Chester squared his shoulders and planted his feet. “Suppose I don’t allow you to enter my house?”
I laughed at him. “That would pretty much make my day. I hope you try that. But I wouldn’t advise it.”
“What if I want to call my lawyer?”
“Call whoever you want. But we got an order to search this dump, and it’s signed by a judge, so we ain’t waiting around,” I said. With the hand that wasn’t holding the cigarette, I gave Chester a rough shove. He took a step back from the doorway, and I strode past him.
We entered into the house’s grand foyer, which was about what you’d expect to find in your standard-issue turn-of-the-century, antebellum-style Memphis mansion. To the left was the formal dining room. To the right was a sitting room, and in front of us was the grand staircase to the second story. I noticed that the floors and all the surfaces were clear of dust, and I wondered who had been keeping the house up if Margery had been gone for weeks, but then I remembered Chester had mentioned having hired help.
I drew my .357 from its holster, and Cadwalader and Bench followed suit. Before we began searching for evidence, we’d need to do a quick check of every room in the house, to make sure the place was clear of any accomplices who might be lying in wait to try to ambush us. I gestured toward a closet underneath the staircase, and Brunch opened it and looked inside. He turned toward me and nodded, and we did a quick sweep through the kitchen, the den, and a small office, where Chester picked up a telephone and started dialing.
“The police are here,” he said into the receiver, while I checked another closet. “No, I told them they couldn’t come in, but they came in anyway.”
I gestured to Brundle to keep an eye on the suspect, and Cadwalader and I climbed the staircase to clear the upstairs.
“He showed me a piece of paper. He said a judge signed it,” Chester was saying. “Are they going to arrest me? They can’t arrest me, can they? There’s no body!”
We methodically checked the three upstairs bedrooms and a billiards room; I opened each closet, and I made a note to scrutinize all the grout and the drains in the two full bathrooms on the second floor.
Satisfied that there was no one in the house who was going to jump us, I turned to Cadwalader and said, “Let’s go have a look at the garage, and then we’ll start tearing this place apart.”
“Aye-aye,” said Officer Bumble, who wasn’t supposed to be standing there.
“What are you doing up here?” I asked him. “Why aren’t you keeping an eye on the suspect?”
“You didn’t tell me to do that,” he said.
“I pointed at him, and then I pointed at you,” I said. “The implication was clear.”
He scratched his chin. “I didn’t get that at all.”
I dropped my cigarette, ground it into the rug with the heel of my shoe, and lit another one. “Where is Chester now?”
Officer Bungle shrugged. “Last I saw him, he was talking on the phone with his lawyer.”
And that’s when I heard the luxurious purr of a Buick nailhead engine starting up. I took off at a dead run, shoving Officer Butthole aside, clearing the staircase in three bounding strides, and barreling through the front door just in time to see the Buick turn out of the driveway and float down the block.
There are a lot of reasons why it’s real dumb to try to run from me, and on that particular day, one of those reasons was the car I was driving: 1955 happened to be the year that Ford replaced the aging Crestline chassis with its new Fairlane model. This development came on the heels of Ford’s 1954 move to phase out its flathead engine in favor of the cutting-edge Y-block design, an absolute monster whose eight cylinders displaced 292 cubic inches.
If you put a Y-block V8 in a Fairlane, you get what Ford called the Thunderbird, one of the greatest police vehicles ever to come off of a Detroit assembly line. Chester’s Buick Roadmaster Skylark was a fine luxury automobile, to be sure, if you wanted a silky-smooth ride, the best air conditioner then available in an enclosed vehicle, and a burled walnut dash. But the Skylark couldn’t outpace the Thunderbird, which could go from zero to sixty in 9.4 seconds and reached a top speed of about 120 miles per hour. Even if the Skylark could have outrun the Thunderbird, Chester wasn’t a good enough driver to shake me. His head start wasn’t shit.
I turned the key in the ignition, and 193 horses roared to life. I was gone before Cadwalader and Boner even got out the front door. I was already doing forty when I reached the corner, and instead of braking, I eased off the gas and released the clutch, then popped the handbrake to lock the wheels as I gunned the engine into the spin. When the car straightened out, I had closed twenty yards of distance.
“They call that a bootlegger’s turn, you dirty son of a bitch,” I said.
Chester must have panicked, because he ran a stop sign, swerved onto North Parkway, and started accelerating, weaving in and out of afternoon traffic. I knew he couldn’t make a turn at speed, and the Skylark couldn’t outrun the Thunderbird on a straightaway. It may have looked to him like he had plenty of road in front of him, but he was caught.
Chester got about half a mile before I closed the distance between us. He ran through a red light, which gave me enough clear space to nudge the corner of the Skylark’s bumper doing seventy-five without pinballing him into any bystanders. The impact threw the Skylark into a spin, and it bounced over the curb and slammed into a tree. The Thunderbird spun in the opposite direction, but I cut the wheel and popped the handbrake and brought it to a clean stop in the street.
Chester stumbled out of the wreck of his five-thousand-dollar car. He had a ragged cut on his forehead where his face had hit the steering wheel. In his hand was a long chef’s knife he must have grabbed from his kitchen.
I climbed out of the Thunderbird and tossed what was left of my cigarette on the ground. “What do you think you are gonna do with that, Chester?” I asked.
“You can’t do this to me. You can’t come into my house. You can’t chase me,” he said, slashing at the air for emphasis. “You have no right. No right!” He staggered toward me.
If I’d met Chester five years later, I’d probably have drawn my sidearm and decorated the pavement with the part of him that thought it was a good idea to menace me with a blade, but I was a gentle idealist in those early days of my career, and therefore I was more amenable to engaging in knife fights with psychopaths. So, instead of my gun, I grabbed my blackjack truncheon—a ball of lead the size of a baby’s fist wrapped in soft leather and mounted on a coil of stiff spring. I called the blackjack Discretion, because it was mine to exercise as I saw fit.
I approached Chester, holding the club out like a fencer’s sword to defend myself in case he lunged at me, but he seemed dazed from the crash. I smacked his fingers, and the knife clattered to the ground. He looked, with confusion, at his empty hand and then at the weapon lying on the asphalt. He seemed to be considering trying to pick it up. I decided to put an end to that idea. I spun my arm in a full circle, like a pitcher winding up a fastball, and then I thumped him in the nuts with the blackjack. He collapsed to his knees and started vomiting. I kicked the knife out of his reach and brought the truncheon down between his shoulder blades.
I’ve walloped people with a variety of blunt objects in my time: side-handled nightsticks, telescoping batons, saps, and, on occasion, a heavy steel flashlight. But the blackjack was always my favorite tool for busting skulls because the lead weight was so soft. That meant that, when it hit something, it yielded instead of bouncing or vibrating, so almost none of the energy of the swing was wasted. Hitting somebody with it was like dropping a sandbag off a third-floor balcony onto the roof of a car.
A good whack from the blackjack sent Chester sprawling into his puddle of sick. I put a knee on his neck to keep him from lifting his face out of the mess, and I set to work getting handcuffs onto him, as he feebly resisted.
“You’re under arrest, Chester March, for killing your wife and for killing Cecil
ia Tompkins. And whatever else you’ve done, we’ll find out about that, too.” I clicked the cuffs into place, checked that they were secure, and then I grabbed a handful of his hair and pulled him back up to his knees. “They’ve got a special chair up in Nashville, and it has your name on it. They’re gonna strap you into it, and they’re gonna run twenty-four hundred volts of God’s holy justice through you. Your blood will boil in your veins. Your flesh will cook like sausage, and your eyeballs will fry in their sockets like sunny-side-up eggs. All the fat in your body will render and melt. And I will be there to see it. I will watch you die.”
“You have no idea who you’re talking to,” Chester said. “You have no idea who I am.”
“You’re a scumbag,” I told him as I shoved him into the passenger seat of the Thunderbird. “And you’re gonna be a country-fried scumbag pretty soon.”
TRANSCRIPT: AMERICAN JUSTICE
CHESTER MARCH: So I opened my front door, and this smoke-belching monster was standing there, leering at me. He was flanked by a couple of the most thuggish-looking uniformed cops I ever saw.
CARLOS WATKINS: What did you feel, in that moment?
MARCH: Terror. Abject terror. I’d asked around about this guy. Learned his reputation. Buck Schatz had already gunned down three men he claimed were criminals at that point—he’d go on to kill a dozen more. And for some reason known only to him, he had his sights set on me.
WATKINS: What did you do when he showed up at your house?
MARCH: He said he had a paper signed by a judge, and he was coming inside to search the premises. I didn’t want to let him in until my lawyer arrived, but he told me he’d kill me if I tried to stop him. I couldn’t keep him out, but I immediately called my attorney.
WATKINS: What did the lawyer say?
MARCH: He told me I was probably about to be arrested and started asking me whether I expected Schatz to find evidence in the house. He wanted to know if a murder weapon was in there, or if the body was hidden there someplace. There was nothing like that, and Schatz didn’t find anything, but my own lawyer was assuming I’d killed Margery. I was frightened, and probably not thinking straight. That’s when I tried to run.
I had a beautiful car back then. A deluxe Buick Skylark. It was a fast car, but a smooth ride. I loved that car; it was really something to see. I took off in it, but Schatz had this huge black Ford muscle car, and he ran me down and rammed me off the road. Absolutely totaled the Skylark. Twisted the chassis and buckled the axles and crushed the engine, though some of that might be from the tree I hit after he bumped me. His car was barely even dinged.
I had the Skylark’s clutch open and the pedal on the floor, and I remember watching the Ford growing larger and larger in the rearview. That was Buck Schatz—a huge, relentless shadow bearing down on me. There was nothing I could do and no way to escape. I remember stumbling out of the wreckage, and then he grabbed me and beat me with a club. I took a hit below the belt. The pain was unbelievable. I don’t want to get too graphic, but something ruptured.
WATKINS: According to his report, you came after him with a knife.
MARCH: I don’t remember any knife.
WATKINS: Chester, why did you run?
MARCH: I don’t know. Lots of innocent people run from the police. This powerful figure has come for you and means you harm, and there’s just this drive, like an instinct, to put distance between yourself and the predator that is out to destroy you. It’s not a rational decision. I can’t justify it. When you feel the devil’s hot breath on the back of your neck, when you feel his fingers closing on your throat, all you can do is give in to the fear. Nothing has ever scared me as much as Buck Schatz scared me.
I remember what he told me after he beat me into submission and locked me into handcuffs. He said, “I will watch you die.” And very soon, barring a miracle, he’s going to make good on that promise.
11
I made Officer Branch stand guard over Chester in the car while Cadwalader and I searched the house. Despite the suspect’s freak-out, there wasn’t much incriminating physical evidence.
We found a half-empty three-gallon jug of sulfuric acid in the garage, which could have caused the burns on the body of Cecilia Tompkins. I noticed a strong bleach smell in one of the upstairs bathrooms, so I combed over every surface and found two small brown stains, which I photographed and took samples from to test for blood.
In the master bedroom, I checked Margery’s closet. It was full of her clothes. A jewelry box on the dresser contained several expensive-looking rings and necklaces, the kinds of things no lady would flee her home without. And I found a matched set of luggage in the attic, monogrammed “M.W.” It appeared to be complete. If she was alive somewhere, she’d run off without her car, her clothes, her valuables, or her suitcases. Seemed unlikely.
I took Chester for a ride downtown, had him photographed and fingerprinted, and then left him in a windowless interrogation room to mull over his situation for a bit.
Chester’s lawyer, a respected pillar of the community named Jefferson Pritchard III, had arrived before we even got our suspect processed, but we could make a lawyer wait until his client asked for him. I figured Chester would want to see Pritchard almost immediately. The smart ones always did. But I’d learned that people were generally stupider than I expected them to be, so I figured I might as well take a shot at getting a statement out of my murder suspect.
I’d made a few conciliatory gestures to try to get him into a talkative mood; after he was done getting his picture taken, I shackled his hands in front of him rather than behind him. I’d moved him directly to an interrogation room without making him sit in a holding cell, and I had given him a cup of coffee and some ice to put on his injured ballsack.
I had a little speech I liked to give men in Chester’s situation. I told them that the evidence against them looked bad. I told them that witnesses had identified them and fingered them as the perpetrators of monstrous deeds. I told them I wanted the whole story, that I wanted to get it right, and I wanted to give them a chance to tell their side of it. If they opted not to talk, I’d tell them, we’d have to proceed to trial with an incomplete record.
I didn’t think Chester would bite; he was going to want his lawyer. But it was worth taking a run at him after he’d had an opportunity to think about his predicament and consider what the rest of his life was going to be like. So I was sitting at my desk killing some time when Inspector Byrne found me.
“In my office,” he told me. Considering I’d just made a murder bust, he should have looked happier.
I followed him down the hallway. Byrne opened his door and revealed Henry McCloskey, an assistant district attorney, waiting for me.
“Schatz, why the fuck have you arrested Chester March?” McCloskey asked. He was sitting when I entered, but he rose and got right in my face as he spoke. I’m not going to say Henry McCloskey had poor oral hygiene, because I have no knowledge of his daily practices, but if he was assiduous about those things, I had to assume from the smell of his breath that he brushed with shit-scented toothpaste, flossed with shit floss, and then gargled hot diarrhea mouthwash. He made me long for the company of Hortense Ogilvy.
Obviously, I lit a cigarette. “Chester March killed his wife,” I said.
“That will be news to the medical examiner’s office. They have not performed an autopsy reaching that conclusion. They have not even received a body.” He was a big man, and he loomed over me. I got a good close-up view of the inflammation around his nostrils. There was an ingrown hair on his upper lip, a thick, greasy stub surrounded by an overfilled yellow inner tube of pus. He was, by any assessment, very handsome.
“Mrs. March had been missing for a couple of weeks before we began our investigation,” I said. “Chester had time to dispose of the remains. But a murderer who hides a body is still a murderer, and we’ve got a strong circumstantial case.”
“A circumstantial case? Schatz, do you know who this boy’s daddy
is?”
“I don’t give a goddamn who his daddy is.”
“Maybe you ought to, because the district attorney got a call tonight from a United States senator, and the senator gives a goddamn. And I intend to do as the senator asks, and drop these charges. You are going to turn that boy loose and apologize.”
I tapped my ash into the ashtray on Inspector Byrne’s desk. “The hell I will. Chester March killed at least two women, and I intend to see him executed.”
McCloskey erupted with a deep belly laugh that filled the small office with the smell of what he was full of. “Let’s say I were willing to prosecute this loser of a case. What evidence have you collected for me that will persuade a jury?”
“Margery March has been missing for several weeks. Her friend Hortense Ogilvy hasn’t been able to find her. The neighbors haven’t seen her. Her family hasn’t heard from her. Her blue Packard is parked in Chester’s garage. Her clothes are in the closet at the house. Her luggage is in the attic.”
“So what?” McCloskey said. “Maybe she eloped with a man who bought her a new wardrobe.”
“You know she didn’t.”
“Where’s the body?”
“I haven’t found it yet.”
“Then why have you brought that boy in?”
I sat down heavily in one of the chairs. McCloskey was still standing. “For God’s sake, he had a vat of sulfuric acid in his garage,” I said.
“So what? Maybe he used it to clean engines.”
Now I laughed. “Clean engines? With sulfuric acid? I don’t think you’ve ever worked on an engine, Henry, and I doubt Chester March has either.”
“They got heavy machinery on those cotton farms. People clean machines with acid. People use acid to open up drains. You can buy acid at a hardware store. No jury is going to convict Chester March of murder because he had sulfuric acid in his garage.”
“My witness, Bernadette Ward, described his car as the last one Cecilia Tompkins got into. Ward identified Chester in a photo lineup. And Tompkins’s body was scored by chemical burns that could have been caused by Chester attempting to dissolve her remains with acid.”
Running Out of Road Page 7