I quickly rose as the getaway car swerved from side to side as it peeled away. I couldn’t make out much as I stood up slowly, a little too late to get a good look. I ran to Brian as quickly as I could and reached the gas pumps and the collapsed attendant. I got there a full second before the trotting mechanic, Wally, arrived. We quickly tried to lift Brian to his feet, but he had been knocked unconscious. We sat him up and leaned him against the front of the gas pumps as Wally kept screaming his name. I slowly inspected the general area. There was a lot of blood and some cash strewn around where Brian had come to rest. It was perhaps another thirty seconds before the dazed and confused boy blinked his eyes, first, ever so slightly; then slowly, he opened them wide. “What the hell . . . ?” he stammered.
Wally was already connected to 911 on his cell phone and was pleading for an ambulance. The operator asked a million questions.
“Now I remember . . . .” Brian said weakly. “I remember fighting with some guy who was trying to rob me. Then he hit me in the back of the head and it all went black.”
“Brian, did you get a good look at him?” I asked.
“I, uh, I think he was Hispanic, with long black hair. I think he was around thirty, but I’ve never seen him around here before. One thing I know is that he had a great car. It was a black Mustang. It looked like a 1965 model, all souped up!”
“I agree,” I said as Wally was quickly and anxiously relaying information to the police. “All I could catch was a black blur, tires screeching and smoking, leaving a black track.”
It was a full ten minutes before the police and ambulance arrived, almost simultaneously, sirens blaring, lights revolving wildly. The paramedics quickly wrapped Brian’s head to control the bleeding, all the while asking him questions as they took his vitals. The police officers spoke with Wally and me while waiting to speak with Brian, although the paramedics told the police that Brian still wasn’t coherent enough to give a report. So the police agreed to postpone their preliminary investigation until he had been evaluated at the hospital.
CHAPTER FOUR
The trip to the hospital took ten minutes. I was slightly uncomfortable as I rode in a police cruiser for the first time ever. I looked around the rear seat of the police car as we drove at a rather high speed, weaving in and out of traffic. I wondered how a criminal felt being arrested and transported. I looked at the back of the officers’ heads as we drove. Officer Robert Cianci, a twenty-something, tall, dark young man, made small talk with me while another officer drove. He asked a few questions about me and my trip to Hagerstown. I guessed that non-residents were slightly suspect in their little town. I smiled and complied.
Being an inquisitive investigator myself, and knowing I was on the balls of my ass with my boss, I kept asking questions to fulfill my dual mission of interviewing Lolita and learning more about the murders of 1923. Bits and pieces were being sewn together like a patchwork quilt as I gathered information.
Officer Robert was helpful and considerate with my questions and lack of knowledge about the location of key sites in town. I wrote various locations down, such as the library, hotels, bar, diner, and nursing home.
Officer Robert also suggested that I visit the local newspaper, where they might be able to shed some light on the historic murders of 1923. As for Lolita, the officer advised me that he had seen her close up a few times while visiting his aunt in the home. He said that Lolita was like a special celebrity of the home, not just for her advanced age, but because she was admired for her vast knowledge about how to live a life to the fullest extent.
Built in 1914, the Hagerstown Hospital was a large brick complex that consisted of three stories. The officers left me in the emergency room waiting area as they joined some other officers and walked right through the admittance entranceway. I sat in the empty waiting room reviewing and adding to the many notes in my small notebook. The once-boring assignment of reporting about some old person in a nursing home had turned into an intriguing and mysterious case of a very unique 110-year-old, well-respected woman, and an unsolved multiple murder case that had run out of leads long ago. Adding to the mystery was that someone had attacked Brian at the gas station minutes after I’d asked him about those murders.
The ringing cell phone showed the face and name of the ballbuster editor of the Washington Gazette. I knew I had to answer the phone, although I dreaded talking to Harold, as I was already skating on very thin ice with him.
“Insane asylum,” I said, answering the phone with some humor to lighten Harold’s mood, I hoped. It didn’t work.
“Listen, smartass,” Harold snapped. “I want an update on your progress.”
“Progress? Are you kidding? I just got here a short while ago!”
“Do I sound like I’m kidding? You’re on a short leash here, boy. I’m watching you. Get some action, and fast!”
“Hey, boss! I almost got shot in a shoot-out a few minutes ago at . . . .”
“Now that’s a story I could use, you getting shot up.”
“Seriously, boss, there were shots fired at a gas station where I had just filled up my car, and the attendant I was interviewing got hurt. I’m in the waiting room of the hospital to see if he is okay.”
“How’s the Lolita story going, numb-nuts?” he screamed, uncaring.
“Don’t worry, I’m working on it,” I snapped.
“Don’t tell me not to worry. You’ve been totally useless for months now, and this is your final shot to keep your job.”
“Boss, I feel real good about this Lolita story so far, but it’s brewing into something even bigger: the unsolved Hagerstown murders of 1923. I will have a much bigger story for you, but it will take longer.”
“Don’t think of coming back without an award-winning story, or else you’ll wish that gunshot had hit you!” He slammed the phone in my ear.
“Asshole! Potato head!” I shouted, out loud, before I saw the police officer approaching out of the corner of my eye.
“What’s your problem?” he glared at me. The officer stared at me with piercing, cold blue eyes. He was slim, about five-seven, sporting a marine-style crew cut, along with a face that made him appear tough.
“Oh, hi.” I smiled. “I, uh, was just talking to my boss at the . . . .”
“Do you have any identification?” he asked as he stood over me, glaring.
I noticed that his nametag read “Sgt. Thomas Pawler.” I stood slowly and reached for my wallet.
He peered at my driver’s license then looked me up and down with expressionless eyes. “What business do you have in our town, Mr. Gerhani?”
“I am a reporter for the Washington Gazette, and I am doing a story on Lolita Croome, the oldest woman ever to live in Hagerstown.”
“Sure, you are,” he said sarcastically. “Really, now, specifically, what are you doing here, and when do you plan to leave?”
“Sergeant, I really am here on that assignment; you can check with my paper on that.”
“Gerhani, you know we don’t like your kind here!” He smirked a sick little grin. “You pencil pushers bring too much attention to our quiet little town. Your kind of people start vicious rumors and give us bad press.” He stared at me long and hard.
“Bad press?” I said in defense of myself, not caring that he already disliked me. “I’m here to draw positive attention to a bright spot in your town, a 110-year-old woman who has survived all kinds of risks since the year she was born in 1903. That’s an amazing story for your little town. By the way, Lolita lived through the historic murders of 1923. I’m trying to research the unsolved murders of that year. Do you have any knowledge of those murders that you can share with me?” I asked, not caring that he already disliked me.
“Yeah, well that’s the problem,” he snapped. “That’s what I mean about stirring up a hornet’s nest.” He glared at me again. “Listen here, you little shit, stop asking so many questions, and just go back to the cesspool of reporters you came from.”
“W
hat?”
“You heard me. All of you reporters are nothing but leeches!” His eyes got bigger, like he was just itching for a fight.
I wasn’t that stupid, although many people might argue that claim, especially as of late.
“Well, I won’t be here much longer, Sergeant,” I countered, trying to get on with my life.
“You’re going to the station house anyway. The captain wants to talk with you.”
“The captain?”
“Yes, Captain Joel Krolm. He’s running the investigation of the shooting at Wally’s place. Maybe the gunman was after you.”
“Maybe.” I smiled a big grin.
It was thirty minutes before Brian walked through the emergency room doors into the waiting area. He smiled at me as he explained that he had a concussion and had needed five stitches in the back of his head. But he didn’t care; as he put it, “I’ve had plenty of stitches in my life; when I was a kid I was always whacking everything!” He had to take it easy for a week because of the concussion.
I felt somewhat responsible that he’d been clobbered, although I knew it had nothing to do with me. But still, I had been asking him all those questions, and he was so excited about the line of work I was in. Maybe he could have dealt better with the gunman if he hadn’t been so focused on getting back to me so that we could continue our conversation. Maybe if I hadn’t been in the bathroom so long, I could have helped stop the crazed gunman. But then I realized that everything had happened as it was meant to. After all, I could have wound up being shot or killed if I had been a few feet closer. Maybe even that would get me fired by the gorilla of a boss I have.
My hands shook for a few seconds as I contemplated being shot dead. My mind played back the sounds of the gunshots and the ricochet of bullets. Sometimes death is only inches away from us, and most of us don’t realize just how precious life is.
Brian was hurried off to a private area where he was to be interviewed by the police. We said our goodbyes, and he told me that his older sister would be meeting him at the hospital to give him a ride home and to watch him closely for the next twenty-four hours per the doctor’s orders.
Sergeant Pawler disappeared with Brian after he instructed two young officers to deliver me to the Hagerstown Police Station to meet with Captain Krolm. It was apparent that Sergeant Pawler would be interviewing Brian. I felt sorry for him, knowing Pawler’s lack of sympathy for anyone or anything. That cop was a real hard-ass.
The same two officers who had driven me to the hospital drove me to the police station. It was a fifteen-minute trip, as the traffic was its worst in that area. Once again, I had this weird feeling sitting in the rear of a police cruiser. Officer Carl Moeller, a redheaded two-hundred-plus-pound young guy of about five-foot-seven drove while Officer Robert Cianci and I discussed Brian, the shooting at the station, and the killings of 1923.
“I made a call to my grandfather for you about the murders of ’23,” Robert said. “He told me that for a few years there was much speculation that a doctor working out of the hospital was to blame. I believe he was a surgeon, never married, a little eccentric, and a little weird for the 1920s. Then there was a local pharmacist, a middle-aged man, who came under suspicion. Years later, the pharmacist was mugged and nearly killed. It was believed one of the dead girls’ family members tried to kill the pharmacist. But, of course, no one was ever charged for his murder. The case has been dead for many years, and most of the people from that time are dead.”
The Hagerstown Police Station was located at 50 North Burhaus Boulevard. As we pulled up in front of the station house, I looked closely at the very old structure. It appeared to be around two-hundred years old, a tall, red brick building with heavy ten-foot-tall wooden doors. The property was protected by a heavy, old-fashioned cast-iron fence.
I marveled, as I always do, at the history that was surely a part of the structure, as I pictured people of the area some hundred years earlier. The Lolita assignment finally rang clear with me. Lolita would have been a ten-year-old a hundred years ago.
As I entered the station house, I observed a décor that didn’t seem to have changed in many years. There were old-fashioned gray metal desks, dark lighting, drab wall colors, and embossed metal block ceilings from many years ago.
Only a few workers were present. I asked the girl at the front desk for Captain Krolm, explaining that he was expecting me. She left, and I waited several minutes for her to return. “The captain will see you now, sir. Please follow me,” she said, as she led the way to a room at the end of a long hallway. I followed the slim woman of twenty-five with freckles and long red hair that hung to the small of her back. I was almost tempted to ask her what kind of shampoo she used to result in the silkiest hair I had ever seen, but decided against it.
As I passed through the doorway, I noticed the door plaque that read “Captain Joel S. Krolm.” He rose quickly with a big friendly smile. He was a hulk of a man at six-three and about two-eighty, with uncharacteristically long hair. He was around forty-five with a round, reddish face.
“Hi, I’m Captain Krolm. Thanks for coming in today,” he smiled.
“Captain,” I said as we shook hands, “glad to be of any assistance I can.”
“Please.” He pointed to a wooden chair in front of his large, old gray, metal desk. “Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? What business do you have here, Mr. Gerhani?” It was a direct question, but his face was friendly and open.
“As I told your sergeant, I’m with the newspaper, the Washington Gazette. I’m on assignment in Hagerstown, doing a story on one of your most famous citizens, Lolita Croome.”
“Ah, yes, Lolita. She’s a real gem—a wonderful testament to this great town of ours. But when will you be leaving?” he asked impatiently.
“I may not,” I laughed. “I like this old town.”
“Yeah, right! Did you get a good look at the suspect?”
“Not really. I had just exited the gas station restroom when all hell broke loose.”
“What did you see?”
“I saw a man with long, dark hair, and then a dark sports car tearing out. I later learned it was a Mustang, souped up some.”
The captain said I might be needed to look at a lineup later, as they had apprehended the suspect a few minutes ago and were booking him as we spoke. The suspect’s name was Billy Blaine, an out-of-towner with a criminal past.
The captain and I spoke for five minutes more, and I asked him about the 1923 murder case. He was a little defensive when I asked why there were no leads. He explained that no unsolved case in Hagerstown was ever closed, and asked why I should be so interested in that case in particular.
“I just figured that since Lolita Croome is old enough to have lived through those murders, it would be interesting to revisit the case as part of my story. It would make a nice story.” He didn’t appreciate my idea of running a story on the murders, but was cordial when I asked for some assistance in background information. He allowed the front desk girl, Loretta, the redhead, to help me do a bit of research in the back-office records room.
I was allowed to take some notes but no photocopies, and no files were to leave the room. A security camera was on me the whole time anyway, I noticed.
It was ten minutes into our reviewing of the files when we both almost jumped out of our skins at the sound of explosions and screams. Loretta yelled, “Get under the table, now! Get under the table! That was gunfire!”
“Shit! Not again!” I yelled as I hit my head hard on the edge of the table.
Loretta crawled over to the door and locked it, then crawled quickly back under the long table. We listened to more gunfire; there must have been around twelve to fifteen loud explosions along with screaming and a lot of yelling. There was a lot of movement and then a man yelling, “Officer down! Officer down! Get an ambulance, now! We need an ambulance, now!”
Loretta whispered so low I could hardly hear her. “Stay perfectly still. Don’t say a word. Don’t
cough, sneeze, or move a muscle.”
All I did was nod, as we were sharing a space no bigger than six feet by three. As I breathed in slowly, all I could think of was what a nice fragrance Loretta’s hair was giving off. A woman’s hair can sometimes smell so nice—not overwhelming, just nice. Then I quickly snapped back to reality as I heard other voices, all at the same time. All I could make out was someone yelling, “He’s been shot, and the prisoner has escaped! All points, the prisoner has escaped!”
Loretta looked at me as I stared at her with a blank expression, then she shook her head. We stayed put for a full five minutes until another clerk, a woman, knocked at the door and said, “Loretta, it’s Gail. It’s all clear out here. It’s safe now. You can come out, sweetie. It’s okay now.”
“Gail,” Loretta shouted, “what’s my favorite coffee drink?”
“Caramel macchiato grande, Starbucks, with extra caramel!” Gail said in rapid response.
With that, Loretta quickly climbed out from under the table and opened the door. She looked back at me with a glance of reassurance that all was safe, and I quickly scrambled up, gathered my research of the ’23 murder investigation, and tried to see what had happened.
An upset and very embarrassed Captain Krolm explained. “It appears that Billy Blaine, after being fingerprinted and having his mug shot taken, said he needed to relieve himself. Officer Carmine Flund, as is customary, accompanied the suspect to the men’s room, and somehow Blaine overpowered the officer. Blaine then shot the officer in the leg, puncturing a main artery pretty severely, and escaped in a squad car out front. He fired several shots, and the officer remaining on duty, Dooney, returned fire and tried to give chase, but returned to care for Officer Flund, who was down. The paramedics are attending to our officer now and have stopped the bleeding. It appears that the bullet went clear through Flund’s leg, and he should be fine in a few days.
Defying Death in Hagerstown Page 5