The Guardhouse Murders

by Don DeNevi

  As the doors of the large buses opened, and the suddenly docile prisoners began to slowly and orderly descend the steps of the opened doors, a shrill cry rang out from someone, obviously an officer, hurrying past the MPs lined up, now standing at full attention.

  “In double rows, convicts, double rows! No talking! Your bags at your feet!”

  Since Peter and Sunny sat next to each other near the front of the bus, they were among the first six to disembark.

  “The air is oven hot,” Peter whispered.

  Ambling to line up in the first row alongside of Sunny, Peter noted how stone-cold silent the roundabout area before the stockade’s entrance was. In addition, not a single inch of shade was anywhere to be seen. He continued,

  “I can see why they call this outlying area of Elliott the ‘Silent Region’. Hot and no shade. Perfect.”

  As Peter glanced around, he could hardly believe what he saw.

  “Pure medieval,” he muttered quietly, recalling the photo images the students were shown in the graduate pre-Renaissance classes he enrolled in at the University of California, Berkeley years before.

  “Not exactly a splendid Renaissance style edifice,” he thought. “If any one word comes to mind to describe this gray ghost, it has to be ‘dilapidation’.”

  Sunny, who had remained silence since, he, too, had alighted the bus, whispered,

  “Should be leveled, totally completed, without any vestige it had ever existed.”

  Turning half-around to study his new friend, Peter whispered in return,

  “Amazing your vocabulary, young private. I’m impressed.”

  So, there it was, the ominous and hideous weather-beaten two-story cage of countless iron-barred casemates and casements. Protruding from an old abandoned drill ground, the infamous “brig”, the so-called “living tomb”, or “tomb of the living dead”, the most dreaded place on the Camp Elliott grounds had an “aura’ of mystery about it. Not only did it appear as a hodge-podge of dull 15th and 16th century architectural facades, but also an engineering construction monstrosity of what a prison in America must have looked like a hundred years before.

  From ground up, the lower half of the single building was erected with large slabs of slate, old brick, and stone blocks, the entire facility surrounded by double barbed wire fences.

  “Eerie, huh?” Sunny whispered.

  “Damn,” Peter reflected wide-eyed, “Not only does it look merciless, but even out here in the open desert air, the whole atmosphere stinks pre-World War I fortress. What kind of another world am I being locked away in? And, just look at those lined-up lifeless MPs, as frozen zombie-like graveyard statues, adding to the overall stench of decaying flesh.”

  “Wow!” exclaimed Sunny, “Just look at those modern metal guard towers!”

  At every 75 yards, rose what appeared to be spanking-new glass-enclosed cabin campaniles without bells, all more than 50 feet tall. Within, the towers looming over the stockade each contained two heavy caliber machine guns, two large search lights, a telephone, and two guards, three shifts, 24 hours a day.

  “Kinda doesn’t encourage you to jump the wall, do they? And, by the way, what’s the big stink, Lieutenant?”

  “Yup. Dunno. You could smell it once the Black Marias entered this part of the country. I have no idea, Private,” Peter responded, adding, “The scent of breathing corpses, I’m afraid.”

  Indeed, a pungent, puzzling reek suffused the air, an odorous smell unto itself suggesting peril if solidification occurred.

  “DOCUMENTS! TRAVEL PAPERS! IDENTIFICATION PAPERS!!” screamed a pudgy little officer in his mid-50s as he exited the stockade entrance and hurried around the lined-up MPs standing at attention.

  “SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS CLEARLY OVER YOUR HEADS. FORM ONE LINE TO ENTER. ONE LINE!! PAPERS IN ONE HAND OVERHEAD. HAND TO OFICE AT THE GATE.”

  As the prisoners gathered their papers and lined up, one hand holding their bags, the other overhead holding the documents and IDs, Sunny, standing behind Peter, whispered,

  “I never understood the difference between a ‘brig’ and a ‘stockade’. They’re used for the same place, right? I mean, a brig is a stockade, and when you’re told you’re going to the stockade, you’re going to a brig. Correct?”

  Peter smiled slightly.

  “A military brig is basically a jail, a guardhouse. It’s not like putting you in Alcatraz or San Quentin with a bunch of gangsters, rapists, and ax murderers. We’re supposed to be going into a minimum-security facility with other Marines who have also done things that are violations of the Marine code of conduct. Nothing violent. Just things like being off base longer than you were supposed to be. Drunkenness. Fighting. Shoplifting. These kinds of petty crimes.”

  “Well, if so, what’s a stockade?”

  “Well, it too is a ‘holding area’ or place of brief incarceration for minor offenses. Colloquially, that temporary jail is called the guardhouse or stockade. ‘Brig’ is the historic term used by Naval and Marine forces. Down the road there, over at Miramar, is the huge Naval brig. Generally, though, the brig is the term used for barred confinement aboard any vessel.”

  As the long line of prisoners slowly tread its way toward the main entrance gate of the high-walled stockade, Peter marveled at how unsightly the windowless entrance appeared. A poorly sculptured false arch over the formidable black steel door dominated the facade.

  “Just like a western cowboy movie fort. Some imagination. All this place needs is moat. Yes, it should be dismantled and leveled.”

  Just then, after Peter and Sunny handed over their travel documents and identification papers, the screaming figure startled Peter by walking up to him, saying with a sarcastic smirk,

  “Ah, so you’re here at least, Mad Ghoul!”

  Stunned, Peter stepped back in a japer of surprise and wonder, acknowledged the greeting, but more to observe the arrogant officer. And, what a sight greeted him.

  “Oh, my good-humouredness, St. James, Heavenly Protector of Principle and Patriotism, who is this?” Peter asked in a mixture of amazement and surprise.

  A plump, smallish Captain, tight-lipped and sallow-complexioned with a short, carefully trimmed mustache dominating his putrid face, glared up curiously at him through enormously thick-lensed pince-nez eye glasses. With a whistle on a thin cord dangling from his neck, the USMC officer referred to the clipboard and list of arriving inmates and said in a high-pitched voice,

  “You are placed in solitary confinement. All VIP prisoners are treated thus. Tomorrow, I’ll call for you to meet with me. Inside you’ll be escorted to the isolation unit and fed there, Mr. Mad Ghoul.”

  Just as Peter was to respond, two truckloads of newly arrived Southern California prisoners drove up behind the parked Marias, the drivers turning their motors off.

  “To be processed after us,” someone in the line commented.

  “Then shipped off to nearby labor camps, for sure,” someone else added.

  Peter was more fascinated with the Captain who was hurrying away to line up the additional hundred or so inmates for special movement processing.

  “Just look at that appendage to the Marine Corps. Mousy little creep. It has to be over 100 degrees this morning and the idiot is wearing yellow Navy foul weather clothing,” Peter whispered to Sunny, also thunderstruck with the encounter. “He’s got on a long waterproof coat, waterproof trousers and arctics, large waterproof overshoes! Ever seen anything like that? He looks like a Canadian rodeo clown! All that’s missing on him is a sou’wester, an oiled canvas cap with a flap at the back worn in stormy weather! Holy cow! Don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or throw up.”

  Sunny, wide-eyed, mused,

  “And I bet he’s wearing woolen undies, woolen socks! And, undoubtedly suspenders for his trousers!”

  “Suspenders AND a belt!” Peter said softly.

  As the two chuckled, Sunny added,

  “He strikes me as the type the more you tell him, the louder he laughs.
And, look at how far that stout snout projects out of that homely face.”

  “Aw, poor guy, we’ve got to stop laughing at him. After all, he’s a human being.”

  “Like hell,” Sunny concluded the ridicule.

  As the single-file prisoners were led into the stockade, the first impression Peter had was one of an unusual concentration of power and terror confined narrowly in one stockade structure.

  Upon entering the stockade, and signing the Log of Admittance, the single file of prisoners entered and exited the prison’s sally port, the rear gate of the short underground passage from the outer world to the inner core of prison, then locked into a communal cell that was under point-blank gunfire.

  After being counted for the third time that morning, and responding to a fourth roll call, the large assemblage was handed week-old bread, a container of drinking water, and a packet of jam. This would suffice until afternoon mealtime the following morning.

  From the communal cell, the troops were led by triple sentries of statue-like MPs to the stockade main courtyard, then to the basement where the cells were located. Peter immediately noticed that if an officer or MP closed the main basement door forcefully from the outside steps, the air pressure affected one’s ears. The corridor, and long aisle or passageway between individual cells in a row was deathly silent. Sunny turned, glancing at Peter, and noted an expression on his face, suggesting intellectual interest mixed with suppressed anger. It was very dark.

  As the men were led down the passageway, and assigned to cells, most two to a cell, then one to a cell, Peter suddenly realized how cold it was. Assigned one to himself, next to Sunny’s, Peter could barely tell its content in the dark. For a long moment, he stood like a shadow, motionless. Its width was measured from the tip of his right hand to the full length, plus an additional 12” to 15” of his left hand. His metal bed with a single blanket and no pillow was bolted to the stone wall.

  The happy chatter the prisoners engaged in on the journey from Camp Stoneman to the Camp Elliott stockade ceased the moment they disembarked single-file from each of the Black Marias in front of the entrance.

  Now, not a sound could be heard in the brig’s windowless cells, every Marine sitting or lying back on his narrow metal bed. Most were suddenly confused and frightened, never having been incarcerated in such dreary conditions. Since no one knew when he would eat again, most conserved his bread, jam, and drinking water. Furthermore, it hadn’t escaped a single prisoner how undisciplined and unruly the prison guards appeared to be. All wore MP uniforms, smoking on duty, playing cards, their feet on tables and desks, talking and laughing loudly, cursing, their dress unkempt and slovenly.

  Although the interior rooms, floors, corridors, stairs, stairways, and stairwells were neither littered nor desultory, all were unclean, almost filthy. No matter where one looked, the area was forlorn and somehow disheveled.

  Peter, meanwhile, lay down on his narrow steel bed, his blanket serving as his pillow. Staring into the pitch darkness of his putrid cell, wondering what his invisible ceiling looked like, his thoughts were too vibrant for a short nap. He knew MPs were posted at every cross-corridor, that not one was armed, that the door to his cell was heavy ironbound, with a small peephole.

  As he lay there in the cold with his eyes open, fixated upon the blackness of his small cell, Peter half-smiled. He was always felt an uneasiness when duty called him to deal with prison personnel. It certainly wasn’t fear from possible physical dangers that perturbed him. No prison inmate ever scared him, even the most violent in solitary confinement that he had to interview. He knew what all prison guards know: If you show respect, you receive respect in turn. No, his reluctance was a mixture of awe, curiosity, and nausea. It was due to his realization that the state and federal government were unable to provide the necessary rehabilitation to reduce human suffering of the criminal. Peter certainly didn’t excuse criminal behavior, but was upset by society’s indifference to it. What was so sad was the indifference of the American public to provide psychological relief for those in locked up cages of steel bars behind thick concrete walls.

  “I’m now alone, totally and absolutely along,” he reflected. “There’s no one in here to look to, no one to tell me what to do. I’ll never hear a friend whisper ‘almond’. I have to figure all this out by myself. Once I learn what I have to, I’ll have to bust out all by myself.”

  Although it was mid-morning, and much too early to be forced to bed, Peter found there was nothing he could do or say. He was a prisoner, a nonentity, and unless he behaved himself, might not eat again for a few days. Gradually, his thoughts returned to those he loved the most, his parents, grandparents, and extended family, and, of course, Joan, whom he believed he had lost forever.

  After a few moments of struggling to bring himself back to reality, Peter failed and slowly fell into a long deep sleep that lasted well into the early hours of the next morning.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  -

  The Interview

  Upon gradually awakening in the wee hours of the following morning, Peter, after an almost 14 hours of solid sleep, yearned for a hot cup of Java. Pan-fried eggs, sunny-side up would be nice, but not as critical as a large cup of steaming coffee. Maybe prior to or immediately after his pending meeting with Captain Hofmeister. He still wondered why he had been singled out for a one-on-one session with the Stockade’s warden.

  As he lay back, eyes wide open, on the cold metal cot bolted to the wall, all he could do was wait patiently until summoned, and reflect upon how he would carry out his assignment. He was fully aware that the only way to survive as he moved forward was to keep his wits at their peak.

  To do that successfully, he had to have a daily routine, every minute of which was devoted to ensure not being detected. He had to remain flexible, lest he be recognized as the USN Lieutenant who thwarted the attempt on Bob Hope’s life and captured the Mad Ghoul. His assignment depended upon confounding the approach of anyone who knew him personally.

  To prepare for such an eventuality, he had developed friendships with a number of the prisoners who would willingly serve as lookouts. With sufficient warning, he could clear the area. He simply had to be adept at switching behavior if an emergency surfaced. Most importantly, he had to trust his first impressions of all strangers, and act upon them accordingly, without reservation or qualification.

  By 7:00am, Peter heard the sound of footsteps along the corridor. As he quivered, he quickly roused himself, and then followed the MP from the near-freezing condition of the cell upstairs into the sweltering heat of the first-floor corridor to Captain Hofmeister’s office. There, continuing to shiver slightly, he gratefully stood under a cooling ceiling fan fanning the hot stockade air. Patiently, he waited to be admitted into the captain’s office.

  Within minutes, the door swung open and Captain Hofmeister stood silently studying Peter. And, all that the hungry Lieutenant saw in a glance was a freshly shaven, mustached little man wearing funny-looking glasses. As the captain stood rigidly in the doorframe, unsmiling and eyes glaring, he was dressed immaculately in his starched, recently pressed USMC military police uniform. Again, Peter saw a face that looked old, sensing that beneath the imposing appearance of freshness, cleanliness, and the smell of starch, was a neurotic fussiness, an inherent nervousness based upon fear.

  Peter sighed, “This nervous-looking donkey isn’t going to be of help in a pinch, and he’s more of a cheap carnival clown than a respected Marine officer, more a buffoon than a systematic murderer.”

  Nothing, absolutely nothing, neither a scintilla of a moment, nor a single detail of the captain and his office escaped Peter.

  A long, large office, barren with the exception of two framed photographs, one of General Dwight Eisenhower, the other of General Douglas McArthur on the wall behind his desk, greeted Peter as an MP ushered him in. Austere, walls and ceiling painted the same stark white, a single window opened out on the small, enclosed winter garden. Standin
g there in the dazzling sunlight flooding the room was Captain Hofmeister, his hands clenched behind his back. The only sounds Peter could distinguish were the Captain’s heavy breathing, and a horrid low hissing from a small bulging potbellied stove a few feet from his desk, emitting thin peels of white smoke from a smoldering fire.

  “Well, look at that,” Peter mused. “It’s over 100 degrees outside, even hotter in here, and this florid fool has a fire-burning stove next to his desk! If this isn’t something. The stove’s smoke is spiraling around MacArthur and Eisenhower, Oh, if I only had a camera!”

  After another long minute of silence, Captain Hofmeister slowly turned around. Although he looked placid, Peter sensed the man was ill in some way. With an expression of deadly seriousness, he waved his hand, motioning for Peter to sit down.

  As Peter sat down, the aroma of fresh brewing coffee reached him from an office or workroom next door.

  Another 30 seconds of silence intervened during which time the captain studied the young Lieutenant in a glaring manner.

  Finally, Hofmeister said in an almost high-pitched, squeaky voice, “So, Mr. Mad Ghoul, you enjoy the killing, I see.”

  The question was so innocuous, so meaningless, Peter didn’t even hear it, as he focused on the warden’s haggard, troubled eyes.

  With an additional 30 seconds of silence slipping by as the captain awaited a response, Peter finally asked, “Huh?”

  “Well, Mad Ghoul, we have an army of convicts here to choose from. Kill as many as you like.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, I make merry. I wisecrack with you.”

  Peter thought, “This man is so senseless, so stupid, so silly. In God’s name, what sort of murdering conspirator are you?”