The Onion Field

by Joseph Wambaugh

  Greg was pushing the red and white Plymouth as hard as it would go. He had to beat Jimmy to Los Angeles. He knew what that punk would do, go straight to L.A., pick up Max, and take the hundred and forty bucks she had. He had to get there in time. There would be a reckoning with Jimmy Youngblood. But he knew he could never make it in this stolen Plymouth. The farmer had probably reported it already. So he headed for the hideout. A change of clothes, switch to the station wagon, and he could drive to L.A. unmolested. It was almost 1:00 A.M. when he reached the hideout.

  The first thing Greg thought of was a disguise. He decided to shave his head and started with the front at the hairline, but it was hard to shave the forehead there in the little room with his hands shaking from fear and frustration and rage at Jimmy Youngblood. Finally he threw the razor in the sink and changed clothes, discarding the leather jacket he knew the police would be looking for. In a few minutes he was ready to go and then it struck him—the keys! Christ, the keys! Max had the keys to the wagon in her purse!

  Then Greg crumbled. Panic set in, and Gregory Powell, who had stolen two dozen cars in his lifetime, and who could have hotwired a car in a few minutes, did not think of it. Could not. Frantically he fumbled for a dime to use to remove the screws from the license plates of the station wagon to switch with the plates of the stolen Plymouth.

  Finally he was ready. He had on a light jacket with the spare clip to the automatic in his shirt pocket, a half box of shells in his coat pocket, and the .32 automatic in his belt. But he threw the .32 automatic under the front seat of the Plymouth as he was driving away.

  California highway patrolmen Odom and Crist were cruising US Highway 466 on the east side of Bakersfield when they heard the stolen car broadcast at twenty minutes before one. They automatically jotted down the information: 1957 Plymouth four-door, white over red, and the license EOB 940. Though Mettler Station was several miles from their beat, they began watching passing cars more closely, but there were few cars to watch at this hour. They were bored and getting close to the end of their shift and made small talk to stay awake.

  Twenty minutes later the communications operator rebroadcast the information on the stolen Plymouth. This time more was added: “Above vehicle possibly occupied by two male suspects wanted for kidnapping and murder of a police officer.”

  The sergeant, anticipating the reaction of young aggressive officers, came on the air and ordered all units to remain on their beats. But officers Odom and Crist looked at each other and Crist said, “Screw the beat. Let’s hump.” Odom drove toward Highway 99, across the Taft Highway to the new freeway, and south. He drove one hundred and forty miles per hour.

  At that moment Gregory Powell drove south through the night, passing the road to Weed Patch. There were cows on both sides of the highway, and dairy smell, followed by fields of truck crops.

  Greg was relatively calm. He knew exactly where he was, knew he was getting near the Maricopa Highway, near the onion field. He passed a desolate mile-long strip where nothing grew but scattered oak and eucalyptus, then the sign for Herring Road, and he figured he would soon be passing the Maricopa Highway.

  Every tenth of a mile he strained his eyes off to the right, peering through the windbreakers, across the fields and the darkness. He thought there would be great lights out there, maybe a helicopter lighting the entire area. Maybe dogs and a posse. He was overrun with excitement and dread as he passed an open strip of highway through the grape vineyards. Gusts caught his car and whirlwinds spun through the sandy vineyards on both sides. Still he kept the Plymouth at a steady sixty miles per hour.

  A few minutes to go. A few minutes to pass that place where the dirt road was off a mile to the right. A few miles and he would be safe. He believed that he only had to get past that road, past that onion field.

  If only I knew another route, he thought. If only I didn’t have to pass by so close to it, could steer away from it.

  The whirlwinds danced on the sandy shoulders of the highway and powerful gusts sucked him to the right. Out there in the darkness, less than seven miles away, was the ditch where Ian Campbell lay.

  Greg passed Mirage Station at a safe speed and officers Odom and Crist turned in their seats. They had already checked out another white and red Plymouth at Mirage.

  “Wrong license,” said Odom looking at OHA 459.

  “Yeah,” said Crist dejectedly.

  “Might as well check him out, though.”

  “Okay,” said Crist, and he looked at the time and later testified it was 1:45 A.M. when they turned on the red light and the clear spotlight.

  The left shoulder of the driver dipped a few inches and Gregory Powell discovered that the Plymouth had a deep well under the front seat. The .32 automatic had slid down and back. It was gone. He pulled the car over one mile north of the David-Copus turnoff.

  Greg watched in the mirror as the two husky six-footers approached one on each side. He calmed himself, and he smiled before the one on the driver’s side got up to him. He was smiling in a calm friendly way when Odom first looked at his face.

  “Good evening. Could I see your license and registration?”

  “I wasn’t speeding, was I?” asked Greg, handing the license to Odom.

  “No,” Odom said, examining the license and the registration slip Greg had given him, noting that the car was dirty but the plates shiny clean. “This registration is for a Ford station wagon.”

  “What? Let’s see.” Greg examined the registration slip for a moment and shook his head, saying, “It’s just a goof up on my part. I have two automobiles. I have a Ford station wagon my wife drives, and this Plymouth is mine. I registered both cars the same day and apparently just put the registration and the license on the wrong vehicle.” Greg clucked and shook his head.

  To the officers it was believable. The new plates had just been issued in March and everyone was making errors. Odom and Crist looked at each other over the top of the car. Then on impulse Odom said, “Would you step out of the car?”

  “Sure,” said Greg. “But what’s the problem?”

  “Someone driving a car like this just killed a policeman very close to here.”

  Greg patiently shook his head and said in a tired voice, “Surely you don’t think it was me?”

  In truth, at that moment, neither of the officers did think it was he. How could it be? Officer Crist was to say later, “We were sure we had the wrong guy. I mean how could a guy who just killed a cop be that calm and indifferent? It was impossible.” Surely you don’t think it was me?

  Then Officer Odom shined his light under the seat and came out with a .32 automatic, and worked the slide, kicking the live round out of the chamber of the gun.

  “Is this yours?” he asked. It was precisely 1:55 A.M.

  “Sure it is. I have a permit,” said Greg, taking out the gun registration slip from Nevada.

  “This isn’t a gun permit,” said Odom. “It’s a gun registration card from where you bought it.”

  “No? Well I sure thought it was, and anyway I thought I could carry a gun in the car. My wife has a .38 in her car.” Greg leaned back against the hood of the patrol car and folded his arms and shrugged again. Then Crist patted him down and found the extra rounds.

  “Open the trunk,” Odom said.

  “Sure,” Greg said, hoping the second key on the ring would fit, and it did, and the trunk popped open.

  Crist watched closely as Odom leaned forward into the trunk. Greg seemed to be looking at the clamshell holster.

  Then both officers saw the clumps of dirt in the trunk and the irrigation shovel and they knew this car didn’t belong to any city man. This was a farmer’s car for certain.

  They found the other set of license plates, the ones that belonged on the stolen car.

  “I’m a citizen, a taxpayer,” Greg said gruffly. “It’s degrading to be handcuffed like this. You’re making a big mistake.”

  Greg was seated in the back of the patrol car, and anothe
r Highway Patrol unit arrived as well as Chief Criminal Deputy Fote of the Kern County Sheriff’s Office. Fote had been on his way to the murder scene when he heard the broadcast that the Highway Patrol had a car stopped. He came by and talked briefly with Gregory Powell and suggested they take him to the scene to let Hettinger look at him. Then another patrolman went up to the Plymouth and in a few minutes came back with something Crist and Odom had overlooked—a five-cell flashlight bearing the name “Hettinger, L.A.P.D.” By now, Chief Fote was in his own car a mile down the highway, and for the first time the composure of Gregory Powell was shattered. He began to tremble violently as he looked at the hostile police faces surrounding him. His jaw was jerking and his voice went hoarse with fear. “I’ll talk to the big detective! Don’t you take me away from here! Get the big man back here!”

  Deputy Joe Hylton was astonished when he received the second radio call of the night. In those remote farmlands it was rare to receive a call at this hour, but now a second one coming on the heels of the stolen vehicle call at the Riddick home. And then when details were given to him over his radio, he floored the gas pedal and skidded into the driveway of the Opal Fry ranch.

  “I was surprised by this Officer Hettinger. You could take one look and see what he’d been through and yet he took me straight back there, back where they’d shot his partner. The thing is that all this country looks the same to an outsider, and he’d been traveling maybe four, five miles through the dark on foot. He should’ve been completely lost. And we were coming from the opposite direction he came in from, still he found the dirt road right off and took me to the place. He had a farmer’s instincts. I was amazed. Except that when we got there we didn’t see the body at first. I looked around and then I found him in the ditch. He was lying there in the moonlight by the onion field. Of course I’d seen a lot of dead bodies as a sheriff’s deputy, but this one struck home. The minute I saw that six-inch cross-draw holster on his belt it struck home. This was a brother officer.”

  “I ain’t ever gonna forget two things there, out there on that little dirt track that night,” said Emmanuel McFadden. “Two things. First there was Karl. He almost started cryin when the deputy shined his light on the dead man. Karl and me, we jist back on off and let the deputy shine his light and write and make his calls, and Karl stood off there in the dark and held his head. Jist held it, you know, and said maybe it was all his fault and maybe he coulda did more. He was cryin and was awful nervous. I ain’t never gonna forget him cryin so quiet like. I always says you can’t care too much like that. You jist can’t care too much.

  “But the thing most passin strange that night was the dead officer. It made me come back, back over to the ditch in the dark and I stood there in the wind and looked down there while the deputy was shinin his light around. I noticed the watch. He was layin on his stomach and he had his arm up. Looked jist like a livin man layin there lookin at that watch, and his eyes was open a little and I say to myself he is lookin at that watch. Markin the time!”

  Deputy Hylton’s last official paragraph stated: “Due to the fact that Officer Hettinger was very upset and the fact that he wished to accompany his partner to the hospital, the undersigned obtained very little information on his part about this offense.”

  Deputy Joe Hylton recorded the time of the discovery of the body. It was 1:55 A.M., the precise moment of Gregory Powell’s capture a few miles away.

  Chief Fote was in the back of the Highway Patrol car with Gregory Powell and Greg was looking fearfully at the dozen uniformed officers surrounding the car, for by now the word had been passed that one killer was caught.

  “Can I get a break if I talk, sir?” Greg asked the big man. “Can I get a break?”

  “I can’t and won’t offer you any deals. Anything you say may be used in court against you.”

  “I’m aware of that, but I wanna talk to you. Only to you.”

  “Why me?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because you look like my father.”

  “Well,” said the big detective, smiling slightly, “I’m willing to listen to you—son.”

  Karl Hettinger was taking his last ride with Ian Campbell. On the way to the hospital he was wishing for a miracle. Maybe he’s not really … maybe he’s not … maybe … and he turned and looked in the rear of the ambulance from his seat in front and Ian didn’t look dead to Karl. His eyes were open and they looked merely sad, deeply disappointed, grieving perhaps, not dead. But the ambulance attendant shook his head, and Karl looked at the blood on Ian’s face from the hole under the nose in the dimple of the lip. The blood was leaking down both cheeks, running into the ears.

  It was their second strange ride together this night. Only now Karl was in front and Ian was in the back.

  SEVEN

  Greg continued talking until 5:00 A.M. to Chief Fote and to other deputies of the Kern County Sheriff’s Office.

  “And Jimmy Youngblood was on the other side, so he got out first and he took the revolver and there was one laying on the seat beside him. So he handed me the automatic and told me to cover the driver. So the three of them were over there and I was still sitting in the car. I laid the automatic on the seat and walked around because I figured Jimmy would want me to drive. And when we got about … oh, I guess I was only about a foot or so from him, he said something to the officers. I didn’t even catch it and he just started firing. And oh, there was the one officer hollering, and I was hollering. I hollered at Jimmy what the hell was he doing, and he was firing at the officer laying on the ground, and we both, the other officer and myself, took off running. Jimmy was firing at the officer ahead of me I guess, and I was running parallel with him, maybe fifteen feet to the side, and I jumped off to the side and crouched down in some tumbleweed. Jimmy hollered he was going to kill the son of a bitch and he jumped in the car and he took off after the officer that was running down the road.

  “I was scared and pretty shook up, and I walked back up on the road and the officer was in the ditch and I felt his pulse. I found the flashlight back along the road and I turned around and started toward the highway. I found the automatic and I picked it up and started running toward the main highway.

  “I just wanted to get the hell out of there, and I found this Plymouth and I took it and changed the plates on my wagon over to the Plymouth and hoped that I could get through to her. To my wife. And so that’s it. I just took off and I got stopped. I never even fired a gun. I didn’t even have any weapon when I walked around the back of that car.”

  By three o’clock a Los Angeles homicide detective and his partner were driving north toward the Grapevine with the assurance of the chief of police that the detective was to relieve Kern County of all responsibility in the investigation, and that the evidence and suspect, Gregory Powell, would be turned over to him.

  Usually the detective hated being awakened from sound sleep, especially on a Saturday night. Not so in this case, a police officer murder with a suspect still outstanding. The first execution murder he knew of in Los Angeles history. He didn’t at all mind being called from his bed. Pierce Brooks was in fact exhilarated, stimulated—the traditional huntsman.

  A fifteen year officer, Pierce Brooks was already reputed to be the best homicide detective in the department, an honor usually accorded only much older men. But Sergeant Brooks sometimes looked old enough to inherit the title, even though his auburn hair was thick and not yet starting to gray, and his hazel eyes were a young man’s eyes. It was his bearing which aged the forty-one year old detective, gave him a fatherly look. He was a round shouldered shambling man whose slouching walk and baggy suits belied the body beneath. He’d played on all the department athletic squads before his transfer to homicide, and there was a hard body under the loose fitting business suit.

  When asked by strangers at parties what his police duties were, he’d reply, “Catching felons.” And when asked what his hobbies were he’d reply, “Catching felons.” The detective had led a diversified early
life as a World War II naval officer, a blimp pilot for Howard Hughes (flying the dirigible with Jane Russell on one side and “The Outlaw” on the other) and as a political science student with a taste for historical novels. Now, Pierce Brooks was a single-minded archetypal homicide detective.

  Brooks glanced over at Glen Bates, his bearlike, gray haired partner, as they drove silently down the Grapevine from Fort Tejon, the valley spreading below them. He and Bates had discussed tersely what they knew about the case and both had ridden without speaking for the past half hour. It was understood, though it had never been mentioned, that Bates, the older man, deferred to his younger partner, and in fact was glad to assume less exacting investigative duties connected with their cases because any investigation by Pierce Brooks made rigorous demands. Brooks’s imagination was admired, but his thoroughness was legend.

  Brooks appeared to be lethargic, smoking listlessly as they rode, occasionally glancing at his watch, but his mind was at work. He was forming a mental picture from what he already knew of the two killers, Powell and Youngblood, who would soon be identified as Jimmy Smith, alias Jimmy Youngblood.

  Powell had already talked freely to Kern County authorities so the first step had already been taken for Brooks, but Brooks was sure the initial confession was laced with lies and rationalizations which Powell might feel obliged to defend stubbornly. And of course with one suspect still at large, Powell no doubt had placed all the blame on his partner. Brooks was sure without knowing any of the details of the confession. It was as sure as nightfall.

  He began thinking about the young officer Hettinger who had been kidnapped, terrorized, who had barely escaped the fate of Campbell. He wondered what condition Hettinger would be in. Brooks could not think of a case in which a policeman had been put through such prolonged terror. Policemen usually died cleaner deaths: a sudden gunshot during a robbery attempt, a traffic violator who suddenly turns out to be a gunman, a distraught husband or wife who insanely shoots the arbitrator called to their domestic quarrel. But not this. Not an execution in an onion field. So he thought of what Hettinger would be like after being kidnapped, witnessing the execution, being hunted. He couldn’t recall any murder victim in any of his cases being put through such an ordeal. Then he thought of Harvey Glatman. His victims had been sadistically terrorized for hours.