No One Rides For Free - Larry Beinhart (18 page)

plead, making biblical references to the weakness of
the flesh. The suspect offered to trade 'important information' for
his release. Culpepper doubted that someone so old and ignorant could
know anything useful and expressed those doubts forcefully. At which
point Johnson says, 'How 'bout that rich ol' white man done got his
head turned to grits and gravy?'

Even Culpepper seemed to be aware that this is an
important case. 'Stay right there,' he instructed Johnson, redundant
to a man in a cell, and ran to Deltchev. Deltchev, much to
Culpepper's discomfort, sent him to me. I had to compliment him on
excellent police work.

"Apparently Mrs. Althea Johns is not only an
extremely moral and churchgoing woman, but a physically powerful one
as well. Johnson would rather do time than be sent back. We went back
and forth a bit, and he finally told me that he had been approached
by two men, two days before the murder. They had a photo of Wood and
asked Johnson if he had ever seen the man.

"Johnson claims that at first he denied any
knowledge, but they pressed him physically, and he felt that he had
no choice but to identify Wood for them."

“
You sound," I said, "like you don't
entirely believe Mr. Johnson."

"No. Not entirely. Maybe they did threaten him,
but I know that ten dollars would have done the job. I don't think he
was reluctant at all."

"Any names?"

"Afraid not," he said.

"Description?"

"Some, but I don't know how accurate. Johnson
started with a simple black, big and young. 'How big?' was my first 
question. He started with big enough for the Redskins' offensive
line. After some coaxing we got down to one six-footer, one a couple
of inches taller. The six-footer is a little heavyset. The taller one
is thinner, has a big scar on his right cheek, or maybe his left.
They're both brown, right down the middle between African blue-black
and octoroon. Age, out of their teens, early thirties at the top end.
In Johnson's words, 'young but not childrens.' Hair, medium short and
natural, except the shorter one might have had corn rows or something
.... Johnson is not a wonderful witness. Oh yeah, the skinny one, he
seemed a little high."

"On what?" I asked.

"
Johnson couldn't say, just a little high. "

"Hyped up, finger-poppin' high, stoned out,
spaced out? What flavor high?"

"Just high was all I could get from him."

"Is that all of it, Bill?"

"I was under the impression I was giving you a
detailed report. In fact, I was afraid you would complain I was too
loquacious."

"
How can I complain about something I can't
spell?"

"Why not? We got officers here, can't spell
larceny, perpetrator, even homicide."

"How is the war on dumb going?" I asked.

"
Deltchev will have his twenty in about eighteen
months. He could try to stay on for twenty-five or even thirty, but
it's looking good for twenty. There is also talk afoot that if he
stays, the Chief will find him something very administrative. Astral
tile work or something. " A trace of a smile appeared on
Tillman's bland face.

"Where is Johnson now?" I asked.

"Isn't it slick how you reminded me of the favor
that you did me, then slipped in the key question, like I wouldn't
notice it," Tillman said, his face returning to his unflappable
look. I think I actually blushed. He gave me time to do it, then
continued blandly, "We let him go and told Texas he skipped.
Right now, I need him more than they do. Mrs. Althea Johns can have
him when I'm done, but I did not explain that to him."

"Are you or are you not going to tell me?"

"Or course I am. And you will approach him
without Miranda, which is OK because you don't have to make a case
that the courts will buy. I am certain you will even be rude to him.
And you may be able to get something from him that I couldn't. All I
ask is that you do not commit any chargeable offense. These southern
cops can get ugly."

"Thank you," was appropriate.

Johnson's place of residence was a trailer, resting
slightly askew on concrete blocks just off a country road with an RD
address. There was a patch of black-eyed Susans out front;
sunflowers, pole beans and tomatoes grew on the side. He worked late,
toting plates and bearing abuse. So Franco and I arrived at dawn. I
had made Franco resurrect the silk suit and the Dirty Harry cannon
for the visit.

There was a rosy glow over the hills, promising a
lovely day, as we kicked the door in.

Johnson rolled over on his narrow bunk and looked at
us with gummy eyes. His teeth were in a glass on a table afflicted
with rickets. There was a gooseneck lamp on the same surface. I
flipped it on and pointed it at his face. Franco pointed the gun.

"LeRoy, " I said, "you have been
fucking with the wrong people."

He rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"In March you fingered a dude called Wood, down
the restaurant where you work."

"No suh, no suh, I don' know what you talking
'bout."

"LeRoy, don't do that ignorant-darkie routine
with me. I don't buy it."

"I would tell you, sho nuff, but I don' know
nuffin."

"LeRoy, that 's not true. You even spoke to the
police. You spoke to policeman Culpepper, and to Detective Tillman."

"Then you knows what I said."

"There's more, tell me."

"Let me put in my teef. . ."

Franco slashed out with his gun and smashed glass and
teeth to the floor. Then he grabbed the thin mattress and yanked it.
The old man tumbled to the floor of the trailer; the mattress was
flung to the opposite wall.

"How much did they pay you to finger Wood? How
much?" I screamed at him.

"NufIin, nuffin, they done scairt me."

I took my .45 out, cocked it, put it to his head.
"Pray, LeRoy, pray. 'Cause you gonna die now."

"Onny twenty dollars, tha's all."

"They paid you twenty, just because you said the
man in the picture ate at your restaurant."

"Tha's right, tha's right," he said
immediately and emphatically. Truth is so complicated; lies are
simple.

"
No. That's wrong. Do you really want to die,
you stupid motherfucker?"

"Tha's all I done. Tha's all. Please don' shoot
this po' o' man."

"
Last chance to live, po' o' man. Where did you
call them?"

"How d'you know I calls them, how d'you know?"

"
Where did you call them?" I pulled a
hundred-dollar bill from my pocket and dangled it in front of his
eyes. "When you tell me where you called them, this is yours.
When I get tired of waiting, you're a dead man."

"I disremember the number," he said, close
to tears. I fired a shot through the wall.

"I think mebbe it's in my wallet," he
answered.

"Take a look, Franco, take a look."

Franco found the wallet in the shiny pants hanging
over the back of the one chair. He dumped the contents out on the
floor. LeRoy had all of three dollars, a driver's license and various
scraps of paper. Franco scanned the scraps and came up with a torn
piece of napkin with numbers on it.

"
Tha's the one," LeRoy cried with
revivalist fervor. "That do be the one. The Lord is with me. He
done saved the number that done saved my life."

"Names, I want names," I said.

"
God's honest truff, I don' know. If I done
knowed I would tell you."

"Mr. Johnson," I said, dropping the one
hundred dollars on the floor, "it's been a pleasure doing
business with you."

Back in my rental car, Franco said, "You ain't
bad for a kid. How'd you know the old man called them?"

"He answered too simple, too easy. But mostly,
there was something missing. How did the perps know to be in that lot
at that time? Did they wait there three, four days? I don't think
they had that kind of patience. So someone had to finger Wood.

"You know what else," I said, feeling sick
about abusing senior citizens, even one who was a grandfather forty
or fifty times over, "I'm an asshole. Likewise Tillman, you,
Deltchev. We're all assholes. "

"
Howzzat?"

I held out a scrap of paper. He looked away from the
road and glanced at it. He shrugged, not seeing anything in it.

"It's a two-oh-two number."

"So?"

"So it's a long-distance call. There's a record,
probably from the pay phone, maybe from the restaurant phone, but
I'll bet on the pay phone. A traceable record made during the one or
two hours before Wood died. The police could have had that way back
in March. I could have had it my first trip down; all anybody had to
do was think, fucking think, instead of terrorizing an old man. "

"Old don't mean good. He fingered a guy for
murder, for twenty bucks. As far as I'm concerned," Franco said,
"he's part of the slime. "

"You have phone company contacts?"

"I got department contacts. I'll get you a name
and address to go with the number."

"Thanks. "

"No sweat," he said, then added grudgingly,
"You must've been a pretty good cop."

"I wasn't a cop. Corrections, I was with the
corrections department."

"Oh," he said in recognition, and unease.
"That Tony Cassella."

"Yeah, that Tony Cassella."

"There must be a lotta people don't like you."

"That's OK," I said. "Fuck 'em if they
can't take a joke."

"That was no joke. That was a pretty tough thing
you did .... If you ask me. . ."

"I didn't. "

"You did the right thing. You had your job. You
did it. That's the way the game is played. If somebody gets hurt,
that's their problem. They didn't have to play."

"Thanks," I said.

"That's just the way of it .... You know. I
should never have retired. I'm only fifty-six, two years off the
force and going nuts. You get your thirty and that pension, you
figure with the pension and a job you make half again as much as what
you were making, without the aggravation and dealing with a better
class of people. That's what you gotta figure, but I shoulda stayed a
cop."

I checked out of the Colonel Culpepper Holiday Inn
and called the Watergate, but they were full. The Best Western on
U.S. 1 in D.C. had a vacancy sign up. I let Franco go to check with
his P.D. contacts while I admired my room. I called Glenda. She told
me to be careful. I heard the inaudible bite of her lip while she
held in whatever comment her insecurity and lurking jealousy wanted
to prompt. I called Choate Haven. I let him know I had a serious
lead, the phone number of the probable perp.

I called Christina. She called me "Angel."
The woman was clearly besotted. That made two of us.

Franco came in with his satchel and a thick old
leather-covered notepad, the kind that cops carry, stuck in an
over-size back pocket.

"
The phone is registered to James Carlton
Alexander, Jr.; he 's on Franklin, just off New Jersey . . .
according to Motor Vehicle, he drives an '83 Pontiac Firebird, black,
license, R,U,S,H, One—Rush l."

"Well done," I said. "I'm gonna call
Tillman."

"
You think you should do that?"

"Yeah," I said, dialing. "In the first
place, he's playing straight with me; he gave me Johnson, remember.
In the second place, let's say I do something on my own . . ."
the phone was answered. I asked for Tillman. He wasn't in. I left a
message. ". . . I am now on record as having tried to contact
the authorities."

"What were you thinking of doing?" he
asked.

"The problem is, let's say the cops haul him in.
They put him in a lineup. If LeRoy has the balls to ID him, then I'm
not a devout heterosexual. On the other hand, I don 't know that I
want to brace him myself, at least until I know more about him."

"That is very intelligent, 'cause—" he
flipped open to another page "—Mr. Alexander, Jr., is not your
sweetheart type. Priors include a conviction-'77, armed robbery. Plus
four arrests, no convictions: narcotics '78, assault '78, assault
with a deadly weapon'82, and a possession of stolen property. He's
twenty-seven."

"I'm gonna go take a cautious look at the man."

"See, that won't work. Soon's you go into that
neighborhood, they 're gonna make you. The thing to do is make that
work for you. We run a two-man stakeout. You let him see the first
guy, and you hope he cuts and runs. Then you do a tag-team tail. You
let the suspect lose the first tail, then when he thinks he's clean,
the second man picks him up."

"That only works with some technology .... "

With infinite smugness, Franco reached into his bag
and pulled a couple of walkie-talkies out of his satchel. I grimaced.

"I know what you're thinking," he said.
"Walkie-talkies are mostly more trouble than they're worth, more
show than talk . . . but these are pretty good. And . . ." he
tossed another item on the bed ". . . a beeper, magnet keeps it
on the suspect's car, and here's the directional finder goes with
it." Things kept coming out of the bag like clowns from a midget
car. "And finally, I got Rabbi Begin with me, and some spare
clips."