“Hello, Sergeant Friday,” he said. He nodded to Frank. “Hi, Officer Smith.”
In a puzzled voice Frank said, “Hello,” and I said, “How are you, son?” We both got up and stood looking at him.
“Don’t you remember me?” he asked. “Harold Green.” We both placed him then. The Courteous Killer’s first victim. Neither of us had recognized him because the last time we’d seen him, his head had still been covered from the eyebrows up by a bandage.
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “You all recovered now?”
“Feel fine.” He rapped his knuckles against his skull. “You can’t hurt a Green by hitting him here. It’s solid rock.”
Frank said, “How’s Mrs. Stenson?”
The young man shrugged. “Haven’t seen her in a couple of months.”
I couldn’t help saying, “Oh? Working now?”
He grinned at me, unabashed. “Not me. Just got a different girlfriend.”
Frank grunted, and I said a little shortly, “What do you want?”
“Thought I’d make myself a little money,” he said. He pulled out a package of cigarettes and held them toward Frank and me. I indicated the butt I was already smoking, and Frank shook his head. He took one himself and lighted it with a gold-plated lighter. “Got a tip for you.”
I said coldly, “We don’t buy information.”
“Who said I’m selling any?” he asked. “I meant reward money. Know where Rossmore Avenue is?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Starts at Wilshire and runs up into Hollywood.”
He nodded. “There’s a gas station a couple of blocks from where it crosses Santa Monica. Stopped there to have my tank filled about a half hour ago.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Attendant was a real pleasant fellow. Cleaned the windshield, checked the radiator. Gave me the full treatment. I kept thinking I’d seen him somewhere before. Couldn’t remember where until after I’d driven away, though. Then it hit me.”
“Go on,” I said.
“He was the fellow who batted me over the head with a gun.”
* * * *
5:01 p.m. On further questioning, Harold Green stated that he was positive that the gas-station attendant was the man who had robbed him on Laurel Canyon Road the previous June. We took him in to see Lieutenant Newton, and he repeated his story. The lieutenant went up the hall to report the development to Chief Brown.
Chief Brown decided to take no chances on the suspect’s again eluding arrest. He issued orders over the phone to have the block in which the filling station was located surrounded by police units. Frank and I would go in to make the arrest as soon as all units were in place.
Frank and I took the elevator down to the garage, checked out Unit 7K10, and drove to the area. We parked on Rossmore a half block from the filling station and waited.
At 6:03 p.m. a voice from our radio speaker said, “Attention, Unit Seven-K-Ten. KMA-Three-Six-Seven to Seven-K-One-Oh. Come in.”
I lifted the microphone from its bracket and said into it, “Seven-K-One-Oh to Control One. Go ahead.”
“The area is now surrounded by police units. You may move in for the arrest when ready.”
“Roger,” I said. “We’ll move in now. Four Adam. Seven-K-One-Oh.”
I put the microphone back into its bracket, and we got out of the car. We walked up the street toward the station, side by side.
Frank said, “Working in a filling station, he probably won’t be armed, huh?”
“We’ll play it like he is until we’ve shaken him down,” I told him. “We take him at gunpoint.”
“Check,” Frank said, and loosened his gun in its holster.
There were no cars at the gas pumps when we approached the station. Through the open door of the garage, we could see a coveralled attendant standing beneath an elevated car with grease gun. Beyond the glass window of the office, another coveralled man stood by the cash register drinking a Coke. The latter’s face was toward us, and I could see at a glance that he wasn’t the suspect. He was a tall, redheaded man of about thirty.
The man with the grease gun had his back to us. His height and the shape of his body were identical to that of the man who had kidnapped me. We walked quietly to the door of the garage, our hands on our guns.
The coveralled man glanced idly over his shoulder. He wore no glasses, but his face was that of the Courteous Killer. He had the same graying hair, slightly receding at the forehead.
I said, “All right, Frank,” and whipped out my gun. Frank’s came up at the same instant.
“Police officers, mister,” I said. “Hold it right there.”
He froze with the grease gun still pointed upward, his back half to us and his face pointing over his shoulder. His mouth fell open in surprise.
“Drop the grease gun on the floor,” I ordered.
He opened his hand and let it fall. Frank put away his gun, moved in fast, and jerked the man’s hands behind him. The handcuffs clicked in place.
The suspect’s gaze followed us as we circled around in front of him. There was no recognition in his expression when he looked at me. Only astonishment. I kept him covered, while Frank gave him a quick but thorough shakedown.
Frank stepped back and said, “He’s clean.”
“What’s this all about?” the handcuffed man asked in a stupefied voice. The arrogant ego was gone from it, but otherwise it was the same voice my kidnaper had.
I put my gun away. “You don’t know,” I said. “You don’t recognize me. You’re just an innocent grease monkey.”
“I never saw you before in my life,” he said on a high note. “What are you talking about?”
The younger man came through the door between the garage and office. His expression was as astonished as the suspect’s. “Hey, what’s going on here?” he asked.
“Police officers,” I said, showing him my ID. “You own this place?”
“Yeah,” he said. “What have you got George handcuffed for?”
“He’s under arrest,” I told him. “How long’s he been working here?”
“About a week.” He gave his employee a fascinated look. “What’d he do?”
I said, “You must not read the papers, mister.”
“Huh,” he said. “Sure, I read the papers.”
“Then you don’t look at the pictures they publish. You just lost yourself five thousand dollars.”
“Huh?”
“Your grease monkey is the Courteous Killer.”
CHAPTER XIV
Back at the car, we reported by radio that the suspect was in custody and the surrounding police units could be removed. Then we drove him to the Police Building. All the way he kept assuring us that we had made a mistake.
Because of his record of violence, we took him directly to the booking desk in the Felony Section and had him booked on suspicion of robbery and homicide. Ordinarily we would have taken him to an interview room for questioning before having him booked. But the Courteous Killer was classified as too dangerous a criminal to get less than the full security treatment.
At the desk he was required to empty his pockets and was thoroughly searched. A Form 5.1 was filled out, listing the items in his possession and the amount of money he had. He wore no watch or jewelry. In his pockets he had cigarettes and matches, a handkerchief, a small pocket knife, a key ring with two keys on it, some change, and a wallet. A driver’s license in the wallet gave his name as George Whiteman and a North Hollywood address.
All these items were sealed in a manila envelope, to which the white sixth copy of the Form 5.1 was attached. The pink fifth copy was given to the prisoner as a receipt. Of the remaining copies, one would go to C.I.I. in Sacramento, one was for us, and one would go to the district attorney. The original, which contained his complete booking record in addition to the property list, was the Felony Section’s file copy.
The door leading to the cell rows was unlocked by the booking sergeant, and the prisoner was led inside to be finger
printed. From the fingerprint desk, he was taken to the shower cell. All newly booked prisoners are required to take a shower before being assigned to a regular cell.
When he had had his shower, he was led to a cell in the first row and locked in. Frank and I remained out in the corridor. The booking sergeant left us there, locking the door at the end of the corridor when he went back to the desk.
The cells of the Felony Section are clean and modern, with white porcelain fixtures and double-decker bunks. Instead of bars, the front walls are of shatterproof herculite glass thick enough to withstand the blows of a sledge hammer. The only bars are on the doors.
George Whiteman gazed around his cell with a numb look on his face. Then he turned to us.
“Why are you doing this to me?” he asked. “You’re making a terrible mistake.”
“We don’t think so,” I told him. “George Whiteman your real name?”
“Of course it is.”
“How’d you get the nickname Gig?”
He gave me a blank look. “Nobody ever called me Gig.”
I looked at him for a moment. “Still live at the address on your driver’s license?”
“Yes.”
“Anybody live with you?”
He shook his head. “It’s a rooming house. I just got one room.”
“How long you lived there?” I asked.
“Couple of weeks this trip. I’ve stayed there on and off for over a year.”
“Where’d you live before a couple of weeks back?”
“In Kansas City. I thought I had a job there, but it didn’t pan out, so I came back to Los Angeles.”
“Uh-huh. What date did you leave Los Angeles to go to Kansas City?”
“First week in September. The fourth, I think.”
September seventh was the night I had been kidnapped by the Courteous Killer. I said, “Where were you living from June nineteenth until you left for K.C.?”
“At the rooming house. I checked in about the first of May. Mrs. Lawson can tell you I’m not any bandit.”
“Who?”
“My landlady. Mrs. Lawson. You’ve got this all wrong.”
“Not from where we sit,” I told him. “What size shoe you wear?”
He looked puzzled. “Eight-and-a-half-B.”
“Where are your glasses? In your room?”
He looked even more puzzled. “What glasses?”
“The ones you read with.”
“Oh, sure,” he said. “In my room. I never wear them at work.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You told me the night of September seventh. The guns in your room, too?”
He just looked at me blankly.
“We’ll find them, anyway, if they are,” I told him. “Why do this the hard way? You know you haven’t got a chance. You can save a lot of trouble by giving it to us straight.”
“Giving what to you straight?” he asked. “I haven’t done anything.”
I looked at him steadily for a long time. Then I said, “It won’t stand up, Whiteman. We’ve got you made all along the way. Why don’t you make it easy on yourself?”
“By confessing to something I haven’t done?” he asked in a high voice. “I want a lawyer.”
“You’ll get one,” I said. “But he won’t beat this rap for you. How about it?”
He walked over and sat on the lower bunk. “I don’t have to talk to you. I’m not going to say another word till I see a lawyer.” He looked up at me stubbornly.
I glanced at Frank, and he shrugged. “Think we’re wasting our time, Joe. Be better to take a look at the room.”
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll be back, Whiteman. Don’t go away.” We walked down to the end of the corridor, and Frank yelled for the sergeant to come let us out.
* * * *
8:30 p.m. Before leaving the Police Building, we called Latent Prints and asked them to compare the suspect’s prints with the partial developed on Harold Green’s wallet and the thumbprint lifted from the seat-adjustment knob of the 1955 Ford the suspect had stolen the night he killed Viola Carr. We also called the Crime Lab and asked for a comparison of the shoes the suspect was wearing with the footprints found at the scene of Marine Sergeant Nick Grotto’s murder. We told the lab we would bring in any other shoes we found when we searched the suspect’s room.
Then we obtained a search warrant and drove out to the North Hollywood rooming house where George Whiteman lived.
Mrs. Lawson, the landlady, turned out to be a tall, thin woman of about sixty, with the harassed air of a person who never finds quite time enough to get everything that needs doing done. She looked flabbergasted when we identified ourselves as police officers and showed her the search warrant.
“What’s it all about?” she asked. “What do you expect to find in Mr. Whiteman’s room?”
“Some shoes, ma’am,” I told her. “Would you show us the room, please?”
She led us up the stairs to the second floor and opened a door with a pass key. The room was about fifteen by fifteen, furnished with a brass bed, a marble-topped dresser, a writing table, and a couple of chairs. It was just a place to sleep, not a place to live.
A glasses case lay on the writing table. I opened it and frowned when I discovered it contained a pair of horn-rimmed glasses instead of rimless ones.
We made a quick but thorough search of the room. There were no guns in it, nor any other incriminating evidence. We found an extra pair of shoes in the closet. Frank and I both marked our initials inside the tongues of the shoes and had the landlady mark hers, too, so that if they ever had to be presented in court as evidence, there would be no question that they were the same shoes we found in the room.
Mrs. Lawson asked, “Are these shoes all you were looking for?”
“No, ma’am,” I said. “Mr. Whiteman own any glasses aside from those on the table?”
She stared at the glasses case as though she had never seen it before. Apparently she hadn’t, because she said, “I didn’t even know he had those. I never saw him with them on.”
Frank said, “He have any possessions anywhere else in the house? In a storage room, for instance?”
Mrs. Lawson shook her head. “No. Some of the roomers keep trunks in the attic. But all Mr. Whiteman owns is a suitcase. It’s in his closet.”
We had already looked in the suitcase and found it empty. I said, “Happen to know if he owns any guns?”
“Guns?” she repeated, shocked. “Of course not. I wouldn’t allow a gun in the house.”
Frank said, “Understand he’s lived here off and on for about a year, ma’am. Happen to have a record of just what periods he was here?”
“It would be in my rent book. What’s he done, Officer?”
I said, “We’re just making an investigation, ma’am. Could you get the rent book, please?”
“It’s downstairs,” she said.
We followed her downstairs and waited in the front room while she went to get it. It was a ledger similar to the one the landlady of the rooming house on Burbank had shown us. The record indicated that George Whiteman had been in town during the entire period of the Courteous Killer’s activity. He had checked out on September 4th telling the landlady he was taking a job in Kansas City, Missouri, and had returned again on September 16th.
“Dates figure,” Frank commented. “Doesn’t seem much doubt.”
“There never was from the time I first spotted him,” I said. “I had plenty of time to memorize his face that night.”
“What’s he done?” Mrs. Lawson asked again.
“We think he may be a man we’ve been looking for, ma’am,” I said. “You know where he worked before he left town earlier this month?”
“Why, in a filling station over on Moorpark. Stoddard’s Texaco Station. He worked days.”
Frank entered the name of the station and its address in his notebook. Then he referred to another section of the notebook and said, “Be helpful if you could remember whether or not Mr. White
man was home on certain nights we’re interested in, ma’am. Wednesday, June nineteenth, for instance.” That was the date of the Courteous Killer’s first robbery, and his attack on young Harold Green.
The landlady looked blank. “My goodness, I couldn’t remember that far back.”
“There’s also the nights of June twenty-first, twenty-fourth, twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, twenty-ninth, and thirtieth,” Frank said, reading off the dates of other robberies from his notebook. “Recall any of those nights?”
Mrs. Lawson’s face lit up. “June thirtieth, I do. That’s my birthday.”
I said, “Recall if Mr. Whiteman was away that night?”
Her face fell again. “Yes, he was. The roomers all gave me a party. Lasted till after midnight. But Mr. Whiteman left at nine thirty. Said he had some business, but we all figured he had another date, and was just running out on the party. Hadn’t gotten home by one a.m., when I went to bed.”
That was the night before the murder of Marine Sergeant Nick Grotto and the wounding of Nancy Meere. The night of the Courteous Killer’s seventh robbery.
“Recall the next night?” Frank asked. “July first?”
Mrs. Lawson looked thoughtful. “Believe he went out again. Can’t be sure, though. He goes out a lot at night.”
She was unable to remember whether or not he had been home on the night of July 22nd, when Viola Carr was murdered, or on the 24th, 26th, or 29th, the dates of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh robberies.
I said, “We have reason to believe that the man we’re looking for was wounded on the night of Tuesday, August sixth. You recall Mr. Whiteman giving any indication that he might have been injured about that time?”
The-thoughtful look returned to her face. “He laid off from work sick a few days the first part of August. Can’t remember the exact dates. First or second week, it was, though.” After a pause she added, “Does that every once in a while, though. Pretends he’s sick to get a few days off. Doesn’t mean anything.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “It would be helpful if you could recall the exact day he got sick.”
Dragnet Page 9
