Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 43, No. 7 & 8, July/August 1998

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It was a few days before we heard about Jimmy Hoffa going missing that the car turned up on the side of my field. It was at the edge of a field that I almost never go into, but I was sure I noticed it the first day it was there. Now, I’m not saying that Jimmy Hoffa’s body got parked on my field out in the middle of the Bible belt. But I’m not saying that it wasn’t put there either.

The fact of the matter is, I left it alone. People’s cars do tend to break down in the most inconvenient places, and the edge of my field would probably qualify as one of them. If my fights weren’t on up at the house, I could see where someone might walk clear into town before they’d find a place with a phone. So I just left it there, thinking a tow truck would show up for it in the next day or so.

After about a week, I guess, I started asking people if they had seen anyone come around the night the car was dropped off. Then I would describe it if they hadn’t been by my place in the past week. It was a light blue Ford with some big old fins on the back. No one remembered any strangers, and in our neck of the woods people remember strangers. So my mystery got a little bit bigger.

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