CRIME: Cliff Hanger

Gloomy and forbidding vistas opened ahead of the shiny new Nash sedan as it followed the curves of U.S. Highway 101 up the Oregon coast. Dawn had just broken, the light was dim, and at Cape Foulweather, five miles north of Newport (pop. 3,250), the empty roadway sometimes seemed to be curving off into thin air beyond the cliffs.

Big blond Dick Thomson looked ahead and said, "I'm carsickĀ—stop the car." The young man at the wheel, a slim, brown-haired fellow named Jim Meuler, headed off the road and stopped. At that moment Thomson reached behind the seat, picked up...

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