Haunted
By : S.L. Kotar and J.E. Gessler
Chapter 6
It was in the dreary ‘tween time between Thanksgiving and Christmas that Gerard found the article. It was short and to the point: the kind of story that was just interesting enough to catch a reader’s attention but not for more than ten seconds.
One-Armed Man in Brawl with Police.
Last night a robbery was reported at the Washington
Warehouse on 16th Street. Police were called by the
night watchman after he discovered a broken window
in the rear of the building. Officers responding to the call
entered through a side entrance and caught a one-armed
man going through desk drawers, apparently looking for
the petty cash box. When discovered, he attempted to escape
through another window. One of the officers fired and
apparently hit him for splotches of blood were later discovered
on the sill. Simultaneous to this action, a fire was discovered in
one of the adjacent offices. Responding to the more urgent
emergency, the policemen directed their attention to putting
out the fire. In the ensuing confusion, the one-armed
robber escaped. Authorities are asking anyone with information
to call them at police headquarters.
Tapping his pencil in contemplation, he did not hear Captain Carpenter come into his office.
“Anything interesting?”
Surprised, Gerard glanced up, considered how to answer, then carefully laid down the writing instrument.
“Lawrence, Kansas. A one-armed man wounded in a warehouse robbery.”
“How badly?”
“Doesn’t say.”
“There are a lot of one-armed men in the world.”
“Loads,” the lieutenant tried with a smile that did not fool his commander.
“Which arm?”
“I thought I’d call and find out.”
Walking over to the large, transparent outline of the United States the detective maintained in his office, he studied the neat handwriting that marked “Kimble sightings” across the country.
“Is this going to be a ‘confirmed’ or an ‘unconfirmed’?”
“I don’t know that it’s going to be either. I understand that Kimble doesn’t have access to all the out-of-state newspapers I read. He may never see the article.”
Turning around, Carpenter tried to catch Gerard’s eye and failed.
“Is this a new philosophy?”
“A practical one.”
“I suppose you’ll let me know if anything turns up.”
“I suppose I will.”
“I suppose I won’t want to hear it.”
“It’s our responsibility to catch Richard Kimble.”
“You have work to do here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Doesn’t it ever bother you to think a murderer may slip through ‘our’ fingers here in Stafford because your attention is in Lawrence, Kansas?”
Gerard actually hesitated so long Carpenter thought he was going to say no.
“A lot of things bother me, Captain.”
“Some more than others?”
“It depends on circumstances.”
“How long are you going to keep this up?”
“Until I catch him.”
“And if you don’t?”
“Justice will have been thwarted.”
Starting for the door, something caught Carpenter’s attention and he pointed to the wall.
“Didn’t there used to be something here?”
“A calendar.”
“What happened to it?”
“I took it down.”
“Any particular reason?”
Gerard removed his eyeglasses and dropped them in his shirt pocket, the better not to see the empty space.
“Marie bought me a new one the other day: for 1966. It’s one of those 16-month varieties they’re just coming out with. I thought I’d put it up in place of the other.”
Carpenter continued walking toward the door.
“Do you consider yourself a good liar, Phil?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t had much practice.”
“Work on it.”
By the time the door closed, Gerard had forgotten the order. He saw no point telling his superior the calendar reminded him of death. The fact he wasn’t required to was inconsequential.
Picking up the phone, he requested of the inside operator who answered, “Get me the police department in Lawrence, Kansas. I’ll wait.” When the call went through, he wasted no time with trivialities. “This is Lieutenant Phillip Gerard, Stafford, Indiana P.D. I’m calling to inquire about a robbery and fire.” Slipping the reading glasses back on, he glanced at the newspaper. “Of December 3rd. That was last Friday. At the Washington Warehouse. I’d like to speak to one of the investigating officers if I could.”
“Neither of them are on duty at the moment. May I help you?”
“Perhaps. I’m inquiring about the one-armed man they saw. I’d like to know which arm was missing.”
“That’s odd. I got a call about the same thing yesterday.”
Gerard’s hand gripped the telephone.
“How did that man identify himself?”
“He didn’t, at first. But when I pressed him he said he was… you.”
“What’s that?”
“Lieutenant Gerard of the Stafford police.”
“Listen to me: this is very important. That was Richard Kimble, a fugitive wanted on an interstate warrant for escape to avoid execution. He’s a convicted murderer. Do you have any record of that call? Was it local or long distance?”
“I heard the outside operator on the line so I presume it was out of area.”
“What did you tell him? About the arm.”
“The right one, sir.”
“He may be on his way there. Alert the state police to set up roadblocks; distribute his wanted poster to all staff so they’re familiar with his face. His hair is darker than in the photograph but otherwise he looks the same. I’ll try to get in tonight.”
“Lieutenant Gerard?”
“Yes?”
“What do you look like?”
“Five-foot-nine, slim, blue eyes; receding, some grey in my hair.”
“Guess we won’t mistake him for you, then.”
He rolled his eyes in annoyance.
“Thank you. Once I get my arrival time I’ll call back.”
Dropping the handset on the cradle, he checked his watch. 4:45. Another late flight.
He was getting used to them.
Changing from Eastern to Central time zone, Gerard gained an hour of work but lost one of sleep. Not surprisingly, it worked the same way in reverse. Resetting his watch by moving the hour hand back from 10:30 to 9:30 P.M. he stifled a yawn, wrapped his fingers around his flight bag and hurried through the plane, this time using his badge to facilitate his exit. Apparently recognizing him from the scant description he had given over the phone, two plainclothes policemen met him at the gate.
“Lieutenant Gerard?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m Officer Zilox and this is Officer Markum.”
They shook hands and moved off as Gerard spoke.
“I apologize for not asking who I was speaking with when I called this afternoon but are you the one?”
“No, sir. We’re the patrolmen who entered the Washington Warehouse and saw the one-armed man. It didn’t seem especially important at the time because the fire caused minimal damage and there was only a few dollars stolen, but since you alerted us, we sat down with a police artist to see if we could come up with a reasonable sketch.”
“Excellent! I’m impressed.”
“That way, you can identify him. If he’s the one Kimble is looking for, we’ll have it printed in the papers.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
The two officers came to a quick halt, nearly causing the out-of-state man to run up their heels.
“Why is that?” Markum inquired.
“Because I’ve never seen him. I can’t even tell you I’m convinced he exists. Oh, Dr. Kimble believes he’s real and I presume he can identify him. But whether or not this one-armed man is someone who was in Stafford on the night of his wife’s murder is far from proven. I’ve always gone on the assumption that in his desperation Kimble saw someone who looked like a likely suspect and chose him to be the guilty party.”
The three men resumed walking.
“That makes it more interesting.”
“Yes, actually, it does. If he is the ‘Fred Johnson’ Kimble is looking for it would prove very handy for me to have his likeness.”
“How are we going to find out? If we circulate it and Kimble sees it and he’s not the right man – assuming he’s on his way here – he’ll hightail it out of the area as fast as he can.”
“Yes. He will. Let me think how to handle it. Have the state police put up roadblocks?”
The two officers exchanged uncomfortable glances.
“No. They said it was too much of a long shot. But our captain did send several men out to the local bus depots and the one train station in town. We didn’t know about the airport –”
“I’m satisfied. He won’t come in by plane. It’s too expensive. If he hitchhikes in, we’ll just have to hope he’s spotted.”
“But where will he look? We didn’t catch the suspect.”
“Sure you did.”
Zilox interrupted him by opening the outside door and pointing to an unmarked car.
“Right over there.”
They hurried over, Markum opened the rear door for the lieutenant, then both the local cops got in the front. As the car pulled away from the curb, Zilox picked up the thread of the discussion.
“You were saying?”
“If your captain will permit, we’ll have one of the beat reports put a notice in the paper that the one-armed robber from the Washington Warehouse break-in was captured and held over while the D.A. considers charges. If I’m lucky and Kimble saw the original article, he’ll have to try and get a look at him. That’s how we’ll catch him.”
“And if he didn’t see it?”
“Then, I’ve had another long plane ride for nothing.”
Looking out the window, Markum mused, “It must get old.”
Whether he intended Gerard to reply, he got his answer.
“Old? It’s ancient. I’ve been doing this for years. My children are growing up without me. My wife’s at her wit’s end. And I’m tired. I’d like to get on with my life. But I can’t. Not until Richard Kimble is caught.”
“And executed?”
“That’s not my business.”
But it was, and all three men knew it.
Shifting positions, then readjusting his valise on the seat for no better reason than it gave his hands something to do, Gerard leaned back and closed his eyes to protect them from the headlights of oncoming traffic which drilled into his skull. He must have drifted off because when the car stopped he jumped at the cessation of motion. Sliding across the seat, he flipped back the door handle and eased his way out.
“It didn’t occur to me to ask, but would you rather have gone to a hotel?” Zilox asked.
“No. Thank you. I’d like to see the police artist’s sketch. Then, we’ll compose a paragraph or two for the newspaper.” On impulse, he added, “I realize I’m keeping you up late and I apologize but this is important.”
“It’s all right with us. We work the graveyard shift.”
He followed them inside the one story brick building, immediately assailed by the familiarity of the precinct. Bypassing the front desk where the sleepy-eyed sergeant nodded, Gerard suddenly stopped and approached him. Tapping the wanted poster of Richard Kimble that sat in plain view, he slowly shook his head.
“Better put that away. I don’t expect him to come walking in but he always surprises me. It would give the game away if he saw that on the desk.”
The man complied and the three continued down the corridor.
Never having been in Lawrence, Kansas before, Gerard could have found his way through the building without asking a single question. Several closed doors leading to offices occupied by detectives working the day shift; Names on the wall that could have been interchanged with those officers from Albany or Pittsburgh or Reno. A waiting room with the door propped open by a folded piece of paper. A men’s room with some form of graffiti scribbled on the outside that time and innumerable washings had failed to completely erase. A break room that smelled of burned coffee and sweat; National Geographic magazines from three years ago stacked on a table with only three legs. A couch with mismatched cushions and a discarded desk chair turned toward the window where men sat and watched the world go by, wishing they were outside instead of being as close-confined as the prisoners in the five cells nestled at the end of the hallway.
Trash cans overflowing with candy wrappers and fast food cartons; a broom without a dust pan slouched in the corner; a pair of shoes. An umbrella that had once belonged to “Joe,” before he retired and bequeathed it to “the fellows.”
There was a sense of home about this police station; a feeling of camaraderie. Gerard decided that if he stayed long enough, he would be assimilated in as one of the family and that without much trouble no one would remember he was from Indiana and didn’t belong there at all.
Only he would remember. Because, like Richard Kimble, he was a fugitive. An outsider looking in but not quite belonging. Always on the edge. And would be until the book was closed. And maybe until long after that, because there would always be the nightmare to remind him.
And Fred Johnson.
“Here it is, Lieutenant.”
Gerard accepted the paper without thinking, went to reach for his glasses, then stopped as though arrested by – by what?
The cold hand of Fate?
A familiar face?
The likeness of someone he should have known but didn’t?
The countenance of a total stranger?
The last was merely to balance the equation. The face in the black and white pencil sketch was not a total stranger. It was the eyes and nose and mouth of a figment. Not a figment of Richard Kimble’s imagination but of Phillip Gerard’s nightmare.
“I know this man.”
“Is he the one you’re looking for?” Markum hopefully inquired, forgetting Gerard had already told them he had never seen the man Richard Kimble claimed ran from his house. Less to the point was the second mistake in the same sentence.
Is he the one you’re looking for?
Technically, Gerard was looking for Kimble and Kimble was the one looking for the one-armed man.
Embarrassed by speaking aloud what he should have kept to himself, Gerard shook off the inquiry.
“I’ve seen him somewhere.” Through Dr. Kimble’s eyes. “I’ve been on this hunt a long time.” Time to bring it to a close. “This isn’t the first opportunity I’ve had to get close to Fred Johnson.” Close, but never face-to-face. “Although that’s probably not the name he was using here in Lawrence.” Or anywhere else, for all I can prove.
No, he corrected himself. Not for me to prove. I’ve done all the ‘proving’ I have to. It’s up to Kimble to prove this fellow killed his wife.
Something, he decided, he’ll never be able to do.
It wasn’t the first time Gerard had made that pronouncement. Over the course too many months he had argued it out with himself numerous times. While getting this Fred Johnson to confess was the fugitive’s only hope of clearing his name, the odds on it were slim to none. Even if he managed to catch him, there was nothing he could do with him. Fred Johnson wasn’t wanted for any crime and if Kimble brought him to a police station, the laugh would be on him. He would be locked up and Johnson released.
Even Kimble had to realize that. What, then, were his options? Beat a confession out of Johnson? That wouldn’t last past the front door of any precinct. Appeal to the man’s better nature? Staring into the graphite eyes so vividly captured by the sketch artist, not even a man desperate for his life could believe Johnson had a conscience. Steal a car and drive him to Stafford? Call Gerard and try to cut a deal – offer to turn himself in if the lieutenant grilled the suspect until he broke down? Possible but not likely.
Find a friendly reporter to publicize his plight?
“Richard Kimble, the pediatrician convicted of murdering
his wife five years ago, claimed at the time that a one-armed
man was actually the guilty party. Unfortunately for the doctor,
the Stafford, Indiana, police were unable to find him and
Kimble was sentenced to the electric chair. Freed on the way
to the death house, the fugitive has spent nearly three years
running from police while trying to find this mysterious one-
armed man.
Now, in a bizarre turn of events, Dr. Kimble says he has
located Fred Johnson, the man he has been seeking. Hiding
under a false identity, for to be caught now would mean his
certain death, Kimble demands that justice finally be
meted out by having the authorities take Johnson into custody.
If the Stafford district attorney will promise to order a
thorough investigation of Johnson’s alibi, he is convinced
the truth will come out and he will be exonerated.”
That was Kimble’s hope; what kept him literally and figuratively alive. But it was as false as Father Christmas. No D.A. who earned his reputation bringing in a guilty plea would ever attempt to reverse it. It was as simple as that.
There never would be any present under the tree for Dr. Kimble.
Not in this world. Whatever the next world held was beyond comprehension.
“Lieutenant?”
Rubbing the corner of the paper with thumb and forefinger as if to erase the face, although that was not his intention, Gerard looked up.
“I was just thinking. This man has an evil face.”
The two men stood on tiptoe to stare over Gerard’s hand at the image they caused to be created.
“I hadn’t thought that until you mention it, but you’re right,” Zilox agreed. “He looks like a killer. Of course,” he added after a moment, “So does Humphrey Bogart and he’s only an actor.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” Gerard replied with a half-smile meant only to fool himself. Richard Kimble didn’t look like a murderer but the jury had thought so. “I’ve changed my mind. I’d like to have this sketch printed in the newspaper. Along with the notice that you’ve arrested ‘Fred Johnson’ and changed him with breaking and entering, theft and arson. That will flush Richard Kimble out.”
“All right. I’ll call the captain and get his permission.” Zilox was gone ten minutes. When he returned, he gave the thumb’s-up. “He says it’s O.K. Bill Jamison’s the beat reporter. I’ll give him a call.”
“Be sure you don’t tell him I’m here. My name isn’t to appear in the newspaper.”
“Afraid of scaring Kimble off?” the officer grinned as though it were a good joke they shared.
In that, he erred.
“Kimble has to assume I read the out-of-state newspapers the same as he does. Normally, he’d smell a trap but not with that sketch. That’ll bring him.”
“What if he isn’t reading this week?”
“This is different. He’ll see it, all right.”
Left alone, Markum indicated a chair.
“Why don’t you sit down?”
“I’d like to see the jail cells.”
“What for?”
“Because that’s where Kimble will have to go. To see for himself. I need to get the layout straight in my mind.”
“I don’t think there are any prisoners there at the moment.”
“There will be.”
Tilting his head to determine whether Gerard meant Kimble or Johnson, he abandoned the question as rhetorical and led the Indiana cop down the corridor. Although as recently as half an hour ago Gerard had felt at home in the police station, that sense of camaraderie vanished as quickly as it had come. He was no longer one of the boys but an alien as different from his fellow policemen as though they had spawned from different oceans. They were not allies but tools to be used. How he directed them and how they played their roles – like Humphrey Bogart – would determine if their individual planets aligned.
If they did, Gerard would go home with a fugitive like himself. If they didn’t, he and his fugitive would be cast back upon the ripples of space that kept them apart.
Markum’s prediction proved correct: there were no prisoners in the cells.
“It’s just as well,” Gerard decided, rubbing his hands together in a gesture of satisfaction the other man found childish, although they couldn’t have said why. There were five cells in total: two adjoining lock-ups to either side and a single, larger one at the end flush against the back wall. “We don’t want our man in this one,” he continued, pointing to the end cell. “That would make him too easy to spot. So, he’ll have to go in a side cell. Not either of the front ones. That leaves these two,” he indicated with a professional flourish.
“Do you have a preference?” the local man asked with a trace of sarcasm that wasn’t lost on his listener. Like Gerard, he, too, had undergone a metamorphosis. Eagerly awaiting his arrival, Markum had liked the man when they first met at the airport. He seemed decent; dedicated. If not friendly, then cordial and appreciative. But seeing the sketch had done something to him; altered him in subtle ways he couldn’t understand. Listening to him in the cell block, he reformed his opinion. The lieutenant was neither friendly, cordial or appreciative. Nor did he emit the sense of decency Markum originally felt.
He had misjudged him, mistaking his outward show as dedication. That wasn’t the impression he got standing beside him in the close confines of bars and locks. What the officer felt was the type of blood lust a man experienced just before pulling the trigger on a prize buck he would carry back to civilization, having the hide tanned for a pair of moccasins and the antlers mounted over the fireplace in his den.
As though gifted with the power to read minds, Gerard redirected his attention to the man’s face.
“You’ve never been in my position before, have you?”
“No.”
“I thought not. You don’t know what it’s like. You think you do, but you’ve overshot your target by a million miles. I was the investigating officer on the Kimble case. It wasn’t easy, believe me. He was a respected man in the community; a doctor. Worse, a pediatrician. A man who healed children. My own captain didn’t want to get involved because Dr. Kimble had once saved his grandson.”
“I see.”
“No. You don’t see. Richard Kimble had no alibi; nothing that would stand up in court. There was a history of the neighbors hearing Kimble and his wife argue. She had recently lost a child; couldn’t have another. He wanted to adopt, she didn’t.”
Alone with his thoughts which were as vivid to him as the night of the murder, Gerard stepped into the cell, let his gaze run over the cot, the grey blanket, the stripped pillow devoid of a case. Blindfolded, he could have recited the several pair of initials written in ink or carved with the tine of a fork on the wall it rested against. With his nose stuffed from a cold, he could describe the smells of perspiration, stale breath and the faded aroma of Old Spice or some similar department aftershave.
Turning, he rested his hands on the bars, absorbing the cold of the steel that never warmed; listened, in his memory, to the sounds of snoring from the other cells, or the low moans of a man who knew he had forever ruined his life. Lacking the least empathy, he could count the days, weeks, months and years those lost souls faced without the possibility of parole. With clinical detachment he could feel the grip of a flat-sided Bic pen as the forms were filled out requisitioning a peppermint bar from the prison store, to be paid for by his ten-cent an hour job in the prison laundry. With the type of wild hope a man developed after twenty years in a cage, he stared at the floor and wondered how many more decades it would take to pry up the cinder blocks and dig a tunnel to the outside.
Or worse, mark off the days on a mental calendar until that fateful one when he would be confronted by a man in a white collar and a black robe holding a Bible that offered words, two thousand year-old, of redemption in a place no one could prove existed.
“There’s no reason I’m telling you this. You don’t need to know it. All that’s required of you and your partner and your captain and the department is to fully comprehend Richard Kimble is an escaped murderer. Judged guilty by a jury of his peers. Sentenced to death. Don’t judge him by what you think of me. And don’t judge me by what you cannot possible understand. I looked for that one-armed man Kimble claimed to have seen. I did everything humanly possible to find him. I didn’t. People, not in my place, wonder why I’m so cold – so heartless. And believe me, I’ve been called that and worse.”
Crossing back to the cot, Gerard picked up the pillow and held it as a sort of defense against the heretics who hurled words and pointed barbs in his direction.
“If I were you, I might wonder. But you’re not. You didn’t work through the night – night after night, day after day. Interviewing people; checking his story; arranging line-ups. Fighting with his family, who couldn’t permit themselves to believe the worst. Blaming me because there was no one-armed man. As if it were my fault Kimble’s story of desperation fell flat. What should I have done? Conjured a man out of thin air? Apparently, the answer to that is yes.”
Misshaping the pillow until it bore no resemblance to what it was, he appeared as though he might heave it against the wall, but in the end, he merely dropped it back on the bed. No hope there.
“You sense a cruelty in me; you think yourself better. In my place, you reason, you’d have more mercy. A man is a man, after all, and he deserves respect. But, that’s not my belief. A man is respected if he deserves it; not if he killed another human being, whether in frustration or premeditation or accident. The law, Officer Markum, has determined Richard Kimble is guilty. I’m not trophy-hunting. Believe me, I take no joy in this.”
Taking out his eyeglasses and a handkerchief, Gerard wiped them. He did not recognize the symbolism.
“I saw Helen Kimble’s body lying dead on the floor. I touched her cold body. I went to the morgue and examined the death marks under the cold, harsh overhead light; observed the rough surgeon’s stitching where the organs had been removed and weighed before being replaced. I wondered what she had looked like in life; perhaps she was an attractive woman. She wasn’t, in death. She was a hollow, empty, disfigured shell.”
Replacing the handkerchief in the pocket of his trousers, he started to put on his glasses, thought better of it and returned them to his suit. Markum moved away from him as though afraid that with his hands freed he might strike out.
“How did you know what I was thinking?”
Gerard smiled. It was devoid of warmth. It was said of him he was a man without humor.
“Richard Kimble made up the story of a one-armed man to assuage his conscience. Somewhere along the line, he found someone who fit the description of what he imagined and called him Fred Johnson. He’s attached himself to this man for no better reason that he’s flesh and blood. As long as there’s a one-armed man, he can continue to profess his innocence. Many people believe him. They help him escape justice. They’re wrong and I’m right. But try and tell them that. They refuse to face facts.” He signed and looked away. Not down, just off into the distance. “I’ve come to recognize the look.”
“I didn’t mean to be obvious. And I apologize.”
“I’m not asking for that. Nor your understanding. I just require that you – and the rest of the police – do your job. If Richard Kimble is caught… you can have his antlers.”
Jake Markum gasped. His stomach turned and he feared he might be sick. He was sorry. Not for Gerard but for himself. He wished he had called in sick the night of the warehouse robbery. Wished he had taken his wife’s advice and applied for the day shift. But most of all he regretted sitting down with Peter Zilox and describing the one-armed man for the police artist. If they hadn’t, the investigative detective from Stafford, Indiana, might not have read his mind.
Swallowing a mouthful of saliva, he coughed into his hand. And wished more than anything that Phillip Gerard, when he probed his mind, fully comprehended that he did not have a den with a fireplace over which to hang a dead man’s head.
Link to HAUNTED Chapter 7