Lesser Evils

by Joe Flanagan

  Baldesaro turned to his second-in-command. “Come with me for a minute.”

  The agent followed him outside and stood in the courtyard.

  “What do you think?” Baldesaro said.

  “I think Jenkins got ahead of himself. He got ahead of us anyway.”

  “I think we have to move. We have to do the raids right now.”

  “It’s going to have to be very fast. They’re going to shut everything down and cover their tracks. They’re probably doing it right now.”

  “We need to get started on an affidavit immediately.”

  The agent looked at his watch. “It’s one o’clock in the morning.”

  “I’m going to call the US attorney. Make sure somebody stays by the telephone in case Warren or his ex calls. And send someone back over to his house to see if he’s shown up. You get started on the affidavit. I’ll get ahold of the US attorney and tell him what’s happening. Then we’ll get everybody together and tell them we’re doing it now.”

  Jenkins found Welke crouched behind his cruiser. Steam rose from around its hood and its windows were smashed. Welke gawked at him. “Where were you?”

  “In the motel. They had me trapped in one of the rooms.”

  “Who are these guys?”

  “They’re from the Elbow Room.”

  “The Elbow Room?” Welke echoed, mystified.

  “Is backup coming?” Jenkins asked.

  “Should be any second.”

  Welke said, “I’ve only got a few rounds left.” His hands trembled as he spoke. “And one of them’s got a shotgun. Every time I get up to shoot, he lets rip with that thing.”

  They trained their weapons on the door the men had run through and watched for movement. “Where the hell is our help?” Jenkins said. Welke took his radio and spoke into it: “Easy nine to KCA374 . . .”

  “KCA374. ETA five minutes, Easy nine. Code 18 all units. Code 18. Kismet Motor Lodge, 5200 block of Route 28.”

  The parking lot was quiet. They turned toward Route 28 and listened for sirens but heard nothing. “How the hell did all this happen?” Welke asked.

  Jenkins started to speak but then just shook his head. “I think they’ve done something to Warren,” he said. Welke turned to him and opened his mouth, but the word never got out. From one of the motel rooms, a group of men came charging out. Jenkins said, “They’re going to rush us.”

  The first man out fired a shotgun. Welke and Jenkins ducked behind the cruiser as the pellets raked the car’s body and sprayed them with broken glass. When they stood to fire, the group had reduced the distance between them by half and was coming on fast. The shotgun went off again, dropping the two policemen to the ground. Air rushed out of the car’s tires and Jenkins smelled gasoline. He shouted at Welke to run and got up to lead the way. The roaring apparition in front of him—a dark vehicle, blurred in motion, sucking air through its grille and bearing down on them like some kind of fierce animal—shifted the moment firmly into the surreal, despair and joy and fatigue converging to dreamlike effect. Four state police cruisers skidded to a halt, one behind the other, the searchlight on the lead car illuminating the parking lot so that the walls of the motel served as a backdrop for the distorted shadows of the men who had been charging toward them and who were now mere feet away. Jenkins heard the state policemen exit their cars, shouting.

  The man with the shotgun was hit in the throat and fell with the weapon across his chest. Another was hit in the upper torso and fell a few feet away. The others managed to retreat back inside the motel. A state police sergeant approached Jenkins and Welke. “How many are there?”

  “I don’t know. I’d say five, six.”

  The sergeant organized a room-to-room search of the motel. Jenkins pushed open the door to the single lit room, the one he had first approached. He saw a naked young woman suspended by her wrists from a beam that ran the length of the room. A man was lying on the floor in his underwear, his right side glistening with blood. Walking around so he could see the girl’s face, he recognized her. Jenkins looked around the room. On the dresser was some loose change, a few bills, a pack of cigarettes, and a buck knife. He cut the cord holding her wrists and caught her as she fell. He tore the bedspread off the bed and wrapped her in it, holding her against him. Welke appeared in the doorway. “What’s this?” he said.

  “She’s Warren’s babysitter.”

  “What the hell is she doing here?”

  “I don’t know. Tell one of the staties we got a gunshot victim here.”

  Welke spoke to Jane Myrna. “Who did this to you?”

  She began crying, silently at first, then in long moans. She struggled against Jenkins’s touch. He let go of her and let her cry, patting her lightly on the back to reassure her. “Sshh,” he said. “Sshh. Sshh. Honey. You know me. Ed Jenkins.”

  Welke crouched down before her. “Who did this to you?”

  Jenkins said, “Put her in an ambulance. Have one of our guys stay with her.”

  Welke led Jane out into the parking lot. Jenkins stood in the room’s entrance and surveyed the scene outside. The Barnstable police had arrived in force, their cars backed up the narrow drive. There was a small crowd around the two bodies lying in the courtyard. Flashing lights lit the sky from the motel all the way back to Route 28.

  Warren drove out of the Starlight in Heller’s unmarked and sped to General Patton Drive. The house was open, all the lights on. He looked at Mike’s comic books scattered on the sofa. The house had an eerie, hostile air, all the lights burning bright, like it had been waiting all these years to rise up against him and had finally done so. He was still dripping blood from somewhere. There were splashes of it on the floor.

  Warren ran to his bedroom, retrieved the .45 Jenkins had given him, pocketed four full clips, stuffed Tosca’s revolver in his waist, and headed back out. Henry Sherman came running out of the dark and, jolted by Warren’s condition, stopped abruptly. “Jesus. What happened?”

  “Henry, have you seen Mike?”

  “No. What happened?”

  “I’m all right. Henry, I need to find Mike.”

  “I don’t know where he is. There’s been an awful lot of people over here, though.”

  “Who was here?”

  “Well, let’s see. A young guy in a two-tone green Pontiac. An old guy in a brown car. And then there was . . .”

  “Hold on, hold on. Here at the house?”

  “Yes.”

  “They came in the house?”

  “I’m not sure, Bill. I wasn’t watching real close but a bunch of cars have pulled up here in the last hour and a half or so.”

  Warren stood there, trying to make sense of it. He saw Sherman’s eyes go to the pistol he had stuck into the waist of his pants in plain view. “You said an old guy in a brown car?”

  “An old guy, yup. In a tan car. Looked tan, anyway.”

  The priest from Nazareth Hall drove a tan car. A ’53 Ford.

  “Did you see him go in the house?” Warren asked. “Did you see him leave?”

  “I seen him standing on the front step, Bill, that’s all. I think you need a doctor.”

  Warren headed for Heller’s unmarked. He burned rubber in reverse out of the driveway and gunned it toward downtown. He roared down empty streets on his way to the police station, planning to have the dispatcher put out an all points bulletin on Mike and Jane. A voice came out of the radio, calling, “State zero-nine to state five-seven.” It repeated like a metronome as he squealed around corners and shot through red lights at empty intersections, never getting a response. As he approached the station, the state police dispatcher called for a unit to check out a report of a suspicious male at the Dairy Queen in Wellfleet. He skidded to a halt in the parking lot and was ready to jump out when he heard, “The individual is described as a white male, approximately sixty
, sixty-five years of age. He’s in the company of a minor. Male, blond, about seven years old. Red pajamas.”

  Warren tore out of the parking lot and pointed the car in the direction of the Mid-Cape Highway. The voice kept coming over the radio: “State zero-nine to state five-seven.” As the speedometer hit one hundred and ten, Warren’s eyes went to the temperature gauge and then the fuel. Above the instrument cluster was a small plaque that read, “STATE 5-7.” They were trying to reach Heller.

  Stasiak was behind this. They tried to kill him. They were going to dismember him in the bathtub in that motor court. He’d probably driven past the place a hundred times on patrol. Occasionally, they chased kids and vagrants out of there. He had no idea they were using it. Warren thought of Heller wrapping that wire around his neck and trying to strangle him. He’d damn near done it. He was shaking now, crazy with adrenaline, panicked, anguished for Mike. The speaker buzzed in the dash: “State zero-nine to state five-seven.” Warren knew the voice. It had been nagging at him since it first started coming over the radio. “Five-seven, what is your location?”

  It was Stasiak. It was Stasiak looking for Heller. Warren picked up the mike. He wasn’t thinking, blind with rage. “This is state five-seven. I’m northbound on the Mid-Cape Highway, approaching Old County Road.”

  The radio went silent. Let him come, Warren thought. He glanced at the two handguns he had laid out on the seat beside him. The skin around his left eye began to feel hot and tight, the place where Steve Tosca punched him, probably swelling. Warren took the exit for Wellfleet in a long, sweeping curve, the road flanked by tall weeds, the woods and isolated buildings flying past. The Dairy Queen was brightly lit, its red and white sign visible from a good way off. The place was empty except for the manager and one waitress. They started at the sight of him. The manager said, “I’ll call an ambulance.”

  “Don’t touch the phone.”

  “Have you been in an accident?”

  “No. There was a man in here with a little boy. The boy was wearing red pajamas.”

  They nodded. “We called the state police,” said the manager.

  “Was the boy all right?”

  “I don’t know. He looked like he’d been crying.”

  “What were they doing here?”

  “The old guy was trying to buy some ice cream for the kid but he was upset and he didn’t want any.”

  “Which way did they go when they left?”

  “They turned left out of the parking lot. They were in a light brown car.”

  Warren headed back out. He was desperate, helpless, with no idea where to look for his son. He decided to find a place to pull over and call in an all points bulletin. He’d get the Barnstable dispatcher to do it. He drove down the road in the dark, consumed by a torment he had never known, thinking that if it went on much longer, he couldn’t bear it. He realized that if anything happened to his son, he would not go on.

  Stasiak roared down the Mid-Cape Highway, watching for the Old County Road exit. Whoever was driving Heller’s car, it wasn’t Heller. He didn’t know whether it was fatigue or his imagination, but the voice sounded like Warren’s. He exited the highway and listened for an update on the shooting at the motel in Hyannis. Then he called Heller again on the radio and listened hard to the voice that came back through the speaker. Something was not right.

  He drove in the direction of the Dairy Queen and confirmed the report with the dispatcher: An elderly man and a little boy in a light brown 1953 Ford. The priest from Hyannis. It would be too lucky, Stasiak thought. Up ahead, the round red and white sign came into view, glowing in the night.

  After speaking with the manager at the Dairy Queen, he got back on the road. He radioed Heller’s call sign again but got no response. The units at the motel in Hyannis reported two dead in the shooting. Stasiak swiped a hand across his face, wondering what had happened. He had to get to a telephone and call someone and see what the hell was going on. Then came a report of car in a ditch off Collins Road in Truro.

  Warren saw the rear end of the Ford pitched upward and sitting at an angle in a narrow ravine on the side of the road. He pulled over, shut off the engine, and got out, carrying one pistol and putting the other in his waist. It was Father Boyle’s car, as near as he could tell. There was no one inside it. He had been driving blindly, looking for a phone booth or even a door to knock on when he heard a report that a car had gone off of nearby Collins Road. It was remote here, nothing around for miles. One of the murdered boys was found out this way. He tried to examine the foliage for signs of people passing through but it was useless. Grieving now, on the point of hysteria, Warren walked into the forest and up an incline. “Mike!” he screamed.

  Stasiak came on Heller’s unmarked suddenly. It was pulled over to the side of the road near another car, which was partially on its side in a ditch. The tan Ford belonging to the priest had two wheels in the air. He got out and unholstered his .38. Far off, he heard a shout. He followed the sound into the forest. He refused to believe Warren was out here. Warren, by now, was in half a dozen pieces and on his way out to sea. But someone was driving Heller’s car, someone whose voice sounded like Warren’s. It must be one of Grady’s guys, he thought. Things might have gotten rough with Warren. He was no kind of a man, in Stasiak’s estimation, but he was wound tight enough that Stasiak could see him getting crazy. And the priest was with a kid, and somewhere in the vicinity. It seemed too good to be true.

  Stasiak experienced that euphoric confidence, that almost supernatural perception that he had felt at Iwo Jima. His eyes slid left and right as he moved among the trees. If he could catch the priest out here with a kid, this whole thing was over. He heard a faint shout again from far up the incline. He picked up his pace, preternaturally aware.

  50

  Father Boyle stood before Michael Warren. The boy sat there, weeping, his blanket wrapped around him. The priest was unsure of how to proceed. He looked around at the stars showing through holes in the cloud cover. When he’d brought Perry Boggs out here, it had rained heavily. He had prayed over the boy, who had wailed and gritted his teeth in the teeming downpour. Father Boyle cried himself. He cast his eyes skyward. He did not know what kind of incantation was called for or what kind of prayer he should say. In the end he just held Perry Boggs’s wet, slick head in both his hands and shrieked at the clouds, “Please! Please!”

  Stasiak followed the voice. A man was screaming, “Mike,” somewhere up ahead. He went through a deep fir forest that was so black he had to feel his way through with his hands and then came upon a region of low woods where the stars were suddenly visible. He could smell the ocean. The man cried out, not a word this time, but something incoherent, a shriek. He emerged from the tree line where the woods gave way to sandy meadow. He walked toward the sound. Ahead, on his knees in the middle of a path, was a man screaming, “God help me!” Stasiak headed down toward him. “Please! God help me!”

  It was Warren. Stasiak instantly raised his pistol. How in the name of Christ, he wondered. Where the hell were Heller and the rest of them? How did Warren get out of it and wind up with Heller’s car all the way the hell out here?

  In his agony and grief, on all fours in the sandy track, Warren raised his head. Through his tears, he saw a large figure approaching. He was so transported by his anguish, he wasn’t sure where he was. The apparition now before him was like gossamer in his vision, wavering and ethereal. Then it solidified and began to take on qualities he recognized. He raised his revolver.

  They fired at each other simultaneously. A plume of sand shot up and stung Warren’s face. His neck felt like it had been whipped with nettles.

  Stasiak heard a round howl past him, its pitch fading in the distance. He lay prone in the sand and watched Warren move across the moor-like landscape. He guessed that he would try to make his way back to the car. He had to keep him in sight. Stasiak would either beat h
im to the road or surprise him along the way. He got up, clearheaded, infused with an energy so intense he almost felt high. He ambled lightly back into the woods, transported by a sensation that was very nearly joy.

  Warren ran through the trees, suppressing the cries of grief that rose from his throat. He would never be able to identify Mike’s body. He would never be able to live through this. It was just a matter of how to die. He stopped running and stood panting in the forest. He drew the pistol out of his waistband and looked at it. He could do it now, he thought. No. He would do it once they discovered the body. As soon as he got word, he would go out and do it. He plodded on through the woods until he could see the road ahead. With the weapon hanging loosely by his side, he walked toward the car.

  The impact was tremendous. It jarred his vision. Stasiak must have hit him at a dead run. Nothing else could explain a force like that. They slammed to the ground, Stasiak’s arms clamped around him, his full weight crushing him. His femur felt like it had been dislodged from its socket. Stasiak wrenched the pistol out of his hands and flung it off to the side. He stood Warren up and hooked an arm around his neck from behind. He placed his other hand on the side of his jaw and started to push. Warren knew what he was doing and knew that it would only take a good hard shove to snap his neck. He reached around and clawed at Stasiak’s face. He tried for his eyes, elbowed and lashed out any way he could. His hand suddenly fell on Stasiak’s holstered revolver. He tried to grab it and Stasiak had to commit a hand to stopping him. Stasiak hooked one of his legs around Warren’s and propelled them both to the ground. On top of Warren again, Stasiak tried to get his hands around his neck. Warren squirmed desperately and managed to get his right arm free. He punched Stasiak as hard as he could in the side of the face once, then again. Warren managed to twist free and get on his feet.

  Now the state policeman came at him, wide and hulking, moving like a boxer. Warren welcomed it. He hoped Stasiak killed him. Warren let him come on and struck quickly. He hit Stasiak in the mouth and gashed his knuckle open on one of his teeth. Stasiak backed Warren down into the ravine and up against Father Boyle’s car. He pressed a forearm against Warren’s throat and pinned him against the vehicle. Again, Stasiak tried to force his head to the side and snap his neck. Warren scratched his flesh and tried to gouge his eyes, but Stasiak was determined. Warren grasped the car’s radio antenna and snapped it off. He tried to use it like a knife, stabbing at Stasiak’s arms and shoulders, but it had no effect. Something snapped in his neck and red swirls appeared behind his eyes. He reached further with the broken shaft of the antenna, swinging with all his strength, trying to hit Stasiak in a place that would make him stop.