The Scarecrow (12 page)

Winslow cooperated and then the detectives announced that the measurements matched to within a quarter inch the strangulation
marks left on Denise Babbit’s neck. Winslow responded with a vigorous denial of involvement in the murder and then made a
big mistake.

W
INSLOW
: Beside that, the bitch wasn’t even strangled with anybody’s hands. Motherfucker tied a plastic bag over her head.

W
ALKER
: And how do you know that, Alonzo?

I could almost see Walker smiling when he asked it. Winslow had slipped up in a huge way.

W
INSLOW
: I don’t know, man. It must’ve been on TV or something. I heard it somewhere.

W
ALKER
: No, son, you didn’t, because we never put that out. The only person who knew that was the person who killed her. Now, do
you want to tell us about it while we can still help you, or do you want to play it dumb and go down hard for it?

W
INSLOW
: I’m telling you motherfuckers, I didn’t kill her like that.

G
RADY
: Then tell us what you did do to her.

W
INSLOW
: Nothing, man. Nothing!

The damage was done and the slide had begun. You don’t have to be an interrogator at Abu Ghraib to know that time never favors
the suspect. Walker and Grady were patient, and as the minutes and hours ticked by, Alonzo Winslow’s will finally began to
erode. It was too much to go up alone against two veteran cops who knew things about the case that he didn’t. By page 830
of the manuscript he began to crack.

W
INSLOW
: I want to go home. I want to see my moms. Please, let me go talk to her and I’ll come back tomorrow to be with you fellas.

W
ALKER
: That’s not happening, Alonzo. We can’t let you go until we know the truth. If you want to finally start telling us the truth,
then we can talk about getting you home to Moms.

W
INSLOW
: I didn’t do this shit. I never met that bitch.

G
RADY
: Then how did your fingerprints get all over that car, and how come you know how she was strangled?

W
INSLOW
: I don’t know. That can’t be true about my prints. You fuckers lying to me.

W
ALKER
: Yeah, you think we’re lying because you wiped that car down real good, didn’t you? But you forgot something, Alonzo. You
forgot the rearview mirror! Remember how you turned it to make sure nobody was following you? Yeah, that was it. That was
the mistake that’s going to put you in a cell the rest of your life unless you own up to things and be a man and tell us what
happened.

G
RADY
: Hey, we can understand. Pretty white girl like that. Maybe she mouthed off to you or maybe she wanted to trade, a little
poon for a spoon. We know how it works. But something happened and she got killed. If you can tell us, then we can work with
you, maybe even get you home to Moms.

W
INSLOW
: Nah, man, you got it all wrong.

W
ALKER
: Alonzo, I’m tired of all your bullshit. I want to get home myself. We’ve been going at this for too long trying to help
you out. I want to get home to my dinner. So you either come clean right now, son, or you’re going into a cell. I’ll call
your moms and tell her you ain’t never coming back.

W
INSLOW
: Why you want to do this to me? I’m nobody, man. Why you setting me up for this shit?

G
RADY
: You set yourself up, kid, when you strangled the girl.

W
INSLOW
: I didn’t!

W
ALKER
: Whatever. You can tell that to your moms through the glass when she comes visit you. Stand up. You’re going to a cell and
I’m going home.

G
RADY
: He said, Stand up!

W
INSLOW
: Okay, okay. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what I know and then you let me go.

G
RADY
: You tell us what really happened.

W
ALKER
: And then we talk about it. You got ten seconds and then this is over.

W
INSLOW
: Okay, okay, this is the shit. I was walking Fuckface and I saw her car over by the towers and when I look inside I saw the
keys and I saw her purse just sitting there.

W
ALKER
: Wait a minute. Who’s Fuckface?

W
INSLOW
: My dog.

W
ALKER
: You have a dog? What kind of dog?

W
INSLOW
: Yeah, for like protection. She a pit.

W
ALKER
: Is that a short-hair dog?

W
INSLOW
: Yeah, she short.

W
ALKER
: I mean her fur. It’s not long hair.

W
INSLOW
: No, she short-hair, yeah.

W
ALKER
: Okay, where was the girl?

W
INSLOW
: Nowhere, man. Like I told you, I never saw her—when she was alive, I mean.

W
ALKER
: Uh-huh, so this is just a boy and his dog story, huh? Then what?

W
INSLOW
: So then I jump in the ride and take off.

W
ALKER
: With the dog?

W
INSLOW
: Yeah, with my dog.

W
ALKER
: Where did you go?

W
INSLOW
: Just for a ride, man. Get some fuckin’ air.

W
ALKER
: All right, that’s it. I’m tired of your bullshit. This time we go. Winslow: Wait, wait. I took it over by the Dumpsters,
okay? Back in Rodia. I wanted to see what I got in the car, okay? So I pull in and I check out her purse and it’s got like
two hundred fifty dollars and I check the glove box and everything and then I popped the trunk, and there she was. Plain as
motherfuckin’ day and already dead, man. She was naked but I didn’t touch her. And that’s the shit. Grady: So you are now
telling us and you want us to believe that you stole the car and it already had the dead girl in the trunk. Winslow: That’s
right, man. You ain’t pinning nothing else on me. When I saw her in there, that was fucked up. I closed that lid faster than
you can say motherfucker. I drove that car outta there and I was thinking I’d just put it back where I found it, but then
I knew it would bring all kinda pressure down on my boys, so I drove it on up to the beach. I figure she a white girl, I put
her in the white ’hood. So that’s what I did and that’s all I did.

W
ALKER
: When did you wipe the car down?

W
INSLOW
: Right there, man. Like you said, I missed the mirror. Fuck it.

W
ALKER
: Who helped you dump the car?

W
INSLOW
: Nobody helped me. I was on my own.

W
ALKER
: Who wiped the car down?

W
INSLOW
: Me.

W
ALKER
: Where and when?

W
INSLOW
: At the parking lot, when I got up there.

G
RADY
: How’d you get back to the ’hood?

W
INSLOW
: I walked mostly. Walked all fucking night down to Oak-wood and then I got a bus.

W
ALKER
: You still had your dog with you?

W
INSLOW
: No, man, I dropped her with my girlfriend. That’s where she stay ’cause my moms don’t want no dog in the house on account
of all the people’s laundry and shit.

W
ALKER
: So who killed the girl?

W
INSLOW
: How would I know? She dead when I found her.

W
ALKER
: You just stole her car and robbed her money.

W
INSLOW
: That’s it, man. That’s all you got me on. I give you that. Walker: Well, Alonzo, that doesn’t add up to the evidence we’ve
got. We got your DNA on her.

W
INSLOW
: No, you don’t. That a lie!

W
ALKER
: Yes, we do. You killed her, kid, and you’re going down for it.

W
INSLOW
: No! I didn’t kill nobody!

And so it went for another hundred pages. The cops threw lies and accusations at Winslow and he denied them. But as I read
those last pages, I quickly came to realize something that stood out like a 72-point headline. Alonzo Winslow never said he
did it. He never said he strangled Denise Babbit. If anything, he denied it dozens of times. The only confession in his so-called
confession was his acknowledgment that he had taken her money and then dumped the car with her body inside it. But that was
a long way from him taking credit for her murder.

I got up and quickly walked back over to my pod and dug through the stack of papers in my outbox, looking for the press release
distributed by the SMPD after Winslow was arrested for the murder. I finally found it and sat down to reread its four paragraphs.
Knowing what I knew now from the transcript, I realized how the police had manipulated the media into reporting something
that was not, indeed, true.

The Santa Monica Police announced today that a 16-year-old gang member from South Los Angeles has been taken into custody
in the death of Denise Babbit. The youth, whose name will not be released because of his age, was being held by juvenile authorities
at a detention center in Sylmar.

Police spokesmen said identification of fingerprints collected from the victim’s car after her body was found in the trunk
Saturday morning led detectives to the suspect. He was taken in for questioning Sunday from the Rodia Gardens housing project
in Watts, where it was believed the abduction and murder took place.

The suspect faces charges of murder, abduction, rape and robbery. During a confession to investigators, the suspect said he
moved the car with the body in the trunk to a beach parking lot in Santa Monica so as to throw off suspicions that Babbit
had been killed in Watts.

The SMPD wishes to acknowledge the help of the Los Angeles Police Department in bringing the suspect into custody.

The press release was not inaccurate. But I now viewed it very cynically and thought it had been carefully crafted to convey
something that was not accurate, that there had been a full confession to the murder when there had not been anything close
to that. Winslow’s lawyer was right. The confession would not hold up, and there was a solid chance that his client was innocent.

In the field of investigative journalism, the Holy Grail might be the taking down of a president, but when it came to the
lowly crime beat, proving a guilty man innocent was as good as it gets. It didn’t matter how Sonny Lester had tried to play
it down the day we went to Rodia Gardens. Springing an innocent kid trumped all. Alonzo Winslow may not have been judged guilty
of anything yet, but in the media he had been condemned.

I had been part of that lynching and I now saw that I might have a shot at changing all of that and doing the right thing.
I might be able to rescue him.

I thought of something and looked around on my desk for the printouts Angela had produced from her research on trunk murders.
I then remembered I had thrown them out. I got up and quickly left the newsroom, going down the stairs to the cafeteria. I
went directly to the trash receptacle I had used after looking over the printouts Angela had pushed across the table to me
as a peace offering. I had scanned and dismissed them, thinking at the time that there was no way stories about other trunk
murders could have any bearing on a story about the collision between a sixteen-year-old admitted killer and his victim.

Now I wasn’t so sure. I remembered things about the stories from Las Vegas that no longer seemed distant in light of my conclusions
from Alonzo’s so-called confession.

It was a large commercial trash can. I took the top off it and found that I was in luck. The printouts were on top of the
day’s detritus and were no worse for wear.

It dawned on me that I could have simply gone on Google and conducted the same search as Angela instead of rooting through
a trash can, but I was elbows deep now and this would be quicker. I took the printouts over to a table to reread them.

“Hey!”

I turned and saw a double-wide woman with her hair in a net staring at me with her fists balled tightly on her ample hips.

“You just going to leave that there?”

I looked behind me and saw I had left the top of the trash receptacle on the floor.

“Sorry.”

I went back and returned the top to its rightful place, then decided it would be best to review the printouts back in the
newsroom. At least the editors weren’t wearing hairnets.

Back at my desk I looked through the stack. Angela had found several news stories about bodies being found in trunks. Most
were quite old and seemed irrelevant. But a series of stories in the
Las Vegas Review-Journal
did not. There were five of them and they mostly repeated the same information. They were reports on the arrest and trial
of a man charged with killing his ex-wife and stuffing her body into the trunk of his car.

Ironically, the stories had been written by a reporter I knew. Rick Heikes had worked for the
Los Angeles Times
until he took one of the early buyouts. He banked the check from the
Times
and promptly took the job with the
Review-Journal
and had been there ever since. He had made it over the wall and by all accounts was the better for it. The
Times
was the loser because it had let another fine reporter go to another newspaper.

I quickly scanned the stories until I found the one I remembered. It was a report on the trial testimony given by the Clark
County coroner.

Coroner: Ex-Wife Held, Tortured for Hours

By Rick Heikes,

Review-Journal Staff Writer