Pursuit

by: S.L. Kotar and J.E. Gessler

Chapter 8

 

“You’re citing the local cop for dereliction of duty?”

Captain Carpenter tossed the report on Gerard’s desk with annoyance. Slipping off black-framed his reading, the lieutenant gave him a puzzled stare.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“I’m not going to accept it.”

The recipient of his ire understood the reasoning but refused to accept it. If the captain was in a bad mood, he was in a worse one.

“He let Richard Kimble slip through his fingers. He was there and he got away.”

Instead of replying, Carpenter stared at a stack of papers sitting on the detective’s desk. They were turned face down. Without bothering to ask permission, he picked up the top three and scanned the mastheads.

“St. Louis; Kansas City; Little Rock: July 7, 1965. They’re a week old.”

“I know.”

“Why is that?”

“It takes that long for them to arrive in the mail.”

“How many more are here?” He guessed without counting. “A dozen?”

“It varies. Depending on the season. In the winter I concentrate on the states with warm weather. In the summer there are farming jobs in the Midwest.”

“What about the Northeast?”

“I can find some of those in the local library. Saves me money.”

“Saves you money, or the department?”

Gerard shrugged as if the matter were of scant importance. It was a ruse. He knew what was coming.

“The department.”

“Where does the money come from?”

Gerard stared at him without blinking.

“I pilfer the coffee money.”

Carpenter was clearly surprised. Not so much that the officer reallocated funds but that he admitted doing so.

“The truth is important to you, isn’t it, Phil?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I wonder.”

Gerard stiffened in anger.

“I resent that.”

“There are those here who think you’re crazy.”

The crazy man smiled.

“I take that as a compliment.”

Although he already knew, Carpenter asked, “Why?”

“Because it means I’m doing my duty.”

“Perhaps a little too much?”
“Is that possible?” In the silence that ensued, Gerard stepped away from his desk and wandered over to the plate glass display board he had installed in his office after the Train Wreck. Capital “T,” capital “W.” On it he had painted a map of the United States proper, with the states clearly identified by shape if not by name. He had designed it himself, in his workshop at home. Precisely two weeks to the day after the Escape.

It had taken him that long to be discharged from the hospital. He might have signed himself out earlier but the police surgeon had forbidden it.

“Against regulations,” he had said. “If you check yourself out, the department won’t cover the bill.”

A cop pulling in a salary south of $30,000 a year couldn’t afford a hospital bill that could reach four figures.

He had come to regret that decision.

If he had only known….

 

Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack.

    Train wheels rolling over steel rails placed at cross-angles to wooden ties. Monotonous. Darkness setting in. Enough to lull a man to sleep.

Or not.

No rest for the…. No rest for whom? The weary? The wicked? A little bit of both, or a little bit of neither? A recurring question.

Two men on a trip of no return. Which wasn’t precisely true. One was destined to come home, if only in the sense of reality. Not so true in the abstract.

 

“Here are your train tickets, Phil,” Luke Carpenter said, handing a pre-printed envelope to his detective. “A straight run to Michigan City. They’ll be stops, of course, but you’re not getting off. Passengers will come and go but you’ll stay in your seat. We don’t expect any trouble.”

They had been over it a dozen times. There had never been any question who would take the prisoner to Death Row. It had been Phillip Gerard’s case from the beginning.

A job well done.

    This is your reward. The end result of justice.

    He might have refused. Over the torturous course of nearly three years he had gotten to know the prisoner better than anyone. Interviews. Line-ups. Arrest and trial. Even after Kimble had been taken to the state penitentiary to await the outcome of his appeals, it was rumored around the precinct that Gerard had continued his search – unofficially – responding personally to any sightings of one-armed men.

His concern, if true, was inexplicable. The case was closed. Over and done with. Conviction. Sentence. Countless appeals which had gone nowhere. Yet one man remained on the hunt.

It was as though he didn’t believe the jury’s unanimous decision. Scuttlebutt around the office held that once put on the scent, Phil Gerard didn’t know when to stop. He was the bloodhound running around in a circle after the trail had gone cold. The dog, baying at the moon. The spirit of an Indian after the buffalo had vanished from the Plains. He made them nervous.

“Give it up, Phil. There never was a one-armed man. Kimble made him up.”

“I know that.”

“Your actions don’t support that belief.”

He couldn’t explain in words his fellow officers would understand. He did believe. Absolutely. Utterly. He had testified at trial.

“Yes, sir. I looked. I set out a dragnet. Involved the police departments of neighboring counties. I went down and searched the train yards, myself. I interviewed transients, hobos, runaways. No one had seen a one-armed man hop a train going in any direction. I went to the bus terminals, spoke with the ticket agents and the drivers. No one-armed man. I put out a plea to the newspapers: if anyone picked up a one-armed hitchhiker they were to contact me personally. No luck. I’m convinced such a person as described by the defendant could not have slipped through our fingers.”   

The prosecutor had called Lieutenant Gerard as his key witness. He had spoken with conviction.

“I went to the river where the defendant stated he had driven to ‘cool down’ after the argument with his wife. I stood in the precise spot. There were no tire tracks I could use to match with his car. No cigarette butts. No footprints. No boy in a boat. I put out appeals to the radio and TV stations: if such a boy was on the river that evening, please come forward. The police department would see to it no harm came to him if he had been out after his parent’s curfew.”

No boy, nor the parents of a boy who had been out after curfew, had ever come forward.

The conclusion was obvious. There never had been any boy, just like there never had been any one-armed man. They were no more than stories made up by a man who had killed his wife.

“Then, why do you keep looking?” a fellow detective had asked.

Gerard had not understood.

“I don’t.”

“Whenever there’s a mention of an amputee brought in for some petty misdemeanor, your head snaps up faster than a jackrabbit out of a hole.”

To deny the accusation would be crazy.

“The Kimble case was an interesting one. To say I’m not still drawn to it would be a falsehood. He was a doctor, after all. A doctor is sworn to protect life, not take it. In his entire career there was not one single indication he had a temper likely to snap like that. To be a good detective, one must be part Sherlock Holmes and part psychiatrist: a student of human nature.”

The detective asking the question had crossed his arms and waited for the rest. Gerard had perched on the edge of his desk, his deep blue eyes distant and reflective.

“Just think of it. A man kills his wife – a woman he is supposed to love, honor and cherish all his days. A woman with whom he desired so badly to start a family. They’ve both suffered the terrible loss of a child and been deprived of all possibility of future children. He wants to adopt and she doesn’t. Cause for argument? Certainly. But cause for murder? That’s in the realm of the unfathomable.”

The officer listening uncrossed his arms and made a circle with his finger.

Go on. The boys are gonna love this when I tell them.

     “He picks up a lamp and strikes her on the back of the head. Does he mean to kill her? If you believe the prosecutor, yes. Murder is easier and cheaper than obtaining a divorce. Kimble wanted to be free so he could remarry and have children by another woman. Doesn’t quite jive with wanting to adopt does it? But assuming that’s true – and the jury believed it – this intelligent man who’s just taken a life stands over the body, realizes what he’s done and begins thinking of an alibi. He comes up with a drive to a deserted spot by the river, ‘sees’ a boy fishing in a row boat and then ‘drives home,’ where he spots a burglar in the street. A one-armed man with a startled expression on his face.”

“So? He had a vivid imagination.”

“I’m willing to go along with that. But, don’t you think it’s odd? What kind of mind would create such a fantasy? None of it is sustainable. Why not go to a bar where everyone’s drunk or preoccupied, or both, and have two dozen witnesses think they remember you were there between the hours of nine and midnight?”

“You should have been his defense lawyer.”

A hitch of the shoulder and a frown.

“That’s not my job. I did my job.”

“Then, why are you still doing it?”

“I’m not.”

“Then, what are you doing?”

“Trying to rationalize it.”

“All right, I’ll play psychiatrist with you: all murderers are insane. Whether temporarily or by nature. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes. I would.”

“Therefore, an insane man kills his wife and thinks up an insane alibi. I just solved the problem for you.”

“That’s one way of looking at it.”

“There’s only one other alternative, Phil: that everything your doctor said is the Gospel Truth and he’s innocent.”

This finally elicited a smile.

“I think I’ll keep looking for a middle ground.”

“Which is?” When Gerard took too long to answer, the officer did it for him. “A wife murderer with a lousy alibi.”

“That seems to be where we stand.”

Which concluded the conversation at a draw.

 

Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack.

    He had driven to the penitentiary late in the afternoon and presented his papers to the warden. The prisoner, “KB7608163” was brought into the office. Freshly shaven, with his greying hair neatly combed and dressed in a suit and tie, he might have been a businessman preparing for an early morning appointment. Or a doctor about to make rounds at the local hospital.

Might have been, but wasn’t. No businessman or doctor ever wore the expression on Richard Kimble’s face. Pale. Drawn. Quiet.

As silent as the grave.

    They’re at their most dangerous when they’re quiet.

    “Good afternoon, Dr. Kimble.”

Polite. Respectful.

Dr. Kimble, not Mr. Kimble. Or, just plain Kimble.

    He had lost the right to claim a title. And yet, the police lieutenant gave it to him.

There was a right and a wrong to every action. So he had been taught and so he believed.

Richard Kimble had nothing to say. It was not a “good afternoon” to him.

“A plainclothesman will drive you to the train station,” the warden addressed Gerard.

“Thank you.”

“Have you been on this run before?”

“No.”

“It’s a five-hour trip. We prefer to travel at night because there’s less traffic on the line. And fewer people in the cars.”

“I understand.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll just review the regulations for you.”

“I don’t mind.”

“The prisoner is to remain handcuffed to you the entire time. If he asks to relieve himself, you may escort him to the cubicle lavatory but the handcuffs are not to be removed. For the sake of privacy, you stand by the door because, obviously, it cannot be shut. When you’re in the aisle, stay close beside him so it’s not readily apparent he is handcuffed. That arouses curiosity and you don’t want that.”

“I understand, sir.”

“The train personnel will, of course, be alerted as to who you are and what your assignment is. They will assist you in any way they can. The porter will stop by on his rounds making inquiry as to your comfort. Merely reply that everything is fine – presuming that to be the case. If you suspect or encounter trouble, he will move you into another car, or, if needs be, into the baggage compartment. Under no circumstances are you to explain to non-authorized individuals the nature of your journey. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly.”

“If, for any reason, you feel the necessity of leaving the train, alert the porter. He will call ahead and have the local police on the platform waiting for you. They will take you to their precinct where the prisoner will be jailed pending your receipt of further instructions.”

“Thank you.”

“May I inspect the handcuffs, now?” Removing them from his pocket, Gerard handed them over. The warden tested them for strength, nodded his approval and gave them back. “You may now place them on the prisoner.”

The human being who was KB7608163 to the warden extended his wrists and Gerard applied the steel restraints. When he was through, the prison director tested them to be certain the fit was secure, then nodded and extended his hand to the lieutenant.

“Good luck.”

Fortunately for the sanity of the prisoner who was, by private definition, insane, he did not add, “Godspeed.”

A guard escorted them to the waiting squad car and the officer assigned to the duty of bringing KB7608163 and escort to the train station did so without conversation. In fact, he did not speak until pulling the vehicle up at the curb.

“This is it, sir. Straight inside. Your train departs in twenty minutes. Just take a seat and wait. Would you like me to come in with you?” By way of ensuring the offer was not accepted, he added, “The security guards inside have been alerted. They’ll be keeping an eye on you until you depart. Once the train is out of the station, that responsibility falls to personal on the train.”

“Keeping an eye out; not assisting,” Gerard clarified. “Perhaps you had better come inside.”

The man’s face fell.

“Sir, I – I will if you want. The warden said you wouldn’t.”

“Never offer to do a job you’re unwilling to perform. Then, when you’re called upon to complete it, you won’t have to refuse.”

Reaching across Kimble, he snapped the door handle open and indicated the prisoner exit. He did so with minimum trouble, Gerard following. As soon as the door was shut, the driver sped off and the two men found themselves alone standing on the cement sidewalk. Seeing the prisoner staring at him, the detective raised an eyebrow.

“Something?”

“That was harsh, what you said to the driver.”

“What he said annoyed me. First of all, I don’t need to be briefed by a subordinate and second, he sounded as though I were to expect a legion of hobgoblins or at least Jesse James’ gang to descend upon me.”

A smile flickered across the doctor’s face, the way a storm cloud drifted away from the sun, permitting a ray of light to filter through the gloom.

“Perhaps he’d heard of my sister’s reputation.”

Gerard was instantly alert.

“What’s that?”

“When we were kids, she was always the outlaw and I was the good guy. Funny, isn’t it? She’d capture me and tie me to a tree.”

“Why would she do that?”

“To get a confession, I suppose.”

“The bad guy is the one who’s supposed to give the confession.”

“Something I’ve never done,” Kimble suddenly blurted. “Does that bother you?”

“Why should it?”

“To clean things up. From what I gather, you’re a fastidious man.”

“Yes,” he confessed. “It does bother me. I wish you had.”

“I can’t. Because I’m innocent.”

“A jury convicted you.”

“Juries make mistakes. No one’s perfect. Not even you.”

“I never said I was. Come on.” He directed the prisoner inside, saw the security guard standing by the ticket counter and made eye contact. The man nodded, then looked away. Gerard pointed to an empty bench. “We’ll wait here.”

They sat down, side-by-side. Both of them spotted the institutional clock on the wall facing them and stared at the second hand sweeping around the broad white dial. For one it went too fast and for the other, too slowly.

It was Gerard who finally broke the awkward silence.

“Why did your sister always play the outlaw? She doesn’t strike me that way.”

“She was tougher than I was.”

Accepting the obvious exaggeration on face value, Gerard scowled.

“I think, in many ways it’s tougher to be the good guy.”

“Why is that?” Kimble reversed on him.

“Public sentiment.” His voice took on a tone of scorn and contempt. “Bonny and Clyde; Ma Barker and her boys. Dillinger. Big Al Capone. It seems the more heinous the criminal the more public support they get. I’ve never understood it.”

“And you’re playing Eliot Ness?”

“I’m not playing anyone. I’m merely doing a job. And to answer your question, I’m not afraid your sister or anyone else will mount an attack to free you. They may not have believed the jury’s verdict – or your complicity in your wife’s murder – but they’re law-abiding citizens. They know when the game is over.”

“It’s not a game to me.”

“I apologize. I was speaking rhetorically.” After a second of tortured, self-imposed quiet, Gerard blurted, “Did she ever hang you? After she had you tied to a tree?”

Kimble might have said, I was speaking rhetorically. She never got as far as tying me to a tree, but didn’t.

“You mean, because I refused to confess to a crime I didn’t commit? No, she never hanged me. I suppose we got called into supper, or something.” He waited for Gerard to process that before adding, “I hope that’s not what you’re waiting for because you’re bound to be disappointed. I have no deathbed confession to make. Not to ease your conscience and not to ease mine. If the warder stood before me as they strapped me into the electric chair with the governor’s pardon in his hand and said, ‘If only you confess your sentence will be commuted to life in prison,’ I’d still have nothing to say. I didn’t do it.”

“That would be obstinate.”

“It gives me something in common with you, doesn’t it?”

Gerard shook his head.

“We shouldn’t be talking like this.”

“You’re right. I’d hate to make you feel guilty.”

Gerard reacted as though the doctor had stuck him with a hypodermic syringe.

“You can’t.”

The storm cloud that had briefly parted from the sun settled back over that bright orb, depressing the sky and with it, the mood.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. Sitting in a solitary cell day after day, night after night. I wondered who’d be the one to take me to the death house. But, there never was any question, was there? Is the job considered a reward or a punishment?”

“A reward, certainly. Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Because, in many ways, a policeman is like a doctor. We’re both trained to save lives. Dismissing the idea of my guilt or innocence, you’re taking me to die. That’s against your creed.”

“My ‘creed,’ as you say, is to enforce the law. This is merely one aspect of it. If, as you imply, it’s an unpleasant one, I had no say in the matter. I was ordered to do a job and I’m doing it.”

“That was Henry Wirz’s defense at Andersonville and it didn’t work for him. It was the defendants’ defense at the Nuremburg Trials and the world condemned them.”

Gerard’s eyes shifted from the wall clock counting down time to the prisoner’s face.

“Are you asking me to let you go?”
A quarter smile this time because they were playing a game that had already been decided.

“I wouldn’t refuse.”

But the lieutenant wouldn’t, or perhaps couldn’t, let it go. Because he understood on a sublime level there was no mercy rule in cops and robbers.

“You wouldn’t ‘lie,’ as you say, to obtain a pardon, but you’d walk away if I unlocked the handcuffs and turned my head. How do you reconcile one over the other?”

Richard Kimble had one more fastball in his arsenal of pitches.

“One is a matter of honor; the other is a chance at exoneration.”

“Finding the one-armed man, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“There was no one-armed man. You made him up.”

“Because you never found him?”

The answer was self-explanatory.

“Yes.”

“Then, may God have mercy on your soul.”

The last words Richard Kimble would hear before the executioner pulled the switch.

 

Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack. Clickety-clack.

Darkness settled in on the train the way a curtain fell on the final act. Emergency lights came on along the floor of the aisle. People shifted in their seats, some trying to catch a nap before they disembarked at one stop or another. To meet a loved one at the station; to check into a motel before an early morning appointment. To get off because they weren’t going anywhere and one town was as good as the next.

The lieutenant and the prisoner remained pat.

Both their hands had been played.

Richard Kimble stared out the window at the passing landscape and saw only darkness.

Phillip Gerard stared ahead of him seeing only nondescript faces.

Their wondering, for the moment, suspended, like the ace of spades in a deck of Tarot cards.

It is likely neither knew that card, traditionally interpreted to mean death when read by amateurs, actually signified radical change.

Either bad or good.

A gentle nudge. Gerard refocused on the world around him; a world he had never left.

Cigarette.

    Reaching into an inside pocket, for the breast pocket of his suit held his reading glasses, he removed a pack and offered it. Kimble accepted it for what it was worth and waited while Gerard struck a match. For a brief second the flame illuminated the darkness then died back. The prisoner leaned forward, touched the cigarette to the fire, lit the end, drew in smoke.

It might have been, if either had been reflective, the last act of sympathy for the condemned. Before the blindfold was placed over the eyes and the firing squad ordered to stand ready.

And then, the mighty hand of Fate came into play. The sudden jolt as train wheels came off the track. The squeal of brakes, too late to avert a tragedy. One car, or two or six listing to the side. The cessation of speed. Two men, or half a dozen or six dozen men and women thrown from their seats.

It was then the screaming began. High-pitched and plaintive; frightened and in pain.

The Grim Reaper had come calling. Prematurely.

Richard Kimble struck the seat in front of them; Phillip Gerard heaved to his left. The links of the handcuffs that bound them stretched to full length but did not snap. The warden had tested them and found them good. The wrists of both men shed skin; intense hurt radiated up arms to shoulder blades.

Reprieve came in the form of agony.

The way a woman suffered in childbirth.

Gerard struck his head on the floor. A man or a woman or a two ton elephant stepped on him. Another foot caught him under the chin. The third, a spiked heel, caught him in the chest. Blackness encroached. The coppery taste of blood nearly choked him. He coughed, tried to move. His legs were pinned. Baggage had fallen from the overhead compartments.

A landslide with running figures.

The emergency lights went out.

The ringing in his ears sounded the way a death knell might.

A hand reached down, pulled him up. Back onto the seat.

“Help me.”

“I’ve pulled you out of harm’s way.”

Kimble.

Hands probing his body. The way a doctor might. To assess for damage.

Not this time. Searching for the key to the handcuffs. The realization was almost overwhelming. A cold horror shot through the detective’s body.

“No!”

A face close to his. He could feel the man’s breath on his blood-soaked face. Even in the pitch blackness he saw the whites of his eyes. Wild. Desperate.

But not startled.

He would remember that the longest day he lived. And beyond.

Richard Kimble, the wild, desperate, two-armed man found what he sought. He made no noise. No cry of triumph. He was beyond that point. One idea, transmitted in his eyes.

Escape.

Gerard’s wrist pulled forward. The car lurched again, sending one into the other. Huffs of expelled air. Another struggle, more determined. People’s cries louder, more insistent. From outside, the flicker of a lamp. Porters calling to one another.

“Be calm,” they called.

“Calm” was not the order of the night. “Hurry,” was a better word.

    The key, inserted into the wrist cuff. A twist and a lock snapping open. An arm dropped. A faint hiss: wrong arm. No matter.

Free.

Handcuffs dangling from his wrist, Kimble shoved the wounded Gerard toward the window. He grabbed for him and the key fell out of the prisoner’s hand. No point worrying. Freeing the other wrist would come later.

If he were lucky.

“Kimble.” One second. Two. “I’ll come after you. You won’t get away. I’ll never stop looking.”

“I’ll see you in hell, Gerard.”

Gone.

Into the maelstrom. Left hand in his pocket. Just another disoriented passenger. No one had noticed the prisoner; only the porters. And they were busy with their lanterns. Helping those who could move escape through the windows.

Gerard watched Kimble go and he knew the ploy had worked too well.

Like Donna Taft, he had lost his prisoner. She had been done in by a call to dinner. He had been bested by a Higher Order. Different means, same result.

Hell was around the bend and many years down the line.

Link to Chapter 9