The Worst Day

 In the mid 90s, I was a patrolman on the south end of Caddo Parish, on day shift. We changed shifts every four months, and it was early in the rotation. After 8 months on evenings and midnights, day shift was a welcome respite. A normal day started quiet and got increasingly busy until it was often hard to get off by 1:30 pm, but it was still better than the bedlam of evenings and midnights. Patrolmen on day shift go to lunch as early as possible to avoid being interrupted. One beautiful Friday in late spring, I got through lunch with no problem, and it looked like it would be quiet all day. The sky was blue and the sunshine warm, but with less than an hour to go, things changed. The radio blared,  “Signal 53, Highway 171 at Bledsoe Road.”  

I was ten miles away and drove up from the south past Keithville School. Bison Tractor was on the corner of the intersection of Bledsoe Road and 171. Across the street was a church. Bledsoe dead ends into LA 171, a divided highway with a median. When I pulled up, Fire District 6 was already there. In the middle of the intersection was a four door sedan with all four doors standing open. The car had been been struck on the driver’s side with great impact and spun around backward. The back glass was shattered, and a baby seat was hanging half way out of it. Behind the car, two firemen were doing CPR on an infant.

As soon as I got out of my car, Deputy Robert Brown walked up. Robert and I went to the Academy together in 1988, and we worked at the jail until I went to patrol. That day, he was was watching a crew of inmates pick up garbage nearby when the crash occurred. He pointed to a burgundy pick up truck with heavy front end damage, one hundred yards south of the crash scene. It looked like the truck was south bound on 171 when it T-boned the car as it crossed over from Bledsoe Road.

“It’s bad Mick. The car pulled out in front of the truck. It was full of women and a baby. The baby was half way out the back window when I got here. The woman in the back passenger seat is gone. The one in the ambulance is bad. Don’t know about the young woman the paramedics are working on. Helicopter is on the way.”

Robert went up the highway on the southbound side to reroute the traffic which was building up rapidly. A crowd of over fifty people gathered on the corner. They were quiet and orderly. Some were crying, some were watching, and some were talking. I noticed Mike Stowell, pastor of First Baptist in Keithville, standing with a group and praying.

Deputy Jacob Johnson (not his real name) was on scene when I arrived. I asked him what he needed. He didn’t respond.

“Jacob, call Dispatch and get two no preference wreckers headed this way and run the plate on that car. Start getting names of victims and figure out who was behind the wheel. We got to clean this mess up before there’s another crash. I’ll start getting measurements.”

The bad crashes I worked in the past occurred at night, during bad weather, or involved alcohol, but this crash was different. It was broad daylight, the weather was perfect, and alcohol was not a factor.

Ignoring the carnage and chaos, I did a rough sketch of the scene, found the point of impact, and measured it against the car and two telephone poles with a measuring wheel. Jacob was getting information about the car, and the women inside. The pick up that struck the car was on the shoulder fifty yards south of the crash scene. The truck had two 55 gallon drums full of oil in the bed. 

“Jacob…who was driving the truck?”

He didn’t answer.

By now the Coroner was on the scene. Two of the victims were being flown to the hospital in a helicopter. The crowd on the side of the road was growing. 

I approached the crowd, cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled, “Can anyone tell me who was driving the truck over there?”

After a minute, a man in tears approached me.

“Are you alright?” 

He nodded.

“Can I see your driver’s license?” 

He reached for his wallet, then handed me his driver’s license. I started writing down his information.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Well…I drove up and saw the gray car in the road…”

I stopped writing and looked up at him. He had his head in his hands and was crying. 

“You mean you weren’t driving that truck over there?”

“Oh no.”

I handed him his driver’s license and told him to go home. I yelled to the crowd again. After a minute, a woman approached me. She pointed at a young man who was standing alone, kicking rocks on the shoulder of the road. She nodded her head to indicate he was the driver.

I approached a young man of eighteen. 

“Hey man…you alright?” 

He didn’t answer or look up, but he looked fine. 

“Can you tell me what happened?”

He was delivering two drums of oil to a business south of Mansfield. He said the gray car pulled out in front of him, and he couldn’t stop. I asked him if he had anything to drink in the last 24 hours. He said no. I checked his eyes to be sure. They were clear. I put him in the back of my car to get him away from the crowd and give him a place to rest.

I looked across the intersection and saw a white house across from Bledsoe Road. Though it is plain to see, it is easy to miss with the angle of the road and the trees around it. There was a man standing on the porch watching the scene in front of him. I walked over and talked to Mr Bison who was in his eighties. Mr Bison was eating lunch on his porch when the crash occurred. He saw it take place. He said the gray car was on Bledsoe Road and failed to stop at the stop sign. It went through the intersection in front of the pickup, and the truck could not avoid hitting it. 

 I finished up at the scene, went back to my car, and spoke to the pickup truck driver.

“Hey listen, you’re telling me the truth…no alcohol, drugs, or medicine right?”

“Right.”

“Then I’m fixing to do you a big favor. What’s your boss’ number?”

I called his boss and told him to meet me at the hospital. I did not believe the young man was on drugs or alcohol, and there was no state requirement to draw blood back then, but it was in his best interest to definitively prove he wasn’t under the influence when four people were killed. We met his boss at the hospital, and I left him there.

I returned to the crash scene. Four people, a young woman, her baby, her grandmother, and a friend were all killed in the crash, and the gravity of knowing they were alive two hours earlier was heavy. I sat in my car at the scene doing paperwork while the wrecker drivers made the final clean up. A car pulled up behind me and honked. I stepped out of my car to a man running toward me. It was the young woman’s husband and father of the baby. He asked me what happened. I broke the news to him. He collapsed in the road and wept. Later, I found out his wife was pregnant when she died.

Months later, a local attorney called me. He was representing the company who owned the truck with the oil drums in the back and the young man who was driving. He asked me about our crash investigation and thanked me for having the young man’s blood drawn. He told me the young man was fine physically, but the crash took an emotional toll on him.

Five years later, I was subpoenaed to testify in a civil trial on the crash. I was on the stand most of the afternoon. When the trial was over, I spoke to the attorney. He told me the young driver of the pickup was found not at fault. The driver survived a horrible crash that killed five people and then spent five years wondering if he would survive the legal implications, but finally, it was over. He made it through, and yet the crash altered his life forever.

My career as a Deputy Sheriff lasted 34 years. I worked burglaries, robberies, child molestations, and murder cases, but I had my worst day on a quiet, sunny day in May…

Murder in Greenwood: The Murder of Meagan McFarlin

  

Wednesday, May 7, 2003

David Ray Wammack grew up wearing cowboy boots, a coonskin cap, and shooting a BB gun. Life was good in Texas, but it all changed the day his daddy was arrested for armed robbery. After that, nothing was the same again. His momma blamed alcohol, and she tried to keep the same thing from happening to her baby boy, but she failed. In his teens he dropped out of school, got hooked on drugs, and stole from family and strangers alike. He made a valiant attempt at reform that produced a job, a wife, and two kids, but it didn’t last. When his cravings overcame him, he turned his back on the straight life. By Thanksgiving 2002, the 26-year old was incarcerated in a half-way house not far from Rising Star.

Six months later, two men were test driving a car in Louisiana on US 80 just five miles from the Texas line. It was Wednesday morning and unseasonably warm. The car sounded funny, so they pulled over on the shoulder to check the engine. When they got out of the car, they noticed something at the tree line which separated the old highway from Interstate 20. It could have been a discarded garbage bag or a feed sack, but whatever it was stood out from the greenery of the brush. The men took a closer look and found out it wasn’t a bag of trash; it was a woman...a woman who had been mutilated. They returned to Adesa Auto Auction down the road and called 911. Minutes later, the Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office spread yellow tape for a hundred yards to block off the murder scene.

It was urgent, but it was an hour before the lead detective arrived. When he did, his partner, Marianne McClure, met him at his car. There were tears behind her white framed sunglasses, and her right hand trembled as she took the detective by the arm. “Its bad Mick...it’s bad.” On paper, they were partners, but they worked independently. McClure was near retirement, people oriented, intuitive, and sensitive to the needs of others. McDaniel was none of those things, and at forty, he was just halfway through his career.

McClure led him through the crime scene, fidgeting like she was on her first date. They walked over the scene with a wide sweep. She pointed out vehicle tracks in the grass, a pair of boots size 10 EE laying ten feet away from each other, a couple of stray beer cans, and a piece of paper with the name Ginny Atkinson written on it. Marianne bagged the piece of paper and reminded him she had a daughter about the same age as the victim.

McDaniel wanted to speed things up, get away from the scene, and find the killer. Impatient and impulsive, he was always in a hurry, now more than ever, but there was a process to follow. He saw Owen McDonnell, the sergeant of Crime Scene Investigations, with his camera and an evidence bag. Owen offered him a pair of rubber gloves, but he declined. Years earlier, he felt obligated to help a Deputy Coroner carry a corpse out of a house. It was an experience he never forgot, and he vowed to never do it again. Not having gloves gave him an excuse to keep his vow. Together they approached a white bulk at the edge of the woods. As they closed in, the bulk became a woman lying on her back.

There were tree branches spread above her and vines all around. It was a shady, dark spot even in broad daylight. Another fifteen feet in the brush and she wouldn’t have been found for months, if at all, but instead, she was left close enough to the road for two car salesmen to see her. The attempt to hide her had been done in a hurry.

Her hands were frozen in the high guard position. Her last action in this world was an attempt to defend herself. They approached from her right side and couldn’t see the extent of the atrocity until their eyes adjusted to the shade. Her hair was matted with thick, wet blood that dried black and crisp in some spots. The right side of her face was smeared with blood from her hands in an attempt to relieve the pain of being stabbed. Her lips and nose were swollen into a grotesque caricature while her eyes were dark, empty holes. The bottom of her right ear was blown up like a small balloon where blood coagulated from a stab to her ear canal. Her killer made a statement: “I detest you and never want to see you or hear you again.”

The CSI sergeant looked forward to the opportunity to handle a homicide victim, but the detective did not. He wanted to go after the killer, but there was no where to go until he found out who she was. Owen expected help rolling the body over, but he didn’t get it. The detective held tight to his pen and pad, taking notes and drawing a sketch. The CSI rolled her on her side revealing rigor mortis and areas of her skin blotched red from blood pooling. She wore black stretch pants and a white peasant top with beads swirling across the front. Her shirt was pulled up revealing her stomach as if she had been dragged there. She was barefoot, but there was one black, high top shoe between her feet. It was a left shoe, and despite a thorough search, the right shoe was nowhere to be found. She didn’t have a purse or wallet or any form of identification

Owen McDonnell was a well-known expert witness in the field of Crime Scene Investigations. He was the best at his job in the state. He took the woman’s right hand and spread her blood covered fingers. There were three rings on her hand which meant nothing except for the one on her middle finger. It was a class ring from 1999 in Rising Star, Texas, and it had the name Meagan written on it. The ring was the detective’s only shot at identifying her.

A burst of wind was followed by a clap of thunder to remind the detective he was a visitor in God’s world. Dark clouds covered the sky except for one spot where the sun shined down with great intensity. The detective made it to his car before the monsoon hit. The car teetered under the deluge of water and gust of wind, but the storm provided the isolation he needed. He bowed his head in a short, desperate prayer. When he opened his eyes, he watched sweat drip from his chin to his pants. The image of the woman in the brush burned in his mind. Did she know the Lord? Drip...drip...drip.

He pulled his keys from a wet pocket and cranked the car. The rain stopped. The sun, still poking through a hole in the clouds, reflected on the pavement and blinded him. He put on his sunglasses, but they fogged up. He flipped down his visor and called Dispatch. Dispatch switched him to Rising Star High School. His call went from an operator, to a secretary, to an assistant principle, and finally to the superintendent, a straight forward, no-nonsense man. The detective told him about the dead woman by the highway under the trees wearing a class ring with his school’s name on it.

“Does the name Meagan ring a bell?”

“Oh yeah, Meagan McFarlin, Class of 99.”

He didn't need a yearbook to remember her. He went to church with her family, but the McFarlins moved to a small town an hour away. He had their number but wouldn’t give it up regardless of the detective’s plea.

“I’ll tell you what detective...I’ll have them call you.”

The superintendent hung up before the detective could protest. It was not the way it was supposed to happen. Law enforcement should make the notification. Without a phone number he’d be lucky to hear from the family at all.

Patrolmen, crime scene investigators, detectives, and a couple of uniforms from Greenwood bunched around cars or walked the perimeter of the scene. The press was across the road, a hundred yards west with a camera on a tripod. A sergeant tapped on the detective’s window. He rolled it down part way.

“The News wants to talk to you. What should I tell them?”

“You know as much as I know. I’m trying to track down the family right now.” He rolled up the glass.

Owen made his way under the tape to finish his evaluation before the Coroner arrived. McDaniel sat in his car on hold with Dispatch, trying to find a number for the McFarlins. He looked at his single page of notes which consisted of a drawing of the victim under tree limbs, a profile of a guy with a mustache, geometric designs, and scribbles resembling flames. He had two facts so far: a woman was brutally murdered, and she was wearing a class ring. He knew whoever killed her would do it again the next time he got angry because the woman was a victim of rage triggered by sexual frustration. It was no stranger killing. There was a killer on the loose, and of all the people at the scene, there was only one who had the responsibility to stop him, and it weighed heavy on the detective. Everyone had a theory, but he had the responsibility of tracking down the killer.

The sweat that soaked through two shirts made him shiver now. He dropped the A/C to low and turned the vent away from him. With nothing else to do, he wrote down a list of questions. Who is she? Where did she come from? Did it happen here or somewhere else?

The phone rang. It was out of state. He took the call on the fourth ring.

“McDaniel.”

It was quiet.

“This is Detective McDaniel.”

“Detective?”

He knew who it was, so he told himself to be patient; after all, this woman just lost a daughter.

“Yes ma’am...”

“This is Denise McFarlin.”

This was the part of his job he hated most because his news brought everlasting despair.

“I’m sorry ma’am. Do you know what’s going on?”

“Only that there is a woman in Louisiana who has been killed who matches the description of my daughter.”

“I’m sorry you had to hear it like that, but there was no other way. I’m in Caddo Parish at the state line, and some men were test driving a car this morning on US 80 when they found a woman lying near the road. Are you alone?”

“No, my husband is here, but he’s overcome with grief.”

The superintendent told her the story and saved the detective from being the initial bearer of bad news. He fumbled through the limited information he had, describing the victim and the class ring she was wearing. He did not have positive identification, but it all seemed to fit, and after talking to Denise, he believed it more than ever.

Denise had been gravely concerned about her daughter Meagan and her lifestyle for months. She was heartbroken at the news but not surprised. It was the culmination of a whirlwind search for acceptance, worth, and love. In late March, Meagan dropped her son off to stay with her parents and left town with her new boyfriend. A few days later, she planned to meet them in San Antonio. Denise, her husband Gene, and Meagan’s little boy made the drive the next day, but Meagan didn’t show. Denise was terrified. She called her over and over but there was no answer. Despite the turmoil between them, Meagan always called her, and now a month had passed with no word. She was expecting bad news but hoped something could be salvaged. Whatever trouble Meagan got into could be worked out, but not now.

Denise believed Meagan’s boyfriend convinced her to believe his lies, led her away like the Pied Piper, and killed her. His conniving began while he was incarcerated in November 2002 and started a relationship with Meagan over the telephone. They talked every day, and when he was released, Meagan was there to pick him up. From that day on, they were living together and nothing would be the same again. Denise warned Meagan her boyfriend was dangerous, but she told her mother, “I don’t know what it is Mom, these bad boys just turn me on.”

And a bad boy he was. David Ray Wammack’s criminal history was riddled with theft, burglary, and drug and alcohol offenses from Mississippi to Alaska. Denise wondered how a sweet girl brought up in church could be attracted to an aimless ex-con, but Meagan was 22 years old. All Denise could do was sound the warning, but her warnings seemed to make Meagan embrace him even tighter. She was a better than average student with a high school diploma, but at eighteen, she had a baby out of wedlock, and her college plans went on hold. She worked a full time job and intended to start college, but the the bad boy captivated her.

On January 27, the McFarlin’s home was burglarized. Tools, collectibles, and a pistol were among the items stolen. After a police investigation, Wammack was arrested for the burglary and booked in Parker County Jail. Two weeks later, Meagan pooled her resources and bonded him out. When she picked him up, they drove to the Ford dealer, and Meagan bought an extended cab F-150 pickup. She told her parents David Ray needed the truck, so he could go to work, but Denise knew she was being scammed by a man who was out of jail on bond and hadn’t held a job in years.

When she didn’t hear from Meagan for weeks, Denise went to the police station and made a missing person report. A few days later on May 7, the detective called her. Later that day, she wrote in her journal, “Caddo Parish called saying they found body w/ ring saying RSHS + Meagan. Waiting for positive ID.”

Denise gave the detective the license plate number to Meagan’s pickup truck, and that afternoon, he issued a BOLO (be on lookout) for the Ford truck and entered it in the national computer. The BOLO read:

OWNER OF THIS VEHICLE IS VICTIM OF HOMICIDE. THIS VEHICLE IS BELIEVED TO BE DRIVEN BY DAVID RAY WAMMACK, WHO IS WANTED FOR QUESTIONING IN HOMICIDE. PLEASE APPROACH WITH CAUTION. HOLD VEHICLE FOR LATENT PRINTS AND POSSIBLE CRIME SCENE EVIDENCE. 

The detective’s call was more than a death notification. In order to find out who killed Meagan, find him, and stop him, he needed all the information he could get. Fortunately, Denise knew what was at stake. Talking to her within hours of finding the body was the most important thing he did in the investigation.

Dirk Little

Thursday, May 8, 2003

Before sun up the next morning, the detective went for a run. He said his prayers, but he was distracted by the images in his mind of Meagan McFarlin lying dead in the brush. The suspect in her murder was a petty thief, felon, drug addict, and as is often the case, the victim’s boyfriend. He was from Texas and probably returned home after the murder. The detective needed to find him before it was too late for someone else’s little girl. It sounded simple, but David Ray Wammack was on the run and didn’t have a job, a phone, a home, or anyone expecting him to show up. At present, the BOLO for the truck was the only hope of finding him, but it would take time.

    When he got to the office, he reviewed Wammack’s criminal history. There were many arrests, but one that stood out was in 2002 when he was arrested for car theft with a woman in Southaven, Mississippi. The police department faxed him a copy of the arrest report and booking photo. Wammack had shoulder length hair and sharp features. He and the woman, Kathy (not her real name), were arrested for possession of a stolen car. Kathy was from Dallas. The detective found her mother and called her. Her mom said Kathy was driving an eighteen-wheeler up north and didn’t have a cell phone, but she called every day when she stopped for fuel. She told the detective she would have Kathy call him the next time she spoke to her.

    Sergeant Owen McDonnell was unable to match the Greenwood victim’s thumbprint to Meagan’s driver’s license thumbprint. It was significant news, but the detective was not concerned. He thought the driver’s license bureau just got things mixed up. Everything was clear on his end, and Wammack was too good a suspect to dismiss because of a clerical error. The next step for CSI was to compare Meagan's dental records with the Greenwood victim.

    Kathy, Wammack’s former girlfriend, called the detective from a truck stop in Kentucky. She was suspicious until he said he needed to ask her some questions about Wammack. She thought the detective was investigating him for domestic abuse and was eager to tell her story. 

     Kathy dated him for two years, but their relationship ended a year earlier when he beat her up. After that, she got as far away from him as possible by taking a job as a cross country truck driver. Wammack was addicted to crack cocaine, stole cars, and went on road trips across the south. Being mobile helped him elude capture for burglary, shoplifting, drug peddling, and car theft. Kathy and David Ray traveled interstate highways in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and on one of those trips, they were arrested in Southaven.

    When Wammack wasn’t stealing or running from the police, he stopped at truck stops to hustle and panhandle. Panhandling consisted of begging people for money by telling lies about broke down cars and sick relatives. Hustling was polishing wheels and gas tanks on 18-wheelers for cash. By hustling and panhandling, he made money for food, gas, cigarettes, booze, and drugs. Most of the time he slept in the vehicle he was driving, but sometimes he went to homeless shelters. When he was home in Fort Worth, he stayed at a homeless shelter called the Day Resource Center.

    Wammack had an explosive temper. His violence against Kathy increased until the day he broke her nose. It was the day she left him and left town. She was deathly afraid of him, but like many domestic violence victims, she never called the police.

    After talking nonstop for ten minutes, Kathy asked the detective why he called. He told her about the murder victim in Greenwood. He pulled the phone from his ear when she screamed. “I knew it! It could have been me! It could have been me!” She was certain Wammack was a killer. He asked her about Meagan McFarlin, but she did not know her or any other women associated with her ex-boyfriend.

    At noon, there was news that should have altered the course of the investigation. Sergeant McDonnell confirmed the woman found murdered the day before was not Meagan McFarlin.

   McDaniel slammed his writing pad on the desk in frustration. His entire case was built on the likelihood David Ray Wammack murdered Meagan, but she was not the victim, so who was she, and why was she wearing Meagan’s class ring?

    He called Denise McFarlin, apologized for his call the day before and told her the good news. She was surprised, but unlike many mothers in her situation, she refused to embrace false hope. She had not heard from Meagan in a month, and she knew something was wrong. She told the detective Meagan gave her class ring to David Ray in March because they were going together, and the last time she heard from her, she was with Wammack in her truck, possibly with his friends, Dirk and Robert Walton (not his real name). 

    David Ray Wammack was the last, living person to be in possession of Meagan’s ring, and he was the only connection between the ring and Greenwood victim. Either he knew the murdered woman, or he pawned the ring, and she bought it. Perhaps there was no connection between them at all, but until he knew for sure, he needed to talk to him.

    He called the Day Resource Center in Fort Worth and told them he was looking for Wammack. but he was not there. He printed a dozen copies of Wammack’s photo and wrote his name and phone number on each copy. He was on his way to distribute the flyers to local truck stops when Lieutenant Duncan stopped him.

    “They’ve got your man in Dallas.”

    “What man?” He had been investigating Wammack all day, but he didn’t expect to find him.

    “Pick up line one and talk to Detective Boetcher.”

    “This is McDaniel.”

    Tom Boetcher was a homicide detective for the Fort Worth Police Department on the night shift, and he got straight to the point. An hour earlier, a Fort Worth Police Officer was patrolling downtown when he saw a white Ford F150 make a U turn. The driver and passenger saw the cop but did not make eye contact with him. The officer ran the license plate, and it returned with the emergency BOLO McDaniel put out the day before. The officer pulled the truck over and detained two men. The driver showed him a temporary driving permit identifying him as Robert Walton. The passenger was Dirk Little. When the officer separated the men, Dirk told him the driver was actually David Ray Wammack. The officer confronted the driver, and he admitted he was Wammack and concealed his identity because he had a warrant in Dallas County.

    The Caddo detective told Boetcher about the homicide in Greenwood, Louisiana, and his suspicion Wammack was involved. He asked him if Wammack would tell him what happened to Meagan. 

“Hey Wammack, where is Meagan McFarlin?”

 Wammack laughed. “Last time I saw her she was getting in the cab of a truck with a guy named Marcus.”

 “When was that?”

 “Bout a month ago.”

 When the detective heard what Wammack said, he knew he had the right man. Though Meagan was gullible, she was loyal. She staked her happiness on David Ray Wammack and would not have transferred it to a stranger. Even if she had, she would have called her mother and told her where she was, but Denise hadn’t heard from her in over a month.

 Ten minutes earlier, the detective thought he would never solve the case, but now it was just a matter of proving it...or so he thought.

        In reality, he had no idea who the Greenwood victim was or her connection to Wammack. All he had was a class ring. He tried to convince Boetcher of Wammack’s guilt, but the city detective was a busy man. He had more important things to do than entertain hunches and conspiracy theories. In his Case Notes, he wrote, “Detective Boetcher contacted Detective McDaniel. He said he is not sure where Meagan McFarlin is or how David Wammack is involved in the homicide in their city. David Wammack at one time dated Meagan McFarlin, and he believes he might be involved in the homicide in their city.”

 Boetcher told the detective he would book Wammack on the misdemeanor warrant out of Dallas County, but he would have to cut Dirk loose. McDaniel asked him to put a hold on Wammack so he wouldn’t be released before he got there. The detective didn’t know if Dirk was involved, but he knew he was Wammack’s friend, and he was quick to point his buddy out to police after they were stopped. If the detective had been in Fort Worth, he would have asked Dirk to come to the office and answer some questions, but he wasn't, so he asked Boetcher for a favor.

 “Detective...would you do something for me.”

 “If I can I will.”

 “Would you ask Dirk to come to your office so I can interview him when I get there?”

 In his Case Notes he wrote, “Detective McDaniel stated if there was a way to have the driver, David Wammack and Dirk Little taken to the Homicide Office so they could be interviewed upon their arriving in Fort Worth it would be appreciated.”

 Boetcher knew the detective had nothing, but he was too polite to say so.

It was quitting time, but McDaniel and his sergeant, Bill Rehak, left for Fort Worth. Rehak drove while the detective spread his file across the dash and opened his laptop. His first phone call was home. He told his wife he couldn’t pick up the kids, help with dinner, and get them to bed. He expected her to be upset, but she wasn’t.

   “Go get him before somebody else gets killed.”

 That was all he needed to hear.

 When they crossed the state line, his cellphone rang. It was Boetcher.

 “Hey...I called CSI over to look at Meagan’s truck. He saw what he believed was blood on the passenger’s side door panel, so we impounded Meagan’s truck. It’ll be at the storage barn when you get here.”

 It took blood to get Boetcher on board, but there was more. 

An hour and a half out of Shreveport, the detective got another call. Expecting Boetcher, he was surprised to be talking to Gene McFarlin, Meagan’s father. He asked the detective how he was doing, and if there was any progress identifying the Greenwood victim. McDaniel answered, and there was silence.

    “Mr. McFarlin… was there a reason you called?”

    “Well…” There was someone else on the line. It was Denise.

    “Well-l-l…honey do you think we should tell him?”

    “I don’t know…what do you think?”

    It was the first time he received a call from either of them he did not initiate. They couldn’t have known he was on his way to Fort Worth to see Wammack.

    “What’s going on?”

    It was Denise who spoke up. “The Kleberg County Sheriff’s Office called and told us they found the skeletal remains of a white female on the dunes at South Padre Island.”

    “You’re kiddin?”

    “I wish I was. The deputy said the victim had a bridge across her front teeth, just like Meagan’s. He also said there was a one-inch, round hole in the top of the skull about the size of a hammer. It is not confirmed, but we think it is Meagan.”

    It explained why Meagan was not with David Ray when they were stopped that afternoon and why she had not called her mother in a month. It was the second time in 24 hours the McFarlins were told their daughter had been violently murdered.

    “I’m sorry. Are you guys alright?”

    “We’ve been expecting the worst. Your call yesterday made us face the facts. Even when she was irresponsible she stayed in contact, but we haven’t heard from her since April.”

    “I’m sorry. I’m headed west on I-20, on my way to see David Ray Wammack in Fort Worth.”

    “You got him?”

    “Well, sort of. Fort Worth PD saw him and Dirk in Meagan’s truck by the shelter in downtown Fort Worth. They ran the plate and got the BOLO I put out yesterday. I’m going to interview him when I get there, and we need a confession. Please pray.”

    If Wammack had not been in custody in Ft. Worth, the McFarlins’ news meant nothing to the Caddo case, but since he was, it clarified things. He was now a suspect in two murders. There was potential evidence inside Meagan’s truck, but it would have to be found, collected, and tested, and the process could take months. The detective believed it would take a confession to stop him, but confessions on violent murders are rare.

    The remains on South Padre Island were skeletal. The last time Denise spoke to Meagan was a month earlier on April Fool’s Day. With the discovery of her bones, Texas had their own murder victim, the suspect was in custody in Fort Worth, and the case was strong. All Louisiana had was a coincidence.

    When the Caddo Parish detectives got to downtown Dallas, traffic was wall to wall because the Mavericks were playing the Sacramento Kings in the playoffs. An hour later, they pulled up to the Fort Worth Police Station as the last remnants of the sun faded in the western sky. The Homicide Office was on the third floor of a high rise. When the elevator door opened, a policeman was waiting for them. He led them through a maze of dark hallways until they came to a large room full of cubicles. In the far corner of the building, a man was talking to another man sitting in a chair. Three police officers were sitting quietly fifty feet away listening to the conversation. They looked up and motioned for the Caddo detectives. One of them, a CSI, took McDaniel’s hand, pulled him close, and whispered, “He’s getting what you need right now.”

    “What do you mean?”

    “Boetcher is talking to the big guy they call Dirk. He just gave up your homicide. He is talking to him about the Padre Island homicide right now.”

    The detective bowed his head and thanked God. Boetcher did everything he promised and more. Now it was time to find out the identity of the Greenwood victim.

    Rehak told his detective to write a warrant for Little. It had to come from Caddo Parish so they could hold him in Fort Worth. The detective pulled out his laptop and got started. Twenty minutes later, Boetcher walked up.

    Thomas Boetcher was the quintessential big city detective. In a place where detectives wore cowboy hats, boots, and big silver belt buckles, he wore dress pants, a long sleeve shirt, and tie. McDaniel was fortunate he was the detective who responded to the BOLO on Meagan’s truck. Without him, things could have turned out differently.

    Dirk Little acted like he was Boetcher’s best friend, but it didn’t start that way. When they arrived at the office, the Fort Worth detective asked him where he had been the last two days. Dirk told him they stayed all night in a motel in Fort Worth, but Boetcher called his bluff. Dirk broke immediately and told him David Ray Wammack murdered a woman named Jennifer in Louisiana.

    It was the second time in five hours Dirk sold out his friend. If he would have kept his mouth shut earlier, there was a good possibility he and Wammack could have returned to the homeless world of anonymity and spent the night at the shelter, but instead, he distanced himself from Wammack.

    In mid-April, Dirk and Wammack met Jennifer at the Salvation Army in Galveston, and he and Jennifer hooked up. He called her his girlfriend, but he didn’t know her last name. Before week’s end, Jennifer was tired of Dirk and asked him if she could be David Ray’s girlfriend instead. Dirk told her, “Sure, no problem.” Despite the break up, Dirk stayed with the couple.

    Two days earlier, they were coming back to Texas. They were in Louisiana when Wammack ordered Dirk to stop the truck. He pulled the truck off the highway and into the grass on the side of the road. Wammack and Jennifer got out and walked into the woods while Dirk stayed behind the wheel. A few minutes later, David Ray returned alone, got in the truck, and told Dirk to drive. Within minutes they were in Texas. Half way to Dallas, Dirk asked him what happened to Jennifer. “I killed the bitch.” Dirk thought he was just trying to be a big man which was ironic since Dirk at 6’8” tall and weighing 330 pounds towered over David Ray.

    It wasn’t the only time Wammack bragged about killing a woman. A month earlier, he, Wammack, and Meagan were at South Padre Island in Texas. As the sun was setting, Wammack took Meagan for a walk on the beach, but came back alone carrying a hammer. He told Dirk he knocked Meagan in the head with the hammer and left her on the dunes. Now that he knew it was true, he wanted Boetcher to know he had nothing to do with either murder.

    His information was timely and helpful but also convenient and incomplete. The detective would take a shot at him later, but first he had to do what he came for: interview David Ray Wammack.

    Dirk didn’t know it, but he was in a bad position. He put himself at the scene of two homicides and knew details that someone who was not there would not have known. McDaniel knew Wammack was the key to solving the case, but if he refused to talk, Dirk was as culpable as he was, or if Wammack said Dirk killed the women, who could say otherwise?

David Ray Wammack    

Detective McDaniel finished Dirk Little’s warrant at midnight, and the detective from Fort Worth led him to an office on the other end of the detective’s floor. He recognized David Ray Wammack from his Mississippi booking photo. He sat in an office chair, handcuffed behind his back. He had shoulder length brown hair pulled back behind his ears and wild, blue eyes.

The two stared at each other momentarily, but McDaniel looked away. No sense in letting him get under his skin. The felon reminded him of another killer, Charles Manson, yet Manson, for all his horrible crimes, was never accused of stabbing an incapacitated woman in the eyes and ears with a screwdriver or driving a hammer into the back of a distracted girlfriend’s head. David Ray was adept at outsmarting cops and using the system to his advantage, but he had never been in this much trouble before. After Meagan’s murder, he roamed free for a month, but now he had two Louisiana detectives standing over him.               

The burden of successfully completing his task weighed heavy on the detective even though he knew success was unlikely. Murderers don’t just walk in a room with two strangers and tell them they brutally murdered someone. The detective’s natural instinct was revenge, but it did not agree with his Christian convictions. Vengeance was up to God. His role was getting to the bottom of the truth. Picking a fight would destroy any cooperation, and he needed all the cooperation he could get. He made up his mind to control himself, and if things didn’t go well it wouldn’t be his fault.

He asked a patrolman to remove Wammack’s handcuffs. While he did so, the detective slipped into a dark office momentarily and said a prayer. When he finished, he found Wammack bright eyed and eager.

He went over the rights form and asked the usual questions: name, dob, address, past history. So far, the interview was no different than a visit to a doctor until the detective told him why he drove 240 miles to see him…he was investigating the brutal murder of a woman five miles from the Texas state line.

“David, if you had anything to do with that you should tell me now.”

He glared at the detective like earlier, but the detective remembered his promise. He looked down at his notes.

“I don’t know what I can make a statement on.”

It wasn’t a denial, but it was too early to press him. Interview and interrogation are a process. Rapport comes first, or at least that’s the goal, and there’s no short cut. Anger and violence work only on TV. Eliciting cooperation takes time, patience, and respect. The goal of the interview is to get an alibi. The goal of the investigation is to sustain or tear down the alibi.

David Ray told them he was at Rip Griffin's Truck Stop in Terrell, Texas on the day of the murder. He answered questions, but his replies were short, guarded, and sarcastic. For him, encounters with cops were always bad: a ticket, a fine, or jail. Guys like him don’t cooperate with police, but there was a reason why he was talking to them. It wasn’t because he was a good guy or wanted to put the past behind him; it was because he wanted to find out what they knew, but McDaniel was not going to let that happen. His interview had two purposes, to get his alibi and to build rapport for an interrogation. McDaniel knew a lot about David Ray’s lifestyle and behavior, but he had to put him with Jennifer on US 80 on the night of the murder.

David Ray had a pickup truck. It didn’t matter that it didn’t belong to him. The truck gave him mobility, shelter, and served as a mobile detail shop. He was a hard worker when he needed to be, and when he hustled, he could make a couple hundred dollars a day detailing trucks at truck stops. The truck allowed him to travel with his buddy Dirk Little and gave him status among the homeless community. David Ray and Dirk dropped into the Salvation Army in Galveston and met a woman named Jennifer. Jennifer became Dirk’s girlfriend the first day they met, but she dropped him for David Ray who thought the only reason women existed was to serve his animal impulses. Things were good, for a while.

The three of them left Galveston to travel the highways and detail trucks. With his size and bravado, Dirk promised to be a big help, but he was prone to epileptic seizures and hard work was a primary trigger, or so he said. Dirk stayed on the sidelines to encourage David Ray to work hard. Jennifer was no help either. Once they started traveling, she began to fall into a trance-like state where she sobbed, screamed, and spoke in unknown tongues. David Ray believed she was putting on to illicit sympathy, but she didn’t get any from him. As they went from truck stop to truck stop either Dirk was writhing on the ground with convulsions or Jennifer was staring off in space and screaming, and it put David Ray on edge. On May 7, he had enough. 

  They were passing through Shreveport and stopped at the Petro Truck Stop on the west side of town. He walked Jennifer to the front door and left her there. When he got back in the truck, he told Dirk it was time to find another whore.

The detective asked him for a detailed description of Jennifer, hoping to get her last name without tipping him off that he didn’t know it. David Ray’s description matched the Greenwood victim down to her shoes, but he did not give her last name. Though he spoke of Jennifer and the Greenwood victim as the same person, he didn’t put himself at the scene.

David Ray lived a primitive life, fueled by drugs. He was a caveman with a pickup truck and a meth pipe. The felon and the detective were different in every way, but the detective ignored the differences. He didn’t get angry at his flippant remarks. He didn’t challenge his lies. He treated him as an equal.

At the end of the interview, the detective asked, “What do you think ought to happen to the person who killed this young lady?”

He replied, “If they raped her and killed her, then I say they each may be killed themselves. If just murdered, then I don’t know, probably lock him up, you know, for a long time or whatever.”

To qualify for the death penalty, it takes more than murder; it takes another felony like rape or robbery. It didn’t occur to David Ray that the only person who would be concerned about the death penalty was the person who killed Jennifer.

When the interview was over, the detectives left him alone in the office. They had his alibi. It was negated by Dirk before the interview started, so there was nothing to verify. McDaniel made notes of the inconsistencies in his statement and prepared for an interrogation which would force David Ray to face the truth.

After ten minutes, the detectives walked back in the room with David Ray. He was wide-eyed and wondering what would happen next. The detective stepped behind the desk. Rehak sat in his chair.

“David, the investigation clearly shows you were involved in Jennifer’s murder. You seem like a pretty decent guy to me. There is a lot going on here that we don’t know and some things only you can fill in…”

He stared at the detective without responding, and then pumped his leg up and down rapidly as if he had no control over it.

“Are you the kind of guy that randomly kills people?”

“No, I don’t believe so. I can’t believe this shit.”

The detective ignored his change of demeanor and offered him scenarios of how Jennifer’s death could have been an accident or self-defense. It was a ridiculous assertion to anyone who saw the crime scene, but the detective wanted him to recognize he was the only person who could have killed Jennifer. He stared blankly, deep in thought, but then looked up and asked the detective, “What did Dirk say? Did y’all talk to Dirk?”

“We talked to Dirk, but I’d like to think you‘re not the person he portrayed.”

He knew Dirk was a tattletale.

“I didn’t rob her and rape her or nothing else.”

Dirk didn’t accuse him of rape and robbery, nor did the detectives think Jennifer had been raped or robbed. The man who killed her did not want to die, and he was pointing out details in the criminal code to explain why he didn’t qualify for the death penalty. His points were true for the Louisiana case, but in Texas he murdered Meagan and left the scene in her pickup truck. The detective’s plan was to get everything he needed to make his case in Louisiana and then turn him over to Texas for the death penalty.

He did not deny killing her, only raping and robbing her. In the interview room, a non-denial is a sure sign of deception, but the detective needed more for the courtroom. David Ray looked at him but did not hear what he said. He was thinking, and he figured out they did not know anything about Jennifer. He asked McDaniel her name, but the detective didn’t answer. David Ray was pleased with himself until Rehak spoke up, “Well, we know who you are.”

McDaniel asked him what happened in the back of the truck before the murder. It was a leading question, but he took the bait. “She went crazy. She wasn’t crazy - she kept having flashbacks about when she was – when she was a kid or said she did. I still think it was her just trying to get some help. I sure wish ya’ll would let me have a cigarette.”

McDaniel bought a pack of Marlboros at a truck stop on the way to Fort Worth. Since he didn’t want to be seen with them, he stuck them in his sergeant’s front pocket before they walked in the police station. David Ray was across from Rehak and couldn’t miss them. The sergeant was hesitant, but McDaniel insisted. Rehab handed him a cigarette and his lighter. The effect was dramatic. He was no longer distracted and evasive. The detective saw his opening. He asked him why Jennifer was murdered. David Ray exhaled a stream of smoke and replied, “My anger.”

It was the answer he could never come back from. He told the detectives he was drunk. The detective understood how someone under the influence could do something out of character. He asked David Ray how things got out of hand, and for the next thirty minutes, he told them about Jennifer Atkinson’s last day on earth.

On May 6, he, Dirk, and Jennifer were returning to Texas through Louisiana after a trip to south Louisiana panhandling and hustling. Dirk was driving, and David Ray and Jennifer were in the back seat of the extended cab truck having sex. Things were going well until Jennifer had a spell and started weeping. When Jennifer reneged on her reason for existence, David Ray went into a rage. What started as an argument became a fight with Jennifer matching him blow for blow. Unable to subdue her, he felt for a screwdriver in the storage bin.

“I can’t remember everything, but I – I stabbed her with a screwdriver, I know that.”

She bled on the door panel from the initial wound, and two days later, the Fort Worth CSI saw the blood and impounded the truck.

After he stabbed her, David Ray told Dirk to stop the truck. The big red head pulled off at Exit 5 in Greenwood onto US 80 and turned back to the east, passing Kelley’s Truck Stop. He drove half a mile and pulled off the shoulder and into the grass. Dirk got out and moved out of the way while the commotion behind him spilled out on the grass. Jennifer begged. If he would just let her go at the truck stop, she would never tell a soul. She swore it, but it was too late. The highway man’s mind was made up. He crossed the same path a month earlier, and now he could not let her go because he had a skeleton in his closet 300 miles away on South Padre Island. The discovery of Meagan could mean the gallows for him. If Jennifer called the police, it wouldn’t take them long to figure things out.

He beat her until she fell, writhed in pain, and begged for mercy, but there was none. Instead, he stomped her neck and kicked her in the head until his oversized steel-toed boots came off. He got them from the donation box at the Salvation Army, and they were two sizes too big. Jennifer lay on the ground, out of her mind in pain. He ran to the truck, found the screwdriver, and stabbed her repeatedly.

Dirk was hiding in the truck but stepped out in time to save his old girlfriend, but instead, he grabbed her legs and dragged her to the brush under the trees. The men thought she was hidden, but the sun came up the next morning.

The Texans raced to leave, but when they got to the truck, they heard Jennifer struggling to breathe through her crushed throat and broken nose. In what he described as an act of mercy, David Ray ran back and stabbed her in her eyes and ears with the screw driver. After they finished her off, they fled to Texas, stopping outside of Dallas to spend the night at Rip Griffin’s Truck Stop.

A month earlier, after Meagan was gone, David Ray put her ring in the glove compartment of her truck and forgot it was there. Jennifer found the ring and put it on. When he saw her wearing it, he got pissed off and told her to take it off. She ignored him and eventually he forgot she had it.

Jennifer Atkinson’s murder was solved by a class ring and a confession. Meagan’s murder was a Texas case, and the Louisiana detectives had no jurisdiction in Texas, but McDaniel felt they needed to get all the information they could since David Ray was talking. Besides that, there were plenty of cigarettes left.

In April, David Ray, Meagan, and Dirk returned from Mississippi. David Ray’s job did not pan out. Meagan believed there was never a job in the first place. The whirlwind romance became a drought. When the excitement abated, she remembered the burglary of her mother’s house and the broken promises. She never had a moment alone with her boyfriend because he insisted on having Dirk in the middle of their romance. When she got back to Texas, her eyes were opened. She was ready to go home. She called her mother and promised to meet her family in San Antonio on April 2. The trio spent April Fool’s Day at the beach. As the day waned, Meagan told David Ray she was going home. It was over.

He wasn’t devoted to Meagan, but she was the only girlfriend he ever had that could buy a pickup truck, gasoline, a motel room, or provide a cash bond to get him out of jail should the need arise. Girls like that don’t come around every day, so he begged her to stay. When she wouldn’t relent, he asked her to go for a walk on the dunes for the last time, but his mind was made up. He told the detective she was going to stay with him, or she would never leave the dunes.

As they set out, he reached in the pickup truck, grabbed a hammer, and put it in his back pocket. While they walked, he begged her to reconsider. He promised to reform. He promised to be responsible, but she heard it all before. She was the only one in the relationship who made sacrifices. She chose him over her son and parents, but now she knew. She gave everything, but he gave nothing. He failed her. She finally saw him for what he was. The glamorous life of the bad boy was not glamorous at all. Momma was right. She was fed up with the lies, the cramped conditions, and the aimless wandering, and now it was time to go home to her baby boy and parents who never let her down, home to clean sheets and a comfortable bed, home to a hot shower and a warm meal. Meagan was going home.

She told him it was over, and she didn't waver. They walked silently in the sand, the young woman who came to her senses and the drifter who would not be rejected. When it was time to go back, he pointed at the sunset. She turned to look, and he drove his hammer into the back of her head. She dropped, incapacitated before she hit the ground. It was a merciless ambush, but he couldn’t let her suffer, so he finished her off with a barrage of blows. Meagan was finally home.

He hurried back to the truck that belonged to the murdered woman. He roused the aimless giant, and they returned to bury her in the dunes. Meagan would not be found for a month and then only by accident.

Despite his grim future, he made no attempt to share his misery. He told the detective that Dirk had nothing to do with either murder. He begged him to cut him loose.

His last words to the detectives were, “I’m sorry for what I’ve done.”

McDaniel believed him, but sorrow did not change anything. The detective was intent on putting him away forever.

The Caddo detective’s interview with Dirk was uneventful. He denied being involved in the murders and hiding the bodies. McDaniel, who was reserved while interviewing David Ray, did not give Dirk the same consideration. He told the big man he could have prevented Jennifer’s murder, but he didn’t because he was a coward. Through sobs Dirk admitted to standing by idly while David Ray Wammack beak, kicked, and stabbed his old girlfriend to death, and then he helped hide Jennifer’s body under the trees. It made him an accessory after the fact to murder, but he wasn’t a killer. If not for David Ray, he would not have been involved. His friendship with the murderer cost him 3 years of his life and left him with a life time of regret.

The detective wrote a search warrant for Meagan’s truck. They spent 12 hours on Friday going through it. They found the hammer, the screwdriver, and bloody clothes with both women’s blood on them. They also found Jennifer’s other high top tennis shoe. The case had it all: motive, a witness, physical evidence, and a confession. 

There is only one sentence for second degree murder in Louisiana: LIFE. Though the evidence against David Ray was overwhelming, he had nothing at all to lose by going to trial, but instead, he did the only decent thing he could do, he pled guilty, and Caddo Parish sent him to the state’s premier prison: Angola State Penitentiary.

The detective thought he outsmarted Texas by making an arrest within 48 hours of Jennifer’s murder. He expected Texas to indict David Ray for capital murder on Meagan’s case and receive the death penalty, but it didn’t happen. Texas did not arrest him and never indicted him, and by taking no action, it was Texas who outsmarted the detective. They allowed a Texas man who killed two Texas women to serve a life sentence in a Louisiana jail…

Mason’s Wish

The big break in the weather was finally here, and I intended to take full advantage of it. I rolled my windows down and smelled the smoke of oak logs from fireplaces of working folks who didn’t want to turn on their furnaces just yet. It really wasn’t cold enough for a fire, but they didn’t care. Summer was behind us.

It was a cloudless, star-filled night, but the same smoke that refreshed childhood memories converged in low spots and turned into thick, wet fog. I drove into a depression and felt the temperature drop ten degrees. Without warning, I was engulfed in a cloud that reflected the beams from my headlights and blinded me. I hit my dimmer switch and brakes at the same time and scrambled to find a towel to wipe off the inside of the windshield, but it was so damp, no amount of wiping could dry it.

Years earlier my training officer warned me about quiet nights. He taught me to keep moving and look for things that don’t seem right, like a car in a parking lot at a closed business, or someone walking down the road, or a car cruising slowly through a neighborhood, but I saw none of those things and was glad of it because I earned a break for surviving the summer, but there is a down side to solitude. When it’s busy, you don’t have time to get sleepy, but hours of overtime, working off duty, and the responsibilities of everyday life caught up with me. I wanted to go to sleep, but instead, I turned up the radio, hung my head out the window, and slapped myself to stay awake.

It had been a long time since I heard anyone on the radio, so I clicked my mic to make sure it was on. It was. I was glad to know I didn't miss a wreck, domestic disturbance, or barroom brawl. Could it really be Friday night?

I checked the Army Surplus store by the old highway, shining my spotlight at ballistic vests, Kevlar helmets, Pea coats, and flight jackets, but the only movements were shadows from the light. If you’re not careful, your eyes play tricks on you when you're sleepy, and a shadow becomes a fleeing felon or a tree branch blowing in the wind is a machete ready to chop off your head, but I knew the danger and didn't overreact.

I sat in my car and logged a business check: my eighth one in an hour. I hadn’t checked that many businesses since training. My car was filled with red light from the bulb I installed to protect my eyesight from the bright lights that would ruin my night vision. Like a prowling animal, I was ready and one with the night, that is until the lines on the page hypnotized me, and my pen moved slower and slower until it skipped across the page, ending in a scribble. At that moment the radio jarred me awake. I had forgotten to turn it down earlier when I thought I was missing something, and now it was full volume and demanding my attention, but it wasn’t an emergency. It was just Mason making a traffic stop.

Joe Mason knew how to ruin a quiet night. He should have known better, but he didn’t. He was a retired city cop who spent most of his 20 years on the DUI (Driving Under the Influence) Task Force, so when he came to the county, he continued doing what he knew best. When it came to disturbances, fights, burglaries, and thefts he was out of his element but finding and arresting drunk drivers was his specialty, and no one did it better than Mason. He had more DUI arrests than any cop in the entire state. Unlike the rest of us, he never got over the thrill of tracking and arresting drunks. Most of the guys on my shift avoided drunk drivers because the paperwork was tedious, and since most drunk drivers have the audacity to plead not guilty in court, subpoenas never stop coming. Court appearances are hard when you have a family and work midnight shift, and everybody knows that defense attorneys are unscrupulous. They make thousands of dollars coming up with gimmicks to make cops look like fools in court, so most of us waited for drunks to find us rather than try to find them, but not Mason. He could find them even on a quiet night. He booked a drunk driver in jail almost every night, and on weekends, it wasn’t unusual for him to make two arrests a night. Thanks to Mason, the midnight shift statistics were higher than any other shift, and our lieutenant loved him for it.

At almost 60, Mason was an oddity on patrol where a veteran of eight years was considered an old timer. The average age of a patrolman is 30, and most are uninterested in the tales of men who were making arrests when their parents were in middle school. I was the lone exception. Guys like Mason reminded me of a time in history I envied. I loved his stories, which he told well, of how things used to be.

Mason and I were friends, and he told me things he told few others. Maybe it was because I cared, or maybe it was due to our common interests like fishing and hunting, but most likely it was because I was a good listener. We talked about our families, our hobbies, the downslide of the world around us, and sometimes even religion. No one else had patience for him, but he was my friend. I liked his stories even if I heard them two or three times.

Some people block things out of their mind that are distasteful to them, and Mason was like that. If people didn’t like him, it didn’t bother him. He had no pretenses and didn’t worry about hurting people’s feelings. He rarely participated in group discussions. Instead, he listened. He listened to conversations at the station. He listened to radio traffic. He listened to deputies handle calls, and he analyzed everything he heard. When he and I talked about the people we worked with, I sometimes brought up their inadequacies, but Mason was quick to remind me of their strengths. He didn’t overlook anyone's weaknesses, but he noticed situations where the weak could do things better than those who were physically strong. His perspective made me appreciate people I would have otherwise written off. "Not everyone is strong as you are. Sometimes we need a little humor around here. Sometimes we need people whose brain operates on the right side. You left brain people are so boring."

He preached tolerance, but in practice, there were certain things he would not tolerate such as drunks and hypocrites. “That’s the truth right there…” he would often say. If someone on our shift was lazy, the rest of us whispered our thoughts, but Mason told them straight up. His frankness offended some, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t trying to impress anybody. His forthrightness was just a test to see if they were worthy of his friendship.

His father died when he was sixty three years old from a massive heart attack, but Mason was spared the same fate due to modern medicine. Four years earlier, Mason had triple bypass, and afterward he was determined to improve his health with exercise and diet, but his plan changed when he was forced to put his mother, who was suffering from dementia, in a nursing home. He visited her often, but she did not know him. It cut him deep to sit down with the first love of his life as a mere stranger. Vowing not to suffer the fate of his parents, he started smoking again. He said there was no sense living a long life if he didn’t know who his family and friends were, and besides that, cigarettes helped him concentrate.

A career in law enforcement is hard on any marriage. Mason was on his third wife, but he finally got it right. Marie gave him the security and direction he needed. Sometimes he joked that if he died in the line of duty his pension would be enough to get her a new house, and she would be taken care of the rest of her life. He spoke of it as if it would make him complete as a man and husband. I never took him seriously - until that night in October.

Dispatch called Mason and gave him the registered owner’s name of the pickup he pulled over. It was an oil company. The big oil companies brought people from all over the country to work the rigs in our county. I didn’t dare call Mason on the radio and ask him if he needed help because he made it clear to everyone on the shift that he did not want to be interrupted in the middle of a field sobriety test. Because of that, no one was going to back him up unless he asked. His policy was fine with me unless I was close and available. In those situations, I had my own policy.

When I pulled behind the red lights of his car, I got out of my car, walked around the back of my car and walked up to the passenger’s door of his car out of view of his camera. From there I could see everything, and chances were good no one would even know I was there. 

There was a giant of a man standing in front of his spotlight and headlights, so big Mason looked like a child when he raised his pen light to the giant’s eyes. He used the light as a guide for the man to follow as he moved it from side to side and up and down. Mason was an expert on the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus or HGN test. He was looking for the involuntary jerking of his eyes which is highlighted when someone is intoxicated. I was thirty feet away, and even at that distance I could tell the big guy was drunk by the way he was acting. This wasn't his first time to be pulled over, and he clearly resented it.

Mason told him to focus on the light while he moved it to the right, but the drunk picked out a point in the distance and stared at it. It was an old trick promoted on websites of unscrupulous attorneys to advertise their service. Since the giant did not focus on the light, Mason couldn’t get a proper reading of his HGN. Mason knew what was going on, but he was patient. He had been down this trail before and knew from experience that sugar worked better than salt in these situations. He spoke slowly in his country draw and gave Goliath instructions for the third time.

The drunk was wearing orange coveralls outlined with reflecting tape with an American Flag on his left shoulder. He probably got off work hours earlier, went straight to the bar, and didn’t leave until they shut the doors. Mason took his time, but the drunk stood at parade rest, refusing to follow any of his instructions or even acknowledge he was there. He was a statue, except for one thing…his face was blood red.

I looked behind me to see if there was any traffic. There wasn’t. The cool night kept everyone at home. When I turned back around, the drunk was staring at Mason, and then he dropped his gaze at Mason’s waist and stared at his pistol.

Before I could take a step, Mason was on the ground having landed there after being heaved in the air like a child and body slammed. It was a violent move of a desperate man. I found out later this was his third DUI, and even if he survived the legal implications, he was sure to lose his job. He was strong and surprisingly agile for his size. He grabbed Mason’s pistol and tried in vain to free it from the holster. Six months earlier, Mason got one of the new synthetic, security holsters that require you to disengage a guard and push a button before the pistol will come out. The old cop complained because he thought all holsters should be made from leather just like they were in the days of Wyatt Earp, but thankfully, this one wasn't leather. It held on to the pistol like a pearl inside an oyster. Unable to free it, the drunk tore Mason’s rig belt completely off him. He was still trying to pull the pistol out when I hit him.

Coach Ollie Swanson would have been proud of my form tackle, but it helped that the drunk never saw me coming. He exhaled a groan that held more air than both Mason and I could have breathed in five minutes. He was on his stomach while I sat on his back and willed every ounce of my girth to attach me to the ground beneath him. The air around us was foul with whiskey. The giant still held onto the pistol grip of Mason’s gun. I brought my right arm up and found my pistol in my hand, having gotten there I knew not how. I rose up and stomped my foot on his wrist, pinning it to the fog line, but he did not release the gun. He strained his neck to look at me, wondering who I was and where I came from. I pressed the muzzle of my Glock 22 against his temple.

“Are you ready to meet Jesus?”

I felt the tension in his body, and it seemed for a moment I was going to have to shoot him, but the thought of Jesus seeped into his conscience. He sobbed and through spit and snot he screamed, “N-o-o-o!”

He extended his fingers, and the pistol dropped from his hand. I kicked the gun, holster and all, over to Mason where it skidded across the pavement and stopped against his ribs with a thud.

Up to that moment, everything was adlib, but now my academy training kicked in. I told him to lie still with his arms spread while I backed away from him. He cried like a baby but did not move.

“Mason...get over here!”

My buddy was shocked embarrassed but able to get up after being dropped from midair onto the pavement. He put his rig belt around his waist and stood beside me with his pistol drawn. I put my pistol up and told him, “Shoot him if he moves.” We approached shoulder to shoulder in unison. When I reached down and grabbed the giant’s wrist, Mason held the Glock to the base of his neck. “Don’t make me kill you buddy boy, ya hear?”

For years Mason had been telling me stories about fighting drunks in ditches, chasing fleeing felons, and tracking the VC all over Vietnam. To avoid a PTSD flashback from the soldier beside me, I handcuffed the big drunk quicker than a steer wrestler at the rodeo, got him on his feet, and loaded him in the back of my car.

I had been out of my car less than five minutes, and we had an attempted murderer in handcuffs, ready for jail. It was good work by any standard. What had started bad for Mason ended up a happy ending because we worked together, side by side…me putting the drunk in handcuffs while Mason covered him with unescapable disaster, ready to drop him at a moment’s notice. There were no cross fire issues. Nobody got hurt. It was the for Cs from our training: Contact-Concealment-Cover-Control.

With the drunk contained, I walked over to Mason and patted him on the back. “You all right old buddy?” But he turned at me with a flash of rage. “Don’t you ever do that again you son of a bitch!”

He gave me his back and walked to his car.

It wasn’t the response I expected. 

I wasn’t asking him to tell me he owed me his life and from now on he would be my personal slave, but I thought he might have appreciated the unexpected intrusion. It could have been bad. Did he realize how close to death he was?

He opened his car door and looked back at me.

“Go on. You’ve done your good deed Mr. Goody Two-shoes. Get your ass outta here.”

Now I was mad.

It was the first time I ever saw him that way, and it was ugly. His dark, sullen resentment was out of character. I watched him drive away a stranger, oblivious to the fact I held his prisoner in the back seat of my car. I couldn’t cut the man loose because Mason just lost his mind. Now it was time for the fifth C: Clean-Up. I called Johnny James who was not far away and convinced him to impound the drunk’s F-250 while I took Mason’s prisoner to the jail and made him my prisoner.

When I left the jail, our shift was over, and I had no idea where Mason was or what was going on with him. I drove to the station in auto-pilot, my mind replaying the incident over and over, frame by frame. What could I have done differently? 

I could have ignored Mason’s policy and got right in the middle of his field sobriety test. With both of us hovering over the drunk, maybe he would have been submissive. 

My other choice was to do nothing at all, and apparently that was the choice Mason wanted me to make.

Mason often told me his family history, and his fear of growing old and feeble. Occasionally, he joked about dying while on duty, but I ignored him. I didn’t know what to say because it wasn’t something to joke about. I don’t believe in luck, good or bad, but it has never made sense to me to joke around about getting killed on duty, but now I knew Mason wasn’t joking at all. What happened on that Highway was exactly what he wanted to happen. He didn’t actively plan it, but he knew the inherent dangers of traffic stops and the odds of coming across a desperate person, so he merely increased the odds by making as many stops and arrests as he possibly could. Sooner or later he was bound to stop a drunken fool who would attack him…and he knew it. He knew death was just a matter of time, so he played the odds to shorten his time, and the legacy of taking care of Marie overshadowed his fears and abated the inconvenience of losing his mental capacity or dying of a heart attack. His plan was playing out nicely until I came along, and for that I was goody two-shoed SOB.

When I got to the station I found Mason’s reports in the basket, but he was long gone. His report was concise and accurate. I wrote my report and a use of force form. It was well after 9 am when I left.

Bette and the kids were gone when I got home. I had the house to myself, and it was quiet. I spent half my night struggling to stay awake, but now sleep impossible. I did not understand why Mason wanted to die. It is one thing not to fear death but another to desire it. It was so important to him that he put our friendship in jeopardy, and that’s what hurt the most. I did what I did because that was the reason I became a cop in the first place. If I left him alone, he would have died a hero. Marie would have had his pension for the rest of her life, and his name would have been chiseled in granite at the LEO’s Memorial, but not now. Now he was just a grumpy old man facing impending and anonymous death.

I finally got to sleep, but I relived the incident in my dreams, woke up for a few minutes, and went back to sleep to remember pulling up behind his car, getting out, and watching him with the drunk from the darkness, but this time it was different. This time, instead of running to his rescue, I tried to move but couldn't. I was paralyzed. It was the report of a gun shot that jolted me awake, out of breath and sweating. When I realized it wasn’t real, I said aloud, “Thank you Lord…thank you...thank you.”

When I was a kid, one of my friends shoved a girl down at recess, and she broke her leg. I was one of four kids that saw what happened, and our principal, Mr. Mack, called all us to the office. Old Mack was shrewd in the ways of education and discipline. He called us in his office and talked to us one at a time with a pen in his hand and a tablet on his desk. 

Vincent Jones was the most popular kid in our class, and I so badly wanted to be his best friend, but when he threw Agnes down for no other reason than she got in his way, and I saw her leg bent abnormally, her tears, and the fear in her eyes, my attitude changed. It was no accident, and I knew it. When Mack asked me to tell him what happened, I did. Problem was, I was the only one, other than Agnes, who told the truth. The result was instant shunning. I was an informant who appeased the enemy. I became an outcast among those who were once my friends. My name became synonymous with rat, snitch, tattletale, and sell-out.

Two days later, I got home after a lonely day at school. Before I could unlock the door, Dad opened it. It was strange because he never got home before 6 pm.

“Have a good day boy?”

“Yes sir.”

“Why don’t you and I go for a ride?”

I wanted to be left alone, but I couldn’t deny my dad. I wondered what he was up to and where we were going. We drove for five minutes in silence.

“Tell me about your day boy.”

Somehow he knew. I couldn’t hide it from him. I didn’t want to be a baby, but the tears fell, and I couldn’t stop them.

He let me cry.

When I caught my breath and dried my eyes, I told him what happened…how a guy I looked up to hurt a little girl and didn’t care. How my friends turned their backs on me, and that life was as bad as it could possibly be. He listened to all of it.

“Well, I’ve always loved you boy, and I always will, but today, I came to respect you. There’s not one person in a thousand who would alienate himself from his friends to do what was right, but you did. That’s what you call character boy, and I always thought you had it, but now I know you do.”

I was an outcast at school for two days, and it made me regret being honest. It convinced me being a tattletale was ten times worse than being a liar, but the greatest man I ever knew told me he respected me, a twelve year old kid who just wanted to be accepted.

“When a man does what is right because it is right despite what anyone else thinks, he has earned respect, and no one can ever take that away. One day some of your friends will understand, some never will, but by then you’ll be so far ahead of them on the road to manhood that they’ll never catch up. Mr. Mack called me and told me what happened. He said you were one of the few kids he’s ever known that stood up for what was right. You have honored me, and I am proud of you.”

Laying in bed twenty years later, I heard my dad’s words all over again, “You have honored me son. I am proud of you,” and just like that day twenty years earlier, nothing else mattered anymore. Just like I didn’t care what Vincent Jones thought , I didn’t care any more what Mason thought, or that his legacy had been thwarted. Doing what was right was all that mattered and knowing that my dad taught me the lesson a long time ago so was all the vindication I needed.

It was a week and a half before I saw Mason again. I avoided him all night, but at 2 am the bars closed. At 2:13 he was on the radio.

“One forty-nine to dispatch...traffic stop at Stockdale and Main with a blue Chev-ro-lay four door.”

For a full 30 seconds,  I was headed in the opposite direction and didn’t care, but I thought about my old man, turned the Impala around, and made up for lost time.

When I got to Main Street, Mason was in the middle of a walk and turn test with a middle-aged, barefooted woman on the shoulder of the road. A pair of high-heels was propped up in the grass next to the shoulder. The woman walked the fog line like a clumsy tight rope walker at the circus. She was wearing a ball room dress, and her tears, mixed with mascara, spilled down her cheeks. She invoked pity rather than justice. Somebody somewhere was singing a country song about her, but Mason was unfazed. In his world, there was no black or white, male or female, only drunk or sober. She was drunk, and she was going to jail, high heels and all.

Despite the flood of tears, he handcuffed her behind her back.

“Now, now…it’s not the end of the world ma’am. Everything’s gonna be alright.”

He put her in his backseat and asked me to wait for her son to pick up the car. Usually he smoked a cigarette before going to the jail, but not this time.

“No cigarette tonight?”

“Gave ‘em up a week and a half ago.”

“Oh yeah?”

He smiled. “Making some changes. If I got to be alive, might as well be healthy.”

It was the old Mason I knew, so I played along.

“Does that mean you’ll be in church Sunday morning?”

“I wouldn’t go that far, but one day I’ll be off midnight shift, and we’ll see.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

I turned to walk away, but he called me. 

“Jackson…there’s something I need to say to you.”

He walked over, stood directly in front of me, and looked me in the eye as if what he had to say was important.

“I respect what you did the other night.” He dropped his gaze to the the ground and twisting his wedding ring around his finger.

“You would have done the same for me.”

When he looked up, his bottom lip trembled. “Well, I like to think so anyway.”

I nodded. He looked away and was gone.

It wasn’t much, but it was enough.