the Onion Field (1973) (26 page)

Down the road slowly it came, the same car which he had watched go north on the dirt road from the place where the officer had come. The same car which had gone west on the highway and had turned south down the other dirt road between them and the Opal Fry ranch. And now it was coming back south between Emmanuel and the ranch. Between Emmanuel and Karl. Between Emmanuel and safety. It was coming very slowly.

He knew he would die there alone. He who had done nothing. All alone like the fallen angel. And he knew he could not rise when it got near enough to hear the tires brutally grind on the hard surface earth. The fear had destroyed his will to rise, and he lay there waiting for it to stop. For the killer to see him and come forward with an implacable somber death step.

But the driver did not look to his right. Did not see the lonely figure huddling in the furrows, whimpering now because he was so alone. It kept going to the highway, and though Emmanuel McFadden and Karl Hettinger were still linked by their chain of need, Jimmy Smith and Gregory Powell were not. Jimmy Smith was now to sever that chain. But it was only a temporary break.

"I got a chance!" Jimmy Smith blurted as he sped east on the Maricopa Highway. "I got a chance!"

The little Ford was doing ninety and Jimmy had to slam on the brakes when he reached Highway 99 and a decision. Los Angeles would be dangerous, there was the long drive over the Grapevine. The cop probably had reached a farmhouse by now and was already calling for help. They'd be watching 99. But maybe Powell killed the second cop. No, Powell didn't kill him. Powell was too stupid to make anything right once he screwed it up as bad as this. The Grapevine was out. So where? Where? And then he thought of the "hideout," the cold car, Powell's station wagon. He drove toward Bakersfield.

En route he thought that maybe Powell will get himself killed.

Sure, why not? The cop'll make his call and in fifteen minutes there'll be squad cars crawlin over every inch of that miserable farmland. Powell is nuts. He might try to shoot his way out. Sure.

Or maybe Powell will try to give himself up and the cops might shoot him anyway. Sure. Yeah. The fuckin cops'll be ready to kill anybody over this. Yeah. And maybe they'll just go ahead and dust him anyway. And then I made it for sure. That other cop won't know nothin about me. How could he? He knows I'm called Jimmy, that's all. And I kept my hat on and my mouth shut most of the time so he won't even know what race I am. "I got a chance, baby, a hell of a chance!"

At that moment Karl Hettinger was banging on the door of the remote farmhouse with the shake roof and wood siding and grassy lawns. He was looking out into the darkness, ready to leap over the porch railing if he should see, hear, sense something out there in the dark. Then a light went on and the door opened and he was in the house of Jack Fry and the words were tumbling out. The stubby little rancher with the tousled red hair was blinking sleepily, and the ordinarily merry blue eyes were out of focus as he scratched his cheek and nodded, gradually coming awake as the young man talked. A sense of urgency and danger awakened him completely then, and he ran his hands around his suntanned lower face and over the high white forehead usually covered by a wide-brimmed hat. His wife and teenage son were standing there looking frightened and Jack Fry wondered about himself for letting a stranger in the house. But now it was all clear to him, all of it, and he said, "I'll get my guns. You go ahead and make your call."

At last, for the first time in three hours of terror, Karl Hettinger knew he was safe. He looked at the boy and the woman, and he realized how he must look to them with his pants half torn off, and the mud and blood caked on his face. He saw a cold half-empty cup of coffee on the table and he lunged for it and drank it down without thinking. It was a purely physical gesture, the crying out of a dehydrated body for moisture. The woman understood and went to work efficiently. She sat him down, got him water, and urged him to sip it. She made coffee and gave him a towel. Karl looked at them, knowing they were real, they were farm people, his own kind. He was truly safe! Then }ack Fry, armed with a shotgun, and his boy, with a .22 rifle, were dimming the lights and pulling the shades. They were ready for the killers from the city. They were more than ready.

They heard a scraping then, followed by a timid knock at the door. Karl dumped coffee on the plate and Jack Fry crept to the door, gingerly opened it, and Emmanuel McFadden shouted, "Oh Lord!" and stared down the barrel of Jack Fry's gun.

"Good God!" said Karl. "Emmanuel! I almost forgot you!"

And Emmanuel McFadden stepped gratefully into the rancher's home.

Deputy Berg of the Kern County Sheriff's Office then received the most startling call of his career.

"Sheriff's Office, Berg," he said sleepily when he picked up the phone, and he heard Jack Fry say, "I have a Los Angeles policeman here. He's in trouble. His partner's been shot."

Deputy Berg became wide awake. "Where is this? Wait a second there." And he heard muffled voices.

"Hello," Karl said. "Is this the Sheriff's Office?"

"Yes. Yes it is."

"This is Officer Hettinger, L. A. P. D. We were kidnapped from Hollywood Division, and my partner's been shot. Can you put out a description on two guys?"

"Sure I can," said the excited deputy.

Karl gave what detectives later would admire as a remarkable description under the circumstances. After a drink and resting a moment, Karl was able to speak calmly and efficiently, when he once again assumed a policeman's role.

"Okay. They're driving a '41 Ford, maroon, Nevada plates. I don't know the number."

"I have a report of a stolen vehicle in that area, so they probably changed cars by now," the deputy said.

"All right. A male Caucasian, thirty-one, maybe younger. He's five nine, a hundred-fifty, light brown hair, blue eyes. He's wearing a dark leather jacket, waist length, dark pants. And his partner is a male Mexican, twenty-five, five ten, a hundred-fifty, black curly hair, brown eyes. He's wearing a brown leather jacket, waist length, dark trousers. They've got a .45 automatic and both of our .38 specials. Let's see, the Caucasian, he's got a light brown mole on his left earlobe. That's about it. They're talking about taking another car and going somewhere in this area, possibly northbound toward Fresno."

At last someone had noticed the mole Gregory Powell had drawn on his earlobe.

After giving the ranch location Karl said, "Will you call my people quick?"

"Sure can. But how badly is your partner hurt?"

"He's dead," said Karl. "My partner's dead."

While Gregory Powell shone the light around the fields and ran up and down, unwilling to get too far from the dirt road, it occurred to him that Jimmy should be out in front of him. The headlights should be out there somewhere working back toward him. Then he realized it-Jimmy was gone. He wasn't coming back. Gregory Powell was alone. He panicked and began running back south on the road, looking over his shoulder for Jimmy, listening for the little Ford, hearing only the moan of the wind.

He was alone, all alone. Except for Ian Campbell.

He put the .32 automatic in his pocket and he ran to the body, and began dragging it. Dragging the heavy body across the ground for no good reason. He came to the ditch and threw the body into it, down by the big silver gas pipe. If things had been different, they might have both been dumped into the ditch. And covered over. And soon the entire length would be dragged by bulldozers and no one would ever have found them. Not ever. But things were not going well for Gregory Powell. There were too many wrong turns. He spun around and began running. Running toward the Maricopa Highway. Away from the smell of onions.

At 12:40 a. M., Mrs. Billie Riddick was sitting up watching a late movie on television. She was a farm wife living in the settlement of homes at the Clifford Mettler ranch. She thought she heard her husband's car start up. She listened then and heard it a second time and went to the window. She saw that the Plymouth was being started. It moved, but the engine died. Mrs. Riddick went to the bedroom and woke her husband. He ran out the door in his underwear, but this was perhaps the luckiest night of his life. He was too late.

As Jimmy Smith pushed the coupe toward Bakersfield he was feeling better with each passing moment. What if Powell didn't get wasted by the cops? What if the snivelin little punk gave up? So what? He always brags about how he hates snitches, what he'd do to a fink. So maybe he'll keep his mouth shut. Maybe I'll really make it. . . .

Jimmy Smith, filled with hope, raced down the highway, actually convincing himself that the man he had abandoned in the onion field would not help the police identify him, would not inform on him. Then Jimmy saw that the gas gauge was on empty. He panicked, not wanting to run out of gas on the main road. He took a turnoff into the little town of Lamont, found what looked like a parking lot, and stopped Greg's hot rod.

Jimmy picked up Greg's trenchcoat and the guns from the floor of the car, wiping them, not leaving prints, and wrapped up the guns carefully, and shoved them under the seat, except for Karl Hettinger's gun, the only one which had not been fired. He took the paper bag from the glove compartment, found a ham sandwich and banana, and with the whiskey bottle in his pocket he was ready to hike.

Jimmy was walking quickly down the dark streets of the tiny town heading for the grape vineyard he'd passed a block away when a dog spotted him. Within minutes it seemed to Jimmy that every dog in town was barking at him and lights were going on, and Jimmy was running toward the vineyard. As he scrambled through the vineyard fence he dropped his package. He stopped to retrieve it and dropped his gun. When he picked up the gun he dropped the whiskey bottle. Then he sat down in the sandy soil of the vineyard and sobbed and cursed his luck, and his life, and mostly Gregory Powell. As he sat there sniffing, he wiped his eyes and began eating the overripe smashed banana and the sandwich, and wondering if Karl's gun would blow up in his face now that sand was in the barrel.

He took a drink of the whiskey but reminded himself that he needed a clear head so he poured out the whiskey, keeping the bottle in his pocket for water.

There was only one place to go, Bakersfield. So he began to walk, tripping over the vineyard wires every few feet. He had to bypass the farmhouses because of dogs, and now he was stumbling into muddy irrigation ditches in the darkness and soon Jimmy's pants were soaked and muddy to the knees. The new thirty-five dollar shoes weighed five pounds each. So Jimmy sat again and sobbed, and cursed Powell and took off the wet socks and marched on with bare feet in the muddy shoes.

Greg was pushing the red and white Plymouth as hard as it would go. He had to beat Jimmy to Los Angeles. He knew what that punk would do, go straight to L. A., pick up Max, and take the hundred and forty bucks she had. He had to get there in time. There would be a reckoning with Jimmy Youngblood. But he knew he could never make it in this stolen Plymouth. The farmer had probably reported it already. So he headed for the hideout. A change of clothes, switch to the station wagon, and he could drive to L. A. unmolested. It was almost 1:00 a. M. when he reached the hideout.

The first thing Greg thought of was a disguise. He decided to shave his head and started with the front at the hairline, but it was hard to shave the forehead there in the little room with his hands shaking from fear and frustration and rage at Jimmy Youngblood. Finally he threw the razor in the sink and changed clothes, discarding the leather jacket he knew the police would be looking for. In a few minutes he was ready to go and then it struck him-the keys! Christ, the keys! Max had the keys to the wagon in her purse!

Then Greg crumbled. Panic set in, and Gregory Powell, who had stolen two dozen cars in his lifetime, and who could have hotwired a car in a few minutes, did not think of it. Could not. Frantically he fumbled for a dime to use to remove the screws from the license plates of the station wagon to switch with the plates of the stolen Plymouth.

Finally he was ready. He had on a light jacket with the spare clip to the automatic in his shirt pocket, a half box of shells in his coat pocket, and the .32 automatic in his belt. But he threw the .32 automatic under the front seat of the Plymouth as he was driving away.

California highway patrolmen Odom and Crist were cruising US Highway 466 on the east side of Bakersfield when they heard the stolen car broadcast at twenty minutes before one. They automatically jotted down the information: 1957 Plymouth four-door, white over red, and the license EOB 940. Though Mettler Station was several miles from their beat, they began watching passing cars more closely, but there were few cars to watch at this hour. They were bored and getting close to the end of their shift and made small talk to stay awake.

Twenty minutes later the communications operator rebroadcast the information on the stolen Plymouth. This time more was added: "Above vehicle possibly occupied by two male suspects wanted for kidnapping and murder of a police officer."

The sergeant, anticipating the reaction of young aggressive officers, came on the air and ordered all units to remain on their beats. But officers Odom and Crist looked at each other and Crist said, "Screw the beat. Let's hump." Odom drove toward Highway 99, across the Taft Highway to the new freeway, and south. He drove one hundred and forty miles per hour.

At that moment Gregory Powell drove south through the night, passing the road to Weed Patch. There were cows on both sides of the highway, and dairy smell, followed by fields of truck crops.