Stalking Horse (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries)

by Collin Wilcox

  “He’s turning left on Broadway, Lieutenant.” And into the microphone he repeated the information, shouting over the wail of our siren. Ahead, coming toward us on Columbus, I saw a black-and-white car approaching, its red light flashing. As the distance between our two cars closed, I held up four fingers, signifying tach four, then gestured for the car to make a U-turn and follow us. The driver nodded, holding up four fingers.

  Coming up on the Broadway intersection, I cut the siren, saying, “He might be heading for the freeway approach. Let’s get it blocked.”

  But ahead the yellow car had lengthened its lead, darting through a hole in the afternoon traffic that was streaming rush-hour-thick toward the approaches to the freeway and the Bay Bridge. The freeway entrance was four blocks away at the foot of Broadway.

  “Get a helicopter up,” I snapped. “My authority. Give him the number on the top of that black-and-white. Quick.”

  Approaching the Kearny Street intersection on Broadway, I saw a huge truck nosing out into Broadway, heading south. Into the intersection the truck was slowing, stopping. I turned sharply to the right to clear the front of the truck. But a taxi was double-parked, cutting me off. I braked, turned sharply to the left. In the mirror I saw the G.W. detectives closing fast in the center lane. Tires screaming, engine roaring, my car was angled across the street, crossing the center line. Ahead, a red sedan was directly in my path. I braked, saw the sedan brake, swerve to its right. With inches to spare on either side, traveling on the wrong side of the street, I passed between the truck’s tailgate and the careening sedan. Ahead, the Mazda had lengthened its lead; only one block separated it from the freeway entrance. Unless a responding black-and-white car coming from another direction could cut the Mazda off in the next block, we would never catch Tharp short of the freeway. Once in the heavy freeway traffic we could never gain on him, never catch him until he turned off, possibly in another county, in another jurisdiction.

  “Where’s the helicopter? Where’s the goddamn helicopter?” Back on the right side of the center line, with a clear lane ahead, I floorboarded the accelerator. But two long blocks separated our car from the yellow sports car. We would never close the distance in time.

  Suddenly a voice came over our loudspeaker, blaring above a whirring rush of background noise: “This is helicopter Zero Sierra Romeo, over the intersection of Third and Palou. Lieutenant Hastings, do you read me?”

  “We read you,” Canelli was saying. “We’re approaching Montgomery and Broadway, on Broadway. A cruiser and a black-and-white car are following us, code three. We’re in pursuit of a yellow sports car traveling east on Broadway, approaching Sansome and Broadway. Do you copy?”

  “We copy,” the metallic voice answered. “We’re coming toward you over the freeway.”

  As he spoke, I saw the yellow car stop, wedged in traffic at Sansome and Broadway, the last intersection before the freeway entrance. This was our chance, our last good chance. But ahead the traffic light was turning yellow, then red. Traffic on Montgomery Street began crisscrossing the intersection, heedless of our sirens. With cars solid in front of us in both eastbound lanes and the westbound lanes impassable to my left, we were blocked. Helpless, I braked to a furious stop.

  “God—damn.” I banged angrily on the steering wheel with my fist, then grabbed for the microphone.

  “All units in the vicinity of Broadway and Sansome, detain a yellow Mazda sports car stopped at that intersection, headed east. Occupants, a man and a woman. The man is armed. Repeat, the man is armed. The woman is a hostage. All units hearing this transmission, acknowledge.”

  Three calls came in, all converging on the intersection. But as I watched, the traffic light at Sansome changed to green. The Mazda was moving into the intersection—onto the freeway ramp.

  “They’re on the freeway,” I said bitterly. Then, as our traffic light changed, I handed the microphone to Canelli, ordering, “Get that ’copter over him. Right over him. Keep it there.” Again opening the siren, I swung into the intersection on the wrong side of the street. On the freeway ramp, I saw the yellow car accelerating fast, weaving in and out through traffic, then swinging into the right-hand lane reserved for emergencies.

  “If they get on the Bay Bridge,” I said, “we’ve got them. We’ll close the bridge at the toll plaza, if we have to do it.”

  “We’re over the freeway at Portrero Hill,” the helicopter officer was saying. “Where’s the suspect?”

  “He’s coming up on the first turnoff,” Canelli answered as I gunned our car into the Sansome Street intersection against the red light. In the mirror, I saw three flashing red lights. Another black-and-white car had joined the chase—too late.

  On the ramp now, I swung into the emergency lane. Ahead, the Mazda was swinging into the left lane.

  “He’s going to the bridge,” I said. “We’ve got him.”

  But instantly the yellow car veered to the right. Beside me, Canelli was calling out the suspect’s position. With our engine at full throttle, we were gaining on the Mazda. But ahead the emergency lane ended at the bridge turnoff. The Mazda was now committed to the right-hand lane, making for the freeway spur that curved south down the peninsula that led toward Daly City, Burlingame and Redwood City. At the last moment Tharp had realized that he would be trapped on the bridge.

  But he was back in rush-hour traffic, impacted. Ahead, traffic had slowed to twenty miles an hour, all lanes jammed with cars. As I braked, I heard Canelli speak to the helicopter pilots. “You should be able to see him now,” he said. “He’s about a half mile ahead of us, in the same lane.”

  Ahead, to the left, I saw the helicopter, low in the sky. I pointed and Canelli nodded, saying into the microphone, “You should turn to your left. You’re too far east.”

  Obediently, the helicopter was turning south. A frustrating minute followed as we crawled forward at twenty miles an hour. Our siren was silent now, utterly useless. Finally we heard the radio crackle to life.

  “We’ve got him,” the pilot said. “We’re right over him. He’s just coming up on the Harrison Street off-ramp, going about twenty-five. He’s—oh, oh.”

  “What?” Canelli said, anxiously looking up at the hovering helicopter.”

  “He’s going off on Harrison.”

  “Stay with him,” Canelli said, repeating the information and ordering all available cars to converge on the Harrison exit.

  “He’s on the off-ramp,” the helicopter man was saying. “He’s approaching Harrison and Eighth, in light traffic. He’s—he’s pulling to the curb, on Harrison. The door’s opening—the passenger door. He’s getting out of the car. He’s running up Eighth Street, toward Market.”

  Furious, I grabbed the microphone, shouting, “Let’s get cars down there. He’s wearing blue jeans and a Levi’s jacket and a leather hat. He’s armed and dangerous. This is code thirty-three. Repeat, code thirty-three.”

  Ahead of our car, the traffic was inching toward the Harrison Street off-ramp, still a half mile away. “Get Communications,” I snapped to Canelli. “Find out what the hell’s going on. Tell them I want some goddamn action on tach four—now.” Switching channels, he obeyed. Moments later a cold, remote voice came on the air:

  “We’ve got another code thirty-three, Lieutenant. A man’s on Market Street slashing people up with a machete. But there’re three cars on the way to Eighth and Harrison.”

  As if the second code thirty-three were his fault, Canelli shrugged apologetically at me.

  “Get back to the ’copter,” I ordered impatiently, cutting sharply ahead of a white Mercedes and glancing into the mirror. Even with their sirens on, the three other cars had fallen farther behind, locked tightly in traffic.

  “We’re directly over an alley between Folsom and Harrison and Eighth and Ninth,” the helicopter officer was saying. “There’s a black-and-white on the scene now, just stopping.” As he spoke, I heard an acknowledgment that Unit 782 was with us on tach four.

&n
bsp; “Is the suspect still in sight?” Canelli asked.

  “Negative,” came the static-sizzled answer from the ’copter. “We’ve lost him.” And, immediately, another voice came on the air. “Where is he, helicopter?” It was the man in Unit 782.

  “He must be inside a building. He just disappeared about halfway between Eighth and Ninth,” the pilot answered. “It’s Ringold Alley. That’s where we lost contact. Ringold Alley.”

  We were coming up on the turnoff to Harrison. Ahead of us, responding to the siren I’d switched on again, cars were pulling to the right, stopping. Savagely I jerked the steering wheel to the left. Suddenly, miraculously, we were in the clear, free.

  Ahead on Harrison I saw the yellow Mazda parked at an erratic angle to the curb. The blond girl was on the sidewalk, half supported by a uniformed man. The uniformed man waved me north on Eighth against the traffic. Canelli was on the radio, advising all units that we were leaving mobile tach four and going to walkie-talkie channel nine. Ahead, I saw an empty black-and-white unit blocking the entrance to Ringold Alley. I braked to a stop, took the keys, jumped out and opened the trunk, getting our shotgun.

  “Here—” I handed the shotgun to Canelli and took the walkie-talkie. “Let’s go.” As I trotted down the alley, other cars drew to a stop around us. Suddenly the troops had arrived. Looking down the alley, I saw a uniformed man standing on the sidewalk waiting for us.

  “He went in here,” the patrolman yelled, pointing to an open door. “Send some men around to Folsom. Quick.”

  I stopped in my tracks and gave the order on the walkie-talkie, carefully describing the suspect. Angrily, I realized that the situation was no longer a hot pursuit, but probably a search-and-discover operation with the suspect concealed. In the congested neighborhood just a few blocks from Market Street, we might have lost him.

  I ordered Canelli to come with me, deploying everyone else around a block-square perimeter with double strength on Folsom. I stood staring at the dingy, paint-scabbed alleyway door standing wide open. Around the lock, the door had been splintered.

  “What’s inside?” I asked the patrolman from Unit 782 as I pinned my badge to my jacket.

  “I don’t know, sir. I thought I should wait out here for you. My partner’s inside.”

  I glanced down a narrow, foul-smelling interior alleyway lined with garbage cans and buzzing with flies. The neighborhood was nondescript: rundown buildings that housed dingy apartments and marginal businesses, mostly sweatshops and cheap storage facilities. Ordering the patrolman to stay outside, I began slowly, cautiously advancing down the alleyway. An armed patrolman was somewhere ahead. He didn’t have “the numbers”: the walkie-talkie channel for this operation. He didn’t know I was coming. I had no way to warn him, no way to protect myself if he mistook me for Tharp. Holding the walkie-talkie in my left hand and my revolver in my right hand, crouching slightly, I was approaching another open doorway, this one leading inside the building. This door, too, had been broken open. I turned, instinctively glancing back over my shoulder. Then I stepped through the door and into a small kitchen. It was a dark, dank room, littered and dirty. Another door led into a hallway, with an outside door at the far end. It was an old-fashioned long, narrow “railroad flat” with the kitchen at one end and three rooms opening in succession off the hallway to the left.

  The first door was a bathroom, the second a disheveled bedroom. The third room, then, was the living room, facing Folsom Street. I realized that I was standing motionless, listening. From inside the living room, I’d heard something: some soft, furtive suggestion of a sound, nothing more. Then I heard it again, more distinctly.

  Inside the living room, something was stirring.

  I moved to the left wall and began inching toward the living-room door. Now I stood close to the door frame, my back pressed against the hallway wall. I held my breath—and heard someone else breathing. Instantly my stomach went hollow, my throat closed. My mouth was dry. How had it happened? With dozens of policemen in the area, with one patrolman ahead of me, I was alone, one on one with an armed suspect. I looked back down the hallway, automatically trying to find help. The hallway was empty, and the kitchen, too. I’d ordered Canelli and the uniformed man to stay outside.

  Soundlessly, I moved one step away from the doorway, then another step. Undoubtedly the front door was covered. So I could retreat to the alley and call for—

  I heard a hoarse, rattling cough, and saw a foot come through the doorway, then a leg and a hand, finally a full figure: a short, stumpy woman dressed in a bedraggled housecoat. Her face was broad and bloated, her eyes were small and vague: two dark, lusterless buttons, sunk deep in the flaccid flesh of her face.

  “Jesus,” she said, shaking her head wonderingly as she turned her ungainly body to face me. “Jesus, another one. I—” She hiccupped, coughed again, then belched. The odor of alcohol was heavy and rank in the squalid hallway. “I haven’t had so much company in years, I don’t think. Not in years.”

  Twenty-six

  I SPENT A LONG, maddening hour parked at the corner of Harrison and Eighth, using my walkie-talkie to coordinate a fruitless search for Frederick Tharp. Even as I worked at it, though, I could reconstruct what had happened. Tharp had emerged from the front door of the flat and turned right on Folsom, walking slowly. He’d turned left on Eighth and walked to Market Street, disappearing in the sidewalk crowds. By now he was miles away, safe on a bus or a subway train. Good luck had guided him down Ringold Alley to a door that could be kicked in, but he’d done the rest coolly, efficiently, intelligently.

  At the end of an hour, I turned the search over to Canelli and drove down Folsom Street to the Embarcadero and Trader John’s. After checking in with Communications and talking briefly with Friedman, I switched to KCBS just in time to catch the local news. The Market Street Slasher, as he was already being labeled, had apparently hacked two innocent pedestrians to death and seriously wounded half a dozen others. He was now in San Francisco General under psychiatric observation. So far, his only explanation was that he’d only meant to kill his girl friend, who’d left him the night before. After he’d killed her, almost severing her head from her body, his mind had gone blank, he’d said. First reports stated that the suspect was Louis Fields, age twenty-four, released two months ago from Napa State Hospital. His last known employment was as a busboy. Previously he’d been an honors student at Calvary Bible College in Oklahoma. Fields hoped to be a preacher, the reporter said—and still thought he would eventually be able to preach. His girl friend, he stated, had turned his eyes from the sight of God’s good truth, blinding him with urges of the flesh. Now that she was dead, he would be a better, purer, more focused person.

  I sighed, switched off the radio and walked across the parking lot to Trader John’s.

  Byron Tharp’s office was decorated like the rest of his nightclub in fake Polynesian. Tapa cloth covered the walls, hung with crossed spears, outsize tribal masks and elaborately carved paddles and totems. Cocomatting covered the floor. Tharp’s desk was two tropical-looking tree stumps that supported an enormous slab of natural burl. Seated behind the desk, Tharp matched the decor, dressed in sandals, beachcomber khakis and a bright blue Hawaiian shirt. Around his neck he wore a lei made of plastic flowers.

  “Have you found him?” he asked before I was seated. “Did you catch him?”

  “No,” I answered, sitting in a sunburst-style rattan chair that rose like a peacock behind my head. “We almost had him. But I’m afraid we lost him.”

  “What about my car? Did you get my car?”

  I nodded. “Your car, we got.”

  “Christ—great.” He slapped his desk with the flat of his hand. “Great. That’s a fifteen-thousand-dollar car, you know.” He paused as his heavy, uncompromising face registered an unpleasant afterthought. “It’s all right, isn’t it? Not damaged, or anything?”

  “No, it’s all right. We’ll have to keep it for a while, until the lab’s finished
with it. But it’s fine. No problem.”

  “That’s great,” he repeated heartily. Then, gesturing to a sea-chest-style cabinet behind his desk, he said, “How about a drink? To celebrate.”

  “No, thanks.”

  He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  I let a moment of silence pass while I looked at him. Unperturbed, he met my silent stare. If he possessed any guilty knowledge, or was uneasy about the real reason for my visit, he gave no sign. Finally, speaking in a normal, conversational voice, I said, “I’m sorry about your sister, Mr. Tharp. Her murder must’ve been a terrible shock.”

  His eyes narrowed momentarily—then opened wider, doubtless by design, to convey a brother’s sorrow. “Well, yes, it was a shock. Violent death—you know—it’s always a shock. But, frankly, if I’m honest with myself, I’ve got to admit that it’s a relief, too. I mean, let’s face it, all those years haven’t been easy.”

  “It must’ve been a terrible strain. And a financial drain, too. The expenses of that sanitarium must’ve been appalling.

  “Eighteen hundred a month,” he said, nodding. “And that’s not counting extras.”

  “Do you have any idea who killed her, Mr. Tharp? Any idea at all?”

  He spread his hands, asking, “Wasn’t it Fred? Isn’t that what you think?”

  “Is that what you think?” I countered. “Do you think he’d kill his own mother?”

  Vehemently, he nodded. “Definitely. No question.”

  “But why? What motive would he have? There wasn’t any inheritance.”

  “That little bastard, he doesn’t need a motive. A few years ago, he beat her up when she wouldn’t give him money for a radio he wanted. I figure he did it again. He got mad at her for something and hit her. Only this time, he hit her too hard.”