
identified the briefcase she had stolen, at the same time wondering why
she had ever wanted it. Later, she signed a statement, then was asked
if she wished to make a telephone call. To a lawyer? To her husband? She
answered no.
After that, she was taken to a small room with a barred window at the
rear of the pol
ice station, locked in, and lef
t alone. The chief of the suburban police force, Wilbur Arenson, was not a man
who hur
ried needlessly. Many times during his career, Chief Arenson had
found that slowness, when it could be managed, paid off later, and thus
he had taken his time while reading several reports concerning an
alleged shoplifting which occurred earlier in the afternoon, followed
by a suspect's attempted flight, a police radio alert and, later, an
interception and detention. The detained suspect, one Erica Marguerite
Trenton, age twenty-five, a married woman living at Quarton Lake, had
been cooperative, and further had signed a statement admitting the
offense.
Under normal procedure the case would have gone ahead routinely, with
the suspect charged, a subsequent court appearance and, most likely, a
conviction. But not everything in a Detroit suburban police station
proceeded according to routine.
It was not routine for the chief to review details of a minor criminal
case, yet certain cases
at subordinates' discretion-found their way to
his desk.
Trenton. The name stirred a chord of memory. The chief was not sure how
or when he had heard the name before, but knew his mind would churn out
the answer if he didn't rush it. Meanwhile, he continued reading.
Another departure from routine was that the station desk sergeant,
familiar with the ways and preferences of his chief, had not so far
booked the suspect. Thus no blotter listing yet existed, with a name and
charges listed, for press reporters to peruse.
Several things about the case interested the chief. First, a need of
money obviously was not a motive. A billfold, dropped on the shopping
plaza parking lot by the fleeing suspect, contained more than a hundred
dollars cash as well as American Express and Diners cards, plus credit
cards from local stores. A checkbook in the suspect's handbag showed a
substantial balance in the account.
Chief Arenson knew all about well-heeled women shoplifters and their
supposed motivations, so the money aspect did not surprise him. More
interesting was the suspect's unwillingness to give information about
her husband or to telephone him when allowed the opportunity.
Not that it made any difference. The interrogating officer had routinely
checked out ownership of the car she was driving, which proved to be
registered to one of the Big Three auto manufacturers, and a further
check with that company's security office revealed it was an official
company car, one of two allocated to Mr. Adam Trenton.
The company security man had let that item of information about two cars
slip out, though he hadn't been asked, and the police officer phoning
the inquiry had noted it in his report. Now, Chief Arenson, a stockily
built, balding man in his late fifties, sat at his desk and considered
the notation.
As the police chief well knew, plenty of auto executiv
e
s drove company
cars. But only a senior executive would have two company cars-one for
himself, another for his wife.
Thus it required no great deductive powers to conclude that the suspect,
Erica Marguerite Trenton, now locked in a small interrogation room instead of in a cell-another intuitive move by the desk sergeant-was
married to a reasonably important man.
What the chief needed to know was: How important? And how much influence
did Mrs. Trenton's husband have?
The fact that the chief would take time to consider such questions at
all was a reason why suburban Detroit communities insisted on maintaining their own local police forces. Periodically, proposals appeared
for a merger of the score or more of separate police forces of Greater
Detroit into a single metropolitan force. Such an arrangement, it was
argued, would ensure better policing by eliminating duplication, and
would also be less costly. The metropolitan system, its advocates
pointed out, worked successfully elsewhere.
But the suburbs
Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Troy, Dearborn, the
Grosse Pointes and others-were always solidly opposed. As a result, and
because residents of those communities had influence where it counted,
the proposal always failed.
The existing system of small, independent forces might not be the best
means of providing equal justice for all, but it did give local citizens
whose names were known a better break when they, their families or friends
transgressed the law.
Presto!-th
e chief remembered where he had heard the name Trenton before.
Six or seven months ago, Chief Arenson bad bought a car for his wife
from the auto dealer, Sm
okey Stephensen. During the chief's visit to
the dealer's showroom
,
a Saturday, he recalled-Smokey had introduced him
to an Adam Trenton from the auto company's head office. Afterward and
privately, while Smokey and the chief made their deal about the car,
Smokey mentioned Trenton again, predicting that he was going higher in
the company, and one day would be its president.
Reflecting on the incident, and its implications at this moment, Chief
Arenson was glad he had dawdled. Now, not only was he aware that the
woman being detained was someone of consequence, but he had the further
knowledge of where to get extra information which might be helpful in
the case.
Using an outside line on his desk, the chief telephoned Smokey
Stephensen.

Chapter
twenty-four

Sir Per
ceval McDowall Stuyvesant, Bart
and Adam Trenton had known each
other and been friends for more than twenty years. It was a loose
friendship. Sometimes two years or more slipped by without their meeting,
or even communicating, but whenever they were in the same town, which
happened occasionally, they got together and picked up the old
relationship easily, as if it had never been set down.
A reason, perhaps, for the lasting friendship was their dissimilarity.
Adam, while imaginative, was primarily a master of organization, a
pragmatist who got things done. Sir Perceval, imaginative too and with
a growing reputation as a brilliant scientist, was essentially a dreamer
who had trouble mastering each day's practicalities-the kind of man who
might invent a zipper but subsequently forget to zip up his own fly.
Their backgrounds were equally at variance. Sir Perceval was the last
of a line of English squires, his father dead and the inherited title
genuine. Adam's father had been a Buffalo, New York, steelworker.
The two met in college-at Purdue University. They were the same age and
graduated together, Adam in Engineering; Perceval, whom his friends
called Perce, in Physics. Afterward, Perce spent several more years
gathering scientific degrees as casually as a child gathers daisies,
then worked for a while for the same auto company as Adam. This had been
in Scientific Research-the "think tank"-where Perce left his mark by
discovering new applications for electron microscopes.
During that period they spent more time to
get her th
an at any other-it bad been before Adam's marriage to Erica, and
Perce was a bachelor-and they found each other's company increasingly
agreeable.
For a while, Adam became mildly interested in Perce's hobby of
manufacturing pseudo-antique violins-into each of which, with peculiar
humor, he pasted a Stradivari label-but rejected Perce's suggestion that
they learn Russian together. Perce set out on that project alone, solely
because someone had given him a subscription to a Soviet magazine, and in
less than a year could read Russian with ease.
Sir Perceval Stuyvesant had a lean, spindle
shanked appearance and, to
Adam, always looked the same: mournful, which he wasn't, and perpetually
abstracted, which he was. He also had an easygoing nature which nothing
disturbed, and when concentrating on something scientific was oblivious
to everything around him, including seven young and noisy children. This
brood had appeared at the rate of one a year since Perce's marriage which
took place soon after he left the auto industry. He had wed a pleasant,
sexy scatterbrain, now Lady Stuyvesant, and for the past few years the
expanding family had lived near San Francisco in a happy madhouse of a
home.
It was from San Francisco that Perce had flown to Detroit specifically to
see Adam. They met in Adam's office in late afternoon of a day in August.
When Perce had telephoned the previous day to say that he was coming, Adam
urged him not to go to a hotel, but to come home to stay at Quarton Lake.
Erica liked Perce. Adam hoped that an old friend's arrival would ease some
of the tension and uncertainty still persisting between himself and Erica.
But Perce had declined. "Best if I don't, old boy. If I meet Erica this
trip, she'll be curious to know why I'm there, and you'll likely want
to tell her yourself in your own way
.”

Adam had asked, "Why are you coming
.”

"Maybe I want a job
.”

But Sir Perccval hadn't wanted a job. As it turned out, he had come to
offer one to Adam.
A West Coast company, involved with advanced electrical and radar
technology, required an executive head. Perce, one of the company's
founders, was currently its scientific vice-president, and his approach
to Adam was on behalf of himself and associates.
He announced, "President is what we'd make you, old boy. You'd start at
the top
.”

Adam said dryly, "That's what Henry Ford told Bunkie Knudsen
.”

"This could work out better. One reason
you'd
be
in a strong stock
position
.”

Perce gave the slightest of frowns as he regarded Adam. "I'll
ask you a f aver while I'm here. That's take me seriously
.”

"I always have
.”

That was one of the things about their relationship,
Adam thought-based on respect for each other's abilities, and with good
reason. Adam had his own solid achievements in the auto industry and
Perce, despite vagueness at times and his absent-mindedness about
everyday matters, turned everything he touched in scientific fields into
notable success. Even before today's encounter, Adam had heard reports
about Perce's West Coast company which had gained a solid reputation for
advanced research and development, electronically oriented, in a short
time.
"We're a small company," Perce said, "but growing fast, and that's our
problem
.”