Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, No. 1. Whole No. 833, January 2011

He was far to the left when he came around a corner by the lake.

Instantly two headlights burned his eyes. He couldn’t react. He just came straight on.

Later he learned the girl’s name was Cortney Bice, a twenty-year-old sophomore at the University of Iowa. Her yearbook photograph showed a cheerleader archetype, though she was a dean’s list student. Heading home for Christmas Day, she’d left I-35 at Newmarket to travel cross-country to Chaska.

“She always enjoyed driving the back roads,” her father, Bradley Bice, told the news conference. Her mother, Ruth, stood by him, choking back tears.

Cortney did react, jerking the wheel of her Cavalier to the right. The cars came within a millimeter of each other, but never touched. While the Escalade remained on the road, the Cavalier flew off the embankment, sailing in an arc before smashing through the ice covering Calico Lake.

Gleason managed to stop the Escalade. Releasing his seatbelt, he tumbled out of the SUV and jogged back to where the car went off the road. Looking down, he saw its rear end bobbing in the water.

“Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God,” he said rapidly.

Then he heard the clunk and saw a fist in the Cavalier’s rear window. Cortney had climbed into the backseat. Seeing him, she pounded on the glass with all the terror-driven might she could muster and shouted, “Help me! Please, help me!”

He knew what he should do — dive into the water, open a door, save the girl. He even took a step forward. Then his mind raced on. Yes, and then the police will come. She’ll tell them how you ran her off the road and the cops will give you a Breathalyzer test. You’ll light it up. Drunk driving was no longer winked at in business circles. There’d be a civil suit too, of course. The jury would delight in taking several pounds of flesh from his body.

Gleason looked down at Cortney again. At first she smiled, thinking he would rescue her, but as he remained unmoving, the crushing realization that no help was coming slammed into her. She pounded harder, but she didn’t have the strength or purchase in the flooding car to break the window. The pleading changed to an inarticulate scream of rage.

He could still hear the pounding as the car slipped beneath the surface.

But not out of sight. The car settled with its roof only a foot below the surface. Anyone investigating the gash left in the snow bank would discover the wreck.

What to do, what to do? Gleason paced back and forth, gulping the icy air into his lungs. He could leave; no one had seen him. But what if some homeowner further up the road noticed him pass by and remembered the time?

Then a thought flared in his mind. What if I controlled the report?

Gleason worked the idea feverishly, then set to work. Grabbing his travel mug, he ran along the roadway until he was out of sight of the scene. Ducking into the forest, Gleason jammed a finger down his throat until he threw up. He poured out the remaining spiked eggnog before carefully scooping snow over the mess. With more snow he washed the mug, drying it with his handkerchief. No cars had passed; there wasn’t even the hint of an approaching engine in the air. Gleason ran back to the Escalade, where he did wind sprints and jumping jacks on the blacktop. Once he felt reasonably sober, he carefully — oh so carefully — backed the SUV around the corner and another a half-mile farther. Shifting into drive, he accelerated until, just before the turn, he slammed on the brakes and yanked the wheel to the right, ramming into the snow. He pulled back onto the road and drove to the accident scene while dialing 911.