Roaches Run

by John Wasowicz

  Is this the guy they’re looking for in connection with the incident on the rail line? Is he armed? Did he play any role in that murder the other night?

  “License and registration, sir,” said the officer, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “What’s going on?” Spates acted surprised.

  “I just want to make sure there aren’t any outstanding warrants before I let you go,” the officer explained.

  Spates fidgeted for his wallet. He pulled out his license and handed it to the officer. Then he reached over to open the glove compartment for his registration.

  The officer recoiled. If he’s armed, he could be reaching for his gun. “Sir, please put down your hands and exit the vehicle,” the officer said.

  At that, Spates quickly shifted the car into drive and floored the accelerator pedal, pulling the car off the apron and back onto Route 1. He tore off his mask, filled with saliva and sweat.

  The officer drew his service revolver. Even though there was no traffic, he did not shoot. Instead, he called for backup. “A suspect is driving south on Route 1 at a high speed,” he reported. “The suspect had an H-Pack backpack in his vehicle and may be connected to this weekend’s activities. The suspect may be armed and dangerous. Repeat, the suspect may be armed and dangerous.”

  The car sped down Route 1 toward the ramp onto I-95 at the Occoquan River, the dividing line between Fairfax and Prince William counties. The officer’s report was broadcast to both police departments, as well as the Virginia State Police.

  How did things get so messed up? I wasn’t involved in anything with Phil Landry. I don’t even know Landry. And the incident with Morley? That was a mistake. Morley was more responsible for his death than I was. I only wanted to collect on an insurance policy for damage to property.

  This stretch of Route 1 was unfamiliar to him. According to the signs, he should stay in the right lane to continue on Route 1 and in the left lane for I-95. He hesitated. Then he floored it, racing across a flyover. Below and to his right, Spates saw traffic backed up as the car careened forward, banked left, and began its descent.

  Spates expected a police blockade. To his amazement, there was none. The backup was caused by a tractor trailer blocking the right lane up ahead. He hugged the jersey wall as he crossed the Occoquan River and veered to the far left lane. Ahead was nothing but open road. He adjusted the rearview mirror. Only light traffic behind him.

  Spates checked the gas tank, which was full, and then shifted back into the right lane to exit onto the Prince William Parkway.

  Dusk fell, providing cover as Spates made his getaway. If he stayed on side roads all night, who knew where he would end up? If he cut back across the interstate below Norfolk and followed the coast, he might be able to disappear along the Carolina shore.

  For an instant, everything seemed manageable. Was it too much to hope for things to return to normal? Perhaps. But now, as night folded around him, Spates believed there might be a path out of the madness.

  **

  KATZ SAT in his office reviewing the articles he had Googled earlier in the day. He tried to make sense of everything based upon the new information he had learned from Lin’s email attachment.

  Reese appeared at the door. “Got a minute?”

  Katz nodded for him to enter.

  “So, I had my first jury trial, aggravated assault, with a woman who struck her ex-boyfriend’s car and claimed sexual assault as her defense. Well, it turns out there was another part to the story. I heard it earlier today from a nurse at the Alexandria Hospital.”

  Katz’s eyes opened wider.

  “According to the nurse, that woman previously sought medical attention on several occasions. Her ex-boyfriend beat her up pretty bad on a regular basis. Last fall, for example, she was three months pregnant and suffered a miscarriage after a particularly violent beating.”

  “The nurse told you all that?”

  “Yeah. I’m not sure whether she was breaking a privilege of confidentiality, but I guess she felt it was important for me to know about it. I did the math. The woman rammed her car into her ex-boyfriend’s on what probably would have been her due date.” Reese paused. “None of that came out during the trial, but she somehow managed to channel that grief to the jury. I missed it. I was so fixated on winning a conviction that I never even thought there might be some underlying motivation for her action.”

  “That’s a compelling story. There are some lessons in it.”

  Reese sat down.

  “One is to trust a jury,” Katz said. “They don’t always get it right, and sometimes they infuriate you by the things they take into consideration, or discount, in reaching a verdict. But their instincts and collective wisdom are powerful and you have to trust them to do the right thing the vast majority of the time.

  “Another is that justice has a funny way of revealing itself. We don’t always see it clearly. Sometimes it hides. But justice always settles scores. Sometimes it plays a role in a criminal case and other times it just weaves its way through our lives without leaving any trace. But justice won’t be denied.”

  “Justice delayed is justice denied,” Reese said. “That’s what’s written outside the federal courthouse next door.”

  “I don’t know if the meaning of the words over the courthouse door are apropos to what I’m trying to communicate.”

  “Maybe not,” Reese said. “I guess those words stand for the proposition that justice should be swiftly meted out to the guilty. What you’re saying is that, sooner or later, justice prevails.”

  “Exactly, David.”

  “You did that as a prosecutor, didn’t you? Made sure that people paid the price for stepping outside the lines, I mean.”

  Katz leaned back in his chair. “It’s what I did as a prosecutor and it’s why I left the prosecutor’s office.” He hesitated before he continued. “Putting people in jail is easy. All you have to do is show the elements of a crime. The harder part is excusing someone’s behavior because they’re avenging themselves for a past injustice. Look at that woman in your case. As a prosecutor, you sought a prison term because the action she took constituted a crime. But a jury chose to forgive her. You yourself said they saw things you didn’t.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So that’s the hard part. Seeing the whole picture.”

  “When you were in defense practice, that’s what you did, wasn’t it? Tried to make people see the whole picture? Maybe try to get them to overlook something or see extenuating circumstances?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Do you miss that?”

  Katz sat up in his chair. “Do I miss what?”

  “Do you miss making that judgment? Trying to show the underlying motivation and making exception for it?”

  “I’m still doing it, David. It’s called prosecutorial discretion. It has to do with deciding what’s worth prosecuting and what’s not. Some things deserve to be overlooked.” Looking at Reese, Katz saw himself about twenty years earlier stepping onto the legal stage as a hotshot Alexandria prosecutor. He thought then that he knew it all. If he’d learned anything during the years, it was that he still had more to learn today. “Time for you to go home,” he said. “Give my regards to Mai and give your son an extra hug. And tell her thanks for emailing me that inscription earlier today. It was very helpful.”

  “Sure thing, Mo,” Reese replied, standing up.

  “Knowing what you know now, would you have acquitted her if you’d been on the jury?” Katz asked.

  “Maybe,” Reese said. “Probably. Yes, I would have.”

  After Reese left, Katz made a couple of quick calls and then headed to Dulles International Airport.

  **

  SNOWE TUCKED a blanket around Katie. “I like it here, Miss Abby,” the little girl said, looking at her with trusting eyes.

  “Don’t you miss your mommy?” Snowe asked.

  Katie shook her head. “She left me. I was scared a lot of times. Sometimes th
ey were mean to me. They yelled a lot.”

  Snowe hugged her and said, “No one is going to hurt you or leave you alone tonight.”

  “I want to stay here,” Katie said. “Can you take care of me?” Again, she gave Abby that trusting look.

  Snowe’s eyes welled with tears. The thought of becoming a mother to Katie overwhelmed her. “I don’t know, Katie,” she said. “I don’t think so, not permanently. We’ll see.”

  After she put Katie to bed, Snowe went downstairs. The house was quiet. The only sounds were those that houses make when they think they’re unoccupied, when the soul of the structure sends out the music of the spirits that inhabit it.

  Snowe sat in the living room, engulfed in darkness. If some voyeur saw her, he would have been reminded of the mysterious woman in the burgundy dress in Edward Hopper’s “Western Motel” painting.

  Her mind wandered. Two days ago, she contemplated breaking up with Katz. Now everything was transformed. She walked to the kitchen, found her phone, and called Katz. No answer. She called a second time. This time he picked up. “What’s going on?” she inquired. “I thought you’d be home.”

  “I’m heading to Dulles,” he said.

  “We have an angel in our home,” she said. “Child Protective Services asked if we could keep Katie until they locate her mom.”

  “Wow.” Katz was driving the inner loop of the beltway. He turned down the music on the radio. He signaled left to exit to the Dulles Access Road. White lines and guardrail markers reflected as his headlights swept across the highway. Miles Davis played softly in the background.

  “Wow is right,” she laughed. “A big wow! What do you think?”

  “I think, yes, it’s wonderful. Maybe Maggie is going to need some help with her daughter, and maybe we can help her on an ongoing basis.”

  “I know this is going to sound crazy, but I feel our lives have been touched by grace,” Snowe said. “I mean, this isn’t permanent, and I’m not trying to get ahead of myself, but maybe we’ll be able to play a role, you know, like you said.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You sound preoccupied. What else are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking about Tony, for one thing. Today would have been his birthday. I stopped at the church where they held his funeral. It brought back a lot of memories.”

  Katz maintained a steady speed as he drove along the access road with the hypnotic lights of the highway and vehicles — the white headlights of oncoming traffic and the red taillights of cars ahead of him.

  “When will you be back home?” she asked.

  He glanced at the dashboard clock. “A couple of hours. I have to close out something.”

  “I’ll be up when you get back.” Then she remembered. “By the way, Sherry Stone dropped by earlier. She said to tell you she’s trying to get in touch with you.”

  Katz smiled. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks. Love you.”

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  Join Tom Mann Tuesday night for an online chat with the author of The Rhythmic Cycle of Life, Henry David McLuhan. It’s Mann Up/ Newsmakers Tuesday Night. On-air, online, on point, and right on!

  **

  SPATES FELT GOOD. He had stopped along the road, opened the trunk, thrown the backpack in, and banged the tail light with his fist. The light came on. Assuming the APB mentioned a burned-out rear light, he would escape detection. And if the officer failed to write down his license plate number or the make and model of his car — and he was pretty sure that was the case — there was no way to identify him.

  He had crossed I-95 about fifteen minutes ago. He failed to continue in a southerly direction, however, and ended up on the Northern Neck between the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers, hardly surprising given the fact that he had no GPS and was unfamiliar with the roads. He approached a smattering of houses and commercial establishments. The speed limit dropped from 45 to 25. Before he had time to react, red and blue lights appeared in his rearview mirror.

  He took a deep breath. The rear light was operating. The H-Pack backpack was in the trunk. All he had to do was talk his way out of a ticket. He hit the brakes, signaled right, and pulled over to the curb. The cruiser sped past him. Spates issued a sigh of relief. That was close.

  A half mile later, he understood why. As he made a turn, he saw a roadblock up ahead. There were over a dozen cruisers. Their emergency equipment was in full display, with lights streaking across the sky. State troopers and local police lined the curbs and stood behind their vehicles, several holding rifles and sidearm revolvers.

  He knew he didn’t stand a chance. As his foot applied pressure to the accelerator, the first bullets broke through the windshield. Spates felt a series of stings to his face and torso. He pulled a hand from the steering wheel and swatted the air, as though he could redirect bullets like flies. Glass flew in all directions and blood splattered against the windshield and front dashboard.

  BREAKING NEWS

  This is a developing story

  9 PM

  By Tom Mann © Chronicle News

  Hugh Spates, a D.C. lobbyist believed to have collaborated with disgraced antiterrorist officer Phil Landry in a terror campaign unleashed on the nation’s capital this weekend, was shot and killed tonight attempting to elude police at a roadblock in Virginia’s Northern Neck.

  Preliminary reports indicate that Spates was stopped in southeastern Fairfax County early this evening. He drove away at a high rate of speed, but not before the arresting officer noted his license plate number and the make and model of his vehicle.

  An all-points bulletin was issued after Spates fled the scene.

  At approximately 8:30 p.m., Spates was spotted near Coles Point about two hours from Washington at the tip of the Northern Neck as he approached a police roadblock.

  According to two eyewitnesses, he disregarded the barricades and drove his vehicle toward police cruisers and the officers positioned at the barricade.

  “It’s always unfortunate when a fugitive forces law enforcement to react this way, but we had no choice,” said a state police spokeswoman. “We had to protect the lives and safety of our fellow officers.”

  Spates had been under police surveillance for several weeks in connection with a scheme to set up bombs along the rail line near the U.S. Capitol to collect insurance money. He is believed to have been assisted in that plan by Phil Landry, a disgraced federal security official who blew himself up on Sunday at Roaches Run after unsuccessfully trying to carry out a scare campaign in D.C. Landry may have also been responsible for an explosion at the GreyStone Hotel on Sunday morning.

  Landry has been identified by Arlington police as the perpetrator of a heinous assault against a woman named Ruth Hammond nearly twelve years ago. Hammond accused Landry of pressuring criminal defendants into pleading guilty to offenses that they did not commit. The charges were dismissed after Landry mounted an intense public relations campaign to discredit Fernando Pena, who headed the inquiry into his misdeeds. Now it appears that Landry did in fact pressure criminal defendants in order to earn himself a higher solved-case rate.

  After Mann completed the story, he called Wilson and asked if he could possibly see those files again. He was not surprised to hear that Stone had lodged a similar request yesterday. Wilson told Mann he was welcome to drop over to her place and look at them.

  **

  CARS ROLLED along the parallel lanes of the toll road. Ahead, cars cruised to the airport to pick up or drop off passengers. Overhead, a plane roared its ascent, aerial lights flashing. Katz passed a Metro station. ’Round About Midnight was playing in the car. The airport terminal came into view. It resembled either a huge fireplace grate or the ribcage of a prehistoric animal, Katz thought. He knew he didn’t like it nearly as much as Eero Saarinen’s original design, which was like a jewel box before it doubled in size and lost its elegance.

  He could have phoned airport security and reserved a space in front of the terminal. Instead, he decided to be i
nconspicuous and parked at a satellite lot. He walked to the airport. The jazz rhythm stayed with him as he approached the sliding glass doors and stepped inside the terminal. He put on his facial mask. The ticket counter in front of him was deserted. Nobody was lined up to check in. The kiosks stood on the floor like an artistic display in a museum that no one was visiting. No suitcases or luggage cluttered the baggage drop area.

  A television screen in the concourse caught Katz’s eye. A reporter was standing in front of a number of police cruisers, their emergency equipment pulsating in red and blue in the black night. The banner at the bottom of the screen announced that Spates had been killed.

  Katz listened, and then walked over to the departure board and scanned the schedule of late night flights. He found the one he sought and headed for the gate. At the entrance to the sterile area, he flashed his badge and the security officer waved him through. He rode elevators and trains through the labyrinth of the airport to his destination.

  Henry David McLuhan was seated in a faux leather chair near the gate scheduled for the overseas flight. He was reading something on his phone. Everyone in the terminal wore masks, but with his distinctive silver locks McLuhan was easy to spot. At first, McLuhan took no notice of Katz standing next to him. Finally, he raised his head. His eyes met Katz’s. “Are you also flying to Paris?” he asked.

  Katz smiled. The seating area was half filled with people whose eyes were glued to electronic devices. A few watched the television monitors. Some stood anxiously near the gate with their carry-on luggage, impatient to board. “Can we talk somewhere a little less public?” Katz asked.

  McLuhan shrugged. “Why? This is fine.” He gestured to Katz to sit in the empty seat beside him.

  “Let’s take a walk,” Katz insisted.

  McLuhan noticed Katz was holding a copy of The Rhythmic Cycle of Life tilted toward him so that he could see it. Grudgingly, McLuhan got up, tucked his phone into a pocket, and grabbed the handle of his carry-on. Katz led the way to a high-top table in front of a deserted eatery closed for the night.