The Onion Field

by Joseph Wambaugh

  It was a long and tedious autopsy, much work for the doctor because the remains could not be routinely mangled, but had to be presentable for the ostentatious police funeral sure to follow. It was after 10:00 P.M. before the doctor could remove his smock and finish his notes and leave the morgue.

  It was some minutes later when the morgue attendant said, “Well, that boy’s done his all for the goddamn city. Let’s call the mortuary and get him outta here. What’s left of him.” And he called. His remains were released to the mortuary at 10:40 P.M.

  It was 10:40 P.M. when the detective at Bakersfield police headquarters sat stock still at his desk, the cigarette burning his finger unnoticed, his whisper almost as breathless as the one on the other end of the line. “You sure?” he breathed. “You sure? Goddamn! Okay. Okay. Sure. Well take care of you. Sure. Don’t worry. Be there in ten minutes! Goddamn!”

  Mom’s Rooming House seemed to Jimmy like it should have been a good place for a black man to hole up for a day or two. But thanks to police mug shots, Jimmy Smith was quickly becoming the most famous black man in Bakersfield. He checked in only ten minutes before the Bakersfield police received the hushed phone call.

  Jimmy was relieved that Mom didn’t give him a second glance when he registered, and Jimmy was happily surprised to find the room was clean. As soon as he closed the door he began stripping down, but despite the mud and stale sweat he was too exhausted to bathe that night. But he had to wash the pants and shoes and socks or they’d never be dry tomorrow.

  Jimmy pulled himself up from the bed in the tiny room, cursed as he discovered there was not even a wash bowl, and trudged wearily down the hall with the soiled things, heading for the community bathroom.

  As Jimmy walked down the poorly lit hall, he passed a tall, light skinned man who looked at him strangely and kept walking toward the front. It was a small bathroom, barely large enough for the tub and stool. He scrubbed the clothes for perhaps five minutes and as he sat there on the toilet washing the socks he heard voices out front. Jimmy, wearing only his shorts, peeked out and the door came crashing in at the same moment. The back door was also shattered. Then Jimmy was hurled out into the hall and was against the wall, and strangely, he couldn’t keep his eyes off the back door as one policeman was methodically hacking through, shouting, “I cut my goddamn hand!”

  Now Jimmy was ringed by uniformed police and detectives and his hands were jerked up behind his back. He was handcuffed and dropped to the floor on his stomach. One officer said, “Move, you cop killing bastard, and I’ll blow your head off.”

  Then Mom came in and said, “Look at my tenant! Look at that nice young man layin there on the floor with only his underwear on!”

  And a detective said, “Listen, Mom, you get on back in your room and we’ll handle this.”

  Jimmy felt sure the tall, light skinned man had recognized him and called the police. He was never to even wonder how so many uniformed policemen and detectives could have gotten there less than five minutes after the tall man saw him. Jimmy was grateful to hear the solicitous voice of Mom. She was a nice old lady like his Nana, he thought vaguely. If she wasn’t here they’d kill me.

  “Just move, you cop killing son of a bitch,” another policeman whispered to him, “and I’ll take your head off.” Jimmy did not move and did not speak and thought how strange it was to hear the label “cop killer” applied to him. He was only a thief, he thought, incoherently. Just a thief. Just a liar and a thief. Been one all my life. Just a sniveler and a crybaby and a thief. How can they say I’m that. That. They gas people for that.

  Then Jimmy was jerked to his feet and pushed inside the room where a big detective was examining Karl Hettinger’s gun and he said, “Is this the gun you took from the policeman?”

  “You got it wrong,” Jimmy whimpered. “I didn’t kill nobody.” Then he was being hustled out the door barefoot, with a blanket over his shoulders, walking through the broken glass, feeling nothing. He was turned over to two Los Angeles detectives who had been in Bakersfield and were summoned to Mom’s.

  “Powell forced me to come to Bakersfield with him and the officers,” said Jimmy to the Japanese detective. When the detective did not respond, Jimmy turned to the Caucasian and said, “Powell shot that man in cold blood. It shocked me. I was scared. I didn’t kill nobody.”

  But neither detective looked as though he believed Jimmy Smith. On the way to the Bakersfield jail, Jimmy said, “You just check those guns. You ain’t gonna find my fingerprints on none of them. I didn’t fire no gun. Not at all. You check, then you’re gonna know I’m tellin the truth!”

  EIGHT

  At 8:40 that evening, while the body of Ian Campbell was being cut and sawed and disemboweled, Gregory Powell was taken from his cell and was again talked to by an exhausted Pierce Brooks, who knew the coupe had been found in the small town of Lamont with two revolvers, wiped and wrapped in a trenchcoat, stuffed under the front seat. Brooks doubted that there’d be any good prints on the guns, and even if there were they wouldn’t prove much, with each man shuffling four guns around in the car after the shooting.

  “Here’re some cigarettes, Greg,” said Brooks when the young killer sat. “Now, just before we shut down for the night, there’s something that’s confusing me. I need to know exactly what Jimmy did, and what position he was standing in at the time the shooting happened.”

  “First, can I ask you, have you found out anything about Max?”

  “Max is fine.”

  “She got arrested, didn’t she?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What for?”

  “For robbery.”

  “Robbing who?”

  “Max is under investigation to determine if she’s been involved in any of your robberies, and if she hasn’t she’ll be released. You know darned well Max isn’t in trouble, that she’s all right.”

  “I haven’t seen her. I don’t know this. I haven’t seen her. You didn’t tell me that she’d been arrested. You said you were going to level with me, Mr. Brooks.”

  “I am leveling with you.”

  “Well you damn sure didn’t.”

  “Don’t talk to me that way,” said Pierce Brooks. “Just simmer down. How often does your temper flare off like that, young fellow?”

  “Pretty frequently.”

  “Pretty frequently. It flared off pretty frequently less than twenty-four hours ago too, didn’t it? When you shot that policeman in the face.”

  “I didn’t shoot any policeman.”

  “Yes you did. You know the other officer is alive, don’t you?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And he was there and he told us what happened.”

  “I don’t care what he said. I told you exactly the way it happened.”

  “Who made the statement, ‘Have you ever heard of the Little Lindbergh Law?’ just prior to the shooting?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You remember the statement being made?”

  “I don’t recall. We’d spoken about kidnapping when we were riding up there, but now I don’t think there was anything mentioned about a Lindbergh Law.”

  “Do you know what the Little Lindbergh Law is?”

  “No, not specifically. I have a general idea.”

  “What’s your general idea?”

  “That kidnapping carries capital punishment.”

  “The gun you had during the ride north was your Las Vegas Colt?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is also the gun you had when you walked around the car and fired at the officer?”

  “No sir.”

  “And then Jimmy fired into the officer as he was lying on the ground?”

  “I didn’t have the .38. I didn’t have any weapon when I walked around that car.”

  “He was shot with two different guns.”

  “He was shot with two different guns?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well I didn’t even know this.”r />
  “All right then, why did you have to get out and face the officers? Why didn’t you just drop them off and leave them there if your plan was to get a head start into Bakersfield?”

  “I don’t know. Because Jimmy was standing out here on the side, and I just walked around back and asked him if he wanted me to drive or if he was going to drive, and there was … as far as I was concerned … well, we had even joked about the fact that it was freezing cold and everything.”

  “Why did you have to ask Jimmy that when you do all the driving anyway?”

  “I don’t always drive. I bought the car for Jimmy. It was Jimmy’s car. Just as soon as we got it registered it was gonna be in his name, and it was something that he was proud of, and I just … I got in the habit … making it a habit of always speaking to him, you know, like if he wanted me to drive or if he was going to drive.”

  “You say you saw Jimmy shooting into the prone body of the officer?”

  “I saw him shooting downward … I don’t know … I think he was shooting … I know he was shooting into him.”

  “I’m going to tell you now that he did shoot into the officer’s body, but I’m going to tell you that before this happened, the officer was shot down with another gun, the gun you held all the way up.”

  “It didn’t happen like that, Mr. Brooks. Look it, I know I’ve had the course anyway. You know, no matter how it goes. I’ve had the course and I realize this, you know? The officer just got shook up and doesn’t remember right.”

  “You say the automatic was not fired at the scene?”

  “No, it was not.”

  “What if I told you that it was and that we could prove it?”

  “Well if you can prove it, then I’m wrong. But I say it wasn’t.”

  “Well, I’m telling you that it was, and now there are three guns fired. Are you going to tell me now that he fired all three guns?”

  “I’ll tell you this much, I’ll tell you that .32 automatic was not fired at the scene.”

  “You’re losing your temper again.”

  “No, I’m not losing my temper. It wasn’t fired when I was present, and I don’t believe it was fired, period. Despite anything you might say.”

  “You do lose your temper pretty quickly, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I have a rather nasty temper.”

  “Do you always shake like that when you get mad? Do you always look like that, like you’re looking right now at me?”

  “No, Mr. Brooks. I can’t help it. This is the way I’ve been all my life. Well, not all my life. I didn’t used to have this bad a temper, but since I got out of Vacaville it’s gotten worse and worse and that’s the way it is.”

  “All right. That’s enough for tonight. It’s 9:30.”

  Before going back to the homicide squad room Pierce Brooks smoked a cigarette and paced the hallway and wondered what ballistics would uncover now that the little Ford coupe had been discovered. The .32 shell casing found at the blood spoor proved the automatic had been fired at least once, but preliminary indications were that .38 slugs had done all the killing—the overkilling. Brooks thought of the bullet in the face, enough in itself, and the four in the chest while he was writhing helplessly. They shot him to pieces. They killed him two or three times.

  Then he thought of it again: We told you guys we were going to let you go, but have you ever heard of the Little Lindbergh Law? Pierce Brooks snuffed out the cigarette and smiled grimly. Losers, he thought. Small time losers who couldn’t do anything right. Who didn’t even know that the Lindbergh Law applied only to kidnapping for ransom or kidnapping with great bodily harm. So at the moment Gregory Powell made the statement, he hadn’t committed a capital offense. It was Powell’s ignorance of the law which killed the young officer. Punks. Stupid, stupid punks, thought Pierce Brooks. Then he walked through the doorway into the squad room.

  At ten o’clock Sunday night, after having been on duty twenty hours, and after having had only two hours of sleep before that tour of duty began, Pierce Brooks was home, stomach knotted and acid-full, nauseated from the cigarettes and coffee. But he would barely have time to eat and bathe. He would have no sleep. He received another telephone call. Jimmy Smith had been captured. This time Brooks and his partner were driven to Bakersfield in a detective car by a third detective, since neither of them was in any condition to drive, and they dozed fitfully as once again they crossed the Grapevine Highway.

  At 3:30 A.M. on Monday, a bedraggled Pierce Brooks sized up Jimmy Lee Smith and decided to interrogate him there at Bakersfield police station. He seemed anxious to talk.

  “… Now, wait a minute, before I get started, I wanna tell you that I’m not sayin this lookin for no help or nothin because I know there ain’t none now. It’s too late now. This is actually what happened.…”

  And then Jimmy began a long tale full of lies, truths, half truths, and like Greg, he drew numerous diagrams for Brooks and was encouraged by the noncommittal nods of the detective, and thought that at least the detective didn’t disbelieve him. On went the story of Greg whispering strange things to him on the trip about a Little Lindbergh Law, and saving a bullet for himself. Pierce Brooks merely nodded occasionally in encouragement up to the moment Jimmy Smith was standing in the dirt road in the onion field and Greg came around the back of the car.

  “I forget exactly what he said, somethin … he said somethin … Then he fired and he shot this officer. I don’t know if he shot this officer once, twice. I think he shot him just one time. But anyway, I don’t even move. I’m just petrified more or less. He starts to shoot at this officer who breaks and runs right down the road. Greg runs over there. He’s runnin, but he’s steady firin. Then Greg comes back and tells me, he says, ‘Let’s get the car and catch him,’ you know? So I started comin toward the car. ‘Did you kill the officer?’ I said. ‘Is he dead?’ ‘Yeah, he’s deader than a mackerel,’ he says. So he starts reloadin the guns and droppin shells. ‘Do you want me to drive around this way and turn around?’ I say. He says, ‘Yeah.’ I took off and got down that road and went off and left him. Now that’s just a fast of what happened.”

  “You didn’t fire any gun?”

  “No sir.”

  “You had the .32 automatic in your hand?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “When Greg stepped around the car just before he shot, which gun did he have?”

  “I don’t even know. When he comes around the car I stepped back three or four steps in order to give him room, see?”

  “What did you give him room for?”

  “I don’t know. I just stepped back, you know?”

  “Well why did you give him room? You saw him carrying a gun?”

  “No, I …”

  “You knew there was going to be a shooting.”

  “No.”

  “He whispered something to you.”

  “He didn’t.”

  “You knew there was going to be a shooting then.”

  “No sir.”

  “You didn’t want to get in the line of fire.”

  “No sir.”

  “Then why did you move back?”

  “I don’t know. I’d tell you if I did because it wouldn’t make no difference.”

  “Did you fire any shots at all?”

  “I did not fire a shot. It don’t make no difference. I want you to know I’m not lyin to you, you know?”

  “That’s what Greg said, that it doesn’t make any difference and he has no reason to lie.”

  “He did? Well, it don’t make any difference because we’re both gonna get gassed anyway. It don’t matter, you know? This is the point I’ve been tryin to get over all night to these other officers. I wanna get the point over to them, to any man. I was scared to death. I mean, hey, I don’t have the nerve to kill no man just cold blooded, just outright. He shot that man down like a dog.”

  “How many holdups have you pulled with Greg?”

  “I haven’t pulled none with him.”
>
  “Are you telling me you have not been involved in any way either inside or out as driver on any robbery at all?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “And are you also telling me you didn’t fire a shot in that onion field?”

  “I didn’t fire a shot.”

  “I’ll finish by asking you one more question about what happened after Greg fired that first shot and the officer fell.”

  “Yes?”

  “Did he then fire some more shots at the fleeing officer?”

  “I guess. I don’t know how many.”

  “Is that all the shots that were fired?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many times?”

  “Three or four. Until the gun went click.”

  “Did you fire even a single shot?”

  “No.”

  “Do you think you could ever kill, Jimmy?”

  “No.”

  “Jimmy, we believe you were involved in robberies with Greg. At least as a driver.”

  “I can tell you don’t believe me, Sergeant.”

  “That’s right, I don’t believe you.”

  “Please, Sergeant, believe me. I swear it on my mother’s name. I want you to believe me.”

  Pierce Brooks made a careful note that Jimmy Smith had given an account of the crime leaving out one conspicuous fact—the four shots fired into Ian Campbell’s chest.

  The Los Angeles papers were full of execution news on Monday, March 11. “Moonlight Execution” was the headline, with pictures of the officers and the killers and Pierce Brooks.

  Brooks drank coffee and munched toast that morning and read, and his newspaper told on the same front page of legal executions which were taking place in other parts of the world. In Paris, Jean Marie Bastien-Thiry was executed as a member of the political underground which merely plotted the murder of Charles de Gaulle. Brooks smiled crookedly at this and at another article telling of the execution in Leningrad of five men who were found guilty of black marketing those goods their factory had produced above its quota. Death was the sentence in Russia for a crime which would hardly qualify as a high-grade California misdemeanor. Brooks wondered what his counterparts in the police forces of Paris or Leningrad would say to his fears that one of his two killers would evade the gas chamber for kidnapping and brutally executing a police officer. We told you we were going to let you go …