the Onion Field (1973) (48 page)

Three days later, it was a haggard nervous Jimmy Smith who knew what he had to do and who offered his old partner a cigarette during exercise. And he smiled at his old partner and made a self- effacing joke. And at the end, just before returning to their cells, put his hand on his partner's arm, something he had never done, and looked in his eyes, and said friendly things. And the next few days, he sat with his partner and flattered him and touched him often. He took his partner away from the others and talked privately with him, whispered many things, letting his lips touch the ear of his partner.

Several weeks later, the following entry was made in the prison records:

April 20, 1965: Jimmy L. Smith pleaded guilty to possessing pitcher of home brew in violation of Prison Rule D 1205 concerning contraband. Also found guilty of committing oral copulation on Gregory U. Powell in violation of Prison Rule D 1206 concerning immorality. Sentenced to 10 days isolation.

The changes in both men were reflected in prison disciplinary records. Greg's behavior improved. In fact until an escape attempt in 1967, there would be no more minor troublesome prison violations on the record of Gregory Powell. Though the plans for escape never ceased, the other irritations seemed to have vanished. Greg had sexual contact with many inmates in San Quentin, both in the Adjustment Center and on the row itself. But this was different. It was the final utter submission of the recalcitrant member of his former "family."

Jimmy's behavior deteriorated, became sex-oriented, erratic.

September 14, 1965: Smith attempted to engage other prisoner in homosexual practices, necessitating moving the other prisoner to a new cell.

September 18, 1965: Subject accused other prisoner of snitching and was attempting to have others join him in a mass rape of this prisoner.

October 12, 1965: Smith provoked a fight between two other inmates.

October 14, 1965: Smith talked about suicide for the last two days.

Is not only a compulsive prevaricator, but is quite unable to accept responsibility for creating his own difficulties.

Jimmy Smith had at last surrendered, yielded utterly. The last overture was made to Gregory Powell. He was literally on his knees -abject, humbled, degraded. He didn't want to die.

Chapter
13

Once he was driving for the chief of police, spending in-between hours answering telephones, cutting newspaper clippings which might interest Chief Parker, doing the perfunctory public relations tasks required of the chief's driver, he thought for sure the dreams would go away. They did not. They started to come almost every night.

Karl Hettinger was not a man of great imagination. His dreams were more literal than symbolic. They had a beginning, a middle and an end. They started at the intersection of Carlos and Gower in Hollywood and continued with him caught screaming on barbed wire, ripping free only to run in slow motion through an onion field, finally hunched over in the front of an ambulance looking back at Ian on the stretcher. When the dreams first started, he would always look back with great hope unable to see the bloody holes torn in Ian's chest. He would see only the blood streaming from his mouth down his cheeks into his ears, filling the ears, and spilling out onto the crisp white stretcher sheets. As he got accustomed to the dream he never looked back with hope at his partner. Though he couldn't see the bubbling holes, he knew Ian was dead. There was never any hope in the later dreams.

The intensity of the dreams did not abate. Helen, after the first few months, was becoming accustomed to the thrashing and sweating and whimpering in the night.

"Why don't you go to a doctor about these dreams, Karl," she would plead.
"It's nothing, Helen. What can a doctor do? I just had a shocking experience and I'll get over it. It's not so bad now."

"That's not true, Karl. They're coming more often now."

"No, they're not. I should know, shouldn't I?"

And Karl would set his jaw and press his lips and Helen knew it was over. He wouldn't argue, he just stubbornly resisted, saying it would work out.

It was a blessing to work for the chief of police, though he hated being indoors so much. But at least it wasn't strenuous. His body was unaccustomed to functioning with half a night's sleep. Before Ian Campbell was killed he had slept long and deeply. Fatigue often set in early in the afternoons these days.

And he liked, or perhaps loved, the chief himself. William H. Parker was unlike any man Karl had known. He was eloquent, outspoken, perhaps the best educated and best read of any chief in Los Angeles history. The chief was married but childless, totally committed to his duties. He obviously liked his driver, would take him into his confidence telling him things that even his closest colleagues were never told. The chief was said to be a good judge of men and seemed to sense that his serious and silent young driver would never betray a confidence. He was right.

The chief also seemed to sense that perhaps Karl Hettinger felt patronized for being there. So often the chief's conversations subtly veered in that direction, and he would say things to reassure his driver and tell him what a splendid bodyguard and companion he was. The chief would become angry when he overheard insensitive policemen questioning Karl about the Campbell murder, or the recent trial. He saw that it still caused the young officer some anxiety to talk about it.

The chief's kindness was rewarded by zealous loyalty. His new driver felt a compulsion about protecting the chief and even though Parker would tell his staff to remain at their desks when he took one of his frequent walks to City Hall, there would be a figure behind him, following unnoticed at a discreet distance-a slender figure in a suit which was too big, a young man with close-cut strawberry- blond hair, and blue eyes which were darkening and sinking.

Helen Hettinger deeply regretted she had not married Karl sooner than she had. She had not known him well enough before the killing to gauge how much the event had changed him. There were some changes however which were very obvious.

"Karl, you just ran through another red light!" she would say. "I did?"

"Karl, what's happening to you? That's the second time today you did that."

"Are you sure the light was red?"

"It was red, Karl. You used to be the most cautious driver in town. What's happened to you, lately?"

"Are you sure it was red?"

Karl Hettinger was given an annual physical examination. It was the same examination as always. The doctor asked him if he had any medical problems, the patient answered that he had not. The patient gave his blood and urine specimens to the lab technician, had a chest X ray, an eye examination, was measured and weighed and released. Nothing unusual was noted or reported except that one nurse took his folder from the examining room and saw something which caught her eye. The patient had lost twenty pounds.

"Think I'll ask this officer for his diet," she said.

"How's that?" the other nurse asked.

"This officer's lost twenty pounds." Then she began comparing the new physical with the last one. "That's funny. He's an inch shorter. He's barely five feet nine now. What the hell kind of diet is that?"

"Let's see," said the other nurse going through his folder.

"His vision. It went from 20/20 and 20/30 to 20/40 and 20/40. What's going on here?"

"Look, honey," said the older nurse, nodding toward the far examination room. "When you know who examines them you can't tell what he'll write down."

"Karl H.," read the first nurse on the label and opened the file to find the patient's last name. "I wonder if the H is for Houdini?"

"Why do you say that?"

"He's lost twenty pounds. He's going blind. He's shrunk an inch! This guy's pulling a disappearing act."

On his next physical the patient's sight returned to 20/20 and 20/30 just as it had been before. However the weight did not return. Nor did the inch of stature. No one took official notice of the metamorphosis, and the patient would be the last one to ever mention it.

On the thirtieth of August, 1964, just one day after the thirtieth birthday of Gregory Powell, just nine days after what would have been the thirty-third birthday of Ian Campbell, a son was born to Karl and Helen Hettinger. They called him Kurt, and Karl began to dream of taking his son on camping trips and teaching him to fish and play baseball, and spending hours talking to him. He wished for his son, without knowing it, all the things which had been absent in his own boyhood.

"How about some Mexican food, Karl?" his wife said when she recovered from the childbirth and was anxious to get out of the house.

"Oh, I'd rather not."

"Well how about Italian food?"

"Oh, I can get some and bring it home, I guess.".

"You used to love Mexican and Italian food when I first married you."

"I still do, Moms."

"But you used to really eat. Now you just eat enough to live."

"Let's not start that again, please, Helen."

"I hate to be a nagging wife, but I think there's something very wrong with you."

"There's nothing wrong. I'm just getting a little tired of working in the chief's office and listening to all these questions about the murder. All these policemen that work in these office jobs love to hear about all the exciting police work they're not in on. But they won't go out in the street and do it. It might spoil their chances to butter up to the brass and get promoted."

"Well whadda you know? You actually got a little mad for a minute. That does my heart good. Why don't you get mad at me sometime? Why don't you swear at me?"

"Why should I get mad at you, Moms?" said Karl smiling into the hazel eyes of his young wife, who at twenty-two seemed to him more mature and infinitely stronger than he. These days he doubted his strength.

"We never talk. Really talk about things."

"What things?"

"You know. About things that bother you. The things you think about. About the dreams, maybe."

"The dreams aren't coming so often anymore." Karl sighed. "I told you that."

"I sleep with you. Don't tell me."

"I'm thinking about going to the Detective Bureau. Chief Brown himself asked me to transfer into his bureau. I'll bet when I get out of this chauffeur job and start doing police work again I'll be a new man."

"Why don't you stay in the chief's office? You're almost thirty years old. You've had enough cops and robbers. Stay inside."

"There's nothing to worry about, Moms," said Karl. "Tell you what. Let's plan a camping trip now that you're on your feet again. We haven't been for a while."

Karl transferred to the Detective Bureau, but the dreams didn't vanish as he had predicted. The little nagging pains got worse, especially the one at the base of his skull. No one ever knew how bad it sometimes got.

"How about telling me the truth, Karl?" Helen said one night after dinner. "You're not too crazy about the detective work, are you?"

"I like it okay. Only . . ."

"Yes? Tell me, Karl."

"Well, sometimes the older ones say things. Like . . ."

"Yes?"

"Like they resent me because I drove for the chief and got brought into the bureau because of it. And maybe like they think . . ."

"Go on."

"Like they think I shoulda done more... you know... like about the . . . about when Ian was killed."

"That's ridiculous!" said Helen angrily.

"Well, they send people ... they send everybody to the academy for in-service training, you know, and they teach it there. They teach what policemen should do. They teach that I never shoulda given up my gun and they tell things you should do that I didn't do."

"Go on."

"Well, that's it. I don't know. I think I'm gonna like the pickpocket detail. My partner's one of the slickest old guys in the business. He knows every pickpocket in L. A. I think I'm gonna like that job. You know what we need? A camping trip. Some fishing."

There were hushed conversations around the fires during those fishing trips. They usually went with the Cannells and the Jameses, and sometimes the Howards would join them. It was a closely knit police group. The husbands had worked patrol together and were all outdoorsmen. Jim Cannell was the implicit leader. He was not only a fisherman, but a hunter, a hiker, and a camper, who worked harder at it all than the others. He talked incessantly with few pauses in the stream of words. One of them said if you would transcribe Jim Cannell's talk you'd never find a period. He usually dominated the conversations and the others winked and let him. Karl enjoyed listening to his friend.

This night, however, Jim Cannell was not entertaining in his usual booming voice. The talk was low and quiet, and Karl and Helen were walking out in the darkness by Lake Isabella and did not hear it.

"My idea of a fun day used to be to go fishing with Karl Hettinger," Cannell was whispering to Stew James and his wife, Donna. "I mean it's unreal."

"What's unreal?" asked Cannell's wife, Jo.

"The change in him. Look at him. How stooped he walks."

"He used to walk superstraight." Stew James nodded. James had blond thinning hair and was known as the worrier of the group. Cannell always said he would get bald from worrying.