Dragnet

by Richard Deming

  Something buzzed past my ear and splatted against the brick front of the building. It was followed by a sharp crack similar to the sound of two boards slapping together. Immediately another missile buzzed through the space my head had occupied an instant before, and a second crack sounded. But between the two buzzes I had dropped flat on my face.

  I was rolling the instant my palms struck the concrete walk. I made the protection of the lone tree in the apartment building’s front yard just as a third bullet ploughed into the lawn six inches to one side of it. I came to one knee with my gun in my hand as a fourth slug gouged into the tree trunk.

  The fourth shot located the sniper for me. The muzzle flash came from the rear of the areaway between two apartment buildings directly across the street. I estimated the distance as seventy-five yards, an impossible pistol shot.

  The sound of the shots resembled those of a carbine more than a rifle, yet seemed flatter and heavier than an ordinary carbine. In any event I was certain the weapon was something longer-ranged than a pistol.

  There was no point in shooting back, because the distance was three times the effective range of my pistol. It would have been suicide to try to close the gap by rushing him, for he was in the darkness of the areaway, and I would have to cross the moonlit street. I did have one advantage, though. Because he was far back in the areaway, his sweep of fire was narrowly restricted. If I could make it to a point only a few yards to one side, he would be unable to see me.

  I tensed myself for a sidewise dash, then suddenly changed my mind. He was probably prepared for just that maneuver, and would fire the moment I left the protection of the tree. I decided on a different strategy.

  The shadow of the tree I was behind extended at an angle toward the corner of the building. Dropping to hands and knees, I began to crawl along it. This put me directly into the sniper’s line of fire, but I was hoping the contrast of the dark shadow of the tree against the surrounding moonlight would make me as invisible to him as he was to me.

  Apparently it did. Another shot sounded, causing me to drop flat, but it plunked into the bole of the tree. After a moment I resumed my crawl. It seemed to take me forever to reach the edge of the building, but eventually I made it. When I was protected by the corner, I rose to my feet.

  I hesitated for a moment, trying to decide whether to circle around a couple of buildings and then dash across the street at a point beyond his range of vision in an attempt to come up on him from behind, or head for my apartment to phone in a request for assistance. Police training decided for me. You can’t play lone wolf if you want to be an effective police officer. You use every facility available to you. My first duty was to get in a report of the situation. After that I could try a stalking game.

  Lights began to come on in apartments on both sides of the street, as neighbors aroused by the shots started to awaken. Unless I wanted my attacker to be scared off before I could get the police into action, I had to move fast.

  I made the rear door of the building in nothing flat, and thirty seconds later was dialing the Police Building. The man on the complaint board who answered said that a neighbor had already reported gunfire, not more than a half minute before, and that two radio cars were on the way.

  “If you gave them a Code Three, better cancel it,” I said. “He’ll run at the first sound of a siren. Get the block surrounded and maybe we can box him in before he knows what’s happening.”

  “Roger,” the complaint-board officer said.

  On a routine report of gunfire, with no details, police cars are sent to the scene as rapidly as possible. Normally no more than two would be detailed to investigate. If it developed that more help was needed, one of the investigating teams would broadcast a Code 9.

  But now that I had phoned in the details of the shooting, there would be a drastic change in procedure. There is nothing routine about the investigation of a shooting when a police officer is the target. Within seconds of the time I hung up the phone, I knew that a general broadcast would be sending all available units to the area. Ordinarily they would have converged with sirens wide open, but my request to cancel the Code 3 would bring them silently. If the sniper assumed I was still pinned down behind the tree, there was a good chance he could be taken before he realized police were in the area.

  Postponing my attempted stalking of the suspect in order to phone in hadn’t delayed it more than three minutes. Grabbing a flashlight from a dresser drawer, I raced down the back stairs and left the building by the same way I had entered. Crossing behind the building next door, I ran along its edge to the street. From this point I couldn’t be seen from the rear of the areaway where the sniper had been—and I hoped still was—stationed. I crossed the moonlit street at a crouching run and sped alongside a building two areaways off from the one from which the gunfire had come.

  Alongside the building I was in shadow. But the rears of the buildings on this side of the street were brightly moonlit. Cautiously I poked my head around the edge of the building and peered at the point where the sniper had been. The only sign of life I could see was several apartment-house tenants timidly peering from lighted windows.

  With my gun in one hand and flashlight in the other, I walked toward the areaway from which the shots had come. My tension mounted as I neared it, yet at the same time I breathed easier with each step, because closing the gap between us eliminated the suspect’s advantage in range. If I could get within twenty-five yards before he discovered I was stalking him, the contest would be equal.

  I had almost reached the areaway that was my destination when a sound from the alley behind the building caused me to spin that way. The sound was the ominous click of a rifle or carbine bolt being drawn back.

  The alley was no more than thirty feet away, and garages on its opposite side left it in deep shadow. I dropped sidewise, just as a shot cracked out. The bullet struck the building so close to me that brick dust stung my cheek.

  I threw two rapid shots at the muzzle flash, then dived around the edge of the building into the protection of the areaway shadow. I scrambled to my knees and was aiming the flashlight toward the alley, when a car roared off before I could flick on the switch. Apparently he had fired the last shot from the front seat of the car, for not more than a second or two had elapsed since the shot.

  By the time I reached the alley, the car had already gunned around the corner and was gone.

  There was nothing to do but hope the police units were already in place, and that the sniper would run into one. I wasn’t very confident, though, because events had taken place too rapidly. Although a lot of action had taken place, actually it wasn’t more than ten minutes since the suspect had fired his first shot, and not more than three minutes had elapsed since

  I had hung up the phone. Some of the units might already be in place, but it was almost certain that all holes couldn’t have been plugged in the short space of three minutes.

  My guess turned out to be right. Later I learned that the block had been surrounded seven minutes after my phone call. While that was commendably fast and efficient action, it wasn’t quite good enough. The suspect had gotten through. Since I was unable to furnish a description of either the suspect or the car, his escape was clean.

  About a minute after the sniper’s car roared away, the two radio units originally detailed to investigate the shooting pulled up in the street. I used the radio of one to report the suspect’s direction of flight.

  After outlining the situation to the two teams of officers, I detailed one team to interview neighbors and find out if anyone had gotten a glimpse of the suspect. I took the other team with me to examine the point where the sniper had been stationed when he had first opened fire.

  The areaway was covered with close-cropped grass, which left no more foot impression than a carpet would have. The only indication that anyone had been there was four shiny shell casings. As there had been five shots from that point, we searched for the fifth until I recalled the sound f
rom the alley that had alerted me to danger from that direction. Then I realized that for some unknown reason the suspect had not ejected the fifth cartridge until he had spotted me from the front seat of his car.

  Apparently that shell casing had fallen within the car, for we were unable to find it in the alley.

  The ejected cartridges were from a .30-caliber carbine. I emptied the letter from an envelope in my pocket and scooped the brass into it without touching it.

  Handing the envelope to one of the uniformed officers, I said, “Appreciate it if you’d drop this off at Latent Prints. He may have left some thumbprints when he loaded the gun.”

  “Sure, Sergeant,” the officer said. “Any idea who was shooting at you?”

  I shook my head. “The only guy I can think of is too unlikely. He’s supposed to be nuts, but I doubt that he’s stupid enough to pull a stunt like this.”

  I led the two officers across the street to the front yard of my own apartment building. The lawn here was as closely cropped as the one across the street, so we didn’t have much difficulty in locating by flashlight the spot next to the tree where one of the bullets had ripped into the ground. It had penetrated a couple of feet beyond the entry point, however, and we had to dig up a considerable amount of lawn with a spade I’d brought from the basement before we found the slug. It was a lead slug, and it hadn’t been battered out of shape at all.

  With a pocket knife I also dug out the two slugs imbedded in the tree trunk, but they proved to be somewhat battered. There was no point in even looking for the ones that had struck the building, as I knew they would be too flattened out of shape to be of any use for comparison purposes.

  I gave the slugs to the same officer I had given the shell casings and asked him to drop them by the Crime Lab.

  The team that had been interviewing neighbors returned with a negative report. Half the people in the immediate area had been awakened by the shooting, but no one had managed to get a glimpse of the suspect. Three people had spotted me stalking the suspect, though, and all had come up with fairly accurate descriptions of me.

  Dismissing the two radio units, I went back to my apartment and phoned in a report to the Detective Headquarters Unit. Lieutenant Al Shambra was working the swing shift.

  “No point in your coming back down tonight, Joe,” he said. “Make a written report in the morning. Any idea at all who this joker was?”

  “The Courteous Killer occurred to me,” I said. “But I can’t believe he’d be crazy enough to stick out his neck while every cop in the country is looking for him.”

  “Doesn’t seem likely,” Shambra said dubiously. “He’d give Los Angeles a wide berth.”

  I said, “Maybe Latent Prints can make him on the casings I sent in.”

  “If they can’t, there’s not much to go on, is there? From what you say, he didn’t leave a thing else.”

  “Unless you count the three slugs I sent to the Crime Lab,”

  I said. “About all we can do is wait for a kickback from Latent Prints.”

  “Uh-huh. Meantime, do me a favor, huh?”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Stay away from lighted windows.”

  CHAPTER XX

  The next morning I arrived at the Police Building at 8:30 a.m. Before going to Captain Hertel’s office to make a personal report, I stopped by Latent Prints and the Crime Lab. At Latent Prints I learned that the ejected shell casings were so clean it was apparent that they had been wiped carefully before being loaded. At the Crime Lab, Ray Pinker said that the bullet we had dug from the ground was perfect for comparison purposes.

  “All you have to do now is bring in the gun it was fired from,” he said.

  At Homicide Division I found Captain Hertel in his office. When I had described the shooting incident, he asked, “Any idea who this guy was?”

  “I didn’t have last night,” I said. “Sat up a couple of hours mulling over the ex-cons who might have a grudge against me for sending them up. Even thought about the Courteous Killer, because he passed at me once before. Didn’t seem likely, though, that with all the heat on him, he’d come back to the place he’s hottest just to settle a grudge.”

  “No,” the captain said. “Los Angeles is the last place in the world that guy would go.”

  “That’s the way I figured until I talked to Latent Prints. Remember how careful the Courteous Killer always was not to leave prints?”

  “Yeah.”

  “This joker was just as careful. Each shell had been wiped before it was loaded.”

  Captain Hertel stared at me. “He couldn’t be stupid enough to come back here. He’d have to be crazy.”

  I said, “According to that New York mental hospital, he is. Maybe he figures his location doesn’t matter because he’s hot everywhere. Who knows how a nut will think?”

  The captain drummed his fingers on the desk, still staring at me. “It doesn’t make sense, Joe. With every cop in the country looking for him, he wouldn’t stick his neck out just to avenge a grudge. He’d stay as far from Los Angeles as he could get.”

  “A sane man would,” I agreed. “I don’t think this guy is sane.”

  Hertel drummed some more, then decisively pushed back his chair and rose. “Even if you’re guessing wrong, we can’t take a chance on it. Let’s go talk to the chief.”

  I followed him down the hall to Chief Brown’s office. The chief of detectives was talking on the phone. He waved us to seats. When he finished his phone conversation, he leaned back in his chair and looked at Captain Hertel inquiringly.

  “About this guy who potted at Friday last night,” Hertel said. “Guess you got a report on it.”

  Brown nodded. “Any leads?”

  “Just a wild hunch. Friday thinks it was the Courteous Killer.”

  Thad Brown’s eyebrows went up. He looked at me. “What’s your reasoning, Friday?”

  I said, “It takes a zany to deliberately gun down a cop. Whiteman’s a zany. We know he’s got a grudge, because he tried his luck once before. We also know he’s careful about not leaving fingerprints. The ejected casings had all been wiped clean before they were loaded.”

  The chief pursed his lips. “Not much to go on. Hot as he is, seems unlikely he’d go out of his way to come back to Los Angeles.”

  “He’s hot everywhere,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Brown said. “Rather remarkable that he hasn’t been picked up long ago. By now everybody in the country must know what he looks like.”

  “I’ve thought about that,” I said. “Trouble is, he’s too average-looking. And he’s got such a pleasant expression, nobody’d suspect he was a killer just to look at him. Probably he’s been spotted by lots of people who thought he looked familiar, but couldn’t place where they saw him. Looks like such a nice guy, wouldn’t occur to them they saw his mug shots in the paper or on television.”

  “Uh-huh,” Chief Brown said. He removed his dark-rimmed glasses and thoughtfully polished them with a handkerchief. “Suppose we’d better play it safe, even though it is unlikely. Get out a local and an APB on him. Better take the pressroom reporters into confidence and ask them to withhold publicity for a time. If Whiteman knows that we suspect he’s back in town, he’ll run like a scared rabbit. We’ll put stakeouts on you again, just as we did before. On Harriet Shaffer, too, just to play safe.” He looked at Hertel. “You can call on Metro for stakeouts.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hertel said.

  Thad Brown turned back to me. “How about this weapon he used? Understand it was a rifle or carbine.”

  “Thirty-caliber carbine,” I said.

  “Army surplus, maybe?”

  I shook my head. “This was a bolt action, not a semi-automatic. I heard him pull back the bolt.”

  Captain Hertel said, “A lot of Army carbines were modified to bolt actions after the war so that they could be used for hunting. Most states won’t let you use an automatic or semiautomatic rifle.”

  “It still wa
sn’t an Army carbine,” I said. “I’ve heard those fired plenty of times. This one had an odd sound. Louder and not as sharp.”

  Chief Brown said, “If the suspect is Whiteman, he must have acquired the weapon recently. He certainly didn’t have it when he made his escape. We’ll start the pawnshop detail checking for recent sales of .30-caliber carbines. Better check recent theft reports, too, for a weapon of that type.”

  I nodded, and Hertel said, “Yes, sir.”

  “If it is the Courteous Killer we’re dealing with, I’ve got one final order.”

  “What’s that?” Hertel asked.

  “Get him.”

  * * * *

  A local manhunt of unprecedented proportions was now set underway. Every man on the force was furnished mug shots of the suspect and was instructed to be on the lookout for him. Teams of officers combed the pawnshop district and questioned the proprietors of sporting-goods stores about recent sales of .30-caliber carbines. The purchaser of every such gun was checked out. A week passed with no leads developing.

  Meantime, stakeouts were again put on me and Harriet Shaffer every moment we were off duty. This, too, led to no result.

  On Wednesday, November 27th, the day before Thanksgiving, Frank and I checked in at Homicide Division at 4:33 p.m. There was nothing in the message book, and no mail in either of our boxes. It looked like the beginning of a quiet watch.

  Frank said, “Gonna make it for dinner tomorrow, aren’t you, Joe?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Just going to be a family party,” Frank said. “Just the six of us.”

  “Six?” I asked.

  “Sure. Fay and me, the two kids, and you.”

  “That’s only five.”

  Frank looked at me. “Didn’t I tell you? Armand’s back.”

  “Oh,” I said, without much enthusiasm.

  Frank smiled a secret little smile. “Got a surprise for Armand this year.”