by Irene Pence
Now fortified, he wanted company. But before he could play, he had some work to do. He retrieved his truck from the parking lot and turned onto Main Street, then drove toward his new office. He had one last piece of unfinished business.
THIRTY
Mary Jean saw the road ahead through a blur of tears. Her hands had been shaking ever since she left Michelle Lowder’s house. She couldn’t imagine the 911 operator telling her not to go to her girls. Nothing could have kept her away.
A block from Michelle’s house, Mary Jean tore past the massive, gothic style Highland Park Presbyterian Church. At Hillcrest, she barely slowed to turn right.
It was shortly after seven-thirty, and the sun was setting, but the light blue sky, already tinged with pink, was still bright enough for Mary Jean to see by. She raced through the next red light and down the street that bordered Southern Methodist University, quickly passing its large brick dorms and student center.
Almost everyone drove a cautious thirty miles an hour in the Park Cities because of diligent policing, but Mary Jean’s driving twenty miles over the limit had not alerted any police, although she would have welcomed their presence.
She pictured the red brick lofts where John lived, imagining the street clogged with police cars and ambulances. Maybe he just shot up the apartment, she tried to reassure herself.
While trying to focus on the road, she punched in her mother’s phone number. She had already told her about the tragic phone conversation with Faith, and now left a message saying where she’d be. Dorrace would contact the rest of the family. Mary Jean knew they’d be devastated and want to be with her. She passed one more church and said yet another prayer. “Oh, God, let there be a miracle. Let them somehow still be alive.” Every thought of her daughters brought a new flood of tears. Mary Jean was surprised that she had any more tears to shed. At the light on Mockingbird, she careened left and soon approached Central Expressway where she could drive even faster. “I’m coming, girls,” she yelled. “I’m coming!” Then she broke down all over again, her shoulders shaking and her stomach churning from fear.
It had only been five minutes since she left Melissa’s house, but it seemed like an hour, and it would be another ten minutes before she’d reach the lofts. She increased her speed, all the time screaming and cursing. This wasn’t really happening.
In the distance, the glass and granite skyscrapers of downtown Dallas emerged before her. Lights were coming on in the tall buildings and they twinkled like jewels. Soon in the midst of the mirrored glass walls, she pulled her car into the downtown exit. She felt like she was flying and standing still at the same time: the speedometer said she was flying, but in her mind, everything seemed to be going past in slow motion. At times, she’d sniffle, blow her nose, and try to take deep breaths; then the enormity of the situation would hit her anew and she’d break into wailing sobs. She cried with her whole body, leaning over the steering wheel and shaking.
Patrol Officers Zane Murray and Ray Rojas were on their nightly patrol, scouting the Dallas streets in the Central Business District. They listened to their squad car radio spit out offenses and request various officers to handle them. A Code Six-X came in from Highland Park, indicating that people were fighting.
“I need someone from the Central Business District,” the dispatcher said.
The officers knew that no one regularly patrolled that area. According to their computer screen, the apartment where the fight was supposed to be taking place wasn’t far from where they now were, so Murray switched to another channel to get more information.
“Mother thinks kids were shot,” was the first line he read on the new computer channel.
“Oh no,” Rojas said. “Sure hope that’s not right.” Murray radioed the dispatcher that they would take the call. He hit his lights and they were on their way.
Mary Jean turned onto Canton Street, and gasped. She was alone. There wasn’t one police car, not one ambulance. Nothing. A sickening rage filled her. Doesn’t anybody care? For God’s sake what’s going on?
Long ago, she had memorized the number for the Highland Park Police. Now she punched it in and asked that they connect her with their 911 operator so she could talk with the same person.
“This is Mary Jean Pearle,” she said when the operator answered.
“Yes,” the woman replied.
“I’m getting ready to come up on his apartment. I don’t see any police cars. I wonder what’s going on?”
Mary Jean parked by the entrance and kept her phone to her ear. She stepped out of her car and ran to the building’s front door. She jerked on the handle. Then she saw the electronic door lock.
She listened to the scolding voice of the Highland Park dispatcher. “Ma’am, I told you, I do not want you to go there. I have the Dallas Police Department going over there because Highland Park can’t. Ma’am, it’s not safe for you to go there by yourself. Okay?”
Mary Jean couldn’t speak because tears were choking her throat. “I’m so scared of him,” she managed before breaking into more loud screams.
“I understand,” the operator said.
“Please help me. I’ve already come here.”
“Ma’am, do not go inside that apartment. You need to stay in your car.”
“I tried to get inside, but the building’s locked.”
“Ma’am, I promise we have the Dallas Police Department going over there.”
“Have you told them he’s killed my children?”
“Yes. I told them the whole situation.”
“Can you call them back. Will you?” Mary Jean’s breath was labored as she pleaded.
“Yes, but I’m keeping you on the phone because you are not going in that apartment.”
“Please call them back,” she pleaded. “Please, they might still be alive—still in there. Oh, my God!”
“Ma’am?”
“I see a policeman going the opposite way.” Mary Jean hurried out of her car, waving her arms frantically and screaming, “Stop! Please help me!” but the police car drove on.
Forlornly, she sank back in her car and continued her conversation.
“Listen,” the 911 operator said, “Katherine Justice, our detective here? She’s gonna call your cell phone so I need you to hang up with me.”
“Okay,” Mary Jean said.
At that moment, Mary Jean saw the policeman again. He had been going the opposite direction, but had made a U-turn, and was now parking behind her.
She jumped out of her car to talk with the officer, telling him everything she had screamed at the 911 operator. While the officer was getting a resident to open the building’s door, two more policemen pulled up. She cried hysterically as she yet again had to explain her phone call with her daughter. The officers had to concentrate because it was difficult to understand Mary Jean through all her choking sobs. After questioning her, they rushed inside the building.
John Battaglia signed in with security then took the elevator to the fifty-third floor of his downtown office building. He rushed down the hall and unlocked the door to Arcturus.
He hurried to his office and sat down before his computer. He pulled up his investments and began printing them, one by one.
At 7:50, he picked up the phone and called Baton Rouge. Again he reached only a machine. When he spoke, his voice and manner were very calm.
“Hey Orie, this is Ba-ba,” he said, using the pet names he had invented for his daughter and himself. “I’m putting your money, a check, in an envelope for you along with some documents that show other accounts I have money in. This is your college money. Put it in an account and invest it. Save it for college, okay? Love you, sweetheart. Talk to you soon.”
Mary Jean’s cell phone rang. It was Detective Katherine Justice.
“Mary Jean?” the detective said. “I can’t hear you sweetie. What’s going on?”
Mary Jean again reiterated the horror she had experienced earlier. Each time she had to tell the story, she b
ecame all the more devastated.
“Are the police there?”
“Three of them.”
“Okay, tell them John has an outstanding warrant,” Justice said, giving the police a reason to approach the loft.
“I can’t,” Mary Jean said, “They’re already in the building now, opening it up.”
“They’re gonna be okay,” the detective tried to assure her.
“I can’t believe this,” Mary Jean sobbed.
“You talked to them, right?”
“Yes, and Faith was going, ‘No, no, daddy, no, don’t do it. Don’t do it!’ And then the gun went off. I heard them screaming.
“Oh my babies. I can’t believe this,” Mary Jean said. “I didn’t think he’d do it. Oh my God!”
“But they’re okay?” Justice said.
“No!” Mary Jean screamed, “they’re not okay. I think he killed them in there!” Her cries could be heard from a block away, but her words were scrambled and Katherine Justice had trouble understanding her.
“Calm down. Calm down. Till the police come out. Okay? Take a deep breath.”
“Okay. He, oh Katherine . . .”
“Take a deep breath. You’re doing good,” the detective tried to persuade her.
“I know, baby, oh my God, please don’t let it be, please Jesus. But he fired like five or six times—unless he killed himself too.”
Mary Jean looked around. “I want an ambulance here. Maybe they’re still alive. I doubt it, but maybe.”
“That’s right. Think positively.”
“I was thinking, no he couldn’t have done it. Just couldn’t have. But, I’m also trying to kind of prepare myself, ya know? It’s just what you normally do.”
After more sobs, Mary Jean murmured, “Faith, Faith, Faith. I can’t believe he would kill that angel. But he just wouldn’t be shooting it off for kicks.”
“I don’t know,” Justice said. “I don’t know him like you do.”
“I don’t either, but nobody shoots a gun off for kicks, you know? But I appreciate you talking to me baby ‘cause I’ve gotta talk to somebody right now. My mother and my brother are on their way.”
Just to keep Mary Jean talking, the detective continued to ask her details of what led up to the shooting: the meeting at the shopping center and how she came to phone the girls. The minutes ticked by, but there was no sign of the police returning with any kind of news.
“Oh this is so hard,” Mary Jean said. “This is so bad. You always wonder what people go through when something like this happens to them, ya know? You never think it will be you.”
“Yeah,” the detective agreed. “And we thought we were doing the right thing, ya know?”
“I know. I never thought he would do this. I never, never thought he was this bad. Hold on.”
Katherine, who could hear another voice in the background, asked, “Who’s there with you?”
“My friend, Melissa Lowder. She just showed up.”
The detective was relieved to learn that another person was with Mary Jean.
Mary Jean choked out words. “Oh. Oh, I’m so scared.”
“You calm down now. Okay? As much as you can.”
“I will,” she said. “Oh my God, an ambulance is pulling up now.”
“Calm down. That’s standard.”
Mary Jean gasped, trying to gain control. “John told the girls that maybe he’d be arrested up at Highland Park Village. If so, he wouldn’t see them for about a year.”
“No, no,” Justice said. “I know he talked to his probation officer, ’cause he [John] called me today.” The detective described her conversation with John. “. . . I promised him we weren’t going to arrest him tonight.”
“God if only we had,” Mary Jean sighed.
“Well, the papers. I told him the papers had just been filed yesterday.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mary Jean said, still crying. “This whole thing is so awful crazy. But you’ve been so nice talking to me. I just don’t know what to do. I don’t want to go up there. I don’t know what it’s like if you see your kids’ heads splattered all over the place.” Her voice came out in staccato bursts as she gasped for breath between each word. “I don’t know if it’s better to see it or not.”
“You don’t, okay?” Katherine assured her.
“Do they teach you that in your stuff?”
“Yeah. Think about that, okay?”
Mary Jean gulped. “Oh God. A guy came out. I’ve gotta talk to him.”
The detective could hear conversation in the background, and then she was shocked by a piercing scream.
There was a long, numbing pause before Mary Jean was back on the phone.
“They’re dead!” she yelled.
“Mary Jean?” Katherine said, in disbelief. Then she heard a policeman tell Mary Jean to get into the car. Melissa’s voice could be heard, “I know. I know. I know. Honey, I know,” she said sympathetically. “Sit right here. Okay, right here.”
“Mary Jean, Mary Jean,” Katherine pleaded, hoping Mary Jean still had her cell phone with her. Then she heard her voice come closer to the mouthpiece, but she was sobbing terribly.
“They’re dead,” Mary Jean said, her voice eerily different, sounding in shock.
“No!”
“He’s not in there with them, though. He just killed them.”
“No!” the detective yelled, unable to hide her horror.
“I hope he hasn’t gone to kill my mother.”
“Your mother’s not there?” Detective Justice asked.
“She’s on her way.”
Then the detective listened to chaotic background conversation until she could finally discern Mary Jean’s voice.
“I don’t want to see them,” Mary Jean said to someone. All the while Katherine was trying to get her attention.
“Mary Jean. Mary Jean. Do you want me to come down?”
“I can’t hear a thing you’re saying with all that’s going on down here,” Mary Jean replied. “What?”
“I said do you want me to come down there?”
“Yes, I need you bad, babe. I need you bad.”
“Okay,” Katherine told her. “I’m on my way.”
THIRTY-ONE
A second ambulance pulled up to the front of the Adam Hats Lofts; the frenzied sirens and flashing red lights heightened the tension of the scene. The ambulance doors opened and two paramedics jumped out and rushed toward the building.
When the paramedics entered Loft 418, they pulled on latex gloves and headed first to Liberty. One man crouched down and carefully reached for her wrist, praying he’d feel the faint beating of a pulse. Nothing. The man was in his forties and had children at home only a few years older than the one that lay before him. He momentarily turned away from the body, fought for composure, then asked where the second girl was.
As police heard about the shootings over their radios, one by one, squad cars began to line the street.
Cars carrying investigators from the Physical Evidence Section (PES) and Crimes Against Persons (CAPERS) were on their way.
When the crime scene was secured at 8:32 P.M., Officer Zane Murray picked up his cell phone and called the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office. The busy ME office is open 365 days a year, and will even perform autopsies on Christmas Day if necessary.
Glynda Ray, known as Gigi to her family, friends and coworkers, was one of two investigators manning the 3:00-to-11:30-P.M. shift. She took Murray’s call.
The attractive brunette was in her forties, and her upbeat, energetic demeanor gave no hint that she dealt with death on a daily basis. Highly qualified, Ray held a master’s degree in criminal justice in addition to being a board certified medico-legal death investigator.
“We have a Signal 27 [dead body] at 2700 Canton,” Murray began. The call was handled as official police business, and Murray was trained to stay neutral regardless of his personal feelings.
“What kind of Signal 27?” Ray a
sked.
“We have two little girls shot by their dad.”
The death investigator sighed as she recorded the address and other information Murray relayed. A few minutes earlier, Gigi had received a call from a Channel 11 reporter who informed her of a shooting at the lofts. She listened carefully to Murray because the media received their information from scanning police radios and frequently had inaccurate data. The reporter assumed that “a shooting” meant only one victim.
She phoned Professional Mortuary Service, a company that the county contracted for transporting victims back to the medical examiner’s for autopsies. The company would provide her with a van and two people, “her crew,” as she called them. They would meet her at the scene.
Even though the police had requested ambulances, they were only present in the unlikely case that the victims were still alive.
Ray’s kit always stood at the ready; it contained her Polaroid, a 35-millimeter camera, and a flash unit. She quickly went through the aluminum case, making sure her gloves, sacks for bagging victim’s hands, and all the other equipment she would need were there. Always dressed for action, she wore a pair of comfortable slacks, a cotton shirt, and rubber-soled shoes.
She climbed into her white Chevy Lumina with the black, round Dallas County Medical Examiner logo on the door.
By 8:55 P.M., Gigi Ray was within a half block of the lofts. She could see the string of emergency vehicles and throngs of news media roaming the area. Photographers hoisted cameras on their shoulders, and reporters brandished microphones at anyone who would talk. The large white news vans had huge, extendible masts sitting atop their roofs, stretching almost to the fourth floor, which were used to transmit microwave signals back to the newsrooms.
At the loft entrance, Gigi identified herself to the young policeman manning the door. Entering the lobby, she asked a nearby officer if the next-of-kin were present. He nodded toward Mary Jean Pearle who was now sitting on the floor, calmly making calls on her cell phone. Gigi wasn’t surprised that Mary Jean was so composed. She had seen that in other cases. Mary Jean might have been in a state of shock, or just exhausted.