A Death in California

by Barthel, Joan;

In a phone call to Marcy on February 17, Walker’s tone suddenly changed.

  P: Good morning.

  W:How are you?

  P:Oh, fine. How are you?

  W:Good. Thought it was about time I said hello.

  P:Well, that’s awfully nice of you, considering what’s been happening lately.

  W:Well, what has happened?

  P:Oh, shit, man, they’re talking about—they’re seriously talking about indicting me.

  W:Well, did you go before the grand jury?

  P:Yes, twice.

  W:Twice?

  P:Yes. And they had Friedman the first session and the second session they had Haddad, second-chairing him.

  W:Uh-hm. You can’t tell them what you can’t tell them, can you?

  P:No, but they’ve got this mis-identification thing.

  W:You mean—

  P:There is somebody who says that I was with you at two o’clock in the morning at a gas station up on the North Side, damn it.

  W:(Laughing) At two o’clock in the morning up on North Side.

  P:Um hm, um hm.

  W:Uh—what day?

  P:I’m not really sure. They—they haven’t, you know, told me which day it—or which morning it is.

  W:Umm—I almost [rang] you at the office. I figured you’d be over there.

  P:That’s—that’s exactly where I was heading.

  W:Oh, you were? Well, you haven’t lost your employment.

  P:No, not yet. But if there’s an indictment, there’s gonna be trouble. They haven’t decided whether I’d be suspended or what, you know.

  W:Uh huh.

  P:What would happen.

  W:Well, you okay otherwise?

  P:Yeah—

  W:What does that mean?

  P:Well, it’s just very difficult.

  W:What day did you go before the grand jury?

  P:Tuesday and Wednesday.

  W:Tuesday and Wednesday. Well, I assumed if I broke all contact with you, or basically all contact with you, and that they knew you weren’t in contact with me, they’d drop the whole thing.

  P:Well, unfortunately, they haven’t.

  W:Well, we’ll have to see what happens. I’ll—I’ll still, you know, stick by the agreement, though. If they indict you I’ll come in.

  P:Oh—

  W:Well, I think it sounds silly, too. (Laughs)

  P:Well, unfortunately, being an attorney, one realizes, you know, the seriousness of it.

  W:Yeah, well—

  P:Even, you know, one credible witness—

  W:Well, I can only tell you that other than one night, I have not been out at two o’clock in the morning. And the night that I was but at two o’clock in the morning, I was with—I think there were five guys and three girls.

  P:Well, is it possible—is it possible that one of those girls—

  W:They’re all shorties.

  P:Well, what if they were sitting in a car?

  W:They don’t look that way. They’re not pretty.

  P:Thanks.

  W:They’re not pretty; they’re ugly girls. And besides, I wouldn’t be at a filling station at two o’clock in the morning.

  P:Hmm.

  W:Well dear, anything I can do?

  P:No, I guess not. Not unless you want to turn yourself in.

  W:Well, I definitely do, but I can’t meet you on the steps at 26th and California today. I’m a little out of—

  P:Hmm?

  W:I’m a little out of the area. (Beep) So dear, that was the end of my change.

  OPERATOR: It’s now three minutes. Signal when through.

  W:Thank you, dear. All right, love?

  P:Okay.

  W:Talk to you. Anything else?

  P:Yeah, if you want, well, you can always call me at the office.

  W:Okay. Will do.

  P:Okay.

  W:Bye, love.

  P:Bye.

  That evening Walker wrote in the same tone, mixing endearments with faint menace.

  This is to advise you, Marcy—that you will not like this letter any better than I enjoy writing it.

  There was a note of fear in your voice today, something I never like to hear from someone I love. It makes me uneasy. Oh, I know what you must be going through, and yet, it all did not come as a complete surprise. Either ride it out or get off the trolley, ma’am.

  Next, the missing purse really pissed me off, for I want you to have that, not to mention some of the notes therein could be dangerous—more to you than to myself. (I already know what I am in for and accept it.) Something about two secretaries calling the police and turning it over leaves me flat, nevertheless, I will accept that they did, and now they must accept what I do to people who piss me off. Therefore, if you like or have any love for either of the young ladies involved you might suggest they are in trouble with me. No, I shall not come back to harm them, however, I have made two phone calls (one to a Stone connection) and I am sure the matter will be resolved.

  I can only say this, had you not hesitated when I told you to go pick it up this would not have happened. Each time you pause to play your role of equal time, we never get together or something goes astray. In the future, until our future is solved—jump when I say jump or get off the trolley, ma’am.

  Next, I wonder why you were so late in going over to the office, which naturally makes me think you must have had a date or been out late the night before, which troubles me. Yes, I am jealous of you.

  Ohhhhhhhhh, I could go on and on with what is bothering me, and yet, it ain’t fair to you. No need of you catching it from both ends.

  Yes, I will keep my end of the deal tonight. I am at the Kiandra Lodge, I will have cocktails in the Old English Pub and dinner in the Bully III—and no one will capture me for, darling, no one will recognize me. The room is not in a man’s name and will therefore be passed over (eat your heart out, I am true blue and will stay that way if I don’t have any more phone conversations like today). While I do not know whether you have been skiing or not, I can assure you it is next to impossible to recognize anyone who is not hiding their identity let alone someone who is doing so. I am going to love this eve.

  Of course, I have packed my clothing in a car which was just picked up today and sometime after dinner I shall depart the area. Nevertheless, I gave you the first hot information of where I am and have been, therefore, this should take you off the hook and make a record of your being cooperative. Under other cover I am sending you information of who helped me in the Chicagoland area, and it will be interesting to see what you do with it, Marcy.

  As for the other letter herein, I was mailing it and a bunch of others to a mutual secretary acquaintance, however, since those types are not dependable, plus it makes no difference whether I conceal where I am or not—what the hell, I ripped the package open and dropped ’em in the first box.

  Interestingly enough, there was no ‘I love you’ in our telephone conversation, and when I told you it was impossible for me to talk on my end, all that comes forth from your end was long pauses and silence. It was either I force the talk or there was none.

  All right—that is all the small stuff I have to get off my chest. Shall we move on in the field of big things?

  If we continue like this, I am going to be captured and you under trial and all it brings. Interestingly enough, the first outing with the Illinois State Police found me making a deal for a small son who they were holding, and this time it appears they have selected you for the hostage. With a threat of an indictment over your head I am expected to come forth and surrender myself to save you, huh? I do not like it one bit. Went for that once. You are already in trouble, and you and I both know we never met in any filling station at 2 A.M. or any other place, for that matter, therefore I can only wonder what you hope to salvage by staying close and doing your thing in good ol’ Chicago. Either come with me or get off the trolley, ma’am. The sound of fear in your voice did not excite me.

  For the moment, I am going off—provided
I make it tonight—to get things moving, and I will call you in a few days for a positive answer that encompasses statements and not long pauses and a lot of silence along the line. I will not tell you when, where, how or the time—but I will pull it off, that I assure you, my darling.

  The time has come for you to stop promising me one thing and still leaving a bridge open for yourself back to the nice world. In for all, or out to face a world that has you guilty already.

  I love you, Marcy, and we can make it together or we would not be in this position we now find ourselves. Just remember that they are using you to try and catch me. They may call it the Grand Jury or whatever. But here I sit in a suite at the Kiandra Lodge with plans to have some drinks I do not need, and a dinner I will not enjoy, and then drive all night to get to an airport and fly halfway across the nation to find myself another safe spot.

  I love you and miss you—I’ll call in a few days.

  What Marcy called “this mis-identification thing” had occurred at a Standard station on North LaSalle Street. An attendant, James Mager, said he had been pumping gas at the all-night station on February 5 when, around 2:00 A.M., a man and a woman drove up in a yellow Karmann Ghia. While the woman, who stayed in the car, paid for the gas—less than five dollars worth—the man ran into the station and emptied the cash register. He waved Mager inside with a gun, jumped back into the car, and the pair sped off.

  When Swalwell showed Mager pictures of five men, including Walker, Mager identified Walker as the robber. When Swalwell showed pictures of five women, Mager picked out Marcy. And, as Marcy had pointed out to Walker on the phone, her voice tinged with the fear he hated hearing, it only took one credible witness.

  But the gas station incident became little more than an entry in Swalwell’s long narrative report because, very soon, Marcy had begun to cooperate with the police, turning over Walker’s communiqués and passing on assorted details, such as the information that the Valentine’s Day gifts she’d received—the watch and the books, in the black purse—had been bought at the Dunhill of London shop on North Michigan. The gas station question also became submerged in the broader question of Marcy’s relationship with Walker and the specific question: Had she helped him escape?

  Swalwell never swerved from his belief that she had. “No ifs, ands, or buts.” He believed, furthermore, that at least at one point she had intended to run away with Walker. In the letter in which Walker furnished his list of eleven helpful friends, he had discussed his plan for sending Marcy money, in amounts of five hundred dollars at a time, half of which she was to use to make car payments and pay other bills, the rest to be saved “for when we jump off.” More than once, he reminded her to be sure her passport was in order.

  Marcy always discounted those letters. “I don’t think one could ever believe one single word Walker said,” she declared. “Absolutely nothing. He was a very imaginative person.

  “Some of the stuff I did might not have been too bright,” Marcy conceded, “but there’s a line one has to draw. Walker had made vague, amorphous threats about escaping, when he knew his appeal was being denied, and my answer to him was always ‘That’s not the way to go about it.’ To say I helped him escape is not only ridiculous, it’s pure crap. Bullshit!”

  And even that question became secondary to the matter of catching Walker, as the trail led westward and tensions in Chicago eased. The Corrections men were not sitting around Marcy’s apartment with shotguns anymore; Marcy was not indicated by the grand jury.

  On the day the Pietrusiak car was recovered behind Dominic’s Market in Park Ridge, the State Bureau of Identification notified Sergeant Lamb of the Illinois State Police in Aurora that the fingerprints found on the drinking glass on the Pietrusiak’s kitchen sink were the left index finger and left thumb prints of Gerald Daniel Walker, ISB1049194. Sergeant Lamb said that although he had heard Walker was in Vail, Colorado, they definitely felt he would return to Illinois. The State’s Attorney’s office issued a warrant charging said person with burglary, auto theft, and theft.

  Bob Swalwell, feeling a little more desperate than he cared to admit even to himself, went back to research his four-year-old Walker file. Although, by this second time around, he felt he had come to know Walker “better than I knew myself,” he dug through all the old reports and documents again, till he virtually had them memorized. DATE OF BIRTH: August 10, 1931. DRINKS OF CHOICE: martinis, or gin and Fresca. HOBBIES: sailboating, ice-boating, collecting antiques. RELIGION: “bad-weather Catholic,” which Walker had explained to a prison sociologist meant that when the weather was too bad for sailing, he went to church. Describing his family, Walker had called his wife Edna “as much of a wife as anyone could want”; his son Drew “the most beautiful boy in the world”; and his own parents, Virgil and Irene, as “cold, rigid people” who had given him many material things but not the personal attention he’d craved.

  Both the sociologist’s report and a pre-sentence investigation report by a probation officer agreed that Walker could be personable indeed. Probation officer Fred Connally, Jr., cited Walker’s “friendliness” and his ability “to relate easily to strangers,” describing him as “intelligent, very articulate, and, under the circumstances, extremely cooperative.” Reading that old report, Swalwell couldn’t help feeling that not the least persuasive proof of Walker’s ability to relate to people was its closing section, in which the probation officer quoted Walker’s goal in life, as stated by the subject: “… to convince people that material things are not the most important in life, but acceptance.”

  Six months later, though, when the prison sociologist, Wayne Michels, had interviewed Walker, the charm had apparently worn thin. Describing Walker as “articulate, clever, manipulative,” the report pointed out that while “superficially, he appears cheerful and optimistic and he is probably quite gregarious socially …, this is an egocentric individual who describes himself in an almost grandiose manner, and it is apparent that status is particularly important to him. It is likely that beneath his facade of grandiosity lies a very poor self-concept.

  “A significant aspect of this man’s personality is the ease with which his emotions are stimulated and the extent to which he acts out his feelings in an impulsive manner. Diagnostically, the impression is that this is an anti-social personality.…

  “Although this individual appears to be open and gregarious in his social relationships, it is felt that this is a facade … his underlying personality structure is basically sociopathic and he has little or no regard for the feelings of others, including his wife and child. Because of his drive, in addition to a manipulative ability, he has experienced occasional brilliant success in the business world; however, this performance has not been consistent over the years and it is doubtful whether this performance can be consistent unless there is a basic change in personality structure within this individual. There is an underlying element of rage and anger within the inmate which occasionally surfaces and results in impulsive and aggressive overt behavior. This rage undoubtedly has its roots in his relationships with his parents during his early formative years.…

  “This individual is considered to be potentially very aggressive and perhaps homicidal.”

  One sentence in the report, from an evaluation of Walker by the Psychological Screening Board, particularly interested Swalwell, since it confirmed what he’d felt and thought about Walker as soon as he’d begun tracking him, long before he’d read anybody’s reports. “Although he gives lip service to societal values, little internalization of these has occurred.”

  The psychologists had taken the words right out of Swalwell’s mouth, though Swalwell’s words were plainer: “A man who could shoot you, then sit down and eat his lunch right beside your body. A bad seed.”

  “We pick up the pieces, then we deal with the pieces.”

  Some of the pieces.

  On Valentine’s Day, a man using Taylor Wright’s American Express card rented a bright blue Chevrolet Im
pala at Capitol Rent-a-Car, part of the Hertz system, on North Nineteenth Street in Omaha, Nebraska. He gave his home address as Benton Harbor, Michigan; his local address as the Blackstone Hotel; his firm as Zipco. When the week was up and the car wasn’t back, the car rental people called Benton Harbor. Mrs. Taylor Wright said her husband had been beaten and robbed, and his billfold with his American Express card was still missing, and he had certainly not rented any car in Omaha. The Hertz manager called the Douglas County Attorney’s office, which issued an arrest warrant for John Doe.

  Half a dozen rooms at the Hilton Inn in Omaha were burglarized in mid-February. Richard S. Powell, an insurance salesman from San Bernadino, California, who was in town for meetings at his home office, Mutual of Omaha, lost his green attaché case. His partner, Scott Johnson, lost a calculator.

  The blue Chevy Impala was eventually found in the parking lot of the Sheraton Inn on Quebec Street in Denver, near the airport. It contained an empty soft drink can, one glove, a partially empty bag of doughnuts, and a pair of men’s slacks covered with a reddish-brown substance, either mud or blood. The car keys were missing. Between February 14 and 17, it had been driven 1,040 miles.

  On February 17, a man checked into Room 310 at the Sheraton on Quebec Street. He used Larry Burbage’s American Express card, giving a home address in Evanston, Illinois. Under MAKE OF CAR he wrote “Mercury” and he listed a Colorado plate. Under COMPANY he wrote “Self-employed.”

  On February 18, that man checked out. Two Sheraton clerks, Mary Bittle and Sharon Reffel, remembered him. Mary Bittle thought he had acted very arrogant. Sharon Reffel said he had left the hotel with a tall blond woman, five foot eight or five foot nine, maybe thirty years old.

  That weekend, a man used the same Burbage American Express card at a Hertz rental office in Denver. He showed a valid Georgia driver’s license and said he would be keeping the car one week. The car he rented was brand-new, only 248 miles on the odometer, a four-door Ambassador. The car was yellow, with brown trim.

  On February 21, a man presented the Larry Burbage credit card at a Sears Roebuck store in Albuquerque, New Mexico.