Person-to-Person Call

Blonde Hazel Gardner, 39, is the Equitable Credit Corporation's only woman auto finance manager, and for three years she has run its Savannah office as well as any man. But 15 months ago, a loud, cigar-chewing, Savannah car-rental operator, R. J. Bedgood, skipped town, leaving Hazel and her office holding the bag for $20,000 in mortgages on missing automobiles. After a year of investigating, Hazel developed one slim lead: Bedgood had once been a construction worker and might be working somewhere in the construction business.

That was all Hazel needed. She dug up a list of big construction companies, over the next six weeks placed more than 500 long-distance phone calls for Bedgood. Each call was person-to-person to Bedgood himself. When a construction company reported no Bedgood, Hazel would say, "Operator, ask if they have any field offices where he might be working." Usually the man at the other end would answer without waiting for the operator. Result: not only a free call, but free information.

Two weeks ago Hazel got her first live tip. A Dallas firm told the long-distance operator to try a subcontractor in Laporte, Texas. She did. "Yes, we have R. J. Bedgood employed here," reported the Laporte office clerk. "I can get him to the phone if it's an emergency." "Never mind, operator," said Hazel, and hung up. Her next call was to the Savannah chief of detectives, who put in a few calls himself.

Last week, to his dismay, R. J. Bedgood was arrested in Laporte on charges of selling mortgaged property, plus a federal indictment for income-tax evasion. The search had not cost Hazel a cent. Said she, modestly: "I was only doing my job."

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