A Death in California

by Barthel, Joan;

  Once again Walker was on the run; once again Swalwell was running after him, in his dark blue three-piece suit with the lapel pin. But this time it was harder. Edna had gotten a divorce; she and the boy had moved. Ad-Biz was out of business. Swalwell simply started where a cop has to start, where it happened. “In our work, ninety-nine percent of our work is done after the fact,” Swalwell liked to point out. “We go in and pick up the pieces, then we deal with the pieces.”

  Walker had not escaped directly from Joliet, but from a hospital in Chicago where he had been admitted as a patient on a ruse that even Swalwell, who was keenly aware of Walker’s capabilities, considered pretty good. Walker had complained of internal bleeding, and had blood in his urine to prove it. When the prison doctors couldn’t explain the blood, after a series of tests, Walker got a court order for outside medical care, and was sent to the Illinois Research Hospital on South Wood Street. Illinois Research was a regular hospital, not connected with the prison, and only a few people knew of Walker’s special status. He didn’t wear prison clothes, nor even hospital clothes, but soft flannel pajamas and an expensive-looking robe. Although prison guards were assigned to him on three shifts, around the clock, some of them tended to spend some time watching television in the lounge next door to Walker’s room, 701. “We have a mutual understanding,” Walker told his roommate in the two-bed room, Robert Pietrusiak. “I don’t bother the guards and they don’t bother me.” Although Pietrusiak never saw Walker give a guard any money, he remembered Walker pointing out that guards at the penitentiary were notoriously underpaid, adding slyly, “Money talks.”

  When Walker refused to let hospital people draw his blood for tests, he was given a needle, vacuum container, and tubes and allowed to draw it himself, privately, in the bathroom. By the time somebody figured out that Walker was putting blood from his arm into his urine, it was too late. Just at seven o’clock on Wednesday morning, January 31, as the guards were changing shifts, Walker left Room 701, saying he was going down to six to take a shower. He stepped into an elevator operated by Armond Lee. He never came back.

  Bob Swalwell and his partner on the case, Trooper Willard Rowe, picked up their first intriguing piece when they talked with Bob Pietrusiak and his wife, Catherine. The Pietrusiaks said that Walker had introduced them to Marcy Purmal, the Legal Aid lawyer, who visited Walker often and whose relationship with him seemed, well, different from the usual relationship between attorney and client. They said they had seen Marcy kissing Walker and rubbing his knee, although sometimes they saw nothing, when Marcy and Walker drew the curtains that encircled his bed and there would be long periods of silence. One time, though, when the curtains were closed around Walker’s bed, the Pietrusiaks heard loud laughter, as Marcy and Walker read aloud from a court document. The authorities at Joliet, presumably fed up with their rambunctious inmate, had attempted to have Walker transferred to another prison, but Walker had sued to stay. He explained to Pietrusiak that at Joliet he had a private cell with a separate office where he did his legal work, and the prison officials wanted him out because of his court actions against them and because he was winning cases on behalf of other prisoners. He told Pietrusiak that other prisoners were fond of him, accepting of him. Anyway, the judge had ruled in Walker’s favor, and Marcy and Walker seemed to be celebrating. Pietrusiak caught a glimpse of a bottle; it contained either vodka or gin, which Walker was mixing with orange juice. He thought Walker kept the booze hidden most of the time, although a floor nurse, Patricia Coates, told Swalwell that one night Walker had offered her a glass of vodka. She said she had declined.

  Nurse Coates and three other nurses—Mary Sheehan, Andrea Gaspar, and Carol Hitzman—told the police that they felt Walker had definitely not been properly guarded. Two of them reported seeing one of his guards asleep on a couch in the TV room on two different evenings, and all of them confirmed that Walker had been a difficult patient, not allowing them near the cabinet by his bed, constantly getting phone calls. When Walker told them he would make his own bed and that they were not to even come anywhere near his bed, they stayed away, though whenever one of them, or a female lab technician, had to come near Walker, Pietrusiak noticed that Walker would get very flirtatious and often try to grab, pat, or pinch them.

  Altogether, Catherine Pietursiak, who was a social worker at a county hospital where prisoners were sometimes treated, was amazed at the freedom Walker enjoyed at Illinois Research. At the county hospital, she said, prisoners were usually handcuffed to their beds, or at least never allowed out of bed without a guard hovering close by. She thought it unusual, too, that Walker drew his own blood, and one night she mentioned it to a nurse. “Well, it’s not usual hospital procedure,” the nurse agreed, “but in this case it’s okay.” Mrs. Pietrusiak spent a lot of time in Room 701, not just during visiting hours, because her husband was scheduled for serious surgery, and she had plenty of chances to observe Walker. She noticed that he washed his hair every morning and styled it carefully, using hair spray. He always seemed meticulously neat and well groomed, always ready for company, which included, besides Marcy, a young woman he called “C.J.” The Pietrusiaks heard Walker tease Marcy about C.J., and vice versa. C.J. usually brought peanut butter and fruit; Walker explained to Bob Pietrusiak that C.J. was a health nut and didn’t eat meat, although once C.J. brought in a salami sandwich and Walker told Marcy all about it.

  The Pietrusiaks found Walker congenial and engaging. He talked freely about his prison career, mentioning that in Florida he had worked on a chain gang. He said he had been imprisoned in that state “for trying to feed a couple of union organizers to the fish.” He told them that his wife and two children lived in Switzerland because his wife had been involved in a crime here for which he had been convicted and she was thus a fugitive from the law. Walker told the Pietrusiaks that that crime was wounding an officer from the Illinois Bureau of Investigation who had come to serve him with a subpoena at his Wisconsin home, but he never said he had shot the man. “Anything could have happened,” Walker said. “I could have shot the man, my wife could have shot the man, somebody else could have shot the man.” He told them that he himself had once been kidnaped in Ohio by two men and shot in the head three times with a .38-caliber revolver; left for dead by the roadside, he had stumbled to help and had recovered nicely.

  Even after Bob Pietrusiak’s surgery, when he was taken to the intensive care unit and then to another room, he and his wife remained friendly with Walker. Once, when Catherine went with Bob for a test somewhere in the hospital, she asked Walker to watch her purse. He said he would.

  On Tuesday evening, January 30, Catherine and Bob dropped in to Room 701 to visit Walker. Marcy was already there. That evening, for the first time, Walker asked the Pietrusiaks where they lived. Catherine was surprised at the question, because the three of them had already talked about the couple living in Aurora, a somewhat distant suburb, and had laughed about “the boonies.” Catherine had been staying in the city while Bob was sick, and she knew Walker had heard them discussing who was taking in their mail, who was walking their dog.

  “Aurora,” Catherine said.

  “I mean, where in Aurora?” Walker asked, smiling.

  “Seven-thirty-one Talma Street,” Catherine said.

  “Where?” Walker asked. Catherine repeated the address.

  Walker laughed. “I may come and visit you sometime,” he said.

  The Pietrusiaks laughed too. “Sure,” Bob said. “You’re welcome anytime, as soon as we put bars on the guest room windows.” Everybody laughed together.

  “You’ll have to walk our dog,” Catherine said.

  “When are you getting out of here?” Walker asked Bob.

  “This weekend,” Pietrusiak said. “The second or third.”

  Marcy had said nothing. The Pietrusiaks thought she seemed agitated, oddly nervous. Catherine gestured toward a white Marshall Field box lying on Walker’s bed. “Did you get another pair of pajamas?” She had
seen gift boxes on his bed before, and Walker had always exhibited his gifts—pajamas, a new robe. This time Walker did not open the box.

  “Oh, yes,” he said, “pajamas.” He quickly put his hand on the box lid, keeping it closed. “They’re very nice.” Then he changed the subject. “What have you done with your car, all this time?”

  “Oh, it’s in the garage,” Bob Pietrusiak said.

  Nobody knew what to say then; the atmosphere seemed strangely tense. “Well,” Bob said, “I’d better get on back to my room.” Walker invited Bob and Catherine to come back the next evening, so the four of them could play Monopoly.

  At 6:30 P.M. that next evening, January 31, a man came around to the back door at the home of Robert and Gwen Dreyer at 707 Talma Street and asked directions to the Pietrusiak house. It was already dark, but the Dreyers’ porch light was on, and they saw him clearly: steel-rimmed glasses, extremely neat and well groomed, long dark hair, carrying a gift-wrapped box. He told them he had seen Mr. Pietrusiak in the hospital and had come by to leave a package for him.

  Later, Marcy Purmal received a two-part, two-page letter from Walker. The first section of the letter was dated midnight, January 31.

  C’mere you pretty thing—

  While this letter may not reach you for awhile, there is no need for it not to be written.

  As you can see, I am safe and sound for the moment, having gone so far as to surround myself with an electric typewriter and cassette recorder. On four buck—what I had left when/the bottom fell in and you started (Ooooooophs! Old nibble fingers of the electic is not what he once was, but given the opportunity to write to you and I shall return not only to my former form but greater heights, also). As I was saying, it did become rather tough when you started hanging around with the good guys in the white hats and having your body watched, nevertheless, I made it to a safe port and still have two bucks left—see! Thrifty I can be!

  Now then to business. I shall not forget you, Marcy, anymore than I will continue to be mindful of the extreme pressures you are presently under and the impossibilities of our weekend for the present, and morover, I shall never forget you, your love, my love for you, and the fact that I cannot be whole without you—given half a chance and I will send for you forthwith.

  For now … I am bone weary, and besides that tired. I am going to fill the tub with hot-hot water and soak the day out and then slip between my powder blue sheets and dream of you. I will call when convenient and make other arrangements just as soon as schedule provides and permits.

  The second half of the letter was dated 10:00 A.M., February 1, 1973.

  Good Morning, my love—

  While I did not sleep in your arms, as planned, considering your absence I did sleep rather well. Something about escaping which is tiring I fear.…

  All right, I have been up long enough to shower, run the hot comb through my locks, drink several cups of coffee, and have three eggs with a toasted onion roll—see! Already you have me eating breakfast. The day is rather dismal, where I am at, nevertheless, I am back on my jogging kick, however my legs do not seem to know it. I never realized just how much was wrong with me until I took off on a one mile jog and quit at the half-way point before I fell on my face. Oh, don’t worry, I intend to do something about it, my dear.

  My dreams were filled with thoughts of you stepping out of your pants instead of into them as you did with sleep thick and heavy in your eyes and on your tongue. Ah—yes, I do remember each and every little expression, especially where you come into play.…

  I love you! Love you! LOVE! I am sure you will grow tired of hearing this, however, I am insane for you—so nuts I dashed over for a bit of Chapstick upon awaking, and find myself tempted to do so today. Instead, I am going to break this off and dash into town and buy some underwear, razor, toothbrush, and stuff. Mostly the makin’s for some of those dishes you have been promising to make for me and instead spent all your time at my bedside—just keep it up and see where it gets you.

  Love you and shall return shortly—I promise.

  Want to get this off for its appointed rounds and into your hands. Remember only one thing—I love you.

  Ciao …

  Under Cat/ink.

  An emphatic sense of déjà vu swirled around Bob Swalwell as he checked out Walker’s old haunts: the high-rise apartment at Lake Point Towers; the bars and cocktail lounges of Chicago’s best hotels; a lively spot on Rush Street called The Cedars; the apartment on Division Street where Swalwell’s buddy had been wedged in the attic.

  C.J., the other woman who had visited Walker in the hospital, turned out to be a housewife who favored prison reform. On January 27, 1972, she and G. Daniel Walker had opened a joint account at the Oak Park Savings and Trust. At 10:15 A.M. on February 2—two days after Walker’s escape—she closed the account, number 479761, and received a cashier’s check for the balance, $348.31. She told Mr. Ridolfi, a bank officer, that she was going to give the check to her attorney.

  Some of Walker’s friends and acquaintances didn’t wait for the police to call. A woman called the police in Gurnee, where she lived, to report that Walker, an ex-boyfriend of hers, had just called her, simply said “I’m here,” and hung up. The Gurnee police chief and one of his men drove out to the woman’s house and watched it. A couple from Glenview called their local police to say they had visited Walker in the hospital and wanted to cooperate. When they visited, they said, they had met Marthe Purmal, whom they called Walker’s attorney and girlfriend. Marcy’s apartment on South Shore Drive was staked out by officers from the Illinois State Prison.

  As time went on and the search deepened, many other authorities were involved, including—but not limited to—members of the Fox Lake Police Department, Waukegan Police Department, Park City Police Department, McHenry City Police Department, Grayslake Police Department, Lake Villa Police Department, Gurnee Police Department, North Chicago Police Department, Libertyville Police Department, Northbrook Police Department, DesPlaines Police Department, Skokie Police Department, Antioch Police Department, Glenview Police Department, Oak Park Police Department, Aurora Police Department, Melrose Park Police Department, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, Chicago Police Department, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But it was Swalwell who was grittily set on catching the man who’d shot his best friend. It was Swalwell who was spending every day and most nights tracking down every tip, following the wispiest lead, poring over the cartons Walker had abandoned in his cell—twenty-nine full cartons—to find a clue. It was Swalwell who was called by Detective DiSantis of the Melrose Park Police, who had just had a call from a doctor at the West Lake Hospital about a “strange-acting subject” fitting Walker’s description, and it was Swalwell who drove all the way out there to verify that it wasn’t Walker. It was Swalwell whom the Aurora police called after their switchboard operator, Carol Michels, had taken a call from a man who said he was a Treasury agent and had just seen Walker driving west on Galena Boulevard in Aurora in a 1968 blue Ford, 1972 Illinois license number HG 4463. Shortly after that call, Police Car 55 radioed that they had been stopped by a man on the street and given the same information. Swalwell put out an ISPERN alert—Illinois State Police Emergency Radio Network—and the blue Ford was stopped by a patrol car near Sugar Grove, at the intersection of Illinois Highway 47 and U.S. 34. When the men in the patrol car radioed back that the driver fit Walker’s description and they were taking him in, Swalwell and Trooper Rowe dashed out to the Kane County Sheriff’s Office, where they met a bewildered citizen named Charles P. Schopf. Mr. Schopf said the blue Ford was certainly his. So it proved. Swalwell thought of the “Treasury agent” and cursed heartily. Cat-and-mouse again.

  Robert Pietrusiak was discharged from Illinois Research Hospital on schedule—Friday, February 2. Shortly after he and Catherine got home to Aurora, that evening, he called the police. “Somebody’s been living in our house,” Pietrusiak said, “eating here, and the bed’s been slept in, and a lot of thin
gs are missing.”

  The main thing missing was the family car. After that came a gray Smith-Corona portable electric typewriter; a black-and-silver Panasonic cassette tape recorder; a Yashica camera; a checkbook containing ten checks from the Continental Bank in Chicago, account number 62539700255; a gray Samsonite attaché case; a man’s knee-length tan coat with fur lining; eighteen credit cards, including American Express, Master Charge, Sears Roebuck, and Montgomery Ward cards, ten gasoline cards, and department store charge cards from Marshall Field and Carson, Pirie & Scott. But what really struck Catherine was that she was missing, from the bathroom, a can of hair spray, her shampoo and creme rinse, a scissors and nail clippers. In the kitchen, she found dishes had been used and washed; in the living room, a magazine she’d left lying around had been placed neatly atop a stack of mail. When Catherine went through her purse, the purse she’d asked her husband’s roommate Walker to watch for her one day, she couldn’t find her second set of house keys.

  Officers McDonald and Beale from the Aurora station arrived at the Pietrusiak house first and searched, dusting for fingerprints. Other detectives joined them, then men from Joliet. A bed had been used in an upstairs bedroom where there was a small television set; when the Pietrusiaks had gone to the hospital, they had unplugged the set, but now it was plugged in. A TV Preview on top of the set was taken to be checked for prints. In the kitchen, a drinking glass that Catherine said was not there when they left was sitting in the sink. It had been washed, but when it was checked, two prints appeared, on the sides of the glass, near the bottom. Officer McDonald didn’t lift the prints there; he took the glass to be checked at the lab.

  Down the block, at 707 Talma, Gwen Dreyer identified a mug shot of G. Daniel Walker, number 67128, as the man who’d come around to her back door on Wednesday, asking directions to the Pietrusiaks’. She said, though, that when she saw him he’d been wearing gold-rimmed glasses and his hair had been combed much more neatly.