by Bill McGrath
By driving as aggressively as I could, and frightening Jana as I did, I got to the Antique Alley before any of the store owners. We drove down the alley behind the stores and then down the street in front of the stores. We did not see Donald’s
Harley anywhere but he could have even taken it inside with him. We also saw no sign of Jill.
I opened the glove box and pulled out my 38. It had been in the glove box a few days and I wasn’t even sure I was going to find it there. I checked the ammunition though and dreadfully realized I had only one single bullet. Well, one was better than none. I told Jana to call Samuels and get Donald Smith’s home address from him. I had no idea how Samuels would get it but I was sure he could get it quicker than I could. Next I told Jana to stay in the car and watch the street. If she saw any motorcycle at all she was to give me three loud toots on the horn and lock the car up tight.
I ran to the front door of Antiques of Dallas which was the store that the Smith’s owned and found the door locked, but there were big plate glass store front windows, and I found a good sized rock so with a shower of broken shards flying everywhere I made entry into the store. I had, of course set off an alarm but that was O.K. because I wanted the posse to arrive as soon as possible. I searched through the store and found no one. There were several locked doors and I would have to systematically go through them, but before I got started I barely heard three blasts of my car horn above the scream of the store alarm.
Gun drawn I jumped back out of the broken window expecting to find Donald on his motorcycle but my car was the only vehicle out there. Jana screamed at me that she had Samuels on the phone and they had used the GPS to locate Jill’s cell phone and we were nowhere near the area where her phone was.
As I got into my car I got a quick update from Samuels himself. Jill’s cell phone was tracked briefly up near Belt Line Road in Carrollton, Texas which is a near north Suburb of Dallas. Eric told me that he had APBs out to every city in the county but they did not have a helicopter available for the chase.
The Dallas metropolis is one of those modern areas that has a super highway that rings the entire area and it was highway 635. Long before 635 had been built though Dallas had a set of surface streets that ringed the city called Belt Line.
Donald was now on the north end of the city. I was sure that he was on the surface street instead of the highway because in traffic he had a very big advantage being on a cycle that can weave in and out and make his own lanes. On super highways he would not have as much of an advantage.
I had to gamble here. On the surface streets I could never catch him as he already had too large a lead, but if I could predict where he was going I might be able to hit an expressway and cut him off. I asked Samuels to get another read and try to figure out which direction he was heading. Samuels reported that Jill’s cell phone still appeared to be on Belt Line and appeared to be moving west. He also made sure to tell me that the GPS was only going to be able to get within a couple of blocks of true position. It could actually do better than that but by the time the
information traveled up to a satellite and then down to some computer on Earth and was processed and the information was sent to Samuels who then by voice would tell me, Donald would still be moving.
My best guess at this moment was that Donald would want to stay on Beltline until it turned south and took him through the western suburbs of Dallas.
He would stay on Belt Line and then other surface streets always going south until he was well south of the city proper and then hit a major road, probably highway 35, and take it south to Mexico. At least that is what I hoped his desperate plan might be.
From where I was, I could skirt through downtown Dallas, pick up route 30
and take it to Grand Prairie where it intersected with Beltline as Beltline wound its way south. With a little luck I might even get there before Donald could take the old Beltline all the way around the northwest corner. The traffic was lighter than I should have expected for a Monday in the downtown area but it still seemed extremely slow to me.
It took only fourteen minutes to get from where I was to the Beltline exit on Route 30. According to Samuels Donald was still north of me which meant I was ahead of him but only a mile or so.
With Jana working the phone I turned the Taurus north on Beltline.
Immediately to my right was the big new racetrack where Texans go to watch horses run and lose money on the races. The area has been built up a bit around the new racetrack, which is in Grand Prairie, but just to the north of that is some open land that stretches a mile and a half until you reach the roller skating rink that marks the southernmost part of Irving.
There, about halfway between the race track and the skating rink, in the middle of nothing but open land I spotted Donald’s Harley on the southbound shoulder of the road. There was little traffic at this lonely spot on the road. Since I was northbound and Donald was parked southbound I did an illegal u-turn over the hump of grass praying that I did not do any damage to the undercarriage of the Taurus. I pulled to a stop about fifteen yards from Donald and Jill. They were standing next to his bike. Jill was holding a small rucksack in each hand. Donald was holding a handful of Jill’s hair in his left hand and a gun in his right. He currently had the gun pointed at Jill.
Time was on my side because we still had a cop on the phone. I reported exactly what I saw and exactly where we were. I then removed the key ring from the car key leaving the key in the ignition and leaving the car running, but taking the rest of the key ring in my left hand. I had my 38 in my right hand. I instructed Jana to get out of the car on my side behind me and to run the other direction (north) until she reached the roller rink. She did not argue with me.
Slowly and carefully I opened my door, waited just a second or two and stepped out. I took a step forward and Donald did exactly what I wanted him to, he pointed the gun at me instead of Jill, but of course I was pointing my gun at him. I waited until Jana was out of the car and well on her way north before I took my next step south towards Jill and Donald.
I told Donald to give it up, that it was all over. I did not expect him to give it all up but it was worth a shot. He told me that his bike had run out of gas and offered to trade Jill for my car. It sounded like a pretty good deal to me so I agreed, but I knew he was a killer so I knew we would not be safe simply by my giving up the car to him.
We kept the guns pointed at each other and we started moving slowly each to our left which would take us in a circle so that I would be near his now useless Harley and he would be near my car which I had left running for him. My stance was professional with my right hand holding the gun and my body turned sideways giving him the smallest of targets which positioned my left hand, still holding the rest of the keys, behind my body and out of Donald’s sight line. It was my hope that he had not noticed it and is specifically why I left the car running in the first place. His stance need not be so particular because he was hiding behind a terrified Jill. As we turned I also tried to decrease the distance between us.
He had no way of knowing that I had only one bullet but it was very much in my mind. I am a good shot. Using my 38 at twenty yards I can shoot out the flame of a birthday candle without knocking the candle off the cake. But that is with a cake that is not moving, and one that is not hiding behind my friend, and one that is not shooting back. I had just one shot and I needed to make it count.
Slowly we turned until he was closer to the car and I was closer to the bike. I would wait just one more step which would put the sun more to my back and more in his eyes. He hesitated when I hesitated but he was in more of a hurry then I was.
He took another step which put him right in front of my car but with his back to my car. The sun was to my back. His next move would be to step backwards to the car. Once he got the bags loaded into the car he would not need Jill and she had no defense and she would be too close to him for a shot to miss, so it was now or never and my shot had to be perfect.
&n
bsp; I pointed the sight of my gun just to the left of his gun hand. With my left hand I depressed the button on the key ring that locks the car but also makes that “Beep, Beep” sound. That sound, suddenly and unexpectedly coming from behind him, startled him just a bit which forced him to turn to look to see what it was, and with Jill held by his left hand and his gun in his right hand he had to turn and look over his right shoulder, which made him turn slightly to his right which was my left, so that brought his gun hand directly into my aim.
My shot was spot on and I saw the gun and blood and flesh fly from his side as the shot rang out. He was a big man but in pain and with only his left hand to fight with and with two rather pissed off ladies against him the fight would be short. He and Jill both made the mistake of trying for the gun he had dropped. I went for him. My tackle allowed Jill to get to the gun and her shoes met his testicles at the same time my fist met his nose.
He struggled just a second then gave up all fight. I looked up a second later when I heard a siren and Jana leaned out of the passenger side of a cop car and asked if we needed any help.
CHAPTER-17.
It had already been a very busy and successful Monday but the day was long from over. The Grand Prairie officer that Jana had flagged down had trouble figuring out how to get his cuffs on Donald since I had blown away most of his right hand. I was kind enough to show the officer how to hook Donald’s left wrist to his right ankle and I assured the officer Donald would be no trouble at all until backup arrived.
Almost immediately backup did arrive. The young officer got on his radio and ordered up an ambulance as well as several other patrol cars and supervisors.
On my cell I let Samuels know where we were and just about the time he arrived in an unmarked but city owned Dallas PD car, a couple of cars from the Irving Police Department rolled to a stop. Technically we were standing just inside the Irving border but the Grand Prairie squad had been first to arrive and call in the backup so the two cities could argue about who got the collar for a crime that originated in Dallas.
Paramedics showed up and not only patched up what was left of Donald’s right hand but they actually looked around a little and took care to bag up a couple of pieces they could find in hopes that they might be able to reattach them.
A supervisor from Grand Prairie and a cop from Irving started arguing about who was going to take me into custody and I realized that it was probably fifteen minutes after my shot and nobody had even taken my gun away yet so I surrendered my weapon and my person to Senior Detective Eric Samuels of the Dallas Police Department. Jill and Jana and I sat in the back of his car for a while just chatting.
I looked out and saw the two rucksacks sitting on the pavement near my car so I suggested to Samuels that he take custody of these, so he picked them up and locked them in his trunk without protest from any of the other teams on the scene.
A media truck showed up with cameras rolling and every uniform there postured around hoping to be interviewed. Then a second media van pulled up.
A tow truck was called to haul Donald’s Harley to some evidence lockup and it turned out to be one of those big ones that load your whole car up on the bed of their truck. I knew I wasn’t going to be driving anywhere for a while and I wanted to keep Jana with me, and I figured Jill was probably a bit too spooked to drive right now so I asked Samuels to have the truck take my car to my house.
There was plenty of room on the flatbed for both my car and the seized motor cycle.
There would persist a jurisdiction problem but we were just barely within the city limits of Irving so the ambulance was loaded with Donald and two Irving cops as well as a paramedic and it went to Baylor Irving where I had left just the day before.
A slow parade of several vehicles, all with dueling light shows atop them, crawled north on Belt Line then turned east on Rock Island and pulled into the Irving Civic Center parking lot where the Sheriff’s Department was. Samuels was driving the fifth vehicle in the parade and we three ladies were still in the back seat of his car.
We were on Irving turf so even though it hurt, Samuels allowed them to run the show for that afternoon. He told Jill and Jana and I that we should give truthful statements but to relate only information as it applied to today’s events as his investigation into the deaths in Dallas was still ongoing. Of course they also separated us at that time so we couldn’t work on our stories together.
I have to give a thanks to the Sergeant in Irving because he had Samuels from Dallas and an investigator from Grand Prairie and an investigator from Irving all interview me at the same time so I wouldn’t have to go through it multiple times. I was first and they kept me at it for about an hour. I was then sent out of the room and they called Jill in. Her statement took longer than mine had. Finally they called Jana in and let me sit in a waiting area with Jill. Jana’s statement only took about twenty minutes and then they pulled her out and called me back in. This time I was only there about five minutes. They told me I wasn’t going to be charged with any crime like firing a gun in the city limits or making an illegal u-turn, but they did tell me that they would keep the 38 to be used as evidence until the court action was completed. I knew from experience that the court business could be over in as quick as a week if Donald took a plea or it could take months if he actually went to trial, and since there were no murders connected with that days events I might actually get my gun back quickly.
Donald was in custody, of course, and charges would likely be filed against him for at least two murders but they would be filed in Dallas courts, not Irving courts. Detective Samuels would interview me several times over the next few
days and work with the prosecuting attorney’s office deciding just what all they could prove in a court of law and then decide what to book Donald with.
All that said and done we three ladies were free to go but we had no ride.
My car would be at my house by now and I only lived about three miles from the court house so the city of Irving was nice enough to dispatch an officer and a squad car to take the three of us there.
We had started the day early and it was quite dark by the time we got to my house. All of us were starving and it was going to take a good deal of wine to calm us down but there was hardly a drop to drink left in the house. I left Jill and Jana and by myself piloted the Taurus across the city line into Dallas to the first liquor store I could find and bought a big cheap jug of cold white wine. On the way back I hit the KFC and got the biggest family bucket they had.
When I got back to the office/house I found Jill and Jana in the kitchen but nearly every single light in the house was on. I guess they were still a bit rattled so I did not complain about the electric bill. Still dressed in black we three sat around the table eating chicken and biscuits. I must have been starved because in just a few moments there was a big pile of bones on my plate. I lifted my wine glass and looked at my partner Jill and my lover Jana.
“To Lola Martin, keeper of the world’s treasures. I didn’t know you long enough Lola” I said.
We clicked glasses and sipped.
Shortly after the third or fourth toast Jill asked if that waiting forty-five minutes after eating to go swimming applied to hot tubs. Democratically we decided to risk it.
Quickly we built a large pile of black clothing and white underwear on the floor of my back porch. The gallon jug I had bought was within reach and we still had our glasses even though we were up to our lovely necks in hot water.
Jill asked how I had pieced it together and it was the first time she heard about me seeing the tire tread on the wet road at the cemetery. Jana and I made Jill go through her story from start to end going over every detail. Jill actually felt a little hurt when she realized I had taken a shot at Donald but in her direction. Both of them were completely appalled that I had even done all that knowing I had just one bullet in my gun. We then played ‘what if’ trying to figure out what might have happened if I had missed Donald’s gun hand with that o
ne bullet.
The one part of the mystery I never really did figure out was when Donald had known we were chasing him. Jill could not remember Donald ever checking his cell phone for messages, but according to her story she and Donald had gone from the cemetery to a nearby restaurant. In the parking lot they parked the bike and went in. She went to the ladies room and when she came out Donald wanted to
leave immediately even though they had not yet eaten. They rode from there to a residential area where Donald ran into a house, was only in it a minute or so, and he emerged with the two small rucksacks. He tied the rucksacks onto the back of the bike behind where she was sitting and they were off. She didn’t know what was going on until he stopped the bike when it ran out of gas.
Once the discussion died down Jill and Jana made me stand up so they could check out all my bruises now that I was uncovered of both clothing and bandages. I am happy to report that the cuts were all healing nicely but as most of you know the bruises look worse for a day or two before they start looking better. There were several places mostly on my back and left thigh where you could actually see the chain links in the bruises. I guess my face looked a little better though but in truth I had put on a little makeup while getting dressed that morning.
Jill picked up the wine bottle and made sure Jana and I each had a full glass and then she hopped out of the tub and said she was going to bed but to wake her if we needed her. I am not sure whether she was tired or not but she knew Jana and I needed some alone time.
Jana started with “Look, I know that in your line of work you must be suspicious, but it really hurt me that you thought I would somehow rat you out to one of the bad guys.”