One Monday We Killed Them All

by John D. MacDonald

  “He hasn’t mentioned it.”

  “When there’s a good reason, he’ll have to.”

  “Think up a reason, Stu.”

  “Mmm. A gaudy one? He slips into town, kills jolly old Jeffie Kermer and fades back into the hills. But there is an eyewitness.”

  “So he’d know he was wanted for murder? And you think I’d try to send Meg up there? She could probably find somebody who could tell her where to look for him. But she wouldn’t get any information unless she was alone. Meg’s positive her dear brother wouldn’t harm her. By God, I’m not. I don’t think he’d harm anyone he could use, and I think he’d kill anybody who might harm him. All I would ever do is try to talk her into finding out where he is, so we could go in and get him. I’d have to level with her, not try to trick her and follow her in. And I don’t think she’d set him up that way. It would take a lot of hard solid proof to make her even consider it, and I just don’t think we’re going to get that kind of proof on anything McAran does.”

  “And if you can’t convince her, it would look as if you’re protecting McAran.”

  “Are you having a lot of fun with this, Dockerty? Heaps of glee?”

  “I’m trying to be your friend. If McAran hits and runs back into the hills, there’s going to be pressure on you like you never saw before. So just be braced for it, old boy. Decide in advance just which way you’ll jump and how far. The Daily Press will be screaming for your scalp and Larry Brint’s.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get sore at you, Stu.”

  “I want you to survive, Lieutenant. If you and Larry get pushed out, I’ll be working with dolts and savages. I think you might need help from any place you can get it. Even me.”

  ix

  Harpersburg State Prison erupted into overdue violence on the following Tuesday. The timing was perfect. It happened at ten minutes before noon, the one moment in the day when the maximum number of prisoners were outside their cells. And it took advantage of a vast, intense, windy thunderstorm which had knocked the lights out, and was impeding the guard routines on turrets and catwalks. There were three gates in the prison walls, the main pedestrian gate, the truck gate for incoming supplies and outgoing products of prison labor, and the railroad gate which hadn’t been used in over ten years. The truck gate had not only been reinforced to the extent that no vehicle could smash through it, but it was also protected by a low interior wall built to force outgoing vehicles to approach it at a curve which obviated any buildup of speed. The double pedestrian gate was too narrow to be broached by a vehicle. But somehow the vulnerability of the unused railroad gate had been overlooked. The weak point in prison security was the unthinkable prospect of somebody trying to take a vehicle through the railroad gate.

  Subsequent investigations showed that the vast majority of the prison inmates were unacquainted with the escape plan, but had been incited to rebellion so as to provide a maximum diversion while the actual escape took place.

  In the first vicious scufflings three guards and two prisoners lost their lives. Eleven hostages were herded into D block. The laundry, the metal stamping mill, and the paint storage shed burst into flames. Under cover of the storm, the confusion and the black choking smoke, a prisoner jumped the ignition wiring on a heavy truck parked at the loading dock, pulled out and picked up speed all the way to the railroad gate. It smashed the inner gate of riveted steel plates and plunged partway through the outer gate before becoming solidly wedged. Thirty-one men followed it to the railroad gate, running at top speed. They made their escape by dropping to the roadbed and crawling out between the front wheels of the truck. By the time more men had discovered the escape route, the ruined truck had burst into the flames and the heat drove them back. The man who wheeled the big truck had taken a calculated risk. It was discovered, when he was recaptured, that he had been a stock car driver, and knew that he could be injured only if the gates did not give way, thus stopping the truck in its tracks instead of the lesser impact which would result from smashing all the way through, or partially through. He told of crouching on the passenger side, working the gas pedal with his free hand and steering until the last moment, then flattening himself against the firewall. The truck doors were jammed in a closed position by the impact. He dropped out through a side window just in time to join the first group crawling under the front axle. By the time the flames blocked this only exit from the prison the escape siren was bellowing, competing with the thunderous spring storm, and all police installations in the area had been alerted to set up the roadblock plan designed to seal the area.

  By one o’clock the demoralized guard force had been strengthened and all prisoners had been driven back into the cell block area, and the firefighting equipment could be brought in through the truck gate. During the armed search of the administration offices they found Deputy Warden Boo Hudson, semiconscious and incoherent, half under his desk, slashed once and deeply from gullet to groin, yelping and dying in the hot spill of viscera. By that time the camera crews were racing to the scene, radio programs were being interrupted for the news flash, the wire services were fattening their coverage, all roadblocks had been fully manned and in operation for at least forty minutes, a contingent of the National Guard was being assembled, and we were getting progress reports over the police teletype network.

  By two-thirty all confinement areas except D Block, where the hostages were being held, had been subdued through the use of fire hoses and tear gas. One more prisoner had been killed and seven injured. Also, by that time, eleven of the thirty-one who had escaped had been recaptured by State and County Police. But because it was impossible to take a head count until D Block was subdued, the number still at large was not then known, nor could the identity of those who had escaped be established. Early reports said a hundred desperate men were roaming through the countryside.

  The spokesman for the prisoners holed up in D Block said he wanted to negotiate, but that he would not negotiate with Warden Waley. One hostage guard was released to relay his message. The guard said that one lifer in the prisoner group, a moronic lout, had agreed to personally slit the throats of all the other hostages if the prisoner demands were ignored. By then the State Superintendent of Prisons and Reformatories was on the scene and ready to begin the familiar charade of negotiation, that meaningless procedure whereby the authorities listen to complaints and demands and then, with mock reluctance, agree to honor the demands. Because these demands receive newspaper coverage, the prisoners have the quaint belief public opinion will keep the authorities from welching on their promises. Sometimes conditions do improve, even for as long as two or three weeks. More often they worsen. Once the hostages are released, the authorities state proudly that they managed to trick the prison scum.

  Johnny Hooper came into my office at three in the afternoon. I had a table radio tuned to the Harpersburg station, to a disc jockey who kept giving information about ten minutes sooner than we were getting it on the teletype. Johnny had a troubled look on his boyish face. He sat on the corner of my desk and said, “I’ve been thinking, Fenn. When they do find out who’s missing, I’ll bet a buck I can give you three of the names.”

  “Deitwaller, Kostinak and Kelly,” I said.

  “You too, huh?”

  “Yes. Because I don’t believe in coincidences either.”

  We stared at each other for a few minutes.

  “He bought that bomb, that wagon,” Johnny said.

  “So it could have been waiting for them in a pre-arranged place.”

  “Fenn, do you think it could have gotten through before the roadblocks were set up?”

  “Doubt it. They put them far enough out so no car can cover that much distance in the time it takes to get them set up. It would be more likely for McAran to have clothes aboard, and identification, and figure on getting through the roadblock that way.”

  Johnny shook his head. “Four men traveling together? No matter how you dressed those guys, they’d look wrong, boss. It
would have to be some other way. Like McAran dressing like a farmer and stashing them under a load of carrots or some damn thing.”

  We suddenly discovered we were nodding solemnly at each other. We grinned. I sent him after a road map. Suddenly, as if he’d become telepathic, my disc jockey friend cut in and told about the traffic tieups at the five roadblocks and he named the locations of the roadblocks. I jotted them down. When Johnny spread the map out on my desk I marked in the roadblocks.

  “Easy to seal that valley right off,” Johnny said. “No secondary roads at all. Just those five roads leaving the valley. Nice.”

  “Now listen to all the ‘ifs’ I can string together. If those three are loose, and this whole thing was planned to spring them, and if McAran went over there after them, and if he parked in some hidden spot as close to the prison as he dared get, and if they made a bee line to the place where he was waiting, and if he wanted to bring them back to the hideout he’s fixed up in his familiar hills, the fast logical way back would be through Polksburg, where those postcards were mailed. The other way would be a little longer and it would bring him practically into Brook City before he could turn onto 882. So he’d go through this roadblock, at Melton. And it’s—let me see—about eighteen miles out of Harpersburg. Suppose they were in the car and rolling by a few minutes after noon. He’d roll it well within the speed limits. Make it twenty-to-one by the time he got to the roadblock. By then the roadblock would have been functioning for about fifteen minutes. That might be a help.”

  “Why?”

  “The troopers are more likely to remember the cars they worked for the first hour. After that things begin to blur. Do you think it’s too wild a chance, Johnny?”

  He shrugged. “You told me a long time ago, Fenn, that in this business if you never take a chance on looking real stupid, you never had a chance to look real bright either. But right now those people aren’t going to be thinking about how maybe somebody got through already. They’re going to be trying to stop anybody else who tries to get through.”

  I could see the merit in that. So I held off. By seven-thirty that evening the truce had been arranged. Nine more escapees had been nailed. The lockup and sorting out had begun. The National Guard climbed onto their trucks and headed home. The inventory and damage report was begun. The railroad gate had been given emergency repairs, after a wrecker had yanked the blackened skeleton of the truck out of the way.

  By nine o’clock the head count was complete, and three more prisoners were en route back to the prison. Eight were still at large. Names and descriptions of those eight were sent to all area installations, with photographs to follow.

  At ten o’clock Johnny came into my office. The radio news from Harpersburg was just reporting that one of the eight, a William Fogg, age twenty-six, serving twenty to life for armed robbery had tried to cut around the Melton roadblock in a stolen car, had flipped at high speed when he tried to take the ditch, and was in critical condition.

  Johnny put the list of the eight names in front of me. He didn’t have to say a word. I drew a red line through Fogg’s name. I made three check marks—beside Kelly, Kostinak and Deitwaller.

  “So let’s say we’ve made some good guesses, but we’re one step behind them,” I said heavily. “And let’s say that if we had any sense and guts when we first started this game, we’d have got right on the wire and had them set up another roadblock near Polksburg, with a pickup order on that wagon, and it would have been in time to catch them before they made it into the hills.”

  “But it was a lot hazier then than it is now, Fenn. Maybe you better go on home. You look whipped.”

  I didn’t sleep well that night. I was wide awake at dawn, wearied by half-forgotten dreams of violence, and I managed to sneak out of the bedroom without wakening Meg. I got the six o’clock news on the radio, at a volume where I could just barely hear it.

  They’d picked up two more. Five were still at large, a man named Price, a man named Seckler, and the three hard-nose friends of Morgan Miller and Dwight McAran. By the time Meg and the kids got up, I’d had too much coffee, but I had lost that sour feeling of having spent a restless night.

  I went in and stooged around headquarters, unable to concentrate on lesser matters, waiting for Larry to come in. As soon as he came in I asked him if I could make a run over to Melton on official business.

  “What for?”

  “Fifty to one it’s a waste of time. But if it isn’t, it’s worth the trip. It’s all so vague and iffy, I’d rather wait and tell you about it if it works out.”

  He looked dubious, then shrugged and told me to take off.

  It was about sixty-five miles and I made it in just under an hour. The State Police Barracks on the eastern outskirts of the village of Melton was the usual cinderblock structure with flagpole, radio tower, manicured lawn. The duty Sergeant was named Boscatt, a florid man with a cold blue eye. He relaxed, but only slightly, when I showed the gold badge. Our troopers have great morale. They are carefully selected and trained, and fairly well paid. He said he was the ranking man on the station at the moment, and what could he do for me. All of them are unimpressed by city police officers, apparently believing we are all pallid, grafting, untrained nephews of politicians.

  “It’s about your road block operated by this barracks, Sergeant.”

  “Kind of far from your city limits aren’t you, Lieutenant?”

  “About sixty-five miles, approximately.”

  We tried to outwit each other. I won. He said, reluctantly, “What would it be about our roadblock, Lieutenant. We took it off less than an hour ago.”

  “Aren’t there five men still—”

  “Four still loose. We take our roadblocks down when it’s time to take them down.”

  “I guess that must be a sensible observation, to a roadblock expert, which I am not. Which one was picked up?”

  “Kelly!”

  And suddenly I lost ninety-nine per cent of my assurance. I felt like a fool. It knocked a fine theory in the head. “Kelly!” I said faintly.

  “One of the reasons we took the block down. A farmer found him in a ditch thirty miles east of here, a ditch on a side road, fifty yards off the main road to Polksburg. The farmer’s dog kept barking. Kelly was dead. A slug had hit him from behind and smashed his shoulder all to hell, and he’d lost a lot of blood, but what killed him was being strangled by somebody with a lot of strength in his hand. Dead since some time yesterday afternoon they think. When all those fellows were running, and that tower guard finally came out of his daze and fired a long burst at a high angle, he claims he saw one of them fall and get up and keep running, so it must have been Kelly they think now. So he couldn’t have been driving the shape he was in, and because he got by one of the blocks, they figure some of the others maybe went by the same way, so there’s no point in stalling all the traffic in the area.”

  “How was he dressed?”

  “Prison twill. Why?”

  “I’ve got an idea how he got through your block, Sergeant. He and Kostinak and Deitwaller.”

  “Nobody got through it, Lieutenant. Not the way we run it. Around it, maybe, walking up and down hills and hiding from the search planes, but not through it.”

  “I’d like to talk to the troopers who were checking the cars yesterday, the ones who handled the first trick on the roadblock.”

  “There’s no point in it. Sorry, Lieutenant. We know our business. I can’t pull men in off the road because you maybe got some weird idea.”

  “I’m asking for your co-operation on an informal basis, Sergeant. If I can’t get it this way I’ll go after it some other way. And, believe me, I can get it. Now just suppose your people did slip up. Wouldn’t this be a better way to run it down than by bringing a lot of other people in on it?”

  “Okay, if you want to put it that way, suppose you tell me what your idea is, and I’ll pull the two men in off the road if I like the sound of it.”

  “No dice, Sergean
t. Pull them in, order them to co-operate, and listen to me ask the questions.” As I saw him hesitating, I said gently, “After all, Kelly got through somehow. And he wasn’t in any shape to walk, was he?”

  That did it. The two men were each on single patrol, and their names were McKeen and Golden. He had the dispatcher call them in. McKeen arrived an minute or two ahead of Golden. They were huge, tanned, husky, moving with creak of leather and purr of whipcord, with deceptive indolence and watchful eyes. They were as skeptical of me as Boscatt had been. They bought Cokes out of the machine and we went into the small lounge off the day room and sat down.

  “I want you men to think back and see what you can recall about a Pontiac station wagon, two years old, dark blue, local license BC18-822.”

  “We were on that block until ten last night, Lieutenant,” McKeen said. “There were a hell of a lot of station wagons. We don’t keep any license number record. Anyhow, Kelly couldn’t have got through us in a damn station—”

  “This particular wagon would have come along pretty soon after you got set up over there. Probably in the first half-hour, when you were still having to explain to people what it was all about.”

  “But if it was a station wagon, Lieutenant,” Golden said, “there isn’t any chance we’d—”

  I put a lot of edge in my voice for the first time. “I’m not interested in hearing you people tell me how well you run a roadblock. I’ve asked you to remember a particular car, even if it was as obviously empty as a bass drum.”

  “Humor the Lieutenant,” Boscatt said in a growling voice.

  “Hmm. Right soon after we opened the store, huh?” McKeen said. “Hey, Goldy, there was the broad. Did you get your eyes off the front of her sweater long enough to check me out if it was a Pontiac. I know it was dark blue.”

  “Pontiac it was Mack, and a Brook County tag. Not too long after we opened the store. Twenty minutes? A little more, a little less, because the rain had quit by then. But she was alone.”