The Case of the Courteous Killer

Chapter XXV

For a breath-taking instant I thought it was the suspect gazing at me. Then I saw that it was a slim, dark-haired lad of about twenty. Undoubtedly David Grommick’s son, Pete.

My relief didn’t last long, though. In the room behind him, another figure approached the window. And this time there was no doubt. It was George Whiteman, without glasses and with his hair darkened, but unquestionably the Courteous Killer. He was carrying the cut-down carbine in the crook of his arm.

He would have been an easy pistol shot if either Frank or I had been in a position to draw a pistol. Unfortunately it took both hands to cling to the cliff wall. There was nothing to do but remain motionless and hope the boy would have sense enough to divert the suspect’s attention.

I heard Whiteman’s voice growl, “What the devil you looking at out there?” His face appeared over the youth’s shoulder.

In a slightly high voice, Pete Grommick said, “A car just arrived down there.” He pointed down toward the road. “Maybe it’s that official they’re waiting for.”

George Whiteman’s gaze followed the pointing finger. If he had glanced upward, he couldn’t have missed us. After an interminable moment he said, “Which one? There’s a million cars down there.”

“It pulled beyond where you can see from here,” the boy said. “You can probably see it from the front windows.” Without waiting for the suspect’s response, he turned from the window and moved toward the front of the house, disappearing from view. Whiteman gazed downward an instant longer, then followed the boy.

Suppressing a sigh of relief, I moved onward again. This time I deliberately kept my eyes straight ahead, avoiding the sight of the side windows. This was an ostrich-like defense, perhaps, but I couldn’t help it. So close to our goal, I had no intention of stopping again even if the suspect leaned out the window and yelled at us. I wanted the ordeal over, one way or the other.

Abruptly I realized I was in the full glare of a spotlight. My first reaction was a sense of outrage that somebody down below had blundered by swinging a spotlight beam on us. Then I glanced down and got a pleasant shock. The spot hadn’t moved at all. I had simply moved into its beam. I was directly over the roof, safe from the view of anyone in the house.

Carefully I worked my way downward the dozen feet to the roof peak. A moment later Frank joined me.

“Whew!” he said. “I never felt so good in my life.”

From immediately below us, George Whiteman yelled, “Okay, cops! I know Chief Brown’s down there now. His car just pulled up. How about it?”

When there was no immediate answer from below, Whiteman yelled, “I’m tired of waiting. We’re coming down. Either get out of the way, or two more people will be dead!”

I walked to the front edge of the roof and waved down into the glaring lights. At the signal, Captain Hertel’s voice came over the amplifier: “You win, Whiteman. Don’t harm your hostages. You can drive out.”

Behind me Frank whispered, “Where do we go in?”

“At the garage,” I told him in a low voice. “He has to go there for the car.”

I catfooted down the sloping roof to the edge where, from down below, we had seen the open doors of the double garage. Slipping the loop of rope from my shoulder, I noosed one end around a metal air vent protruding from the roof and let the other slither to the ground at the side of the house between two upstairs windows. There were no lower-floor windows at that point, because the lower wall was the side of the garage.

When I slid down the rope, I was standing alongside the garage. Frank followed right behind me. We stepped around the corner and into the garage by its open front doors.

There were two cars in the garage, a Cadillac convertible and a Lincoln sedan. The interior light wasn’t on, and the angle was such that no spotlight beam could probe through the open doors from below. However, there was sufficient reflected glow from outdoors to light the place dimly. It was enough for us to make out the door in one wall that led into the house.

We drew our guns and flattened ourselves against the wall on either side of the door.

Probably no more than a minute passed, but it seemed to drag on forever. Then the garage light flashed on, and the door between us opened inward.

A middle-aged, gray-haired, gray-faced woman in an evening gown stumbled into the garage. She was in such a state of hopeless terror, she didn’t look to right or left. With a zombie-like walk she made straight for the Lincoln sedan and started to open the rear door.

Behind her came the young man we had seen standing in the upper window. His pale face was the only indication of his fright. He must have suspected, or at least hoped, that we were planted either side of the door. But he didn’t let his gaze stray either way a fraction of an inch. Eyes straight ahead, he walked steadily to the front door of the sedan.

Crowding behind the two with his carbine leveled came George Whiteman.

I didn’t bother to say anything. He’d been given enough chances to obey a challenge. Reaching out with one hand, I jerked the muzzle of the carbine upward. With the other I brought my gun barrel down on his right wrist with the force of a striking meat ax.

Whiteman let out a yell and jerked backward through the door he had just entered, leaving the carbine in my hand. Frank went through the door after him in a diving tackle. As I dropped the carbine, I was conscious from the corner of my vision that Mrs. Grommick was toppling into her son’s arms in a dead faint. Then I was jumping through the door, too.

George Whiteman was flat on his stomach on the kitchen floor. Frank, with a knee in his back, had Whiteman’s undamaged left arm twisted up behind his back. The muzzle of Frank’s gun touched the suspect just behind the right ear.

“Make one wiggle, mister,” Frank said. “Just make one wiggle.”

George Whiteman began to curse in a steady, monotonous voice. But he didn’t make a wiggle.

1:15 a.m. The Grommick family had recovered from its ordeal, and was in an almost hysterical mood to celebrate its deliverance. David Grommick was all for breaking out his liquor supply and inviting every officer at the scene to a party. Captain Hertel’s declining of the invitation was a masterpiece of tact.

George Whiteman’s right wrist was so badly broken that his hand dangled from it like an empty sock. A stand-by ambulance was already at the scene. The attendant put a first-aid splint on it and rigged him a temporary sling until he could be gotten to Central Receiving for treatment.

Frank and I drew the privilege of riding in the ambulance with the suspect.

Aside from the string of curses he had uttered when Frank tackled him, George Whiteman had not uttered a word until we turned onto the freeway. Then he looked at me sullenly and said, “You’re the luckiest guy alive, Friday.”

“Yeah?” I said.

“Just because you’re alive.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don’t make many mistakes,” he said. “Most guys would be dead the first time I tried. I tried you twice and goofed both times. Think that’s not lucky?”

I said, “Maybe you’re just a natural-born goofer.”

He gave me a cold look. “You know better than that, Friday. I gave you more trouble than anybody you ever been up against. You got to admit that.”

I grunted.

“You got to admit I’ve been pretty smart,” he insisted. “I made every cop in the country look like a dunce.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Well, didn’t I? Look what I was up against. My face known to every cop everywhere. Five grand on my head. And I walked right past every one of you. Talk about dumb. You cops made so many mistakes, I used to lie in bed at night laughing about it.”

“Still laughing?” I asked.

Approaching headlights lighted the interior of the ambulance enough for me to see that his face was growing a little red. “So you finally got me,” he spat out. “Look how long it took you. You even had to catch me twice before I was through. You got to admit you made plenty of mistakes.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Lots of them.”

“I outsmarted you all along the way.”

“Not quite,” I said. “Not this time.”

He lapsed into sullen silence. After a moment I said, “One thing you forget to figure.”

He gave me a sidewise glance. “What?”

“The odds against you.”

“You mean because there’s thousands of cops and only one of me?”

I shook my head. “Not just that.”

“What, then?”

“Even if we were as dumb as you think. Even if we made hundreds of mistakes, the odds were still against you.”

“How you figure that?”

I said, “We only had to be right once.”

The story you have just read was based upon official files of the Los Angeles Police Department. Technical advice came from the office of Los Angeles Chief of Police William H. Parker. The names of all persons except members of the Los Angeles Police Department were changed to protect the innocent. In a public statement clearing the innocent George Whiteman of all stigma, the district attorney of Los Angeles County stated that the remarkable coincidence of the suspect and his innocent double having the same name and birthplace was believed to be without parallel in police history.

On January 7th trial was held in Department 92, Superior Court of the State of California, in and for the County of Los Angeles. The suspect was tried and convicted of murder in the first degree without recommendation for life imprisonment, a mandatory death penalty. He was sentenced to be put to death by the administration of a lethal gas.

At the automatically accorded hearing before the State Appellate Court, the date of execution was set for September 4th.

George Clarence Whiteman was executed in the lethal gas chamber at California State Prison, San Quentin, California, on September 4th.