“Just south?”
“Yeah, Mike’s call is north. I really don’t have anything to do that’s special. I’ll just be south at first. Then I don’t know.”
I stopped in the kitchen and talked to the two reserves for a few seconds. They had coffee going and a card game. They were two of my favorites, Harvey Jeffries and Kendall Harp. They both had to go to work in the morning and planned to alternate naps on a cot. I’d never known just how they managed, let alone why. But since they had fresh coffee, I knew I’d be back a little sooner than normal. Maybe I could pick up some rolls or something. Maybe I could have Dan do it.
I went back to my car. A light mist was falling, and I hoped it didn’t freeze. Spring hadn’t sprung.
There had been no news from Dubuque. That was my real reason for working south for the first part of my shift. I wanted to be in a position to intercept the DCI people on their way back to Maitland, if they got him. I was pretty anxious to find out what they had discovered.
I went out to the county maintenance shop to get gas and called Dan to meet with me.
I put in 12.3 gallons, hung up the pump, and recorded the amount in my log, with mileage. Dan drove up just then, so I put off going 10–8 for a few minutes, to talk with him about the homicides and see if there was anything going on in Maitland. We sat with our cars side by side for about ten minutes, while I explained why Betty Rothberg was in jail and why Mark Rothberg was at home. He’d heard about Betty, but nobody had told him exactly why.
Dan went to Rothberg’s church occasionally, whenever the pressure from his wife reached a level where it was easier to attend than not. He had been there today for the funeral.
“Quite a sermon. I saw Ed there, and I thought something might be up. Pastor Rothberg talked about Satan, and the fact that he was alive and well, and in Maitland. No details, but he sure was disturbed.”
“He was, was he? And at a funeral?”
“Oh, yeah. Said that Satan had entered his life more than once and that it had been a terrible struggle, but that he had finally thrown him out for good.”
“I’m pleased for him.”
“Yeah. Most of the people thought he’d had an affair, or had been hitting the bottle.”
“Figures.”
“Don’t it, though. The mourners were a little surprised.”
I just shook my head.
“You heard that we found the guy who tried to break my skull, didn’t you?”
“No! Who is it?”
“Rothberg.”
“Pastor Rothberg?”
“Yep.”
He started to laugh.
“Dan …” I said.
“Yeah?”
“Fuck you.”
He laughed even harder. “Maybe if you’d gone to church …” He couldn’t finish. He made a cross with his fingers, holding them up in front of himself. “Don’t hit me, I’m a Christian,” and laughed even harder.
“Well, I gotta go …”
“Watch out for rabid clergymen …”
“Yeah …” I remembered. “Oh, Dan?”
“Yeah?”
“Want to pick up some rolls at the bakery in a while? Meet at the office for coffee?”
“Sure thing.”
I pulled my car away and picked up the mike.
“Comm, three.”
No answer. Probably a bathroom break. Dan pulled in front of me at the entrance to the shop and signed his cross again. He went north, toward the big industrial park near the Maitland city limits. I turned south, onto the main highway.
“Comm, three.”
I had to call in my gas. If it wasn’t logged, the books wouldn’t balance at the end of the month.
Still no answer. Damn it, Jane. Well, maybe she was on the phone.
I turned at an intersection and was heading toward Maitland when I called again. I was getting a little testy.
“Maitland comm, car three!”
No answer.
“Twenty-five, three? You copy this signal?”
“10–4, three. You’re 10–2 here.”
Okay, Jane. I tried her on info, a separate channel into com. only.
No answer.
By now it had been a good six or seven minutes since I had first tried to call in my fuel. I had heard no traffic from the comm center at all during that period. None.
I spun the car around and hit the top lights.
“Twenty-five, three, go to the comm center.”
I got a scratchy response I couldn’t decipher. Great, he was out on door checks, on his portable. With the hills, he wouldn’t hear me clearly until I was back in Maitland.
I stepped it up and hit the siren. I blew the stop sign at the intersection and worked it up to around 110. I was gonna feel real dumb if Jane was talking to the card players. I turned off the siren before my next call, just in case she had been doing that.
“Comm, three!”
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I was just about in Maitland by then, and Dan heard me. He also heard the roaring of the airflow around the car and through the partially opened window. He knew I was moving.
“Three, what you got?”
“Get to the comm center, 10–33!”
I hit the siren again as I entered Maitland, hurtling up the street toward the comm center. I went right by Dan, who was running to his car. I was still doing about 90, and the posted limit was 25. Blew around an old pickup, who dived into the parking lot at the supermarket. We’d hear about that one.
I shut off the siren as I pulled into the lot, and jumped out of the car, leaving it running with the top lights on. I always locked it, and I did so this time. I pulled my revolver out as I hit the steps. I pushed the buzzer for admittance. No answer. I fumbled for my key, realized it was on the set in the car, and ran back for it. Hit the steps again at a dead run, just as Dan was pulling into the lot.
I unlocked the door and stuck my head around the corner. Nothing seemed disturbed. All the proper lights were on. In dispatch, in the hall. But it was dead quiet.
I heard Dan on the steps and held my left hand up, pointing my revolver ahead of me as I slowly approached the dispatch center. Jane was pretty tall, and I could usually see her head from the doorway, behind the console.
Nothing.
With Dan right behind me, I entered the dispatch center. He went left and pointed his gun toward the kitchen, while I rounded the console to the right.
Jane was slumped over the console desk. There was blood on the log sheet and the notepaper. A little bit of tissue extruded from the left side of her head.
“Jane!”
No response.
“Watch out, Dan! She’s been shot!”
“Shit!” he hissed, but he never looked my way, keeping his gun pointed toward the kitchen.
I tried for a pulse on Jane’s neck, couldn’t get one.
I picked up the phone, cradled it on my shoulder while I dialed with my left hand, keeping my revolver in my right.
“Maitland Hospital?”
“Get an ambulance to the sheriffs office, this is extremely 10–33! Right fucking now!”
I hung up and keyed the mike on ops.
“All cars, 10–33 at the comm center. Possible 10–32. We need 10–78!”
I backed away from the console and heard cars start to acknowledge.
I joined Dan. “Okay, let’s take the kitchen first. Watch the door to the left, that goes to the cells. I’ll go for the kitchen, you watch that door.”
We went through the little hallway, and Dan peeled off, facing the door to the cells. I continued into the kitchen.
Harvey was slumped over the table, the cards scattered onto the floor. Kendall was lying on the floor, on the opposite side of the table, his revolver in his hand. They’d both been shot in the head. I guessed Harvey first, as he was facing the open back door. Small holes. Probably a .22.1 was getting so tense I thought I’d break the grip on my gun.
I backed up, looking around to see D
an staring at me. His gun was still pointed at the cell access door.
“Got ’em both. Back door is open. Don’t know if he’s left or not.”
“Okay.”
“Now we check the cells. You ready?”
“Yeah, I guess …”
“Don’t guess, goddammit—you ready or not?”
“Ready.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
I reached forward, turned the knob, and gave the door a little push. It opened freely, nearly all the way. I found myself looking into the women’s cell. I saw a pair of legs, up to nearly the hips, on the floor in front of the cell door. I could hear a quiet whimpering, but I didn’t know where from.
I had to go through a thick archway, with hallway going both directions. I stuck my head around to the right, toward the men’s cells and bull pen. I could see part of the bull pen area, but saw nobody. I checked left, looking back toward dispatch. Nothing. I kept my revolver in front of me and slowly went toward the men’s area. As I went past the juvenile cell, where Betty was supposed to be, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked in, and she was lying on the floor, making swimming motions, trying to hide under her bunk. I could see the lower half of her, and she appeared to be all right.
I motioned to Dan.
“She’s okay. Let’s go on.”
We went all the way down the hall to the men’s cell. I could see the floor of the bull pen when I was about five feet away. There was a body in an orange jail suit on the floor to the right, another one just beyond it. I couldn’t tell who they were, but one looked like Mills. I went around to the left, where I could see into the cells. Orange-clad body in the third cell. Motionless, like the others. We had two prisoners in addition to Traer and Mills—a twenty-five-year-old for drunk driving and a fifty-year-old for bad checks. I needed one more.
“There should be one more, Dan.”
I continued down to the end of the bull pen. The last area I could look into was the shower. I couldn’t see anything.
“Anybody here?”
Silence.
“It’s the good guys, is anybody here?”
There was a metallic thud against the wall near the shower.
“If you’re alive, tell me, for Christ’s sake.”
“Is that you, Houseman?”
“Yes. Who is it?”
“Traer.”
“Where is he, Traer?”
“I don’t know!”
I had seen that the bull pen door was padlocked in two places, just the way it should be.
“Stay in there. You should be safe there for a while until we get more people here.”
There was a muffled sound, which I took to be an acknowledgment.
“Okay, Dan, back out and let’s do the rest of the area. He might still be here.”
“Right.”
35
Monday, April 29
20:31 hours
We moved cautiously out of the cellblock area, Dan now in the lead. We got to the hall, and I began to feel safe. Whoever it was, and I was assuming it was Travis, was not likely to be anywhere around. I was just about ready to tell Dan to step on it when I heard a popping sound, and Dan’s legs buckled instantly, spilling him on the floor. As he went down, I saw a man standing in front of me.
I fired without thinking and without aiming. I saw a spark, and he twisted around to his right and disappeared through the door into the kitchen.
I was momentarily stunned by the noise made by the .44 magnum inside the steel-enclosed hall. I must have hesitated for about two or three seconds before following him.
I had enough wits about me to stop, kneel down, and peer around the door frame from about waist height, to clear my path. He wasn’t there. I hurried into the kitchen. That was a mistake, because there were several places there he could hide, and I thought about that after I’d gone all the way through and onto the back porch.
The porch was only screened, and I could hear a siren approaching. Ambulance or cop? I didn’t know.
I went outside, into the rear yard and drive. There was an old car out there, a green ’67 Chevy, and it started to roll forward and down the hill toward the roadway.
At the same time, Mike came rocketing up the drive, right past the old Chevy. Its lights weren’t on, and it was moving so slowly he didn’t recognize it as a possible fleeing vehicle. He jumped out of his car just as I fired at the Chevy.
Mike drew his gun and dropped to one knee, but obviously didn’t know what I was shooting at.
I emptied my gun.
“Stop that fucker!” I screamed, and started to run down the hill after the car.
Mike looked at me with his eyes wide, turned, and fired six rounds at the back of the Chevy. It kept going.
Its lights came on, and it leaned hard as it rounded the corner, and went toward the main highway.
Mike and I were both reloading. “Get on your radio and tell anybody you can that the car is on the highway, and we want it, and he’s killed everybody!”
Mike did even better than that, jumping into his car and screaming off in pursuit. I could hear him on my portable, giving the gist of my message to two troopers coming in from the south.
I finished reloading. Habit. Then I turned around and started back into the office. And froze.
I couldn’t move. I just couldn’t do it. I must have stood there for a full minute and couldn’t get an inch closer to that bloodbath.
I took a deep breath and reached in my pocket for a cigarette, hearing sirens coming in from all over.
I lit it on the second try and decided that maybe, if I went around to the front door, I could go in.
As I came around the corner of the building, I saw the ambulance come up the drive, followed by the Maitland PD car.
The EMTs spotted me right away. They came running toward me as I went up the front steps. My keys were still in the lock. I started to open the door when one of the ambulance people touched me on the left arm and said, “Sit down.”
“What?”
“You’ll be okay, sit down.”
“I’m fine, damn it. We have half a dozen people shot in there—you’re needed in there,” and I went in the door. I really don’t know if I could have done it without the distraction of the EMT.
He followed me in. Jerry Foells, the Maitland cop, was right with me.
“Be careful,” I said. “We’ve got shot people all over. I think the building is clear, but let me go first.”
I walked back into the dispatch center. Jane had fallen off her chair and was in a lump on the floor. I got a little dizzy then, but took another drag off the cigarette and walked to the radio. I took a very deep breath, counted to ten, and keyed the mike.
“Maitland comm to all cars and stations,” I said. “Maitland comm has been hit. We have at least three dead, several wounded. Suspect is a white male, about six feet, slender, driving an older model dark-colored Chevy, with possible bullet holes in the rear. Use extreme caution, suspect is armed and dangerous.” I took another deep breath. “Maitland is clear at 20:42. This station will be 10–6 for several minutes.”
There was a lot of babble on the radio, but I ignored it.
I picked up the phone and used the automatic dialer to call Lamar. I told him about what had happened. I’m not sure how clear and concise I was, but he got the message. I was about to call Art when I saw him come into the dispatch center.
He saw Jane first. Then Dan in the hallway.
“Sweet Jesus Christ.”
I didn’t say anything, just punched Sally’s number up on the dialer.
“Hello?”
“Sally. Carl. We’ve had a hit at the dispatch center. Jane is dead. So is Dan, and Harvey and Kendall, and at least three prisoners. We’re secure now. Get up here right away.”
I looked up at Art, who had been listening.
“Fuck,” I said.
“You been looked at?” he asked.
“No.” I dialed the hospita
l. “We need the other ambulance here, right away.”
“You better get that looked at.”
“Get what looked at?”
I dialed the Maitland hospital. I told them to get both their ambulances coming.
Art went into the kitchen and came back looking very pale.
“What the hell happened?”
An EMT came in, asking for the keys to the cells, to get to the victims there. I reached into the drawer, and the EMT saw Jane for the first time. I couldn’t find the keys and then noticed them on her belt. I gestured to Art.
“Could you get those?”
He reached down, almost being hit on the head by the EMT, who was just rising up.
“She’s dead.”
“Yeah, we know … Art, you might want to go to the cell with them. Traer is alive.”
He went out. I stood up, dizzy again, and went out onto the front porch to get some air. I could hear the dispatch phone ringing. Somebody else would have to get it.
I watched the second ambulance pull up, damned near running over Sally, who had just gotten out of her car and was heading for the office at a dead run. Getting pretty crowded out here, I thought.
Sally stopped when she saw me. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, but nobody else is. Jane’s dead. I guess I told you that.”
“Yes,” she said. Her lip started to tremble.
“Look,” I said as the second ambulance crew hustled by, “why don’t I take you in? It’s pretty gruesome, but we need a dispatcher pretty bad.”
I took her by the arm and guided her into the center. Jane was still there, and the blood was on the counter.
“I’m sorry, Sally. We haven’t had a chance to clean up.”
Dumb thing to say.
She started to cry. Looking at Jane. I squeezed her shoulder.
“It’ll be okay.”
“Oh, God.”
“Look, get busy, it’ll make it easier. Call in another dispatcher right away.”
She nodded.
“And I just think I’ll sit down,” I said as a wave of dizziness came over me.
An EMT came up to me, Donna Gorskey. “I’m going to look at your head now, whether you want me to or not.”
“My head?”
“You’ve got a large cut on your head.”
Well, what do you know about that? I thought.
Eleven Days Page 27
