The Case of the Auto Accident

After a blue Pontiac crashed on Spillson Road, the police were called by a passing motorist. Detectives Davis and Moreno were soon at the scene. When they got there, some firefighters had extinguished the flames in the vehicle and investigators were crawling all over the area.
Davis noticed the tire tracks leading off the road. When he got to the car, he saw the paramedics taking away one body on a stretcher. He noticed the cracked windshield, burned interior, bottles of whiskey, stick shift, rust spots, loose seat belts, and other details of the vehicle. Moreno called in the license plate number to get more information.
“This car is registered to Dennis Urick,” the detective said. “His family is being contacted now.”
“Were there any witnesses to the crash?” Davis asked.
“We haven’t been able to find anyone who actually saw it happen,” Moreno replied. “The man who reported the accident only saw it after the fact.”
“I’d like to get his statement,” his partner said.
Davis soon was talking with Chris Snyder, who had telephoned the police.
“I didn’t hear any crash, but I did see this car on fire at the bottom of the hill,” Snyder said. “I got suspicious, so I used my cell phone to get help.”
“Has Urick’s family been contacted yet?” Davis asked Moreno a little later.
“We have. His wife sounds pretty broken up about it. Fortunately, she has some friends there to take care of her and her kids. There isn’t any point in having her I.D. the body. We know it was Urick. The only question is whether or not it was an accident or suicide.”
“There is another possibility,” his partner said.
“What’s that?”
“It might have been murder,” Davis replied.

WHAT MADE DAVIS SUSPICIOUS?

THE ANSWER
He noticed the stick shift was in neutral. This meant that the car had rolled off or had been pushed off the road rather than driven off. Davis suspected that Urick might have been killed and his death made to look like an accident in order to get a hefty insurance claim. His hunch proved to be correct. Other evidence at the scene implicated Mrs. Urick in the death of her husband.