She was a disheveled blonde with a set lip and calloused hands, and she was thumbing a ride in New Jersey's Palisades Park. Through his windshield, Patrolman Leonard Cottrell saw her soiled shirt, the dirty dungarees rolled to her knees, the cheap zipper bag she carried. He pulled to the curb.
Minutes later, the girl was talking to the desk sergeant in the Palisades Park jail. Name: Susan Bower; age: 20; home: Bozeman, Mont.; possessions: $14; last address: Bangor, Me. (where she had been digging potatoes); present occupation: hitchhiker; destination: Florida.
Then she clammed up. When Cottrell and the sergeant doubted...