Grass Roots (18 page)

Pittman, Keane, and Captain Meadows got into Pittman’s car to reconnoiter. They drove down Airport Road, but they couldn’t find number

400.

“Wait a minute,” Keane said, “I think it’s in that little shopping center there. Maybe we’ve got his address at work.”

Pittman drove into the center and circled the parking lot slowly.

“There you go,” said Meadows, pointing at a small shop.

“Number 400.”

A sign outside proclaimed that printing and passport photographs were available inside.

“Let’s have a look around back,” Meadows said.

Pittman drove back into Airport Road, then turned into an alley behind the shopping center. He drove slowly along the alley, checking numbers.

“There,” Keane said, pointing.

There was nothing but a back door and a small loading platform.

“I’ll place my van behind the dumpster, there,” Meadows said.

“I’d suggest you and Keane and the East Point guy go in the front door like customers. I’ll bring my men in through the back.”

“Sounds good,” Pittman said.

“That’ll give us a chance to get any customers out.”

They drove back to the gas station, where Meadows briefed his men, and Pittman explained things to Lieutenant Brown.

“You sure I won’t be in your way?” Brown said.

Chicken shit, thought Pittman.

“Tell you what, you back us up from outside, okay?”

“Okay,” Brown said, looking relieved.

Pittman walked over to Captain Meadows.

“Listen, maybe I should go in and ask for the guy. We got a lot of civilians around that store. I’d hate to see a lot of live ammo flying around there.”

“Take it from me,” Meadows said.

“Go in heavy, don’t take any chances with this guy. My people aren’t going to start shooting indiscriminately, and if they do shoot, they’ll hit what they aim at.”

Ten minutes later, they were all in place. Pittman parked his car a row away from the storefront, then picked up a handheld radio and punched in a frequency.

“Team leader?” he said.

“Read you loud and clear,” Meadows said.

“I need one minute to get my men in position. Stand by.”

“Roger,” Pittman said. He took out his service revolver and checked it. Keane and Brown did the same. Meadows came back on the radio.

“We’re in position.”

“Roger,” Pittman said.

“Don’t call me. I don’t want the radio going off in that shop while we’re waiting for the customers to leave. I’ll call it with one word ‘go’ okay?”

“Roger,” Meadows said, “you’ll call it with the word ‘go.”

“

“Keane and I are going in,” Pittman said.

The three men got out of the car. While Brown waited, using the car for cover, Pittman and Keane walked toward the front of the shop.

“I see one woman inside,” Pittman said.

“Right,” Keane replied.

“Let’s be sure, though.”

The two detectives walked into the shop. A tall, thin man behind the counter was waiting on an elderly woman.

“Be with you in a minute,” the man said to Pittman.

Pittman nodded and looked around. There was a sign identifying the shop as a pickup point for Federal Express and United Parcel Service, and a wall of mailboxes on the other side of the room.

“Thank you so much,” the woman said to the tall, thin man.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he replied.

“Come back to see us.”

The woman walked slowly past the policemen and out the door.

Pittman and Keane approached the counter. There was a blank wall behind the counterman, so they could not see into the next room.

“Hi,” said Keane to the tall, thin man, “I wonder if you could help me.”

Pittman turned away from the counter, took the handheld radio from his belt, and spoke into it.

“Go!” he said.

Immediately, there was a loud pounding from behind the wall—the back door was being knocked down. Pittman and Keane simultaneously produced badges and guns.

“Police! Freeze!” Pittman shouted, holding the pistol and the badge out in front of him.

The tall, thin man backed away from the counter, his hands out in front of him.

“Hey, now…” he was saying.

Pittman vaulted over the counter, spun the man around, and threw him against the wall. Then, signaling to Keane to cuff the man, he edged toward the end of the wall and executed a quick peep behind it, exposing himself to view as briefly as possible. The back room was full of SWAT policemen. Two store employees were braced against the walls, being searched. Pittman turned to Keane, who had the counterman handcuffed.

“It’s okay,” he said.

“Everybody’s nailed down.”

Pittman, followed by Keane and the counterman, walked into the back room.

“See your man?” Meadows asked.

Pittman looked at the two back-room employees, then at the counterman.

“This guy looks a little like him, but younger,” he said.

“All right,” he said, raising his voice, “where is Harold Ferkerson?”

“Huh?” the counterman said.

“What the hell is going on here? What do you mean, busting into my place of business?”

Pittman looked at the man and held up the photograph.

“We’re looking for this man. His name is Harold C. Ferkerson.

This is his address.”

“Yeah?” said the counterman scornfully.

“That name sounds familiar. Come here, I’ll show you.” His hands still cuffed behind his back, he walked over to where Pittman stood and nodded down a hallway.

“He lives right down there in one of those mailboxes,” the man said.

“Oh, shit,” Keane said mournfully.

“What’s your name?” Pittman said to the counterman.

“Robert Wickman,” the man said.

“I own this place.

Now, will you take these god damned handcuffs off me?

Then I’ll see if I can help you.”

Pittman nodded to Keane, who began unlocking the cuffs. Then he looked up and found himself staring into a television camera. chuck Pittman and Mickey Keane stood before their captain’s desk and sweated.

“A mail drop?” the captain demanded, incredulous.

“A fucking private postal box? That’s all it was?”

“Yes sir,” Pittman said.

“We had no way of knowing until we got there.”

“And Channel Six News got the whole thing?”

“Yes sir, I’m afraid so.”

“Are they going to run it?”

“Ah, I was hoping you’d speak to their news director, sir. If they run it and this guy Ferkerson sees it, or somebody who knows him sees it, then he’ll go to ground.”

“Jesus Christ,” the captain said in disgust. He picked up the telephone.

“I hate asking favors of press people,” he said, dialing a number.

Pittman and Keane stood and sweated some more while the captain pleaded his case with the TV newsman, alternately cajoling and demanding.

Finally, he hung up the phone.

“I’m going to owe that guy now,” he said to the two detectives, “and it’s your fucking fault. I’m going to remember that.”

“He won’t run the tape, then?” Pittman asked, hardly daring to believe it.

“Oh, you’re not that lucky, Pittman,” the captain said.

“He won’t run it on the noon news, but he’s running it at six. You’ve got till then to find Ferkerson.”

“We got a phone number from the guy we raided,” Pittman said.

“It’s outside the city; I’m having it run down now.”

“You be sure you’ve got local support before you go crashing in someplace,” the captain said.

“And for Christ’s sake, don’t take any TV people with you. Now get out of here.”

Pittman and Keane returned to their desks. Pittman sat down and called his telephone-company contact again, making notes. He hung up and turned to Keane.

“We got lucky. It’s a rural address, east of La Grange, in Meriwether County. Who’s the sheriff down there?”

“Dunno,” Keane said. He reached into a desk drawer and pulled out the Georgia Law Enforcement Directory.

“Clan Cox, it says here.” He read out the phone number.

Pittman called the number and asked for the sheriff.

“Clan Cox,” a deep voice said.

“Sheriff, this is Detective Sergeant Chuck Pittman of the Atlanta Police Department.”

“Morning, Sergeant, what can I do for you?” the sheriff drawled.

“I have to make an arrest in your county today, and I’d like your support.”

“What do you need?”

“As many men as you can spare.”

“Who’s your man?”

“One Harold C. Ferkerson. Know him?”

“Know him to see,” the sheriff said.

“What do you want him for?”

“Three counts of murder one.”

There was a brief silence, then Pittman heard the sheriff say to somebody in his office, “Says he wants that fellow Harold Ferkerson on three counts of murder one.” Then the sheriff spoke into the phone again.

“You sure about this?”

“I’ve got an eyewitness, made him from his army photograph.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Cox said.

“I wouldn’t have thought he was the type. War hero, they say.”

“Yeah, I had a look at his military record. That’s why I want everybody you can spare. This guy’s an expert with just about every weapon you can think of.”

“I think I can get three or four deputies together, if I call some in off duty.”

“Thanks, that’ll be good. Please don’t tell’em who we’re arresting.

I’ve already screwed up once today, and I want it nice and neat this time.”

“I understand. When you coming down here?”

“How about we meet at the Moreland exit off 1-85 South at three p.m.?”

“Okay, my men and I will be there. We’ll want shotguns, I reckon.”

“That’s right, and one more thing: I’d like an ambulance.”

“I’ll call the county hospital and get one out there.”

Pittman thanked the man, then called the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Georgia State Patrol.

Within an hour, he had a twenty-man posse together, with automatic weapons, tear gas, and flak jackets. He hung up the phone and looked at Keane.

“Well,” he said, “if we don’t get him this afternoon, we’re fucked. As soon as this morning’s episode hits the tube, he’ll run.”

at two o’clock, Pittman gathered his force in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant on a highway outside Luthersville.

He shook hands with Sheriff Clan Cox and introduced the GBI and State Patrol commanders.

“I know the place where he lives,” Sheriff Cox said.

“He bought it from a fellow I know about three or four years ago. My boy and his boy used to play high school basketball together.”

“What’s the layout?” Pittman asked.

Cox got a notebook from his car and began drawing.

“The house is about a quarter of a mile off the road, behind a stand of pines,” he said.

“There’s a barn and a couple of animal pens right behind it; there’s woods on three sides, here, and one side of the house faces a pasture.”

“We can go in from the woods on three sides, then,” Pittman said.

“Yep,” Cox replied.

“I reckon we should park on the road and circle the house on foot.”

“Right,” Pittman said.

“Let’s saddle up.” He gave them a radio frequency, then the group got into their cars and drove the two miles to where Ferkerson’s mailbox stood beside the road.

As they got out of their car, Keane said to Pittman, “Chuck, how come this guy had a private mailbox in East Point when he’s got his name on his mailbox right here?”

He looked into the mailbox and found it empty.

“I don’t know,” Pittman said.

“He gave the army the East Point box for an address, but he’s living down here, fifty miles away. It doesn’t make much sense.”

“It bothers me,” Keane said.

“Well,” said Pittman, “let’s just hope he’s at home today.” He assigned the GBI to the woods in front of the house, the State Patrol the side stand of trees, then he, Keane, and the sheriff and his men trudged around toward the rear of the house, making a wide circle so as not to be seen.

Half an hour later, Pittman was making his way slowly through the pines toward the house, swearing under his breath at himself, because he had not brought any rough clothes. He was wearing his best suit, and the trousers were now full of cockle burs He could see the back of the barn now, and he began moving stealthily from tree to tree.

He stopped and lifted the radio to his lips.

“This is Pittman; I’m in position about twenty yards behind the barn.

Everybody ready?”

He got acknowledgments from the GBI and State Patrol contingents.

“We’ll move to the barn and check out the house from closer in,” Pittman said into the radio.

“Hold your positions for now.” He turned to Keane and the sheriff.

“I’ll go first, and if the area between the barn and the house is clear, I’ll wave you in.”

Keane and the sheriff nodded.

Pittman worked his way to the edge of the trees and took one last look around. Nothing moved. Staying low, he ran to the back of the barn, then worked his way around to the side, near the front. He could see the back of the house now, and a gray Chevrolet van was parked next to it. To his left was a small corral with a few bales of hay stacked beside it under a tarp. He turned and waved Keane and the sheriff’s men forward. In a moment, they were all flattened against the side of the barn.

“Look at that,” Keane said, indicating the corral.

Pittman had not noticed it the first time; the bales of hay had been in the way. There were two horses in the corral, and they were lying on their sides, unmoving.

“They’re dead,” Keane said.

“I don’t like this, Chuck.”

“It’s weird,” Pittman said.

“Why would he kill the horses?”

The sheriff interrupted.

“Let’s make a move here,” he said.

Pittman fastened his flak jacket and spoke into the radio.

“I don’t want to rush the place; I’m gonna move to the back of the house and see what I can see. If I yell ‘go,” then move in fast, okay?”

The GBI and State Patrol commanders confirmed his instructions.

“Okay,” Pittman said, and sprinted the remaining twenty yards to the house and ducked under a window.