Free The Truth of the Matter by John Lutz

driver’s window, a face beneath a silver badged uniform cap.
    “Didn’t mean to scare you, mister,” the face said, smiling a reddish smile.
    “The officer stopped us because we only have one taillight,” Ellie explained sweetly. “It’s a state law.”
    “There’s a station about two miles down where you can get the bulb replaced,” the highway patrolman said. He raised his eyebrows, and took in the interior of the car with a glance. “I noticed you people are from out of state.”
    “That’s right,” Roebuck said, regaining his composure. “We’re going to visit my wife’s family in Colorado. Her mother’s sick.”
    The patrolman nodded. “Well, I guess there’s no need for a citation if you get the light repaired right away.”
    “Thank you, officer.” Ellie smiled. “It must have just burned out. I took the car to have it checked before we left on this trip.”
    “That’s right,” Roebuck said. “I’m in the auto repair business myself. I should have checked it over personally.”
    The patrolman shrugged. “That’s how it always is. I get citations for burning leaves.” He gave them a parting grin. “Have a good trip, folks. And I hope your mother’s all right.”
    “Thank you,” Ellie called after him as they watched him walk away, adjusting his cap in the wind from a passing car that might or might not have been going too fast.
    The flashing red light atop the police car died as the patrolman swung sharply back onto the highway and drove away.
    Roebuck and Ellie did stop at the service station down the highway, where they had the taillight bulb replaced and the gas tank filled before driving on.
    “We better start playing it safer,” Roebuck said as they pulled out of the station.
    “I guess you’re right.” Ellie looked at the speedometer carefully. “Why don’t we stop at a grocery and get something for our meals? That way we wouldn’t have to risk eating in those greasy roadside places.”
    “I was thinking that myself.”
    “We can get some donuts or something for breakfast,” she said, “and we can buy a coffeepot and some coffee. We can fix us something right in our motel room.”
    “We’ll stop at the next town,” Roebuck decided, slouching down and resting his head again on the back of the seat.
    He closed his eyes, but this time he didn’t sleep.

9
    Roebuck drove the station wagon slowly out of the Jolly Rest Motel’s lot, onto the baking expanse of concrete highway, and accelerated in a smooth and steady rush to seventy miles an hour. Ellie sat beside him, munching a glazed donut, sipping her coffee from the motel bathroom’s sanitary paper cup. They drove away from the low morning sun, into the west, the green scenery rotating gently and sliding past them as they rode the snaking highway.
    They drove for perhaps fifteen minutes before they passed a crude wooden sign almost obscured by dew-bent weeds. LAKE CHIPPEWA 5 MILES —it read in weather-beaten yellow letters— CABINS — FISHING — BOATS — REST — RELAX.
    “Do you think we can run all the way to California?” Ellie asked, finishing the last donut and brushing sugar from her hands.
    Roebuck grinned in his best desperado manner. “I’ll tell you one thing. Nobody’s going to stop us.”
    “I know you mean that, Lou, but do you think it’s the smart thing to do? I mean, won’t somebody somewhere figure out that we keep going the same direction?”
    Roebuck had a vision of dozens of important-looking individuals gathered around a gigantic wall map, moving red-flagged pins and circling areas with red pencil. “Maybe,” he said.
    “We could stop,” Ellie said. “We could fool them and hole up, rent one of those cabins.”
    Placing an unlit cigarette between his lips, Roebuck pushed in the car’s lighter. “Yeah, I saw the sign.”
    “We could pretend we were a couple on a fishing vacation. Nobody’d suspect anything.” Ellie was getting enthusiastic. “We could buy some fishing