Authors: Stephen Coonts
At four p.m. he bought a car from an elderly lady living in Bethesda. He had called five people with cars for sale in the classified section of the newspaper and settled on her, because she sounded like an elderly recluse.
She was. Even better, she peered at him myopically. At her daughtei’s insistence, she explained at length while he nodded understandingly, she was giving up the car, a
Chevrolet two-door sedan, brown. The plates valid for three more months. He paid her cash and ve it straight to a Sears auto service center where he had the oil and plugs changed, the radiator serviced, all the belts and hoses replaced, and a new battery and new tires installed. While he was waiting he ate a hamburger in the mall.
As he strolled through the evening crowd toward the auto service center at the north end of the mail, he passed an electronics store. In he went. Fifteen minutes later he came out with a police band radio scanner.
That evening at the Lafayette Circle apartment he read the instruction book and played with the dials and switches. The radio worked well whether plugged into the wall socket or on its rechargeable batteries. He stretched out on the bed and listened to the dispatcher and the officers on the street. They routinely used two-digit codes to shorten the transmissions. Tomorrow he would go to the library and try to find a list of the codes. And he would visit more electronics stores and buy more scanners, but only one at each store.
Tomorrow the telephone people were installing phones in the other two apartments. And tomorrow he would have to shop for food and first-aid supplies. Then tomorrow night he would begin moving food, water, and medical supplies to the subway hideout.
Maybe the following night he could put some dried beef and bandages in the cave in Rock Creek Park. So much to do and so little time.
As he listened to the scanner he mentally went through the checklist one more time.
The real problem was afterward, after the hunt. He did not yet have a solution and he began to worry about it again. The FBI would have his fingerprints-that was inevitable. Henry Charon had no illusions. The fact that the fingerprints the FBI acquired would match not a single set of the tens of millions they had on file would eventually cause the agents to look in the right places. They would have plenty of time-all they needed, in spite of exhortations by politicians and outraged pundits-and the cooperation of every lawenforcement officer in the nation.
Eventually, inevitably, the net would pull him in. Unless he was not there. Or unless the FBI stopped looking because they thought they already had their man. The false clues would not have to hold up forever, indeed, every day that passed would allow the real trail to get colder and colder. A month or so would probably be sufficient.
Why not a red herring?
At three the following afternoon Jack Yocke was finishing a story on the collapse of Second Potomac Savings and Loan. His editor had told him earlier to keep the story tight: space was going to be at a premium in tomorrow’s paper. The Soviets had just announced an immediate cessation of foreign aid to Cuba and Libya. Both nations would be permitted to continue to purchase goods from the Soviet Union but only at world market prices, with hard currency.
Yocke hung up the telephone without looking and kept right on tapping on the computer keyboard. The authorities were fully satisfied that the late Walter P. Harrington had been using Second Potomac to launder money for the crack trade. crack money or from somewhere else? No one was saying, not even off the record.
And someone had used a high-powered rifle to blow his head off while he drove the left lane of the Beltway at fifty-five miles per hour-his widow fervently insisted that he always drove fifty-five.
it certainly had not been a motorist enraged over Harrington’s highway manners. Not using a rifle.
Money, money, money. Hadn’t the other man killed the evening Harrington died also had something to do with money? Didn’t he own some kind of check-mshing business?
The phone mng.
Still tapping the Second Potomac story, Yocke cradled the receiver against his shoulder and cheel “Yocke.”
“Jack, there’s been a shooting at the day center in the
Shilo Baptist Church, next door to the Jefferson projects. About thirty minutes or so ago. Would you run over there? I’m also sending a photographer.”
Yocke looked over his story, pushed PE-CORD, and then left the terminal to turn itself off.
The Jefferson projects was not the worst public housing project in the city, nor was it the best. It was simply average. Ninety-eight percent black and Hispanic, the tenants existed in a netherworld of poverty and squalor where the crack trade boomed twenty-four hours a day and men sneaked in and out to avoid jeopardizing their girlfriends” welfare eligibility.
All the legitimate merchants in a five-block radius of the projects had long ago gone out of business, except for one sixty-year-old Armenian grocer who had been robbed forty-two times in the last sixty months, a record even for Washington. Yocke had done a story on him six months or so ago. He had been robbed four times since then.
“One of these crackheads is going to kill you some night,” Yocke had told the grocer. ‘4Where am I gonna go? Answer me that. I grew up in the house across the street. I’ve never lived anywhere else. The grocery business is the only trade I know. And they never steal over a day’s receipts.”
“Some strung-out kid is going to smear your brains all over the back counter.”
“It’s sorta like a tax, y’know? That’s the way I look at it. The scumbags take my money at gunpoint and buy crack. The city takes my money legally and pays the mayor a salary he doesn’t earn and he uses it to buy crack. The feds take my money legally and pay welfare to that crowd in the projects and they let their kids starve while they spend the money on crack. What the hell’s the difference?”
Still pondering the crack tax, Yocke slowed the pool car as he went by the Armenian’s corner grocery and looked in. The old man was bagging groceries for an elderly black lady. He parked the car two blocks from the projects and
walked. As he rounded a corner, there they were, long three-story gray buildings, four to a block, decaying wit iout grace under a cold gray sky.
Something about the scene jarred him. Oh yeah, the place was deserted. The teenage boys who manned the sidewalks and sold crack to the white people who drove in from the suburbs were gone. The cops were here.
YOC ke. veered onto a sidewalk between the buildings and strode along purposefully, his steps echoing on the cinderblock walls and the gray, vacant windows.
White man, white man, the echos said, over and over. White man, whi man …
The church was across the street from the projects, on the western edge. Police cars in front, lights flashing, An ambulance. One cop keeping an eye on the vehicles.
Yocke showed the cop his ID. “Understand there’s been a shootine.
The cop was a black man in his fifties with a pot gut. The strap that held his pistol in its holster was unlatched. The gun could be drawn in a clean, crisp motion. The cop jerked his thumb over his shoulder and grunted. “Can I go in?”
“After they bring the body out. Be another ten minutes or
so.
Yocke got out his notebook and pencil. “Who is it?”
“Was.”
“Yeah.”
“The woman who ran the day care. I don’t know her name.”
“What happened?”
“Well, near as I can figure, from what I’ve heard a couple squad cars stopped over on Grant.” Grant was the street bordering the west side of the projects. “The dealers ran through the projects. A cop chased one guy. He went charging into the church, through the daye center toward the playground door, and when the victim didn’t get out of his way fast enough, he drilled her. One shot. Right through the heart.” The radio transceiver on the cop’s belt holster crackled
to life. He held it to his ear with his left hand. His right ned near his gun butt.
Other cops were searching the abandoned buildings and tenements to the west of the church. The cryptic transmissions floated from the radios of the parked cruisers.
When the radio fell momentarily silent, Yocke asked the patrolman, “Where were the kids when the shooting occurred?”
“Where the hell do you think? Right there. They saw the whole thing.”
“When?”
“About two-forty or so.”
“You haven’t got the killer yet?”
The cop spit on the sidewalk. “Not yet.”
“Description?”
“Black male, about eighteen or so, five feet ten to six feet, maybe a hundred fifty or sixty. Medium-length hair. Was wearing a red ball-cap, black leather coat, white running shoes. That’s the description from the cop chasing him. All the kids say is that he had a big gun.”
Big gun, Yocke scribbled. Yeah, any pistol vomiting bullets into real people, with real blood flying, it’s a big gun when you remember it. Big as your nightmares, big as evil personified, big as sudden death. “How old are the kids?”
“Youngest’s a few weeks. Oldest is almost six.”
“Name of the cop chasing the shooter?”
“Ask the lieutenant.”
“Why was the cop chasing the shooters”
“Ask the lieutenant.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me?”
“Your newspaper sucks.” Yocke put the notebook in his pocket and rolled his collar upright. The wind was picking up. Dirt and trash swirled around the cars and funneled between the barracks of the projects. A chilly wind.
“May rain,” the cop said when he saw Yocke looking at the gray sky.
.might.”
“Been a dry fall. We need the rain.”
“How many years you been on the force?”
“Too ftwking many.”
The minutes passed. Yocke fought the chill wind as the police radio told its story of futility. The man who had done the shooting was nowhere to be found. The Post photographer showed up. He burned film as Yocke shivered.
Finally, after twenty minutes, the ambulance crew brought the body out on a wheeled stretcher covered with a white sheet, which was strapped down to keep it from blowing away. it went into the vehicle and the crew followed. One man got in the drivees seat, turned off the flashing overhead lights, and drove away. “You can go in now,” the cop beside Yocke told him.
The church foyer was dirty and dark and needed paint. The sounds of children sobbing were plainly audible.
On the wall a small announcement board gave the title of this Sunday’s sermon: “The Christian’s Choice in Today’s World.” Beneath the sermon board was a faded poster with a girl’s picture: “Missing since 4/21/88. Black female, 13, five feet two.” Her name was there, what she had been wearing that evening nineteen months ago, a phone number to call.
A stairway led up to the left. To the sanctuary, probably. Yocke continued along the hallway, toward the sobbing. At the end of the hall the door stood open.
A young woman had the children huddled around herAbout a dozen of them. God, they’re so small! Talking softly among themselves were three policemen in uniform, two in plain-clothes. 7Wo lab technicians were repacking their cases. And curiously, no one stood on or near the ubiquitous chalk outline on the floor. The Post photographer, Harold Dorgan, followed y ke
OC in. He began taking pictures of the children and the young woman trying to comfort them.
The lieutenant was in his forties. His Shirt was dirty and
needed a shave. He also needed a breath freshener, Yocke discovered. After Dorgan had taken a dozen pictures, lieutenant told him that was enough and shooed him out.
The victim’s name was Jane Wilkens. Age thirty-six. Unmarried. Mother of three children. Killed by one .357inch-diameter slug that had gone through her entire body, including her heart, and buried itself in the wall near the rear door. Wilkens had started shouting as the gunman burst through the door with the pistol in his hand. As he came at her he pointed the weapon and fired one shot from a distance of perhaps five feet. She was still falling when he ran by her. He jerked open the door to the playground and ran out. No one saw which way he went after he went through the door. The playground was surrounded by a five-foot-high fence that an agile man could vault anywhere he wished.
The pistol had not been found, so searching officers had been advised to proceed with caution. “Maybe a thirty-eight Special,” the lieutenant said, “but more likely a three fifty-seven Magnum. Damn bullet went through plaster, a layer of drywall, and shattered a concrete block. Almost went through it.”
“A cop was chasing this guy,” Yocke murmured. “Yeah. Patrolman Harry Phelps.”
“Why?”
“Because he ran.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean a couple cruisers pulled up over on Grant and a bunch of those kids took off like jackrabbits. Officer Phelps ran after this guy. The suspect pulled a weapon, looked back over his shoulder several times at the officer, and charged into this church. Officer Phelps kept coming, heard the shot, and stopped by the victim to administer first aid. She lived for about fifteen seconds after he reached her.”
“So Jane Wilkens would still be alive if Phelps had not elected to chase this guy?”
“Whatever you’re implying, I don’t like it,” the lieutenant
snarled. “And I don’t like your face. Phelps-Officer Phelps comwas doing his job. We’re trying to police this shithole, Mr. Washington fucking Post!”
“Ye, but-was
“Get outta my face!”
“Listen. I-was
“Out! This is a crime scene. Out!”
Jack Yocke went.
Dorgan was sitting on the curb in front of the church. Yocke sat down beside him. The overweight cop attending the door ignored them.
“What d’ya think?” Dorgan said.
“I don’t think. I’pve that up years ago.”
“I’m going to walk over to Grant and snap a few, then head back downtown. I think I got some good shots of the kids. Really tough on them to see that.”
“Yeah .
“Try not to get mugged.” With that Dorgan rose, adjusted his camera bags, and trudged away. Yocke watched him go.
The curb was cold on his fanny. He stood and dusted his seat, then walked back and forth on the sidewalk.