“Certainly,” Ned said. He called Gene Tinch.
When Paul Luther arrived midmorning, he came directly to the point.
“Do you have a Dan Walker in your case?”
Nobody said anything.
“I understand confidential communications,” Luther continued, “but we’re doing some investigating. I ask you again: Do you have a Dan Walker?”
Tom Breslin took a long breath.
“Well, do you have a fellow by the name of Taylor Wright?” Tom asked.
Paul Luther smiled.
“Yes,” he said.
“Yes,” Honey said.
“Yes,” Van said. “No question about it.”
Hope stared at the mug shot of a rumpled, long-haired man with a certain gleam in his eyes. Other pictures flashed through her mind: hands in his pockets, gesturing with his pipe. Thick wavy hair, polished boots. A charming smile. Casual, poised. My God, this guy’s a real number. He looks like Robert Wagner. He’s a ladykiller. She closed her eyes.
Paul Luther looked at her with sympathy. She was gaunt, with large dark circles under her eyes, hollow-eyed. Paul Luther was talking quietly, but Hope was hearing other voices: I can’t leave you; you could identify me. How could I identify you? I don’t even know who you are. I don’t know if I can trust you. You can trust me, you can trust me. I would never identify you.
Hope opened her eyes and looked straight at Paul Luther.
“Yes,” she said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Bob Swalwell thought he had been angry when he’d heard that Walker had escaped from Illinois Research. He thought he had been angry when, for a while, he wasn’t assigned to the case. “It’s prison business now,” he was told. “Let the Department of Corrections handle it.”
But now, five weeks later, Swalwell knew that, angry as he’d been, it couldn’t compare with the rage he was feeling, having asked to join the manhunt on the West Coat and being turned down. “It’s out of our jurisdiction now,” he was told. “Let the state of California handle it.”
Swalwell yelled. He pounded on the desk. When he thought of his buddy Gus, still young, his kids still young, shot in the head, in cold blood, and when he thought of the man who had done that to Gus eluding them—all the way across the country—Swalwell felt helpless. And, because he felt helpless, he nearly went out of control. Suddenly he grabbed his desk phone and called a man he knew, a retired FBI agent, to ask him to pull strings. Although Swalwell liked the man, as he talked, Swalwell’s voice was ragged and harsh.
For six hours Swalwell waited, chain-smoking, drinking coffee. He was already furious from the frustrations of the past few days. At approximately 12:30 P.M. on Friday, March 2, Officer Kenneth Krzwicki of the Elk Grove police had thought he’d spotted Walker in a drugstore at the corner of Highway 72 and Arlington Heights Road. Officer Krzwicki had observed the subject enter a bright blue Torino Fastback or Matador, 1973 Illinois license AV 6618, and was last seen heading west on Highway 72. An ISPERN message had been dispatched and again, briefly, Swalwell had thought they had Walker. The manager of the Holiday Inn in Elk Grove—Van Hussen—had said the guest in Room 419 resembled Walker’s photograph. The registration card showed that room registered to a Fred Hogencamp, 6901 Columbia Street, University City, Missouri, with the firm of Sinclair-Rush, 6916 Broadway, St. Louis.
When they’d knocked at Room 419, no one answered.
When Swalwell had called the phone number listed on the registration card, Fred Hogencamp’s ex-wife confirmed his identity and occupation and the fact that he was on a business trip to Chicago.
And all the while, Swalwell reflected bitterly now, Walker had been running free in the California sunshine, making fools of them all. Fools! Swalwell had learned of Walker’s letter from California only after Trooper Rowe had called Marcy Purmal and was told yes, she had received some correspondence and had given it to Mr. Tonsel at the Department of Corrections. When Swalwell called Tonsel and asked about this correspondence, Tonsel had confirmed its existence, adding that FBI agent Baucom had just left Tonsel’s office. When Swalwell asked Tonsel what the letters contained, Tonsel told Swalwell he’d have to come down to his office if he wanted that information.
So it was Tuesday, March 6, by the time a furious Swalwell got a copy of Walker’s letter with the article about the murder of William T. Ashlock. When he talked to Baucom, the FBI man told Swalwell that a female subject named Hope Masters had been charged with the murder. Baucom said he felt it was very possible that Walker was involved in this murder and, later in the day, Baucom called Swalwell again to report that the parents of Hope Masters had positively identified Walker’s photograph and had said they knew him as a man named Taylor.
If they didn’t let him go out there now, Swalwell thought, he would simply have to tear the whole damned office apart.
But the okay came. Swalwell packed his weapon and a few things, and made several calls to tell people he was going to California, to get Dan Walker.
“Don’t bring him back here,” the warden at Joliet said.
On March 6, the FBI issued an All Points Bulletin.
APB
3-6-73
WANTED FEDERAL FUGITIVE URGENT
Gerald Daniel Walker, also known as Gerald D. Walker, G. Daniel Walker, G. Daniel R. Walker, G. Daniel Wayne Walker, Daniel G. Walker, Daniel Wayne Walker, Richard P. Walker, Hugh C. Dennis, John R. Marcus, Joseph G. Paintner, Robert S. Pietrusiak, Richard Smith, Daniel Stone, Daniel W. Williams, described as white male, date of birth 8/10/31 at Toledo, Ohio, 6′ ¼″ 186 lbs., brown hair, brown eyes, has the following scars and marks: old gunshot wound right hip, stab wound in abdomen, discoloration center of upper lip, mole above inside corner of right eyebrow, Social Security number 301-24-1357, FBI number 599-125-8. On 2/13/73 Federal warrant was issued at Chicago, Illinois, charging Walker with unlawful flight to avoid confinement. Attempted murder and escape. On 5/12/69 Walker shot an Illinois State Trooper in the head after the trooper had stopped Walker driving a stolen vehicle. Walker was apprehended after a high-speed chase and while serving this sentence escaped on 1/31/73. Since his escape, information has been developed that he was in the Los Angeles area on 2/26/73. When he placed a telephone call to Chicago and also mailed a letter from Los Angeles with a Worldway P.O. Stamp dated 3/1/73 and also a letter postmarked San Francisco dated 3/3/73 in which he indicated he was returning to Los Angeles. Mode of travel unknown. Information has also been developed that Walker attempted to kill another individual in the past by shooting him in the head with a small caliber weapon, but the round bounced off the skull and victim managed to survive. In his letter dated 3/3/73 he indicated that he has already killed an individual since his escape. He is considered to be extremely dangerous and vicious and probably will attempt any means to evade apprehension. He has prior convictions in Florida and Ohio for armed robbery. Subsequent to his escape, he ransacked the residence of a friend, Robert S. Pietrusiak, in Illinois, in which numerous credit cards were taken. It may be possible he is using this alias at the time.
Request all receiving offices place appropriate stops.
Attn CII
Attn LAPD Homicide
Attn LASO Homicide
Attn Tulare County S.O.
Attn California Highway Patrol
“From what this fellow has said to you, do you think he’ll shoot, if confronted?” Paul Luther had asked Hope.
“From what he said to me, he’d rather die than go back to jail,” Hope replied. “At least, that’s what he says, and I think if he thinks he can get away with it, one on one, I think he would shoot.”
“How many people do you think we should have?” Luther asked. “Do you think he might try to shoot it out with two or three people?”
“He might,” Hope said.
“What about five?”
Hope considered it. “Well, maybe not five.”
Thus it was determined that five armed men should be prepared to apprehend G. Dani
el Walker. Then that number was tripled.
Gary LePon, the assistant night manager at the Sheraton–Universal Hotel in Hollywood, usually didn’t register people, but with the evening cocktail-hour rush—6:46 P.M. on Tuesday, March 6—the place was so busy that Mr. LePon checked the guest in. He noticed that the man was well-dressed and smoked a pipe, and that even after he was given his room key—1102—he stayed around the lobby for an hour or so, relaxed, very much at ease, laughing and chatting with the bellboys and whoever came by. Mr. LePon filed the registration card the man had filled out in his own handwriting: William T. Ashlock, 865 Hyde Park, San Francisco, with a company name, Checkmate. In the space where the form said MAY WE MAKE YOUR NEXT SHERATON HOTEL OR MOTOR INN RESERVATION? YES NO, the man checked NO.
“From now on, everybody is going to know what everybody else knows,” Lieutenant Barnes had said, very much as Captain Stoyanoff had said down at LASO. So he had briefed Brown and Parker on his conversation with Ray Clark, Warrant Officer at the Illinois State Prison, who had called Tulare County about two letters that had been received in Chicago, one bearing a Los Angeles postmark, March 1, 1973, the other postmarked San Francisco, March 3, 1973. A clipping enclosed with the earlier letter referred to the death of a William T. Ashlock, found shot to death on a ranch near Springville, in Tulare County, California.
A Tulare deputy had called back to Chicago and transcribed that letter over the phone. Another letter, much shorter, undated and unsigned, was photocopied in Chicago and mailed to California.
Either I am insane or have more guts than sense for, my lovely one, I have just spent an entire day in the company of uniformed and plain-clothes police, the county sheriff, State Police, several district attorneys, and in a crowded courtroom, including the fact that my photograph was taken by reporters outside … success! Hopie is out on bond!
I can only assume that my cover is excellent, my manner perfect, and my new identity and character above question … there I was, hand never far from my gun and thoughts never much further than from who gets it first, and that famous smile of oh-god-will-these-boobs-never-finish-for-I-am-too-bored-for-words.
Of course, poor Hopie almost blew the scene when I walked into the courtroom for only she knew all the truth about me, and I will give her credit with saying to me within three minutes: “Get your ass out of here! I’ll make it! But git!” (Hardly the type to sit around and wonder if I am playing games with her, I suspect, but then she has observed me in a bathing suit and astride a horse and beside a roaring fire—all of which you have missed, therefore, I shall give you the benefit of the doubt).
You must admit that if all does go wrong and back to my cell I go, I will have enough material to write a fair novel, and be ready for your visits. Yes, even with all that goes on around me, I do miss you a bit—but then, our time will come, I am sure, if you keep the faith and remember only that I love you.
Hope had come to like Tom Breslin so much, and to trust him so completely, that in their long working sessions at his office, with the tape recorder on, she was venturing beyond her ranch narrative into her thoughts and background. She told Tom how she had grown up “an ugly duckling,” and how, when she’d turned into a “not-so-ugly duckling,” she’d lost all her girlfriends in a whirl of jealousy and competition. She had always yearned to be not just somebody’s plaything, somebody’s baby doll, but somebody who was useful and good, someone who was needed.
Tom knew he was becoming her father confessor, her father figure, so he was not surprised to hear from her one day when they were not scheduled to meet.
“Tom, this is Hopie. Do you think you can take me somewhere without being tailed?”
Tom said he could.
“Then please come over right away,” she begged. “I have to talk to you. It’s really important.” She paused. “It’s about Taylor.”
Tom said he was on his way. He told Ned he was going to see Hope, and he told his secretary he’d be gone probably all afternoon. When he put on his jacket, he slipped a loaded revolver into the right-hand pocket.
Hope was waiting at the door with her sweater, her sunglasses, and cigarettes. As she closed the front door, Tom could hear the children arguing, the vacuum cleaner roaring again, as Honey’s maid attempted to maintain the house in its natural state of grace. Tom grinned at Hope. “Pretty hectic?”
“Oh, God,” Hope murmured. She got into the front seat.
“Where to?” Tom asked.
“Let’s go to the beach,” Hope said.
She said nothing as they drove up the street, turned left on Sunset, and went out the twisting boulevard. Tom glanced at Hope, but she had her head back, her eyes closed.
At the ocean he turned north and drove in the shadow of the cliffs along the Coast Highway. When he parked the car, Hope opened her eyes and looked around.
“We’re here,” Tom said. Hope got out quickly; he locked the car.
He bought two beers at the snack shop on the road, and they picked their way gingerly down the rocky hillside to the beach. At the water’s edge, where the sand was darker brown from the wetness, Hope sat down and pulled her knees up to her chest.
“Do you think anybody can hear us here?” she asked.
Tom looked around the chilly, empty beach. “Nobody can hear us, Hopie,” he said gently. He snapped open a beer can and passed it to her. She held it in her hand, not looking at Tom.
“It’s Taylor,” she said. “When he came back into the bedroom, I knew who he was, Tom. I knew it was Taylor.”
“Well, okay, Hopie,” Tom said. He smiled. “You know, Gene and Ned and I had a bet, as to which of us you would tell first. I’m glad you told us.”
“At first he seemed very wild and very violent,” Hope went on. “But he was gentle then.” She was not looking at Tom, but at some distant point, straight ahead of her.
“Tom, I was so cold,” she said. “I have never been so cold in my life. When I said I was cold, he covered me with blankets. He covered me with blankets, and I think he probably kept me alive.”
The knowledge that Taylor was not Taylor but G. Daniel Walker had its advantages and drawbacks. Certainly it was crucial news; as though to acknowledge its importance, Van—the soul of conscientiousness, whom Hope thought of as Roger Rigid—called his office to say he was staying home the rest of the day.
Not to celebrate, though. If anything, the situation was scarier, now that Taylor was Walker, a federal fugitive who had been imprisoned for attempted murder, with a string of prior convictions, and who was probably guilty, Paul Luther had said, of some unsolved murders, including the murders of two unidentified people whose bodies had been found in a ditch in Omaha, Nebraska, wrapped in blankets, with pillows under their heads. And Walker was not only still at large, not only considered extremely dangerous, but still in the habit of telephoning Hope. Finally, the fact that Taylor was Walker did not alter the ominous fact that Hope was still charged with murder in the first degree.
Paul Luther, a soft-spoken older man, near his retirement from the bureau, seemed to understand. “I can’t help you with your case,” he told Hope gently, “but I am asking you to help me with mine. You are the only means we have of catching this man. It is important that you keep him on the phone when he calls, try to keep him around. Do you think you can continue to handle this as you have been doing?”
Hope said she would try, and Luther instructed Honey, too. “If your daughter had done anything differently, she would surely have been killed,” he said. “You must continue to treat him as the man who rescued your daughter. Flatter his ego. Keep him around, and we will catch him.”
Still, Hope’s hands shook the next time she took the phone.
“How are you?” Walker asked.
“I’m sick,” Hope replied.
“With the flu, or what?”
“With the whole situation.”
“Oh, the emotional thing,” he said, in an understanding tone.
“The police aren’t
cooperating,” Hope said. “We don’t know anything. The only one with it is Gene Tinch. He’s straight, and somewhat like you. He’s the only guy—”
Walker interrupted. “Other than that, how are you?”
“I feel fine.”
“Did you get anything in the mail?”
“Yeah, it came.”
“A more detailed one is coming that you can let your attorneys listen to.”
“You were wrong about me not writing you,” Hope murmured. “I would write to you. I know what it’s like to be in jail.”
Walker laughed. “I was out of town when I called, but I’m back in the area, in close proximity.”
“The only one you can deal with is Gene,” Hope said. “He’s smart; he reminds me of you.” Her voice faltered. “Oh, I’m so scared. I’m going right down the drain.”
“Come on, get hold of yourself,” Walker said sternly. “The worst they can do is put you in jail.”
“I just can’t go back to jail,” Hope moaned. “Those people hated me. They couldn’t wait to get their hands on me.”
“Because you’re society,” Walker explained.
“Right.”
“I’ve got to get off now.”
“Will you call again and let me know you’re around?” Hope asked.
“Give me a kiss,” Walker said. “Love you.”
At the Los Angeles International Airport, Detective Robert Swalwell of the Illinois State Police met FBI agent Robert Sage, who drove him into the city. At the Mayfair, where they’d booked him a room—the twelfth floor was practically a police barracks, by now—he met FBI agent Luther, and Detective Kenneth Pollock of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office. He met Lt. Forrest Barnes, Sgt. Henry Babcock, and Detective Ralph Tucker of Tulare County. He met Gene Parker and Jim Brown, who were back in L.A. again; they were sitting on the edge of the waterbeds, the room being so crowded. Everyone began to talk.
The Tulare men talked about their homicide, William T. Ashlock.
The L.A. men talked about their homicide, Richard Orin Crane.
The FBI men talked about various felonies, traced by various agents, including the fraudulent use of Larry Burbage’s American Express card 045-567-1008-500AX on February 17, 1973, in Denver, Colorado. The 1973 Ambassador, yellow, that had been rented at the Hertz agency there had just been recovered at the parking lot of the Beverly Hills Hotel.
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