“Yeah, but first, don’t you know how sweet revenge can be, Detective? There was a huge grinder machine just oh, about five or six feet away from where the old Wooden Pecker was laying, bloody and dead. Well, we used that grinder all the time to finely grind food for the hogs including grinding up the little runt pigs that the boss didn’t want to keep. He also would gather up things killed on the road such as deer or dogs or anything and throw them in that grinder along with grain and such for hog feed.”
“I can imagine what you’re going to tell me.”
“Yes sir Jack, I cleavered him into a few pieces and ground him up with some corn and fed him to his own goddamned hogs. You’re goddamned right, I did!”
“Wow!”
“Yeah, I guess wow! Anyway, there wasn’t going to be any body as evidence to convict me of murder with but I took no chances. No sir, I walked away from there that night and in the morning I was on the way on a bus to hell out of there and ended up right here in San Diego. Let’s see, I got here in October of ‘92, so it was maybe a week before that that I lost my nuts and he lost his whole damn self.”
“Then you got here about the time I became a San Diego Police Officer.”
“Hey. Quite the coincidence, Jack. I got a job here as a construction laborer off and on. Worked at that mostly for over twelve years and then I went with some other guys to Tijuana and a guy we met gave me a hundred bucks to deliver a little package to a guy in Mission Valley. Well, I got across the border with it okay but in the car I had at the time, I went a little too fast up Highway 5 and got stopped. The CHP cop found the little bag and arrested me for possession. You must have that on my record.”
“Yes, we do. The CHP probably had a tip from the guy who gave you the drugs. They do that, I think. We also have on the record your arrest for the Billy Club under your cab seat. You weren’t supposed to get a taxi driving license with a drug record so how’d you manage that?”
“Come on Jack, you surely know that you can get anything in Tijuana. They made me an absolutely perfect license down there. You couldn’t tell it from one of the real originals.”
“I assumed as much. Now then Mr. McCoy, I want it on the record that I am again telling you that you have the right to counsel, before you confess anything else. Okay?”
“Thanks for that; I understand and I do refuse counsel,” Coy said.
“Some cab driver I met lied through his teeth to me, that driving cab was easy and you could make big money doing it. It wouldn’t be such hard labor as I had in my occasional job at the time. That’s when I started driving a cab and then with my savings, I bought my own cab.
“But I never could make more than the barest living so I thought, what the hell, people want to buy drugs, why not sell it to them? I would absolutely never poison myself with that terrible crud but if others wished to do so, why not sell it to them? So eventually, I found a source to buy it from and then customers to sell it to and it was remarkably profitable. In my bag is a complete list of my drug sources and my customers – or I should say, the names are the ones they gave me, correct or not.”
“That list ought to be interesting, McCoy. But you knew that was a risky – a very, very risky business, didn’t you?” Leslie asked him.
“Yes Jack I did know that. But about the time I started selling drugs, I met another cabbie who went on and on about his wife and kids; showed me pictures and all that. Of course, I could never be a husband or a father. I don’t exactly know just when this thing about no kids struck me so hard, but believe me it did.
“So I got a few meth and coke customers while driving cab and of course I gave them drugs on credit now and then. But Jack, when a guy didn’t pay me as he had promised to pay me, I’d get real mad at him. Real, real mad. I got that revolver out of my storage place and began carrying it all the time in a shoulder bag. A guy who didn’t pay, I’d fix with an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, you see. Then I’d take for payment whatever I could haul away easy.
“Sir, I’ve actually only done that four times. Most guys, why, I wouldn’t give them credit. After all, they’re druggies; not exactly responsible citizens, as I found out. I found it an easy way to make money with hardly any work.”
“I’m curious Mr. McCoy, what did you do with the stuff you took from those four victims?”
“Oh, the key’s in my bag that you took. It’s to my storage place on Pacific Highway, pretty close to Perry’s. You ever hear of Perry’s Breakfast Place, Jack?”
“Yes, I eat there often.”
“I’ve eaten there couple of times, a while ago. Anyway, that’s where the stuff is, from all four of those guys who didn’t pay as they promised they would. Plus some other stuff I’ve accumulated over the years. I had a .22 caliber rifle that I used for target practice and that’s in there, too. I was intending to give that stuff away some day but never got around to it.”
“Actually Mr. McCoy, I was at that place to see if you stored anything there and I was told they had no record of a McCoy there.”
“Really? You are an excellent detective Jack, to figure I’d store stuff there. How could you have known that? I can’t imagine why the storage people wouldn’t admit it. I used my right name. Oh, maybe you talked to a guy named Sam. He told me he hated cops. I’ve used that place for a few years and I have lots of stuff in there. Don’t know what’s to become of it now but I hope you give it to some charity outfit.”
“I think the man I talked to there was named Sam. I think I’ll have another little talk with that guy. Lying to an Officer of The Law is a serious offense.”
“That’s pretty amazing you’d ask about me there. You’ve been after me for a while, I know,” Donald Coy alias Donald McCoy said.
“I want you to know our Crime Lab has all the twenty bullets from those four victims. They will match them up with the revolver I found to be in the bag I took from you last night on Fifth Avenue and you might want to reconsider whether you should have legal counsel.”
“Goodness me! You sure are careful to be certain I know my rights! What a Police Officer you are, Jack. But I am fully aware of what I’m doing. I’m not crazy, I’m a reasonably intelligent man, even if I have no longer any balls between my legs. You’re trying to be fair with me Sergeant Jack Leslie and I appreciate it. In that bag you’ll find – if you haven’t already – my bank statements. You’ll see I’ve got a balance as I remember, of about eighty eight thousand bucks. It isn’t all from selling drugs, either.”
“That’s quite a balance, McCoy. I’ve heard some of the drug lords in Mexico make over a hundred thousand a week. Each and every week. What else?”
“Oh, that’s about it for the bag. I had thought to give Little Anne that money but she doesn’t need it and anyway, it’s tainted money so it would be inappropriate.”
“Yes, that money is tainted, indeed. I’m sure the State will confiscate all your assets. Very well, why on earth did you shoot Mr. Jay Williams? The bullet taken from him was from the same batch made as the others we’ve recovered. You surely hadn’t done business with him, did you Mr. Coy?”
“Jay Williams, eh? Yeah, that’s what Little Anne told me his name was. He was up there I was real sure to try and become friends with Little Anne as well as her mom. But Jack, you’re in love with Veronica McCarty I hear and by now you know that little daughter of hers is the most precious child ever there could be on earth. Absolutely a marvel, that child is.”
“For the record,” Leslie said as he turned to a camera, “Little Anne is the daughter of Winfred and Veronica McCarty, on Juniper Street, in San Diego. McCoy, I’ll grant she’s an exceptional child. But so?”
“You figure everything else out so easy, why not this one? Simple. I had my taxi parked just to watch and see if her mom got home okay. I did that lots and lots of times. But that night I saw her come home in the Mustang I had arranged for her to buy and for the first time, I saw a man with her. To my surprise, I saw her then drive away alone after a few minutes, leaving the re
markably precious Little Anne alone with him. With a strange man.”
“Oh, that made you angry?’
“Hell yes! Getting in through the garage gate and the elevator, I went up and found the door unlocked so I went in and this big man came to the hall and I took a poke at him first and he slipped and fell and I shot him! I only shot him once because I didn’t want to wake Little Anne. I got to hell out of there and a bit later, sure enough, there comes the cops and I saw you, Sergeant Jack Leslie pull up in some old silver car. That’s it.”
“And you didn’t even know the man. He had done nothing at all to you to deserve death with a single shot from a .22 caliber gun. To me Mr. McCoy, all of that is very, very amazing.”
“Well, it seemed to me at the time that he had it coming, being alone with Little Anne like that. How could you trust any man alone with such a rare child as she?”
“You’re a man and you’d been alone with her and no harm came.”
“Yes, but I almost worshipped – no, not almost; I did actually worship her. I could never harm a hair of her precious darling head. Not ever. I’ll admit I had dreams of becoming her father. I know her father was actually just a ways away, in the same building. But you know Jack, since I could never have a daughter, I….well, it must seem more than a little silly for me to wish that.”
“I’ll try to understand that. But this next one, to me is a genuine mystery. Why on earth would you sneak into a hospital room and put a bullet into a fine woman’s brain, right up through her mouth. Why would you do that?”
“Oh dear God, I’ve shed so many tears over that. I loved that woman Jack. I truly, truly loved that woman and I was so certain she loved me but then as though with a snap of the finger, she turned me in. Just like that, she turned on me and became a snitch.”
“Actually Donald Coy, she absolutely did not.”
“Oh come on now, I saw all those cop cars with flashing lights going up to her place. Dammit, I saw that clear as could be. I saw them there. It could only mean one thing. That’s why I drove at high speed to Mercy Hospital and made that lying betrayer dead. I simply, absolutely, had to do it.”
“No Mr. Coy, I was checking on metallic gray Ford Freestyle owners because I was told you were seen in one. Mrs. Mary Annders was the fourth one I checked on. I met my old partner Eric Jansen next door and he told me about you and described you and that’s when I called for several Officers to guard the place as Eric told me she was in the hospital.”
“Jack; you’re telling me the truth?”
“Absolutely. I have no reason whatever to not tell the truth. Eric and a Patrol Officer and I got to Mrs. Annders’ room at Mercy apparently just a few minutes after you shot her dead. The very sick woman in the next bed had her eyes barely peeked open but she told me everything she saw. It could only have been you and the bullets taken from her brain proves it came from the same gun as the other victims were shot with.”
“Well I’ll be damned,” Donald Coy sighed in amazement.
“As we watched out the hospital window, I spotted you driving her metallic gray Ford Freestyle south on Fourth Avenue.”
“I see. You’re saying Police Sergeant Leslie doesn’t lie and Mary really hadn’t snitched on me? I told her so many things and she seemed so understanding and loving. I loved her….oh, so very much!”
“Even with the huge age difference, you….”
“Jack, I tell you I was absolutely in love with Mary Annders. An odd thing, she had never heard of making love except sexual intercourse. She knew I had no nuts and accepted me anyway. No other woman would have done that. She’d never had anyone tongue her or finger her. Oh dear Mary! How she responded to my lovemaking! I thought she really, truly loved me!”
“Apparently the only person she talked about you with was neighbor Eric Jansen. He told me she only had nice things to say about you; that she loved you, McCoy.”
The prisoner burst out crying and did so loudly, with tears streaming down his cheeks. Leslie handed him a handkerchief to wipe away the wet.
After some minutes Coy seemed to compose himself. He wiped his face and returned the handkerchief.
“Sorry about that Jack. I was stupid and I was rash. Poor dear; poor dear Mary. Such a sweet, nice woman. What’s next, the case of the guy on Juniper?”
“Yes McCoy, it would be helpful to know why you shot that security guard to death. Again, it was your trade mark of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”
“That was being careless I know, parking so as to watch the McCarty place while I was figuring what to do. I fell asleep and a guy taps on the window. I lowered it and he called me a mother fucking bastard and told me to move my ass out of there! That was too much, those insults. I gave him a shot of pepper spray and he staggered back and fell and I emptied my pistol into his stupid head.”
“Just like that?”
“Yes sir, just like that. Then I drove over to Balboa Park and parked Mary’s car because I supposed you’d have police looking for it. I went off to the bushes, reloaded my gun and slept awhile. Then I went over to Sixth Avenue and found a car I could take easy enough and drove away from there.”
“Did you know you drove over the guy’s body you had just killed?”
“Did I? Well, it couldn’t matter since he was already dead. Insulting me as he did was a really, really stupid thing to do.”
“I see. I had a tracking dog follow your trail into the bushes and then to Sixth where a young woman was crying that her Volvo wagon had been stolen. We recovered five .22 caliber shell casings in those bushes.”
“Well, I’m sorry for the young lady. I know it was wrong to take that car but I sure didn’t feel like I ought to be driving Mary’s Ford anymore. It seems you were doing pretty good detective work, Jack.”
“You were seen paying for a little bag of what we assumed were drugs and then you drove away in that lady’s Volvo, down there at the Denny’s off Palm Avenue. Lieutenant Dean figured you’d be peddling drugs then in the Gaslamp Quarter so a number of us were looking for you there for several nights,” Leslie told him.
“Damn, you had eyes everywhere, it seems. Actually, I sold all those drugs in early evenings in the Gaslamp. Easy to do. I haven’t deposited that money so there’s about three grand in my bag from those sales. I was looking for you last night, too. Sergeant Jack Leslie, I wanted only to surrender to you, so you could tell Little Anne that I gave myself up like a gentleman.”
“That is hardly what you did, McCoy. That was hardly gentlemanly of you to murder such a fine police officer as Lieutenant Pat Dean. You’ve already said you did but you haven’t said why you did that dastardly thing.”
“Well, I guess I sort of snapped. I parked that green Volvo because I figured you could just possibly be looking for it. I put it in a conspicuous spot so you could hardly miss seeing it. I had spied you on that beat before and I expected to see you again there but along comes that Police Officer in plain clothes and he shouts madly into his damn phone or his radio that he’d found the car.
“Of course I’d seen him coming down the street, looking at everyone and all the cars so I knew he was a Cop. So I ducked down in front of the car and when he began snitching on me like I thought Mary did, I suppose I sort of flipped and I shot him first in the face and down he went and I was so angry at him I unloaded my gun in him and never did reload it. That’s when I hurried over to Fifth Avenue to find Handsome Jack himself and by God, there you were, running up the street towards me! Damn, you were dressed so nice!”
“In that restaurant, I couldn’t think you were terribly anxious to surrender, Mr. Coy.”
“Oh, I thought back about that last night. I was afraid and yet I wasn’t afraid. I was torn between running or not running. Damn Jack, you shooting that strap off my shoulder….damn, that shocked the hell out of me!
“I really had thought you missed my head with that shot and then I realized you had no intention of killing me; that you just wanted that bag off
of me. But you got me sir, fair and square and I’m confessing to those nine murders I mentioned and I’m ready for the State of California to execute me and please hurry to hell up with it.”
Leslie abruptly stood up. “Donald Coy, we’ll be talking with each other again. Everything said here will be printed and you’ll be asked to sign it as your statement. Are you being fed and treated well?”
“Yes Jack, they’re treating me just fine. The food is surprisingly good.”
Sergeant Jack Leslie then told the two Officers to return the prisoner to the holding cell.
Leslie joined the others who were watching through the glass and he told Captain Noffsinger that he needed a search warrant really quick.
“Sir, I recall very well the morose fellow named Sam Williams – darn, another Williams in the world – he may right this minute be loading up his car from McCoy’s storage unit. He may have a reason to hate cops, such as being a thief. After all, it was all over the news channels last night that McCoy was arrested. I’m going out there and look through those records myself and take McCoy’s key with me.”
“Excellent Jack. I’ll have that search warrant for you right quick.” the Captain said and got on his phone to talk to a judge who was on call during the weekend just for such an urgent purpose.
“Jack, that was one hell of an interview, eh? In all my years, I’ve never known a case like these .22 caliber homicides. You’ll want to be at the arraignment Monday morning in court, won’t you?”
“Captain, I wouldn’t miss it for anything. Would you please send a couple of officers out there with me to that storage McCoy mentioned? I might need CSI people to search for prints and to bring their camera, etc. The fellow there named Sam should be arrested for obstruction of justice after verifying that McCoy’s or maybe Coy’s name is on their records. I’ll take Detective Alan with me, too. Also, they should put a police padlock on McCoy’s unit so employees there can’t help themselves to what’s going to be State property.”
THIRTEEN
The .22 Caliber Homicides: Book 1 of the San Diego Police Homicide Detail featuring Jack Leslie Page 20