The Case of the Crime King

Chapter 5

9:02 p.m. Frank, Joe LaMonica, and I met Andy at the place he had designated. We had each come in a separate car, and now we left two cars parked there and doubled up. Frank rode with me in my Ford, LaMonica with Andy.

Andy led the way up Seventh to the west edge of the park, turned left and turned left again at Eighth. Halfway down the block he parked in front of an apartment building. When I pulled in behind him and cut my motor and lights, Andy came back and leaned in the driver’s-side window.

“This doesn’t have to be a fancy stakeout,” he said. “They shouldn’t be expecting anything. We’ll just wait till they walk out, then move in for the arrest.”

“Which apartment is it?” I asked.

“Second-floor right front. With the drawn shades. They must be home, because the lights are on. They’ll be coming out that door.” Andy pointed to the street entrance to the apartment house.

Frank and I glanced that way. Frank said, “The place is rented by some woman?”

“Strife’s girlfriend,” Andy said. “My stoolie didn’t know any more about her, except her first name. Marie.”

I said, “Why don’t we go in and get them instead of waiting out here?”

“Easier this way. My informer says the two guys start out on the town about ten every night. Sometimes alone, sometimes with the woman. Better to catch them in the open than go in and maybe have to break down a door.”

He went back to his own car. Frank and I settled back, lit cigarettes, and waited.

Fifty-five minutes and three cigarettes later, Frank said in a soft voice, “Joe.”

“Yeah?” I said.

“Their lights just went out.”

I leaned over him to peer out his side of the car and saw that, as he said, the windows of the second-floor right front apartment were now dark. I flicked my lights on and off once to alert the other car, got the momentary flash of red taillights in acknowledgment. Both Frank and I tossed our cigarettes away.

The apartment-house street-entrance door opened, and three people stepped out. Even in the darkness it was pretty certain that two of them were our suspects. Their silhouettes against the lighted entranceway showed that one was huge, the other short and slightly built. A woman was between them.

Frank and I slid from the car on either side. After a quick sidewise glance to make sure Andy and LaMonica were following suit, we moved in rapidly.

The four of us had the suspects boxed from both sides before they knew what was happening. The woman’s mouth popped open when she saw our four guns.

“Police officers,” I said. “Throw up your hands.”

The woman was a dyed blonde of about thirty. Her arms shot high overhead instantly. The two men responded more slowly, raising their hands with sullen deliberation, and raising them only to shoulder height.

Big Julie was to the woman’s left, which made him Frank’s and mine. I could see why James Dehelvey, even before he had been frightened out of testifying, had been unable to identify his picture. The features were the same, but the expression was totally different than in the mugg shot. He had a calm, intelligent face. You might have taken him for a banker or college professor. It was hard to imagine him, even drunk, senselessly beating up two complete strangers.

Putting away his gun, Frank moved in to give Big Julie a shakedown while I kept him covered. From the corner of my vision I was conscious that LaMonica was shaking down the other suspect while Andy kept him covered. LaMonica moved faster than Frank. He had captured a .38 revolver from beneath Harry Strite’s arm and was cuffing the suspect’s hands behind him before Frank reached for Big Julie’s armpit.

Frank lifted a .45 automatic from Big Julie’s shoulder holster and stuck it in his pocket. Then he stooped to check for leg weapons.

Julie’s big hands flashed down, grabbed Frank by both shoulders, and hurled him at me.

The sudden move caught us all flat-footed. Andy had put away his gun and was leading Harry Strite to the car. LaMonica was checking the woman’s purse for weapons. Frank’s body, lifted entirely off the ground by the big man’s powerful heave, smashed into me and knocked me down. My gun flew a half dozen feet away.

LaMonica moved first. Dropping the purse, he made a flying leap at Big Julie and grabbed his right arm with both hands just as the suspect made a break for the street. This didn’t stop him, but it slowed him enough for Andy to get there and put a clamp on his other arm.

Frank and I made our feet just as Big Julie swung his arms together. The two men clinging to him crashed into each other. Both emitted grunts but managed to keep their grips. Then I had a grip on the suspect’s right wrist and Frank had his left.

The next few seconds left no doubt in my mind that Big Julie was more than a match for any alligator. He had all four of us flopping around like rag dolls. Then LaMonica’s shoulder caught my chin with a jolt that broke my grip and drove me backward with my ears buzzing. Big Julie took several ponderous steps toward the street, dragging the other three officers right along with him.

I abandoned wrestling in favor of a tried-and-tested standard police hold. Shaking the cobwebs from my brain, I moved in behind the suspect. I stooped to grab both ankles and simultaneously butted him in the back with my shoulder.

Big Julie dropped on his face like a falling timber, dragging everybody with him.

It was all over then. LaMonica whipped the man’s right arm behind his back, Andy forced his left backward, and I snapped on the cuffs.

Frank said, “Ugh!”

It wasn’t until he grunted that I realized Frank had ended up beneath Big Julie’s two hundred and fifty pounds. When we pulled Julie to his feet, Frank lay there for a moment before painfully rising. He felt of his various joints and let out a sigh.

“Guess it just knocked the wind out of me,” he decided. “Thought I heard bones snapping all over my body.”

The woman was still standing where she had been when all the action had started. My gun had landed right at her feet, but she’d been too scared to notice it. I picked it up and put it away.

Andy and LaMonica were hustling Big Julie toward Andy’s car. I looked around.

“Hey!” I said to Frank. “Where’s Strite?”

Apparently the woman thought I was speaking to her. In a scared voice she said, “He ran back inside.”

Five minutes later we found him cowering in the back of a closet in the apartment, his hands still cuffed behind him.

With the woman’s permission we gave the apartment a thorough shakedown. In a shoebox on a closet shelf we found $2,660 in currency. The woman insisted it was hers. We suspected it was the remaining part of the loot from the market holdup.

We marked the box and took it along as evidence.

10:41 p.m. We drove the suspects to the Police Building. We took them to the Homicide squad room for questioning, because it was quieter there than in Robbery.

Frank and LaMonica uncuffed the two men, and I pointed to chairs in a corner. They sat and began rubbing their wrists. I pointed to another chair and said to the woman, “Want to sit down, ma’am?”

She gave me a frightened look, then moved the chair close to Harry Strite, as though seeking the little man’s protection, and seated herself.

“Let’s do this fast and get it over with,” I said to the two men. “We’ve got six makes on you, so you haven’t got a chance of beating either rap. Want to tell us about it?”

“Six makes for what?” Harry Strite asked.

“We’ll start with assault and battery and work up to armed robbery later,” I said. “How about it?”

Big Julie delicately patted a yawn. “I don’t recall committing any such crimes. Do you, Harry?”

Harry gave him a cocksure grin. “They must be talking about two other guys.”

Andy said, “Knock it off, boys. You’re made all along the line. We don’t want to drag this out all night.”

Big Julie grinned. “Why not? I have no other plans.” Frank said to me, “Let’s break this up and try them separately.”

“Think that will accomplish anything?” Big Julie asked.

I said, “We don’t know, mister. We’ll try it and see.”

“Suit yourself,” Martin said with a shrug. “But I’ll make you a bet, Officer.”

“Yeah?”

“First, do you mind telling us precisely what we’re suspected of?”

LaMonica said, “The lieutenant already told you.”

“Just the genera of the crimes, not the species.”

“Huh?” LaMonica said.

Harry Strite gave his big partner an admiring look. “He talks like that all the time,” he told us. “Better get some educated cops in here if you want to understand him.”

I said, “We understand you both. You better start understanding us, mister.”

Big Julie said, “I merely asked what specific crimes were suspected of. Where and when?”

“We’ll spell it out,” I said. “Last Sunday night you knocked over Dehelvey’s Supermarket on Sunset. The next night you got in a drunken barroom fight and put two men in the hospital. Got alibis for around midnight either night?”

“You must be confused, Lieutenant,” Martin said. “Supermarkets aren’t open on Sunday.”

I turned to Andy. “Frank and I will take the big guy over to Robbery. You can work on his partner here. Better break him and his woman friend up, too.”

“Don’t you want to hear what the bet is, Lieutenant?” Big Julie asked.

“Not particularly. Let’s go.”

“I’ll tell you anyway. You’ll never convict us on either count. Ten to one.”

I looked at him. “If you did it, we will, mister.”

He gave his head a slow shake. “Not even if we did it, Lieutenant.”

Andy stepped in fast. He said, “You knocked over Dehelvey’s and beat those guys up, huh? But you’re too smart to get rapped for it.”

Big Julie gave him a sunny smile. “You’re half right, Officer. I’m too smart to get rapped. Particularly by trick questions.”

None of us missed the personal pronoun he used. He hadn’t said, “We’re too smart.” He’d said, “I’m too smart.” His tone relegated his smaller partner to the position of follower. Big Julie was the self-appointed boss of the pair.

Harry Strite didn’t seem to mind. There was nothing but admiration in the grin he gave Big Julie.

Frank said, “A master criminal, huh?”

“Well, I’ll tell you,” the big man said in a patronizing tone. “If I were a criminal, I’d be what you refer to in your pedestrian way as a master criminal. You and your whole department would never make me even on a misdemeanor.” He smiled at Frank. “Just happens I haven’t committed any crimes.”

Frank and I exchanged glances. We don’t mind suspects bragging. San Quentin is full of people who had no intention of confessing but couldn’t resist telling interrogating officers how smart they were. And ended up describing their crimes in detail to prove their smartness.

I said, “On your feet, Martin. We’re going over next door.”

As it turned out, separating the suspects accomplished nothing. After we took him across the hall to the Robbery squad room, Big Julie’s ego continued to show. But he was careful to make no damaging admissions. He denied any knowledge of the money found in the flat. He also denied any connection with either the robbery or the assault, but managed the denials in such a way that they were dares rather than protestations of innocence. In effect he was saying, “Sure, I’m guilty. But prove it.”

After a time we realized he was actually enjoying the situation. He seemed to get some kind of peculiar kick out of matching wits with the police. It became more and more apparent that he really regarded himself as a master criminal.

He was smart in a twisted sort of way. We tried pampering his ego, we tried throwing evidence at him, we tried every trick in the book. Over and over he would pretend to rise to the bait, then neatly sidestep and grin with enjoyment at his own cleverness.

Eventually I said to Frank, “Let’s knock it off. We’ll make him at the show-up.”

Andy and LaMonica had done no better with Harry Strite, it turned out. As soon as he had been separated from his partner, he had clammed up and refused to answer any questions at all. In his way, he was playing it smart, too. Strite knew that without Big Julie present to guide him, he was no match for his questioners, and that his best defense was silence.

We took the two male suspects down to the Felony Section and booked them on carrying concealed weapons, suspicion of robbery, and suspicion of assault and battery. Then we went to work on the woman.

The woman identified herself as Mrs. Marie Winters, divorced. She admitted harboring the suspects, but insisted she had no knowledge of their criminal activities. She said she was engaged to marry Harry Strite.

R & I had no package on her. As we could not shake her story, she was released from custody.

We informed her that if the money found in her apartment was not established as holdup loot, it would be returned to her. But that meantime it would have to be held as evidence.