“One of my guys is in there keeping him company.”
“Are there still three of them?”
“Small party. Nobody new has showed up.”
“Any idea what’s going on in the room?”
“They pulled the blinds and the curtains as soon as they went in. We haven’t seen a thing.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“As soon as we get the go-ahead from the assistant district attorney-which would be you in this case-we’ll take them down hard and fast. They’re on the ground floor in a corner room, which makes things a little less complicated. Once we’re in position, the agent in the office will call the room as a diversion. As soon as we hear the phone ring, Norcross will hit the door. He’s our door-opening specialist. He’s so good with a sledgehammer we call him Thor.”
I’d been introduced to Norcross at the office earlier in the day. He was at least six-seven and looked like he’d been extracted from a slab of granite.
“Why didn’t you call Johnson City?” I said. “They’ve got a SWAT team.”
“I don’t want to take a chance on someone leaking this to the press. The last thing we need is a bunch of reporters in the parking lot.”
“Don’t you at least have one of those battering rams? Or better yet, why don’t you just get a key from the owner?”
“Because the door will probably be chained on the inside, genius. And trust me, Norcross and a sixteen-pound sledge is better than any battering ram ever devised.”
He turned towards me and held out his hand. “The warrants,” he said.
“And what am I supposed to do? Wait in the car?”
“Go home to your wife,” Fraley said.
“Are you serious? You want me to go home?”
“There’s nothing you can do here. We’ve got the raid planned out, and the plans don’t include you. Once we arrest them, we’ll be interrogating them all night. I don’t want you there.”
“Why?”
“You can’t participate in the interrogation because it could make you a witness, right?”
“Right, but-”
“And if you’re a witness, you can’t handle the case in court. It would be a conflict for you, right?”
“Yeah, but-”
“So you don’t need to be there.”
“I could observe. Maybe help advise you with the questioning.”
“We don’t need your help. We know what we’re doing.”
The tone of his voice was firm, the look on his face determined.
“Why don’t you want me around?” I said. “Tell me the truth.”
“How do you think this is going to go down? Do you think we’re going to politely knock on the door and ask them to come along with us? Do you think we’re going to take them back to the office, give them some cake and coffee, and ask them nicely whether they slaughtered six innocent people?”
“So what you’re telling me is you’re going to brutalize them.”
“ Brutalize might be a little strong, but we’re not going to treat them like houseguests. And I don’t want you second-guessing me. I don’t want to be hearing about their constitutional rights while I’m trying to get information out of them.”
“You need to be thinking about their constitutional rights or you could blow the whole-”
“Don’t lecture me, Dillard. I was interrogating murder suspects while you were still in fucking grammar school. I know what I’m doing, and the last thing I need is a goddamned lawyer looking over my shoulder while I’m doing it.”
He spit into the cup again and stuck his hand out. Reluctantly, I handed him the warrants.
“We’re on the same side, you know,” I said.
“When this goes to court, I promise I won’t try to tell you how to handle your case,” he said. “But until it gets there, it’s mine. We do it my way. Go home, counselor. Take care of your wife. Get some beauty sleep. You need it.”
“Just let me ask you one question,” I said. “Are you going to videotape the interrogations?”
“Let me ask you a question. Am I authorized to offer them anything?”
“You mean leniency? A break in sentencing in exchange for ratting out the others?” I thought about what Lee Mooney had said to me at the scene of the first murders. You have to promise me that when we find the sick bastards who did this, you’ll see to it that every one of them gets the electric chair. No screwups. No deals.
“No,” I said. “Don’t offer them anything.”
Fraley turned and looked out the window. He remained silent for a little while, then turned back towards me.
“Have a good night, counselor,” he said. “I’ll call you first thing in the morning.”
Tuesday, October 7
“Everybody knows what to do, right?” Fraley said as he climbed from his vehicle, which was parked across a side street from the Lost Weekend Motel. Seven men stood in silence. They were dressed in khaki fatigue pants and black jackets that said “Police” across the front and back. All were armed and wore bulletproof vests beneath the jackets.
“Any questions?”
Nobody said a word.
“Good. Remember, if we’re right about these assholes, they’ve already killed six people. Shock and awe, no bullshit. I want all of them facedown on the ground in less than ten seconds. Keep a sharp eye out for weapons.”
The men surrounding Fraley were focused, their eyes wide in anticipation of the unknown danger behind the motel room door. Fraley thought about all the search warrants and felony arrest warrants he’d executed in the past and the inherent danger in breaking down a door without knowing what was on the other side. As the group of officers moved away from their cars and towards the motel, Fraley noticed that his skin was tingling. It was a sensation he hadn’t felt in a long time, and it reminded him of an irony he’d discovered years ago: it was in moments like this, when the prospect of sudden, violent death became real and immediate, that he truly appreciated being alive.
Fraley was in the back of the pack. Norcross led the way. The front was reserved for the young guys, guys with quicker reflexes, better cardiovascular systems, steadier hands. They jogged along the back of the shopping center, staying in the shadows, and across a side street that bordered the parking lot of the Lost Weekend. Once they crossed the street, they turned towards the back of the motel. Norcross picked up the pace as they moved the length of the building to the shadows of the far-west wall and made their way back around to the front. Everyone squatted there while Fraley dialed the agent who was waiting with the motel owner on the cell phone.
“One minute,” Fraley whispered as he closed his phone and stuck it in his pocket.
Norcross led the way around the corner to the room. Four agents passed him silently. Three squatted beneath the window on the east side of the door, flashlights in one hand, guns in the other. The fourth took up a position next to a car in the parking lot about twenty feet away and trained his weapon on the door. Fraley, along with one other agent, stopped on the west side, less than five feet away. Still another remained behind and pointed his gun at the door. Everyone froze for maybe twenty seconds-it seemed like twenty years-waiting for the phone inside the room to ring. Fraley looked at his watch. With his right hand, he started counting down…
Five fingers… four… three… two… one…
Nothing. No sound from inside the room. Fraley muttering, “Ring, goddamn it!” under his breath. Norcross looking back over his shoulder at Fraley, eyebrows raised as if to say, What now?
The telephone inside the room rang. Fraley saw the massive head of the sledgehammer looming above the door. The phone rang again, and then- wham! — the door splintered as it exploded with the sound and force of a gunshot. Norcross tossing the sledge to the side. A man screaming. Lights flashing. A flurry of movement. Fraley feeling his heart pounding inside his chest. Male voices: “Police! Get on the ground! Get on the ground!” A strange scent of incense hanging in the air. Flashes of candlelight. “Give me your hands! Give me your fucking hands! If you
