the Blue Knight (1972)

by Wambaugh, Joseph

  The young defendant turned around again and shot a long sad glance at pretty little mama who looked brave, and after Judge Redford held him to answer on the charges of attempted murder and robbery, his lawyer tried to con her into a bail reduction because the guy had never been busted before except once for wife beating.

  Judge Redford looked at the defendant then, staring at his handsome face and calm eyes, and I could tell she wasn't listening to the deputy D. A. who was opposing the bail reduction and recounting the savagery of the cutting. She was just looking at the young dude and he was looking at her. His blond hair was neatly trimmed and he wore a subdued pin-striped suit.

  Then she denied the motion for bail reduction, leaving the huge bail on this guy and I was sure she saw what I saw in his face. He was one to be reckoned with. You could see the confidence and intelligence in his icy expression. And power. There's real power you can feel when it's in a guy like this and it even gave me a chill. You can call him a psychopath or say that he's evil, but whatever he is, he's the deadly Enemy, and I wondered how many other times his acts ended in blood. Maybe it was him that ripped the black whore they dug out of a garbage pile on Seventh Street last month, I thought.

  You've got to respect the power to harm in a guy like him, and you've got to be scared by it. It sure as hell scared Her Honor, and after she refused to lower the bail he smiled a charming boyish smile at her and she turned away. Then he looked at his teary wife again and smiled at her, and then he felt me watching and I caught his eye and felt myself smiling, and my look was saying: I know you. I know you very well. He looked at me calmly for a few seconds, then his eyes sort of glazed over and the deputy led him out of court. Now that I knew he hung around downtown, I thought, I'd be watching for that boy on my beat.

  The judge left the bench and the deputy D. A., a youngster whose muttonchops and moustache didn't fit, started reading the complaint to get ready for my case.

  Timothy Landry, my defendant, was led in by a deputy sheriff. A deputy public defender was handling the case since Landry was not employed, even though Miles figured he'd stolen ten thousand or so.

  He was a craggy-looking guy, forty-four years old, with long, dyed black hair that was probably really gray, and a sallow face that on some guys never seems to get rosy again after they do some time in the joint. He had the look of an ex-con all over him. His bit movie parts were mostly westerns, a few years back, right after he got out of Folsom.

  "Okay, Officer," said the young D. A., "where's the investigator?"

  "He's busy in another court. I'm Morgan, the arresting officer. I'm handling the whole thing. Dead bang case. You shouldn't have any problems."

  He probably had only a few months' experience. They stick these deputy D. A.'s in the preliminary hearings to give them instant courtroom experience handling several cases a day, and I figured this one hadn't been here more than a couple months. I'd never seen him before and I spent lots of time in court because I made so many felony pinches.

  "Where's the other witness?" asked the D. A., and for the first time I looked around the courtroom and spotted Homer Downey, who I'd almost forgotten was subpoenaed in this case. I didn't bother talking with him to make sure he knew what he'd be called on to testify to, because his part in it was so insignificant you almost didn't need him at all, except as probable cause for me going in the hotel room on an arrest warrant.

  "Let's see," muttered the D. A. after he'd talked to Downey for a few minutes. He sat down at the counsel table reading the complaint and running his long fingers through his mop of brown hair. The public defender looked like a well-trimmed ivy-leaguer, and the D. A., who's theoretically the law and order guy, was mod. He even wore round granny glasses.

  "Downey's the hotel manager?"

  "Right," I said as the D. A. read my arrest report.

  "On January thirty-first, you went to the Orchid Hotel at eight-two-seven East Sixth Street as part of your routine duties?"

  "Right. I was making a check of the lobby to roust any winos that might've been hanging around. There were two sleeping it off in the lobby and I woke them up intending to book them when all of a sudden one of them runs up the stairs, and I suddenly felt I had more than a plain drunk so I ordered the other one to stay put and I chased the first one. He turned down the hall to the right on the third floor and I heard a door close and was almost positive he ran into room three-nineteen."

  "Could you say if the man you chased was the defendant?"

  "Couldn't say. He was tall and wore dark clothes. That fleabag joint is dark even in the daytime, and he was always one landing ahead of me."

  "So what did you do?"

  "I came back down the stairs, and found the first guy gone. I went to the manager, Homer Downey, and asked him who was living in room three-nineteen, and he showed me the name Timothy Landry on the register, and I used the pay telephone in the lobby and ran a warrant check through R and I and came up with a fifty-two-dollar traffic warrant for Timothy Landry, eight-twenty-seven East Sixth Street. Then I asked the manager for his key in case Landry wouldn't open up and I went up to three-nineteen to serve the warrant on him."

  "At this time you thought the guy that ran in the room was Landry?"

  "Sure," I said, serious as hell.

  I congratulated myself as the D. A. continued going over the complaint because that wasn't a bad story now that I went back over it again. I mean I felt I could've done better, but it wasn't bad. The truth was that a half hour before I went in Landry's room I'd promised Knobby Booker twenty bucks if he turned something good for me, and he told me he tricked with a whore the night before in the Orchid Hotel and that he knew her pretty good and she told him she just laid a guy across the hall and had seen a gun under his pillow while he was pouring her the pork.

  With that information I'd gone in the hotel through the empty lobby to the manager's room and looked at his register, after which I'd gotten the passkey and gone straight to Landry's room where I went in and caught him with the gun and the pot. But there was no way I could tell the truth and accomplish two things: protecting Knobby, and convicting a no-good dangerous scumbag that should be back in the joint. I thought my story was very good.

  "Okay, so then you knew there was a guy living in the room and he had a traffic warrant out for his arrest, and you had reason to believe he ran from you and was in fact hiding in his room?"

  "Correct. So I took the passkey and went to the room and knocked twice and said, `Police officer.'"

  "You got a response?"

  "Just like it says in my arrest report, counsel. A male voice said, `What is it?' and I said, `Police officer, are you Timothy Landry?' He said, `Yeah, what do you want?' and I said, `Open the door, I have a warrant for your arrest.'"

  "Did you tell him what the warrant was for?"

  "Right, I said a traffic warrant."

  "What did he do?"

  "Nothing. I heard the window open and knew there was a fire escape on that side of the building, and figuring he was going to escape, I used the passkey and opened the door."

  "Where was he?"

  "Sitting on the bed by the window, his hand under the mattress. I could see what appeared to be a blue steel gun barrel protruding a half inch from the mattress near his hand, and I drew my gun and made him stand up where I could see from the doorway that it was a gun. I handcuffed the defendant and at this time informed him he was under arrest. Then in plain view on the dresser I saw the waxed-paper sandwich bag with the pot in it. A few minutes later, Homer Downey came up the stairs, and joined me in the defendant's room and that was it."

  "Beautiful probable cause," the D. A. smiled. "And real lucky police work."

  "Real luck," I nodded seriously. "Fifty percent of good police work is just that, good luck."

  "We shouldn't have a damn bit of trouble with Chimel or any other search and seizure cases. The contraband narcotics was in plain view, the gun was in plain view, and you got in the room legally attempting to se
rve a warrant. You announced your presence and demanded admittance. No problem with eight-forty-four of the penal code."

  "Right."

  "You only entered when you felt the man whom you held a warrant for was escaping?"

  "I didn't hold the warrant," I reminded him. "I only knew about the existence of the warrant."

  "Same thing. Afterwards, this guy jumped bail and was rearrested recently?"

  "Right."

  "Dead bang case."

  "Right."

  After the public defender was finished talking with Landry he surprised me by going to the rear of the courtroom and reading my arrest report and talking with Homer Downey, a twitchy little chipmunk who'd been manager of the Orchid for quite a few years. I'd spoken to Homer on maybe a half-dozen occasions, usually like in this case, to look at the register or to get the passkey.

  After what seemed like an unreasonably long time, I leaned over to the D. A. sitting next to me at the counsel table. "Hey, I thought Homer was the people's witness. He's grinning at the P. D. like he's a witness for the defense."

  "Don't worry about it," said the D. A. "Let him have his fun. That public defender's been doing this job for exactly two months. He's an eager beaver."

  "How long you been going it?"

  "Four months," said the D. A., stroking his moustache, and we both laughed.

  The P. D. came back to the counsel table and sat with Landry, who was dressed in an open-throat, big-collared, brown silk shirt, and tight chocolate pants. Then I saw an old skunk come in the courtroom. She had hair dyed like his, and baggy pantyhose and a short skirt that looked ridiculous on a woman her age, and I would've bet she was one of his girlfriends, maybe even the one he jumped bail on, who was ready to forgive. I was sure she was his baby when he turned around and her painted old kisser wrinkled in a smile. Landry looked straight ahead, and the bailiff in the court was not as relaxed as he usually was with an in-custody felony prisoner sitting at the counsel table. He too figured Landry for a bad son of a bitch, you could tell.

  Landry smoothed his hair back twice and then seldom moved for the rest of the hearing.

  Judge Redford took the bench again and we all quieted down and came to order.

  "Is your true name Timothy G. Landry?" she asked the defendant, who was standing with the public defender.

  "Yes, Your Honor."

  Then she went into the monotonous reading of the rights even though they'd been read to Landry a hundred times by a hundred cops and a dozen other judges, and she explained the legal proceeding to him which he could have explained to her, and I looked at the clock, and finally, she tucked a wisp of straight gray hair behind her black hornrimmed glasses and said, "Proceed."

  She was a judge I always liked. I remembered once in a case where I'd busted three professional auto thieves in a hot Buick, she'd commended me in court. I'd stopped these guys cruising on North Broadway through Chinatown and I knew, knew something was wrong with them and something wrong with the car when I noticed the rear license plate was bug-spattered, but the license, the registration, the guy's driver's license, everything checked out. But I felt it and I knew. And then I looked at the identification tag, the metal tag on the door post with the spot-welded rivets, and I stuck my fingernail under it and one guy tried to split, and only stopped when I drew the six-inch and aimed at his back and yelled, "Freeze, asshole, or name your beneficiary."

  Then I found that the tag was not spot-welded on, but was glued, and I pulled it off and later the detectives made the car as a Long Beach stolen. Judge Bedford said it was good police work on my part.

  The D. A. was ready to call his first witness, who was Homer Downey, and who the D. A. needed to verify the fact that he rented the room to Landry, in case Landry later at trial decided to say he was just spending the day in a friend's pad and didn't know how the gun and pot got in there. But the P. D. said, "Your Honor, I would move at this time to exclude all witnesses who are not presently being called upon to testify."

  I expected that. P. D.'s always exclude all witnesses. I think it's the policy of their office. Sometimes it works pretty well for them, when witnesses are getting together on a story, but usually it's just a waste of time.

  "Your Honor, I have only two witnesses," said the D. A., standing up. "Mr. Homer Downey and Officer Morgan the arresting officer, who is acting as my investigating officer. I would request that he be permitted to remain in the courtroom."

  "The investigating officer will be permitted to remain, Mr. Jeffries," she said to the public defender. "That doesn't leave anyone we can exclude, does it?"

  Jeffries, the public defender, blushed because he hadn't enough savvy to look over the reports to see how many witnesses there were, and the D. A. and I smiled, and the D. A. was getting ready to call old Homer when the P. D. said, "Your Honor, I ask that if the arresting officer is acting as the district attorney's investigating officer in this case, that he be instructed to testify first, even if it's out of order, and that the other witness be excluded."

  The D. A. with his two months' extra courtroom experience chuckled out loud at that one. "I have no objection, Your Honor," he said.

  "Let's get on with it, then," said the judge, who was getting impatient, and I thought maybe the air-conditioner wasn't working right because it was getting close in there.

  She said, "Will the district attorney please have his other witness rise?"

  After Downey was excluded and told to wait in the hall the D. A. finally said, "People call Officer Morgan," and I walked to the witness stand and the court clerk, a very pleasant woman about the judge's age, said, "Do you solemnly swear in the case now pending before this court to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"

  And I looked at her with my professional witness face and said, "Yes, I do."

  That was something I'd never completely understood. In cases where I wasn't forced to embellish, I always said, "I do," and in cases where I was fabricating most of the probable cause, I always made it more emphatic and said, "Yes, I do." I couldn't really explain that. It wasn't that I felt guilty when I fabricated, because I didn't feel guilty, because if I hadn't fabricated, many many times, there were people who would have been victimized and suffered because I wouldn't have sent half the guys to the joint that I sent over the years. Like they say, most of the testimony by all witnesses in a criminal case is just lyin' and denyin'. In fact, everyone expects the defense witnesses to "testilie" and would be surprised if they didn't.

  "Take the stand and state your name, please," said the clerk.

  "William A. Morgan, M-O-R-G-A-N."

  "What is your occupation and assignment?" asked the D. A.

  "I'm a police officer for the City of Los Angeles assigned to Central Division."

  "Were you so employed on January thirty-first of this year?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "On that day did you have occasion to go to the address of eight-twenty-seven East Sixth Street?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "At about what time of the day or night was that?"

  "About one-fifteen p.m."

  "Will you explain your purpose for being at that location?"

  "I was checking for drunks who often loiter and sleep in the lobby of the Orchid Hotel, and do damage to the furniture in the lobby."

  "I see. Is this lobby open to the public?"

  "Yes, it is."

  "Had you made drunk arrests there in the past?"

  "Yes, I had. Although usually, I just sent the drunks on their way, my purpose being mainly to protect the premises from damage."

  "I see," said the D. A., and my baby blues were getting wider and rounder and I was polishing my halo. I worked hard on courtroom demeanor, and when I was a young cop, I used to practice in front of a mirror. I had been told lots of times that jurors had told deputy D. A.'s that the reason they convicted a defendant was that Officer Morgan was so sincere and honest-looking.

  Then I explained how I ch
ased the guy up the stairs and saw him run in room three-nineteen, and how naturally I was suspicious then, and I told how Homer showed me the register and I read Timothy Landry's name. I phoned R and I and gave them Landry's name and discovered there was a traffic warrant out for his arrest, and I believed he was the man who had run in three-nineteen. I wasn't worried about what Homer would say, because I did go to his door to get the passkey of course, and I did ask to see the register, and as far as Homer knew about the rest of it, it was the gospel.

  When I got to the part about me knocking on the door and Landry answering and telling me he was Timothy Landry, I was afraid Landry was going to fly right out of his chair. That was his first indication I was embellishing the story a bit, and the part about the window opening could have been true, but the bastard snorted so loud when I said the gun was sticking out from under the mattress, that the P. D. had to poke him in the ribs and the judge shot him a sharp look.

  I was sweating a little at that point because I was pissed off that a recent case made illegal the search of the premises pursuant to an arrest. Before this, I could've almost told the whole truth, because I would've been entitled to search the whole goddamn room which only made good sense. Who in the hell would waste four hours getting a search warrant when you didn't have anything definite to begin with, and couldn't get one issued in the first place?

  So I told them how the green leafy substance resembling marijuana was in plain view on the dresser, and Landry rolled his eyes up and smacked his lips in disgust because I got the pot out of a shoe box stashed in the closet. The P. D. didn't bother taking me on voir dire for my opinion that the green leafy substance was pot, because I guessed he figured I'd made a thousand narcotics arrests, which I had.