Deadly Convictions
by Philip Luber
Chapter One
It was Christmas Eve, 1982. A light snow was spreading thinly on the city
streets.
Cardonick drove his Pinto down the Fairmount Street ramp and onto the Schuylkill
Expressway. He scanned the signs: Center City Philadelphia, Bear Left.
Stadiums and New Jersey, Bear Right. He checked his watch: Eight
forty-five. Tail-lights stretched before him like a string of red beads. He
hit cruising speed and melted into the traffic.
His left hand on the steering wheel, Cardonick reached across his body with his
right hand and balanced the Ruger Mini- 14 rifle on the edge of the half-open
car window. The Art Museum loomed in the distance as he fired his first shot. A
green Cadillac swerved abruptly in the distance. Acrid gun fumes swirled around
him.
The Cadillac regained its bearing. It slowed down as the unseen driver guided
it into the breakdown lane. Again Cardonick bore down on the trigger. Again the
fumes enveloped him. The bullet danced harmlessly into the night.
Not good enough, you son of a bitch. He rolled the window completely
open. Snowflakes filled the Pinto. He grabbed the wheel with his right hand and
shifted the weapon to his left one.
His third shot connected. Thirty yards ahead the rear window of a white Chevy
shattered. The Chevy accelerated and bore right toward New Jersey. Cardonick
followed suit. His Pinto sideswiped a small sedan and sent it hurtling into the
guardrail. He saw the flames in his side-view mirror.
William Penn's statue rose on the left from City Hall tower, its copper patina
a sickly shade of green. Cardonick squeezed off three rapid shots. A pick-up
truck two lanes over careened into a foreign compact. The white Chevy jumped
wildly across the center rail and landed wheels-up in the lane of oncoming
traffic. Brakes squealed like animals in a slaughterhouse.
Cardonick rolled up the car window and boosted the volume of his radio. Bruce
Springsteen was singing the old Crystals' arrangement of "Santa Claus is
Coming to Town". The heater's exhaust fan sucked in the gun fumes, mixed
them with the warm engine air, and spit them back into the Pinto. The mixture
seemed twice as powerful. Cardonick's eyes filled with tears.
He felt as if the shots had diverted some enormous inner pressure and had kept
him from bursting apart. He was relieved. He glanced at the license plate on
the car in front of him and totaled the digits left to right, then right to
left, then in random order. The sums were identical. He took comfort in the
consistency.
The South Philadelphia gasoline refineries passed by on his right. The fetid
odor mixed with the gun fumes and the engine heat. He remembered hearing a
comedian refer to the refinery smell as "the cosmic fart". He smiled
and placed the M-1 on the floor.
Flashing blue lights bounced off of his rear- and side-view mirrors. A police car
hovered directly behind. A second cruiser came alongside the Pinto and its
driver motioned toward the breakdown lane.
Cardonick slowed down. The cruiser alongside him pulled ahead. The Pinto glided
into the breakdown lane simultaneously with the two cruisers. Suddenly
Cardonick slammed down on the accelerator and angled back sharply into the
stream of traffic. A Plymouth banked hard off of his front left bumper, twisted
perpendicular to the road, and was struck by two other cars from behind.
Last Exit Before Toll Bridge to New Jersey, 1/2 Mile. The bridge would
be blocked by now, he knew. He veered right and took the last Pennsylvania exit
from the Expressway. He turned left at the end of the ramp, then right one
block later, and the massive Veterans Stadium appeared in front of him. The
Pinto blasted through the steel chain stretched across the parking lot
entrance.
He heard the pop of an unseen pistol. The bullet sheared off his radio antenna
and pierced the windshield. His cheek stung as if a wet towel were snapping
against it. Tiny circles of blood splattered onto the side window.
Cardonick aimed full-throttle toward the stadium. Six or seven cruisers
appeared magically and interposed themselves between the Pinto and its target.
He dropped to the floor, steadying the wheel with his left hand and depressing
the pedal with his right. He tasted the mixture of sweat and blood as it rolled
down his cheek and past his lips.
He heard one shot, then another, then several more. His tires exploded and the
Pinto jerked unevenly across the asphalt. Cardonick was thrown against the car
door; it sprang open. His head and shoulders stretched into the darkness. Snow
particles lashed against his forehead like so many tiny whips.
He closed his eyes as the car sputtered quickly to a halt. When he opened them
he was staring into the barrel of a pistol. The hand holding the gun was
shaking nervously, its finger rubbing against the trigger. "Go
ahead," murmured Cardonick. "Kill me, I want you to."
*
*
*
Driving into work late Christmas Eve, Detective Captain Stanley Schacter
listened to his favorite Willie Nelson cassette. Nearly forty years earlier
Schacter had spent six months of his Air Force duty stationed outside of San
Antonio. It was the only time in his life he spent more than two weeks away
from Philadelphia. He carried back from Texas a fondness for enchiladas, huevos
rancheros, Lone Star beer, and country music. And he vowed never again to leave
his home town.
He was not a demonstrative man, and he seldom thought about or used the word
"love". But Schacter loved Philadelphia: the even-handed symmetry of
its streets, the green acres of its city parks, the aroma of soft pretzels and
minute- steaks. And he loved the fierce loyalties it inspired. People who moved
to Philadelphia stayed there, and those who moved away always considered it
their home.
Like most of its natives, Schacter knew that the City of Philadelphia does not
actually exist as a distinct entity; it lives only as a figment of some
cartographer's imagination. Philadelphia is really a collection of
neighborhoods, and these neighborhoods are like little cities unto themselves
-- each with its own beliefs, customs, and spirit. He was fond of recalling the
days when American Bandstand originated from Philadelphia. Dick Clark
used to pass his microphone to the kids in the studio. When they introduced
themselves, it was "Suzie from West Philly," and "Jimmy from
Germantown," and "Kathy from the Northeast." That was the
Philadelphia -- those were the Philadelphias -- that Schacter knew.
Detective Captain Schacter had worked every Christmas Eve of his thirty-four
years on the police force. First it was a function of his lack of seniority.
Then it became a matter of interest. Ultimately -- and he would never say this
out loud to anyone -- it became his way of returning something to the city that
raised him and to the men who worked for him. Someone like Rienzi would
never understand that, he thought.
*
*
*
Inside the station Lieutenant Rienzi watched the late- night news. The
weatherman was predicting that the snow would fall until early morning. All
over Philadelphia, Rienzi mused, snow-removal workers would need to choose
between holiday pay rates and spending Christmas morning with their families.
Rienzi, a bachelor and a miscreant, sniggered at the thought.
Detective Captain Schacter arrived for work promptly at 11:30 PM. He rifled
through the evening arrest reports on his way upstairs to his office. Four
disorderly persons, three B & E's, two armed assaults.... "And a
partridge in a pear tree," he said to no one in particular when he reached
the second floor landing.
The rim of his expensive meerschaum smacked against the handrail at the top of
the stairs. The damp, half- smoked tobacco tumbled through his fingers and
half-way down the staircase. Damn, he thought, and reached down to clean
the mess. Just as his fingers reached out to touch the tobacco, a heavy black
boot stomped onto the debris.
"Helps it grow," said Lieutenant Rienzi as he ground the heel of his
boot against the threadbare carpet.
Startled, Schacter dropped his papers to the floor.
The younger detective smiled widely and chuckled. The fluorescent light bounced
off of a gold-panelled artificial incisor. "Merry Christmas,
Captain."
Schacter picked up the arrest reports and headed toward his office without
responding. Rienzi followed him.
"Did you listen to the news on your way into work, Sir?"
"The news?"
"I just wondered if you heard, Captain. We have a real hot one tonight. A
guy named Gordon Cardonick. Drove down the Schuylkill Expressway, pulled out a
Ruger Mini-14, started shooting into the other cars."
Schacter leafed through the arrest reports again and found no mention of any
shootings.
"I have them right here, Captain. I knew you would want to see them as
soon as you arrived."
Schacter read Rienzi's papers. He grunted, whistled low, and grunted again. Three
dead, five nearly dead, enough twisted sheet metal to shingle a small house....
"Good God, we'll have to print more warrants to handle all of this."
Rienzi laughed broadly. "Absolutely, Sir. We have a little bit of
everything on this one. Manslaughter, or maybe even murder charges. Vehicular
homicide, driving to endanger, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon,
leaving the scene of an accident. We even have him for trespassing. You name
it, we've got it. And just in time for the late news. The guy on Channel Six
called him the Christmas Eve Sniper. Pretty catchy, if you ask me."
Schacter was unprepared for this. Christmas Eve was usually a time-out period
from the more gruesome aspects of police work. He learned from the incident
report that one of the murder victims was a little girl; she died in her
father's arms as police rushed to her aid. For a moment he thought about his
own grandchild. He looked up at Rienzi. The lieutenant stood before a mirror
combing his moustache and whistling, apparently unaffected by the horror of the
sniping incident.
The captain sighed as he finished reading the reports on Cardonick. "Is he
going to live?"
"Sir?"
"It says here he was shot."
"It's just a flesh wound, Sir. They're patching him up right now. I left
instructions to have him brought up here when they finish."
"Uh-huh. Do we know anything about this man, Lieutenant?"
"He's white. Twenty-six years old. We're checking for a past arrest
record. Lives in Oxford Circle, up in the Northeast, according to the address
in his wallet. I called Central Office and they're sending someone in that area
to check it out."
Schacter pulled a plug of tobacco from the tin and crumbled it into the bowl.
He sucked on the unlit pipe and stared at the arrest reports. He was drawn over
and over to the final paragraph. When the subject was pulled from his car,
he yelled "Go ahead, kill me, I want you to." On way to the station
he kept asking us when we were going to kill him.
"That's all for now, Rienzi. Let me know when they bring the sniper
upstairs."
*
*
*
Denise put little Jennifer to bed, locked the doors and windows, took the phone
from the hook, and drew a warm bath for herself. Jennifer was more stubborn
than usual, but less so than she had expected for Christmas Eve. "Will
Daddy come see us tomorrow?" she had asked as Denise tucked her in. "I
don't know," Denise had said. "I hope so."
I hope not, she thought moments later.
Denise swished water along the length of the tub. A tiny wave crested at her
feet and reverberated, smaller now, toward her shoulders. A sand candle
reflected off the porcelain and tile and cloaked the room in magenta.
She wondered if six-and-a-half-year-old Jennifer still believed in Santa Claus.
When Denise was a child she thought that Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and a whole
host of others came into her room each night. They had the prescient ability to
know exactly when she might open her eyes, and they would disappear just before
that moment. She used to try to fool them. She would lift her eyelids very
slowly -- just enough to move them, but not enough to open them. Then she would
relax the muscles and pretend to let her lids fall shut. Suddenly she would
spring open her eyes and try to catch one of her silent visitors. She never
caught them. Soon she stopped trying. Eventually she stopped believing.
Up on the skylight the snow was falling more heavily than before. Midnight
neared, and Elvis sang about a blue Christmas from the stack of records on the
stereo. She realized -- and the unwelcome thought made her shiver -- that this
was her first Christmas Eve alone. First she had her family, and then she had
Gordon. She wondered if he was thinking of her tonight.
Officer Guerra parked his cruiser in the middle of the block. He had lived in
Philadelphia for five years, and still the Oxford Circle rowhouses reminded him
of waiters in a Chinese restaurant. Maybe the natives can tell them apart,
but I sure as hell can't. He was unfamiliar with Souder Street. By parking
in the middle, he assured himself of having to walk no more than one
half-block. Unless I'm on the wrong goddamn block, that is. His
flashlight guided him to number 7062.
The doorbell rang just as Denise was wrapping herself in her robe. She pulled
it tight around herself and dashed downstairs. She placed the phone back on its
hook. She was startled to see a policeman through the peephole.
"Yes?"
"Police, Ma'am."
"Yes? What is it?"
Guerra hesitated. Some people would open the door when they saw him. Most would
open once he identified himself. Very few required further persuasion. "Does
Gordon Cardonick live here?" he called through the door.
Yes...no...I don't know. Lost for an answer, Denise swung open the door.
"I'm Mrs. Cardonick. Gordon isn't living here right now. Is there
something I can do for you?" The phone rang. "Just a minute, I'll be
right with you." Who could be calling so late at night?"
"Denise?"
No, mother, it's Dinah Shore. "Hello, mother."
"Oh, God, Denise. I knew something like this would happen. It's so
horrible. Does Jenny know yet?"
How many times have I asked you not to call her Jenny? "Mother,
what are you talking about." She realized that her mother was crying, she
looked through the open door at the policeman, and she began to quake. Oh,
dear Jesus, it's Gordon. He's dead, he's dead.
The phone fell from her hand. She heard her mother calling. The room began to spin around her. Officer Guerra caught her just before she hit the floor.
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