“Kind of a snub-nosed rifle. Barrel wasn’t much longer than a pistol’s. About twelve inches, I’d say. But it had a regular rifle stock.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Asked us real politely to get out of the car. Didn’t order us out. Just asked us. Course, the gun made it a pretty definite invitation.”
“Yeah.”
“Backed off a step to let us get out. Soon as we were outside, and I got a good look at him, I realized who he was.”
“You’re sure it was the Courteous Killer?” I asked.
“Absolutely. Wasn’t wearing glasses, and his hair wasn’t gray, but it was him all right.”
“His hair wasn’t gray?” I said.
“Black as the ace of spades. There’s a bright moon tonight, and we could see him good. Guess he must have dyed it.”
I grunted. The suspect was again practicing the same art of simple disguise he’d bragged about to me. With his average looks, even a minor change in appearance would be an effective disguise.
“Then what happened?” I asked.
“He had me hand over my wallet, and took the money out of it. Gave the wallet back to me and told Georgia to give him her bag. She only had a dollar and a half in it. He took that.”
“Go on.”
“Then he said he’d shoot us if we made a sound or motion before he got out of sight. Walked up the road and disappeared around a bend. We thought we heard a car pull away after a minute, but neither of us was sure. May have been imagination.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We climbed back in the car, I made a U-turn, and we got out of there. I drove Georgia to student nurses’ quarters and then came here.”
We continued to question Arnold Reiter. Eventually, on our assurance that we would make every effort to keep from getting his girlfriend in trouble, he told us that the name of his companion at the time of the robbery was Georgia Fen. He also gave us the name of the hospital where she was in nurses’ training. He said he would arrange for her to come down to the Police Building the following afternoon, as she got off duty at noon on Saturdays.
We took the victim across to Robbery Division and briefed Marty Wynn and Vance Brasher on his story. Then we drove him out to the place on Mulholland Drive where the robbery had taken place and had him point out the exact spot. The ground was too dry for footprints to show, and we were unable to find any physical evidence of any sort.
Back at the office again, we got out a supplemental bulletin describing the change in George Whiteman’s hair color.
Meantime, while we were taking young Reiter to Mulholland Drive, Lieutenant Newton had phoned Captain Hertel at home to tell him the Courteous Killer actually was back in Los Angeles and had resumed operations. Chief Brown had left instructions to be informed the moment we had definite evidence that Whiteman was in the area, no matter what time of day or night we learned of it.
Lieutenant Newton left the duty of phoning the chief at that time of night to Captain Hertel.
Chapter XXII
The next afternoon we met Georgia Fen in the Homicide squad room at 2:00 p.m. She verified the story Arnold Reiter had told us, but was unable to add any new information. Like Reiter, she said she had immediately recognized the Courteous Killer from his newspaper pictures.
After the girl departed, Captain Hertel came into the squad room. “Meeting in the chief’s office,” he said.
We followed him up the hall to Chief Brown’s office. The chief was alone. He waved us to chairs and waited until we were seated.
Then he said, “Talked to the boss this morning about George Whiteman. The order’s to go all out for him. As of now, all department leave is canceled until he’s caught.” Hertel and Frank nodded, and I said, “Want us to try rolling stakeouts in the canyon-roads area again?”
“We’re going to do better than that this time,” Chief Brown said. “It’s a big area, but we’re going to blanket it with decoys. Hertel, you’ll be in charge of setting up the operation. The suspect’s MO has been to pick cars near bends on the road, so that after he hits, he can disappear around a bend, where he apparently has a getaway car parked. I want an undercover car parked near every bend along Mulholland Drive, and along every canyon road that runs into it.”
The captain emitted a low whistle. “There must be a hundred or more curves in that area, Chief.”
“Then we’ll use a hundred or more cars. It’s been arranged for Metro to furnish as many extra teams as you need. When you run out of radio-equipped undercover cars, ask for volunteers to furnish their private automobiles. This is an all-out operation. The next time this guy sticks a gun through a car window—”
When he paused, Hertel said, “Yes, sir?”
“I want it to be pointing at a cop.”
The captain nodded. “How soon do you want the operation to start? It’ll take a while to line up all the teams we’re going to need and figure out where to spot them.”
“It better not take more than a few hours,” Chief Brown said.
“Huh?”
“The operation starts tonight.”
Captain Hertel looked startled. He glanced at Frank, then at me, and said, “Then we’d better get moving. Friday, you and Smith get a map of that section from Traffic Services Division. Then drive out to the canyon-roads area and mark on the map every point where you think we should set up a decoy. You ought to be able to cover every road in three hours.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s two thirty now. See if you can have the data back here by six thirty.”
I said, “Yes, sir.”
“Meantime, I’ll be lining up teams of officers and extra cars. We’ll hold a mass meeting in the downstairs auditorium at 7:00 p.m. and brief the men on the positions they’re to take. Better get the biggest map of the area Traffic Services has.”
“Yeah,” I said. “We’ll get right on it.” I looked at Chief Brown. “That all, sir?”
“That’s all. Better get going.”
Captain Hertel returned to his office, and Frank and I went upstairs to the Traffic Services Division.
As one phase of traffic control, the Traffic Services Division maintains a constant study of accident frequency in all parts of the city. It employs huge maps for this purpose, which are mounted on spindles reaching from the floor nearly to the ceiling, so that the individual maps resemble the pages of an enormous book. Each time an accident report comes in, a colored pin is stuck in one of the maps at the point the accident occurred. The type of accident is indicated by the color of the pin. This gives a complete and up-to-the-minute visual picture of all spots where accidents are recurrent. The officers responsible for the assignment of personnel can tell at a glance which areas require more police supervision.
One of the girls who worked in Traffic Services got out a map including the area we were interested in and cut out the portion we wanted. Traffic maps are so large, even this small section was bigger than the average road map. It was perfect for our purposes, because it showed every minute twist and turn along Mulholland Drive and the various canyon roads.
With our map we drove out to the canyon-roads area and spent the next two and a half hours driving up one road and down another. At each spot that seemed a possible place for the Courteous Killer to hit, I made a small red X on the map. Many curves and bends were left blank because there were nearby houses, and it seemed unlikely that the suspect would pick such spots when so many more isolated ones were available. Nevertheless we ended up with sixty-six red X’s.
We finished the job in time to grab a quick sandwich before returning to the Police Building.
7:03 p.m. Nearly two hundred officers were gathered in the first-floor auditorium. As our map study indicated only sixty-six teams would be needed, there was a surplus of about fifty officers. Captain Hertel opened the briefing by explaining that a large number of the men present wouldn’t be used, but had been called in because it wasn’t known until only a few minutes previously just how many would be needed to cover the area.