Roulette
Page 14
Chief Walsh had thrown the subject wide open and invited the media to “fire away.” There was a lot of firing and of course Rebecca exemplified the television dramatic view of a beautiful cop in a somewhat larger than life situation. Her nervousness was understandable but her composure and capabilities were more than equal to the occasion.
She responded to each question directly and succinctly and never appeared to be rattled by a barrage of sometimes unsympathetic and even hostile grilling by members of the fourth estate.
If anything, this ordeal could be viewed as her moment of self-redemption. In clear and convincing terms, she presented the image of a police officer who had acted properly under the circumstances and had no apologies for her actions. She knew now that she had defused a no-win situation and come out on the right side of her decision. It did not really matter how anyone else may choose to view it; she had made the only possible choice. You could second-guess decisions such as these forever but somewhere in your own heart, you reach a point when you know the truth about yourself. Rebecca had reached that truth and was now content with it. She knew now that she would do it the same way again. She had not lost her courage. No consideration of her own safety had played any role in her decision. It was the only option that she could have lived with.
Let the others think what they will, second-guess as they would, she was at peace with herself. This was the message that came through so clearly.
A female television reporter asked her, “If there is another murder tonight or tomorrow, how would you feel about having allowed the killer to walk away from you this morning?”
Rebecca replied solemnly, “I would feel terrible about that, sure.”
“Knowing that you had the man right in your hands this morning?”
“Of course, except that he was not exactly in my hands. This was a hostage situation and that puts a whole different complexion on it. Look, I have to take each situation as it develops, as anyone would.”
“But knowing that you could have possibly ended it all this morning….”
“Yes, you’re right. I could have ended it this morning—ended it for that young mother and her two children. That risk was not acceptable to me. While there is life, there is hope. I was more concerned at the moment with saving the innocent lives which were under threat than with apprehending a serial killer. I have to take it one life at a time.”
“But how would you feel…?”
“How would you feel? That is how I would feel. Don’t ask me, as a police officer, to assign priorities in matters of life and death. At the moment, I had the upper hand, but only because I could offer him an alternative desire. Thank God, he was more interested in saving his own neck. I gave him that option, and I don’t regret it.”
A man yelled out from the rear of the room, “Look, I don’t like the tenor of any of this. This officer saved three innocent lives this morning. Why the inquisition?”
Another called out, “She deserves a medal, so you people knock it off.”
There was a general buzz of agreement and another reporter suggested, “This is no inquisition and I’m sure that none of us are interested in criticizing this fine officer. We have three less victims, don’t we. Tell me, Detective Storme, how did you…?”
They had rounded a corner, Rebecca knew it and most of those in the room knew it.
Even Charlie Andrews knew it.
Rebecca caught his eye as he leaned nonchalantly against a wall at the side of the room. He gave her a wink and an approving smile. A soft acknowledgment of his support briefly swept her lips as she turned away and focused her attention on Chief Walsh who had just stepped forward to take charge.
Walsh evidently felt that it was time to acknowledge the presence and participation of the officers from Oklahoma and the FBI. He made those officers available for questions from the press and also began a handout of an information packet including mug shots and past criminal record of Robert James Martin. He asked the media to emphasis that Martin was an extremely dangerous criminal and that no one should attempt to apprehend him but should immediately notify the police of any information.
Walsh took advantage of the stir of activity to lean forward and congratulate his female detective for her poise and professionalism during the interview. He told her, “You keep looking better and better for sergeant’s stripes. I’m very proud of you, Rebecca.”
She showed him a restrained smile as she said, “Thanks, Chief, that’s nice to hear. Frankly, I was scared to death.”
He growled, “You wouldn’t be worth a shit if you weren’t, so don’t apologize.”
“I wasn’t apologizing, but thanks.”
A few desultory questions were directed at FBI Agents Kennian and Dumbarton but most of the remaining questions were aimed at the Oklahoma prison captain, Myers, and the Tulsa sergeant, Powers. The press showed keen interest in the criminal background and the prison escape of Martin.
Chief Walsh, at a few minutes past five, brought the press conference to a close.
As the crowd filed out of the chambers, Rebecca perched atop a table and shuffled through her papers. Captain Myers approached her with a smile and said, in his soft Oklahoma drawl, “You were mighty impressive, there. I agree with Powers; if you ever need a job….”
Thomas Myers was a tall, heavily built man of about fifty with warm eyes and friendly demeanor who obviously wanted only to reassure and support. She smiled warmly back at him as she replied, “Thanks, I thought there was a positive feeling. It’s been a hell of a time, hasn’t it. Sorry we couldn’t have met under less stressful circumstances.”
He said, “Yeah, me too. These working trips can get rough. I have a wife and two teenage kids at home. I talked to my son just a few hours ago. He asked how is Disneyland.” The captain smiled. “Couldn’t bear to tell him I’ll never get close to the place this trip.”
She told him, “Well, maybe we can wrap this mess up real quick and your family can join you here for awhile before you have to leave.”
He said, “Fat chance, but thanks for the thought.”
She was about to ask for his personal impressions of the suspect when the captain suddenly jerked erect with a startled gaze over her head.
“What is it?” she asked Myers.
He exclaimed, “Cotton-picker!”—and took a quick step forward before glancing back at her to explain, “This is eerie as hell—Martin was in here just now—I know it’s him but…different somehow—you know the feeling when you recognize a man by his eyes only?”
She knew the feeling, yes, as though somehow the soul itself can never be disguised. She had felt something similar to that same sense of familiarity when accosted in the Webster residence that morning—almost an eeriness just as Myers described. But she could see nothing familiar behind her as she spun around in response to the captain’s startled reaction. “Which one—where is he?”
“No, I just got a glimpse but he stared straight at me for a second. He’s gone now.”
“Jesus, the balls on that guy! He’d take a chance like that?—showing up here?”
The captain growled, “It’s him all right, balls and all.”
He was already launched toward the door. “Wait!” she cried. “You need some back-up.”
But Myers was already at the doorway and she was still struggling to get herself clear to alert others. The Chief himself and several other nearby officers responded instantly to her cry.
But she did not get there in time. None of them did. There would never be a Disneyland or anything else in Thomas Myers’ future. Incredibly, unbelievably, this captain would never speak again, his throat slashed and pumping blood profusely just a few hundred steps outside City Hall. As quickly as that, as deadly as that, the Sunrise Killer had struck again—this time against a much more formidable target.
And suddenly, for the first time ever in living memory, Rebecca Storme was terrified. Her world would never again be the same.
Chapter Twenty-fou
r
Apparently Captain Myers had been as defenseless as any of the previous victims of the Sunrise Killer, even though he was an armed and capable officer with years of experience. He lay slumped into a fetal curl, his gun still sheathed, with his life-blood gurgling in scarlet patterns along the cement between two parked cars, in a public area and in broad daylight, even while more than a hundred spectators were leaving the press conference at City Hall. This had been a daring and brilliantly staged attack during which the killer overpowered and assaulted another without any of the possible witnesses being aware. The veteran correctional officer was dying and beyond help at the very moment that Rebecca overtook him. She knelt over the stricken victim, fighting desperately to stance the flow of blood from his spurting carotid arteries when Chief Walsh and other officers responded to her frantic cries for help. She was soaked in the dying officer’s blood and still despairingly struggling to assist him when the others reached her. “Get the medics!” she moaned.
But this victim was already beyond that kind of help. Walsh obviously knew that and Rebecca should have known it, too, but she doggedly refused to abandon her post until the Chief pulled her away and growled regretfully, “He’s gone, Rebecca…let it go!”
It was the final blow for this committed young officer as the cumulative effect of the past week’s violence crashed in on her. She was weeping as she allowed fellow officers to take control of the situation and struggled to her feet at the same moment that her husband pushed through the crowd with an unbelieving grimace and cried, “Jesus, what’s going on here?” He grabbed two uniformed officers and snarled, “Get these people out of here! Contain the scene! Has anyone sent for medical help?”
The Chief yelled back, “They’re on their way. Take over here, Pete.”
It was a chaotic scene, with news people in a frenzy to obtain print and television coverage of this latest tragedy on the very heels of the press conference. The police had taken charge and were swiftly moving everyone clear. Few had known exactly what had happened, to whom or why—but the press had the “smell of blood” and knew that some spectacular event had again shattered the peace of an already spectacular day in San Remo.
Sergeant Storme was merely trying to “put a lid” on the situation, but this crowd was not to be denied access to such an important story. The bloodied and dazed young police woman who had already occupied a focal point of the coverage was, of course, a ready-made center of attention and interest. With news cameras still besieging her, Chief Walsh leapt to shelter her from the intense scrutiny.
Jack Morgan had just found his way into the “eye of the storm” when the Chief commanded him, “Get Rebecca out of here. She’s about to lose it.”
Lieutenant Morgan was already a half a step ahead of that command. He shielded Rebecca with his own jacket and hustled her away from there. No one present was more stunned then the policemen themselves but already their anger was quickly working its own kind of therapy as they reasserted control and overcame their sense of impotence.
Walsh was no “certified psychologist” but perhaps he could have been. He knew that any officer’s “sensing of self” was very important to his capabilities as a policeman. Certainly Walsh knew what he was feeling—a sense of powerlessness and frustration, with a psychopathic killer operating with impunity right in their own back yard. Though he had often come down hard on some of his cops for “hot dogging” or “showboating,” he knew that a certain amount of that sort of thing usually marked the “good cop” in contrast to an ineffective one.
One of the things, he knew, that made Peter Storme such a good cop was a very strong sensing of his own capabilities, but Storme himself had often been criticized for those very qualities. Which, of course, did not make Storme incapable of error but it did help him to weather the often immense self doubts which he must have felt from time to time. To Storme’s credit, he had never succumbed to those doubts.
Another chief, another department, could have destroyed that fine officer—and the guy was not yet completely in the clear from his latest crisis, the shooting death of a teenage suspect a few days earlier. In Walsh’s mind, the issue was long settled and Storme’s actions completely justified but with a possible law suit still looming on the horizon, who could say what troubles may still be ahead?
As for Rebecca, she apparently was in a crisis of her own—and the Chief could only hope that she would find the same resources of courage and strength which were characteristic of her husband.
God, he hoped so. Otherwise, in one who had never been “through the fire” before, she could be utterly neutralized…which is the same as death, for any good cop.
Rebecca knew that she was in crisis and she was grateful for the tender and supportive attentions from her Lieutenant as he bundled her into his police unit and hurried her clear of the tumult. She was experiencing a weird sort of divided consciousness, feeling the pain even through her numbness, strongly aware of an overpowering sense of loss while on another level wondering if she was mourning for Captain
Myers or herself. In a very real sense, she knew that she was mourning both, yet embarrassed by it and angrily attempting to rationalize the feelings.
As they pulled clear of the area, Jack Morgan passed her an anxious look and asked, “You okay?”
She replied, “No, dammit, I’m not okay. I’m sick at heart…and I guess I’m embarrassed over being a public spectacle. I suppose those damned cameras caught me bawling like a baby.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Morgan replied. “What they caught was an entirely capable officer battling to save the life of a friend. Cops are people, too, and we should never be embarrassed to reveal our humanity.
So get off it, Rebecca, you have nothing to be ashamed of.”
She looked at her boss with tears in her eyes. “Shit, Jack…if only I had run out after him this might not have happened…if only….”
“Don’t beat yourself like that.”
“But I knew that Myers had spotted Martin leaving the press conference. I should have gone out with him and backed him up. It all happened so fast….”
“So how much time…?”
“I don’t know…seconds, I suppose. By the time I got outside, I had only a glimpse of him disappearing into the parking lot. I just didn’t get there fast enough. He was dying when I found him.”
“Did you see Martin?”
“No. I didn’t even see him during the press conference. I took Captain Myers’s word for it that Martin was there. God, I don’t know, it had to be Martin. Who else?”
“I’m sure Pete will be scouring the scene for some eye witnesses. With that many people around, somebody had to have seen something.
I wasn’t there when it went down. My first sensing of the thing came when the call went out on the air. But I know that there were cops all over the place, so don’t try to take this so personally.”
She cried, emotionally, “I am sitting here in the man’s blood! I’m covered with it! It’s even in my hair and my ears, I can smell it and I can taste it! Don’t tell me not to take it personally!”
After a moment he said quietly, “I didn’t mean it that way. God, you are strung out. Maybe you’ll feel better after a hot shower.” He squeezed her shoulder. “I know it’s rough, babe. Just don’t let it get to you.”
But it had gotten to her, and she knew that it would take more than a “shower” to pull her scattered pieces back together. She leaned against him and used his strength for comfort. Neither spoke again until they reached her apartment and he took her inside.
“Want me to stay awhile?” he asked her.
“I’d like that, if you don’t mind.”
“Kidding? Course I don’t mind. Why don’t you hop in the shower and I’ll build you a pot of coffee, or whatever.”
“Coffee would be fine, thanks. Make yourself at home. I’ll try to make this quick.”
“Take all the time you need. I’ll be here to help in any way I can.”
Maybe she did not belong in this competitive male world of crime and violence. Certainly no one had ever encouraged her to be there. In fact, most had actively discouraged her.
Complicating that was the growing ambivalence regarding her husband and their future together. So maybe Chief Walsh had been right all along—it was no place for a woman, not a married woman, especially not one married to another cop. It just made the whole process too complicated and confused.
Any ordinary marriage is fragile enough without those pressures. And what about kids? How could she even think of that? “Okay, kids, Daddy and I are off to work. We’re going down into the trenches so we may not be coming back, but don’t worry about it, I’m sure someone will take care of you.” But no, she wanted it all—dazzling career, a wonderful, thoughtful husband, at least a possibility of kids somewhere in the future—Jesus! Who did she think she was kidding? She couldn’t even handle a living husband for God’s sake, how would she handle a dead one, killed in the line of duty?—she could not handle a casual friend who died that way! That could have been Pete bleeding buckets over her. So how about that, Miss smarty-pants?—who was it that let the killer walk away from her gun just a few hours earlier?—the same one who, at this very moment, could have designs on Peter, too. Who could say how many others would die before this reign of terror ends?
Jesus! She was going crazy with this. She needed her husband. She needed him right now. But Pete, it seemed, was never there. Jack Morgan was.