Scout’s Honor: Chapter 12

Bang, Bang, Bang, Boom

Eddie’s mind raced, dancing from his empty future to his moves at the police station, how he would get a lawyer, whom he should call, what Jonnie would say, whether she would hire him back when he was released from prison, whether convicted felons were permitted to attend college, how Roy’s dealers would react to the loss. Were felons even allowed real jobs? How much did criminal lawyers cost? 

And then it occurred to him. Why was he driving instead of handcuffed inside a squad car? And why was the cop wearing gloves? Wait. The cop had said Edward Kawadsky. How the hell did he know his name?

“Isn’t the police station on Market Street?” Eddie demanded. What was happening? 

“I’ll tell you when the hell to turn. Shut the fuck up.” 

Schmidt scanned for his on-duty partner as they approached Pill Hill, Delagarza’s beat around the hospital. His plan was simple. Delagarza would radio in for his meal break and follow the van toward the airport, parking at an air cargo lot beneath the rumbling freeway. Delagarza would report that he’d observed a vehicle with a broken headlight pull into the lot on his way to dinner. Suspicious, he’d followed, noticing a meet-up with another vehicle for an apparent narcotics exchange. The officer had approached with caution and suspect number one had opened fire. The officer had immediately called for backup. Suspect number two had sped off in a late-model sedan as the officer returned fire, terminating suspect number one.

“Officer, what are we doing here?” asked Eddie. 

“You’re getting arrested.” 

“Why aren’t we going to the station? This isn’t right.” 

“Shut up. Stop near that wagon, not too close.” The last thing Schmidt needed was a bullet hole in his brother-in-law’s car. 

Delagarza braked behind them, and sprinted over to the van, asking, “How come you’re not driving?”

“How the fuck would you explain handcuff burns on his wrists? I frisked him—he’s clean. Keep your piece on him while I move the stuff.” Schmidt threw the two duffel bags in the station wagon, started it and, leaving the engine running, ran back to the van with a pound of marijuana in a paper bag. 

“Ready?” Delagarza asked, grinning. Delagarza was more than ready. A first generation Mexican-American who’d endured thousands of racial slurs—wetback least among them—and institutional, if not universal discrimination, the thought of getting away with murdering a white dealer was nearly irresistible.

“Break a headlight on your way back and get the hell away from your vehicle. You don’t want to catch a ricochet. Remember, I fire three shots into your cruiser, jump out of the van, and then it’s your turn.” Schmidt waved the pistol at Eddie and barked, “Get in the passenger seat.” He climbed into van, tossed the marijuana in back, and wiped his forehead on his sleeve. He shouted at Delagarza. “Get farther over there, stay down, but keep your piece on the perp.” 

Eddie’s heart hammered, his mind caroming in the terrifying moment’s eternity. How did they know his name? How did they know about the Inn? Roy. Only goddamned Roy could have told them, but when? He was locked up in Rosarito. Or was he? Had Roy set him up? But why? The only thing he had no need to guess about was his own murder. He’d witnessed their theft of the cocaine, the elaborate tableau they were constructing. “How the fuck would you explain handcuff burns on his wrists?” the gloved cop had said. The gloves spoke chapter and verse. Eddie knew they would murder him in a matter of moments. Besieged by images of blood and death, he cast about wildly for some way out. He was dead either way—if he ran, they’d shoot him in the back; if he stayed, in the head. 

“Not a fucking move, kid.” Schmidt fixed the youth with a fierce stare. His shots into the patrol car had to be at the right angle for the forensics team. He turned away from Eddie, twisted from the waist and stuck his head and arm out of the window, craning toward his target. 

Eddie’s murder was next. His heart pounding in his ears, an image of his father’s gun flashed by like a card in a shuffling deck. He snaked his hand toward the floor, groping beneath the seat, brushing the coffee can. Frantic, he scrunched down, reaching further, finally fingering the big Colt. Gripping it, he raised the black pistol soundlessly, cocking it just as the cop fired his gun. 

Despite his hurry, Schmidt wanted to hit the squad car’s windshield at least once. He fired high and cursed the worthless .38 and then his partner for parking too close behind the van. He waited for a jet’s roar to cover his shot, then squeezed the trigger. Swearing, he dropped his aim and fired again, the bang answered by the crackling of safety glass. He fired a third time, shattering glass.

Boom! The last shot was much louder. Delagarza jumped up from his crouching position fifteen yards from his patrol car, his gun at the ready. “Let’s go, Sarge, hustle up. I’ve got to call for backup.” 

Schmidt was going nowhere. Blown off by a .45 slug to the base of his skull, his cranium had exploded in splinters of bone, arcing across the parking lot. 

“Sarge, c’mon,” the patrolman yelled. 

Peering over the dead sergeant, Eddie fired again, his shot was high, but it froze Delagarza. Eddie gripped the gun with both hands, the way his father had taught him, resting it against Schmidt’s slumped shoulder, and fired. The bullet ripped into Delagarza’s chest, slamming him backward, his hat rolling off as his head thudded against the pavement. Eddie looked at the body beneath him, half out his window, fouling itself, and the other jerking on the asphalt, and he lost it, gagging as he pushed open the door.

He heard the station wagon’s running engine when he glanced up, wiping his mouth on his sweatshirt. A moment later, he was scrambling out, only remembering the coffee can because he had just touched it. He sprinted toward the idling car, threw it into reverse by mistake, smashed a pair of bollards, put it in drive and stepped on the gas. He screeched out into the night as an unseen jet rumbled down the nearby runway.

 “Chief?” Sgt. William Powers repeated his one-note question, weighting on one foot, then the other. The gathered squad cars’ flashing light bars lent a false dawn to the midnight crime scene. It smelled of blood. Patrolmen stood around, doing nothing, murmuring among themselves, watching the crime scene investigators’ methodical process. Something about the chief looked wrong the moment he’d stepped from his wife’s Buick. At first Powers thought it was his surprise at seeing the great man out of uniform. Then he realized the chief had forgotten his hairpiece. 

“Ah, Chief, would you happen to have a cap in your car?” The sergeant rubbed his head. 

“What?” Following his gaze, Chief Ross felt his bare head, swore, and fetched a Padres baseball cap. He’d been on the radio while he raced to the scene. Even without the watch commander’s sketchy details, the chief would have taken it in at a glance. Schmidt was wearing gloves. 

“You’re Peters?” 

“Powers, sir.”

“Right. You knew Rudy Schmidt?” 

“I worked with him a bit at the Seniors’ League, poor soul.” 

“Good man. I can’t believe this, this, this—I just can’t believe it. You know our patrolman?”

“No, sir. Well, of course I seen him around, but I—”

“You think this was his idea? Maybe relatives in Tijuana? Brothers or cousins dealing drugs?” A tall man who jogged to keep his weight in check, the chief straightened his slouch as he did before addressing audiences. His handsome, lined face was haggard, ghostly in the gloaming. “What do we have so far?”

“The slugs in our vehicle are .38’s, probably from the gun in Schmidt’s hand. The lads were both killed with something bigger, a 9mm maybe, maybe a .44. We haven’t found any other weapons.”

“The van?”

“Registered to an Edward Kawadsky. Teenager. No rap on him. He’s clean as far as we know. We’re getting an APB out, but the van might be hot.” Enjoying his first one-on-one with the chief, Powers went over their preliminary findings in detail—the throwaway pistol, the powder burns on Schmidt’s gloves, the marijuana, the two kilograms of cocaine with eagle markings. He detailed everything but their fallen comrades’ complicity. 

Chief Ross’s attention wandered from the damning gloves to the press conference he would call in the morning, how he would announce a full-scale investigation into departmental corruption. The mayor would showboat as usual, insisting on head-rolling even if they proved this was an isolated incident. “What’d you just say?” 

“I said maybe contacting the FBI—”

“This is our mess, and we’ll clean it up ourselves. But, gentlemen,” he barked at the officers working the scene. “Do you hear me? We’re not resting until these perps are caught, tried, and convicted. We’re not pulling any punches because of this… this involvement. This investigation will go all the way.”

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