The Executioner's Song (36 page)

                "Tell Gary," Brenda said, "that as usual, Johnny's out of gas again." This might pacify him for a few minutes. Johnny was famous as the family character who always delayed everybody while he got gas. On the street outside her house, police cars were screaming around the corners.

                Craig called again. Brenda told him she hadn't heard from Johnny but he'd probably gotten lost. People who lived in Orem, she explained, only had to deal with a checkerboard arrangement for their streets and that was easy. It got them spoiled. They didn't know what to do with the weirdly curved roads in Pleasant Grove where Fourth North didn't mind getting its ass skewed around Third South.

                She called the police to tell them that Gary was getting impatient. Brenda felt like a traitor. Gary's trust was the weapon she was using to nail him. It was true she wanted to nail him, she told herself, but she didn't want, well, she didn't want to have to betray him to do it.

                Craig had gone outside to be with Gary. They sat out in the dark on the bungalow porch. Having been asleep, Craig didn't know about any killings this night. He was still worrying over last night's, but didn't feel ready to ask Gary outright. Did say, "Gary, if I knew you had anything to do with that fellow Jensen's murder, I'd turn you in right now."

                Gary said, "I swear to God I didn't shoot the guy." Looked him straight in the eye. He had a powerful knack of staring right into you.                Again, Gary asked him to call. Craig went inside, picked up the phone, talked to Brenda once more. She was nervous. Craig could more or less sense she had called the police. She didn't say anything such to Craig, she just asked if he and his family were all right, and if Gary was being decent, and Craig said, "We're all right. He's fine."

       He went back to the porch.

                Gary said he had friends in Washington State, and he believed he would go underground. He mentioned Patty Hearst. Said he could connect with her old network. Craig didn't know if Gary really knew her, or was bragging. Craig asked once more if he wanted to go to the hospital. Gary said he was an ex-con, and the hospital wouldn't understand.

                They sat out there half an hour. Gary spoke about April. Said she was a slick chick. Said she was "Real nice." The longer they sat out there, the calmer Gary got. He almost got despondent. Then he said that when he was settled, he would send Craig a painting. He also said, "I'll write you my new address. You can mail my clothes and stuff." He had brought his paintings, his poems, his manila envelope full of snapshots and his other belongings over from Spanish Fork. He said, "Send me all them things when I get settled."

                To himself, Craig kept saying, "Come on, Johnny, you son of a bitch, get here."

When the Caffees got home, they discovered that Debbie was covered with blood. Chris had to take her into the other room to change. Then Debbie wanted to make phone calls. She telephoned her mom, and Ben's sister, and all her own brothers and sisters, and Ben's friend, Porter Dudson, up in Wyoming. She just called and called. She would start crying and say, "Ben's been shot and he's dead." It was like a recording.

                Chris opened their sofa bed in the living room, and she and David lay there while Debbie sat in the rocking chair and rocked Benjamin.

Now, it was Gary on the phone. "Where's John?" he asked.

                "He should be there by now," said Brenda.

                "God, man," said Gary, "he's not."

                "Well, honey, calm down," she said.

"Cousin, is Johnny really coming out?"

                Brenda said, "He's coming, Gary."

                She had a flash. "Gary, what was the house number, 67 or 69?"

                Gary said, "No, it was 76."

                "Uh-oh," said Brenda, "I gave him the wrong one."

                "Will you get it right this time?" he snapped.

                "Okay, Gary," she said meekly. "Johnny's got the CB in the truck, and I have one here. I'll plug him into the right address. Just hang tight." She took a breath, "If you feel kind of faint," she said, "or kind of badly from the wound, why don't you go out on the porch where the air is cool and take some deep breaths. Turn the light on so Johnny can find you."

                "How stupid," said Gary, "do you think I am?"

                Brenda said, "Excuse me, stay inside."

                "All right," he said. He still must trust her.

                Soon as she hung up, she began to bawl again. It seemed so wrong to do it this way. But she called the police department, and told them, "He's getting very impatient."

                To Gary, who soon called again, she said, "Listen, I know you're in pain. Hang loose. Just stay put."

                Brenda was now patched in with the Provo, the Orem, and the Pleasant Grove Police Chiefs, and she could tell from what the dispatchers were saying that the houses around Craig Taylor's were being quietly evacuated. The police were moving into position. One of the Police Chiefs wanted to know which room Gary was in and she told them, she thought he was in the living room. Was the light on? he wanted to know. She said she didn't think so.

                Just then Gary called back again. "If John ain't here in five minutes I'm splitting."

                "My God, Gary," she said, "are you on the run or something?"

                Gary said, "I'm leaving in five minutes."

                She said, "Be careful, Gary. I love you."

                He said, "Yeah." Hung up.

                To the police, she said, "He's coming out. I know he's got a gun, but for God's sake, try not to kill him." Brenda added, "I mean it. Don't fire. He doesn't know you're there. See if you can surround him." She didn't know if she was reaching anybody.

After the last call, Craig just talked to Gary through the screen in the window, until finally Gary said, "Stick your head out through the screen and let me see your face."

                Now, Gary shook hands with Craig and said, "Well, they're never coming, so I'm leaving." They shook hands, thumbs up, pretty good handshake, Gary still looking Craig in the eye. Then he went out to his truck. Craig turned the porch light off and watched him go down the road.

For a while, Brenda got the play-by-play over the special channel on the CB a voice said, "Gilmore's leaving. I can see the truck. He's pulling out now. He has the lights on." Then she heard he was heading down to the first roadblock. She didn't know what happened next. He seemed to have driven around that first roadblock. He was out. He was loose in Pleasant Grove.

                She heard somebody from the police say, "I've got to cut you off now." Cut her off, they did. For an hour and a half. It was all of that before she knew what had happened.

Craig called Spence McGrath and said Gary was in trouble and might try to get over to his place. Craig thought the police were after him. Spencer said, "Wow, that's kind of wild," and got out his deer rifle, and had it lying right next to the door.

                Lights shone through the window, and the cops were shouting at Craig Taylor, "Come out with your hands up." They searched the house. Julie appeared in her bathrobe, but the cops weren't all that courteous. They found Gary's clothes, told Craig to drive down to Provo and give a statement. He was up all night.

A SWAT team from Provo, five officers from Orem, and three from Pleasant Grove, a couple of County Sheriffs and some Highway Patrol had all met at the Pleasant Grove High School where an impromptu command post was established. Since there was every chance of a shoot-out, they had started cleaning out the area around Craig Taylor's house. It meant tiptoeing from door to door, waking people up, leading them out of the neighborhood—it took time. In the meanwhile, they set up roadblocks,

                When the word came down that somebody was driving away from Craig Taylor's in a white truck, everybody expected a vehicle to come barreling through. What fooled them was that the white truck drove at a moderate rate of speed, slowed down, and went right around. It hadn't been that heavy a roadblock. Just a barrier across one-half of the two-lane, with a police car parked to the side.

                When the guy in the white truck had gone past, it was reported that he had a goatee. Then it registered. That was him. Two of their vehicles took off.

                A couple of the cops stayed right where they were. They were thinking this fellow might have been a decoy passing the in hopes everybody would chase him. Then Gilmore could walk right on out.

                One trouble with a roadblock is that it could start a lot of firing. So Lieutenant Peacock, who was running the operation at the command post at the Pleasant Grove High School, had told people that if there was any doubt, they were to let a white vehicle through. Next thing, he got the news. The driver in the white did fit Gilmore's description. Then Peacock could actually see the truck, just a few hundred yards away from the high school, headed east toward the mountains on a street called Battle Creek. Going along at no great speed, in fact. Maybe five or ten miles over the speed limit, which was only 25 miles an hour there.

                He radioed for a car to follow the truck, but when he heard that vehicles in the vicinity were tied up, he got into his unmarked car, a plain four-door '76 Chevelle, and proceeded after it. Within a few blocks he got near enough to see the truck again.

                While he had been radioing in his position, another car driven by cops fell in behind.

                The white truck made a right-hand turn and started going down an empty country road at the edge of Pleasant Grove.

                There were just a few houses on either side, but he was heading back toward population. At that point, still another patrol car had gotten in line, and Peacock decided he now had sufficient assistance to make a stop on the truck. While the road they were on was not real wide, it would still be broad enough for three cars to get abreast. So, at that point, he radioed for the other two to come up on his left-hand side, and soon as they did, all three turned on their spotlights at once and their overhead revolving red lights.

                On the PA system, Peacock cried out: "DRIVER IN THE WHITE TRUCK, STOP YOUR VEHICLE, STOP YOUR VEHICLE." He could see the truck waver, slow down, come to a halt.

                Peacock opened his door. He had a Remington 12-gauge shotgun in the front seat, but, instinctively, he came out with his service weapon.

                The white truck had stopped in the center of the road. Peacock stood behind the protection of his open door. He could hear Ron Allen commanding Gilmore to put his hands up. Right there in the driver's seat he was to put his hands up. Lift them so he could be seen through the rear window. The man hesitated. Allen had to give the order a third time before he finally raised his hands. Next Allen told him to put those hands outside the driver's window. The driver hesitated again. Then he finally obeyed. Now he was told to open the door by the outside latch, Once that door was open, he was told to get out of the truck.

                By now, Peacock had walked around in back of his Chevelle, and was standing behind the headlights, on the right-hand side of the road where it was dark. He had his weapon ready. He knew the suspect couldn't see him. The man's eyes would be blinded by the lights of the car, In turn, the other officers were standing back of the open doors of their patrol cars.

                On command, the man took two steps away from his vehicle. He hesitated. They told him to lie down on the read. He hesitated again.

                At that moment, his pickup truck started to roll away. He kept hesitating. He didn't know whether to run after the truck and set the emergency brake or to lie down. At this point, Peacock hollered, "LET THE TRUCK GO. LAY DOWN IMMEDIATELY. LET THE TRUCK GO." The man finally did as he was told and the white truck rolled farther and farther away from him and picked up speed going down that road which sloped all the way into town.

                Slowly, gently, almost thoughtfully, it coasted off the shoulder, broke through a fence, ran through a pasture, and came to rest in the field.

                Now all three officers, weapons out, moved forward along the blacktop. Peacock and the next officer were holding Service weapons. The third had a shotgun.

                When they reached the man, Peacock put his gun away, frisked him right there on the ground. Simultaneously, Officer Allen began to read off the Miranda.

                "You have the right to remain silent and refuse to answer questions. Do you understand?" asked Allen. There was a nod. The man didn't speak.

                "Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand?" asked Allen. A nod.

                "You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to police and to have an attorney present during any questions now and in the future. Do you understand?" asked Allen. A nod.