MemoryMen

by Michael Binkley

  Hernandez took the first watch in the front seat. He hunkered down in a low crouch as if he were asleep. Sunglasses hid watchful eyes, while a Dodger cap shaded his face. Passers-by might think of him as just one more junkie sacked out, waiting for the next delivery or score. Carly grabbed a bench in the middle against the driver's sidewall. It afforded him as much stretching space as possible as he rested his feet against the sliding door opposite him. The seat also gave him a good view of Diane, as she stood about fifty feet in front of the van on the far side of the street. Sully commandeered the rear portion of the van, amidst the radio and other electronics running along both walls. He could cast a furtive glance to the rear as needed if anyone might approach from behind.

  The first hour past quickly as Sully checked the Inspector's com, assuring strong signals back and forth on their equipment. After confirming that his boss, in her best pseudo-hooker disguise, could be reached easily he began a routine sound check with the other support teams. All teams were in contact; all decoys were safely wired. So far, so good they all thought.

  As the sun began to set, time seemed to edge along slowly. Sully, displaying a bit of anxiousness much like he had the first time they met, launched into a running monologue about his wife; his fifteen years on the force; a chronic problem with athlete's foot and several other inane topics. Hernandez said little, feigning a deeper concentration than his task needed.

  Carly grew tired of the steady prattle and concentrated on watching Diane. She didn't look sluttish enough he thought. She was too strong, too healthy. She carried herself too well, as the statuesque frame stood too straight, too confident for a lone hooker desperate for the next trick. She just didn't have the look of defeat that the street eventually brought to all of its inhabitants. It was to his great surprised when a late model sedan pulled along the curb and came to a rest next to her.

  “Look alive guys,” Hernandez said, “the Inspector's got a nibble.”

  Listening over the open wire, the car was the first of what would be many lonely men who succumbed to the site of the pretty black woman available for hire. For some it seemed to be a dream come true, for others it seemed a furtive attempt to be alive.

  Diane handled them well, casting off the pleas for company, good times, and crude suggestions with a smile and a joke, “Sorry, just waiting for my boyfriend, dear,” she called to the men in the cars.

  The plan they had laid out in the briefing room was for the girls to approach only cars where the drivers could possibly match Jonathan's description. A white male, about fifty with blond or brown hair. Oona had given them a solid description, enough so they had been able to complete a credible computer rendition.

  Anybody matching that general description would get a closer scrutiny from the women. If any of them made an identification of Jonathan, they would then agree to go with him but first they would walk away from the car to retrieve their purse they conveniently left a few feet away on the building side of the sidewalks. As soon as the support teams heard the confirmation to go with the 'john' the teams would move in. The decoy would continue away from the car and let the support team make the collar. It seemed to be a simple but effective plan. Dombrowski hadn't carried a gun, and up to this point it didn't appear that the L.A. killer did either, so it seemed that the decoys wouldn't have to fear getting shot as they scurried away.

  Hernandez, using a set of binoculars, kept a running tab on all the license plates from cars that made actual solicitations to Diane. He figured that it might be worth the while to run them through the computers later, just to see what they came up with. “Who knows?” he said, “maybe we got some local politicians and city big-wigs breaking the law. It happens all the time.”

  By ten o'clock, Hernandez and Sully exchanged seats. Much to Carly's relief, Sully quieted down as he held the forward post. To Carly's greater relief, neither he nor any of his partners, heard the beckon of the coffee can. Perhaps they all stoically resisted the temptation to add to the van's odor.

  “So tell me Professor, how'd you get the bum hip?” Hernandez asked, breaking the comfortable silence that had followed Sully's new position.

  “Fell chasing a bad guy. It happened just after the 'Crucifixion Killings' case in Denver. Nothing real exciting or romantic. My partner and I went to a suspect's apartment to ask him a few questions, when we knocked on the door he started shooting at us. No reason, just started firing through the door. When he spent his clip, we kicked in the door just in time to see him going out the fire escape. I went out first and chased him downwards, when I got to the drop ladder at the bottom, I slipped and fell about ten feet. Cracked my hip, not so bad as to have a replacement, but it’s been a liability ever since. I ended up taking an early retirement on disability. That's when I went back to school for my doctorate.”

  “Did you ever get the guy?”

  “Yeah, my partner did. Shot him in the butt, as he ran down the alley. The first ambulance on the scene actually ended up taking the bad-guy and left me lying on the ground. The EMT's were afraid he'd bleed to death and they'd get sued, if you can believe that.”

  “I do. A cop never gets a break.”

  “Heads up, Team Three's got another fish biting.” Hernandez fiddled with dials, and soon they all could hear the exchange. The open wired shrieked with static, then picked up the flat monotone of a man's voice, “Want to get in?”

  “Smooth talker,” Hernandez quipped.

  “Sure, what you got in mind?”

  “Party time.”

  “Let me get my purse,” the detective said, voice dripping in a false sexually charged tone

  The conversation ended abruptly. Sully grabbed the radio quickly trying to hone in on Team Three's support car, “All units, this is team three. Our decoy has just accepted a pass. Get ready to move in. She's walking away from the car towards her purse, we're going for him.”

  Rapidly as a heartbeat, the voice quickened, “Move it. All units, our rabbit is starting to run. Brown late model Ford Truck, license number Able, Charles, X-Ray, three, two, nine-er. He's headed north on first, towards Team Seven.”

  “That's us,” Sully interrupted as he started the van.

  The motor came to life with a roar of power, as Sully yelled back, “First Street is the next cross street over. If we cut through the alley on the left, we can get there ahead of him and we can block his escape.

  Carly heard Hernandez call Diane, “Inspector, we're moving out. Team Three is sending us a pigeon down First Street. Stay put.” Looking up towards where Diane stood, he saw a dark colored van pull next to her in the car.

  With the van's tires screaming for traction, Carly strained to hear what she replied.

  “Hernandez, what did she say?” he yelled, trying to maintain balance as Sully swung the van into the alley.

  “She's got an offer. She accepted!” he yelled at Carly.

  As Carly called Sully's name, the van shot into First Street and into the path of the truck escaping Team Three.

  He heard himself yell, “Go back,” but his cry was lost in the crash of the two vehicles.

  As the van rolled over and over with the impact, Carly's last thoughts before he lost consciousness were of the awful mistake they seemed to be making.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Carly heard the ringing. It made his head ache. It was too loud for his alarm clock. He assumed it was the phone, probably Joy calling him to tell say he was late. Whatever she wanted, he'd have to fix that phone, the ringer sounded all wrong, harsh and brittle. He must have drunk too much the night before, as there was no reason why his head should ache this much. Slowly he opened his eyes, as he did so the ring gave way to something else as the dull throbbing at the back of his head turned to a blinding sharp pain. Someone was shining a bright light in his eyes. Disoriented, he struggled to sit up. As he slowly recognized Sully's face, the rush of reality overwhelmed him. As he sat up the throbbing increased, sending a wave of pain from the back of his skull to his
eyes almost blinding him despite the persistence of the light.

  “Easy big guy,” Sully reassured him. “You've been out a few minutes. Got your pumpkin knocked pretty good by the looks of that goose egg. The EMT's want to take you in, just in case you've got a concussion...”

  Carly interrupted anxiously, “Diane, what about Diane? She made contact didn't she?”

  “Yeah, she did,” Sully said, his eyes downcast. “We don't know where she is.”

  “What do you mean, you don't know where she is? What happened to her?”

  “Team Three made a mistake when they made the call. The guy in the truck was some little shit just looking for a good time.”

  “Why'd he run then?”

  “When the decoy went for her purse, he saw her talk into the mike, he then saw the support team and figured it was a prostitution sting. He's married, plus he was holding a couple of grams of cocaine. He didn't want to get busted for soliciting and possession all in one fell swoop. He figured it was a simple hooker bust and there was just one cop car to out run, so he went for it. He didn't have a clue there were nearly fifty of us out here, not counting a hundred patrol officers in black and whites in the general area. When he crawled out the wreck and saw all the hardware, uniforms and the like, he was as surprised as any collar could be...ever. “

  Thinking back to the triggering point of the whole circus, Carly blurted out, “Lord Almighty, how did Team Three's decoy make a mistake like that? She had a picture of Jonathan, didn't she?”

  “Yes, but she panicked. There's a resemblance to an extent. She was over anxious, the pressure got to her. As it turns out the guy is well over six-foot tall. The poor girl couldn't tell that with him sitting in the truck, so she blew the whistle. She blew it...period. You've got to realize Carly, she thought she was talking to the worst serial killer in L.A.'s history.”

  Sternly making sure he made his point, the small man looked Carly directly in the eyes, as he said, “I can't blame her, nobody can. Understand?”

  “I know. I know,” Carly shook his head as a wave of pain reminded him to forego any more sudden movements. “I'd have probably done the same. Keep in mind I'm the same pantywaist who couldn't look Dombrowski in the eye long enough to finish an interview with him. Hell that was in a precinct full of cops. You're right as always, Sully. I can't blame her.”

  “But, what about Diane?”

  “Right after the crash, Hernandez managed to get himself out the back van doors. Seems he was the only one of us smart enough to snap a seat belt. It took me awhile to get my act together, as I was knocked out like you. Anyway, Cesar grabbed the first patrol car at the scene of the crash and went back to our post. She was gone. Not a trace, not even her purse, which means she must have made Jonathan. Why else would she have gone for her purse?”

  “Was there any witnesses?”

  “The only possible witness is a wino who was nodding off in a doorway across the street from where she was stationed.”

  “Did he see anything?”

  “He thinks he saw her getting into a dark colored van, but who knows for sure? He's not even sure what day it was, or if the Inspector was black or white, or blond or redhead. He's pretty well soused. Other than him, nobody saw anything. We're in the process of doing a door to door canvas of the area trying to find someone who might have seen something, but so far we've got nothing.”

  The mental picture cleared in Carly's mind, remembering a few details, he cautioned Sully, “He's right about the van. As we pulled out, I saw the van pull up to where she was standing. Just about the time you turned into the alley, Hernandez got her message that she had a sighting. The rest you know better than I do.”

  “Carly, why would she get into the van, especially if she thought it was Jonathan?”

  “Why else? She’s a damn good cop. She makes the I.D. on the very suspect you all having been chasing for weeks, when she sees her support team tearing away. She's got two options, let this guy get away or stick with him. She’s a good cop, so she goes for him. Knowing Diane, the same hard-nosed belief in her abilities that put her out on the street, put her into that van. I'm not surprised.”

  Trying to maintain some level of confidentiality amidst the crowd of cops, EMT's, and by-standers wandering about, Sully whispered, “But Carly, this might be...you know who. The Inspector's too smart to get in with this guy, she knows what he's capable of.”

  “Yeah,” Carly sighed with resignation, “but she's bull-headed. She's good and probably figures she can handle this guy. Besides, she's too emotionally involved with the loss of her sister. I tried to tell her earlier tonight, but she wouldn't hear it. The best I could do was shut up and tag along, hoping we could cover her backside if she needed it.”

  “Sorry Carly, I shouldn't have sent us off on a goose chase.”

  Carly pulled himself erect. The throbbing in his head intensified with the movement but subsided as he drew in a deep breadth of the night air.

  Sliding his arm around the shoulder of the shorter man, he consoled his friend, “Don't even think about blaming yourself either, Sully. When I heard Team Three say they had a make on Dombrowski, I felt like I was shot out of a cannon. Giving chase was exactly the thing we all wanted and were supposed to do. What kind of operation would it have been if we hesitated every step of the way? You thought, like we all did, that Team Three had made a score. It's unfortunately the worst timing for all the events to happen like they did.”

  As Sully shook his head in agreement and cleared his throat of the growing lump, Carly added, “Forget about this fiasco. We've got to concentrate our energies on finding Diane.”

  Urgently Sully blurted out, the lump in his throat returning, “We got to find her, Carly. She doesn't have a whole lot of time left. This S.O.B. is on a frantic pace, he won't give her much time.”

  “Don't get pessimistic on me, Sully. She's good. If anybody can handle this son of a bitch, she can. Keep in mind, she looked the devil in the eyes tonight and didn't flinch. That's more than I can say.”

  Rolling his head and neck, Carly tried to shake off the headache that kept swelling, as well as the thought that Diane might not be good enough. Nobody was. Talking his own advice about pessimism, he tried to remain upbeat. He knew if he lost faith in Diane, he'd lose her.

  Turning back to his new partner, he fell into his detective mode, “What are we trying to do to find her?”

  “We've got every available car and officer doing a sweep of a twenty block radius. From there we start working out into a bigger circle. All we've got to go on is the description of a brown van. No plates, no other distinguishing features, nothing. We know he operates in this general area, at least for the initial pick-ups. He covers a bit wider spread for the actual murder sites.”

  Carly couldn't just sit still waiting for someone to erect a miracle. “Well, let's grab a car and go looking.”

  The wait was more than he could bear idly, he had to do something productive. Sitting around the station would be twice as bad, as he could watch the hubbub of activity without any tangible duties to help him feel useful, help him take his mind off of thoughts he shouldn't be thinking.

  “What about that head of yours. The ambulance driver said you needed X-rays, to see if you broke anything. If nothing you probably have a concussion. Didn't I hear you say, you had already had your eggs scrambled once this week? Maybe we'd better check it out, before there's permanent damage.”

  “What I've got Sully, is a helluva headache, but sitting around an emergency room isn't going to help me. Stop at a convenience store and I'll eat a bottle of aspirins. That’ll settle my problem. Who knows, maybe the second knock on the head righted the damage from the first. Look, I know my way around the brain a bit, and from this side of things I think I'm okay. If I start acting goofier than usual, let me know and we can get a real doctor to check it out.”

  As if cued by a director, Hernandez pulled up in an unmarked car. “Hey boys, wanna go find us a bad guy?
” Sully climbed in the front, while Carly settled in the back. Forcing a laugh, Hernandez tossed a bottle of aspirins in Carly's direction, “Figured you need this professor. If we're going to catch this creep, we're going to need everybody's head crystal clear.”

  The drove off in silence, weaving through the neighborhood trying to establish a pattern to their search. While they chatted aimlessly, throwing out bits of conjecture and speculation, they kept up a brave facade to the reality of the situation. They all knew she had so little time. Dombrowski was on the fast track this time around, Diane might only be his first pick-up of the night.”

  Riding in darkness, listening to the crackling flurry of the radio, Carly felt the seconds limp by. Repeated glances at his watch as they passed under streetlights, or furtive glances at the dashboard clock gave him some reassurance that it wasn't taking as long as he imagined.

  Hernandez caught his eyes in the rear view mirror. “Hey Professor. You said this guy was really starting to repeat his past, didn't you?”

  Carly nodded absent mindedly in assent, “Pretty much. It seems the farther he goes into these killings the more he becomes Dombrowski again. As the drugs and programming wear off, he returns more and more to his old M.O., his old identity. The big differences right now are his taste in hookers, and the speed with which he's committing the murders. Those may not seem to be such significant factors. I've tried to figure out the importance of each and I can't. The speed is probably due to desperation. He knew he got stopped once, now he's making up for lost time. The other, who knows, the programming from Harcourt may have been stronger than they imagined. Maybe not though, maybe the hookers are just easier to find. That alone would help him move faster. Hell maybe he never knew much about hookers before. Remember in the strangest of ways, Dombrowski led a very sheltered life.”