Grass Roots Read online

  “Good mornin’,” a voice said from behind him.

  Will turned to find a black man of indeterminate age, dressed in tattered overalls, approaching him from the trees. “Good morning,” he said. “You live here?”

  “I sho’ do,” the man said, smiling to reveal a number of missing teeth. “Make my living out here,” he said. “Do right well out of other folks’ leavins.”

  “My name is Will Lee,” Will said. “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Roosevelt Watkins,” the man said. “Pleased to meet you.” He stuck out a hand.

  Will shook it and reflected that he had known half a dozen black men called Roosevelt. It had been a popular name among blacks during the thirties. “Mr. Watkins,” Will said, “I wanted—”

  “Oh, you can call me Roosevelt,” the man interrupted, grinning. “Everybody calls me Roosevelt. I met Mr. Franklin D. hisself one time, back during the war, and he called me Roosevelt.”

  “Well, Roosevelt,” Will said, “I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Yassuh,” Watkins said, “you go right ahead. I’ll tell you the answer if I know it.”

  “Tell me, then,” Will said, “have you had any conversations with the sheriff lately?”

  “Why, I sho’ has,” Roosevelt said, grinning and slapping his thigh. “I been a right popular fella with the sheriff right lately.”

  “Ah.” Will grinned. “I think you’re the fellow I’m looking for.” He stood in front of the shack and had a long talk with Roosevelt Watkins.

  23

  Chuck Pittman was driving to work when the radio call came.

  “Your partner says a package from the Pentagon arrived,” the dispatcher said.

  “Roger,” Pittman replied. “Tell my partner to meet me at Piedmont Hospital.” He made an illegal U-turn, nearly sideswiping a limousine in the process. Ten minutes later, he was at the hospital; Keane’s car was parked in the emergency entrance. Pittman flipped down the sun visor, which displayed the car’s ID, and went inside. Keane was waiting at the front desk.

  “Pearl has checked out,” he said, handing Pittman a thick brown envelope. “Here’s the package; the nurse is getting me his address now. Apparently, his chart wasn’t back in the files yet.”

  Pittman drew Keane to a bench and sat down, opening the package and handing his partner half the photographs. “You got a picture in your mind of Sarge?”

  “Sure.”

  “You pick him out; I’ll do the same.” Both men moved quickly through the sixty-nine photographs. When they had finished, Keane had picked one photograph, and Pittman had two. They spread them on the bench between them.

  “Christ,” Keane said, “they could be brothers.”

  “Shit. I don’t like this. I was hoping for a clean ID.”

  Keane signed. “All we can do is try.”

  A nurse called to Keane from the desk. “Here’s Mr. Pearl’s address.”

  “It’s in Brookhaven,” Pittman said. “Follow me; I know the street.”

  Pittman drove faster than he should have, straight out Peachtree Road. A mile past Lenox Square, he turned left and quickly found the street. He was surprised by the house; it didn’t look like the sort of place where the owner of strip joints would live. He and Keane walked to the front door of the red brick Queen Anne house and rang the bell. Leah Pearl answered the door.

  “Oh, hello, Sergeant,” she said. “Won’t you come in?”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Pittman replied, stepping into the house, which was quiet and smelled of something good cooking. “I was glad to hear Mr. Pearl was home. May we see him for a minute?”

  “Of course,” the woman replied. “Follow me.” She led them to a glassed-in porch that ran the width of the back of the house. Manny Pearl was struggling along the floor with an aluminum walker, dragging his left foot. It was the first time Pittman and Keane had seen him without his head swathed in bandages. Now there was just one large one on his face, under his right eye, and one on the back of his head.

  “Hey, Sergeant, Officer Keane, how you doing?” Manny said, beaming at them. “Check out my chariot here.”

  “You’re doing great, Mr. Pearl,” Pittman said. “Can we sit down for a minute? We’ve got some pictures to show you.”

  Pearl waved them to a metal porch glider covered in flowered plastic cloth. The two detectives sat on either end, with Manny Pearl in between.

  “Now just take your time,” Pittman said, “and even if you think you recognize the guy, I want you to look at all the pictures before you decide for sure.”

  Manny went carefully through the pictures, one at a time, dropping them in a stack onto the glass coffee table in front of him. Pittman and Keane watched him anxiously. Suddenly, Manny stopped. He looked hard at the photograph, then put it down beside the stack before continuing. Twice more, he did this, until the three men Pittman and Keane had picked were in a stack by themselves. The two policemen looked at each other, and Keane rolled his eyes.

  Manny spread the photographs out before him and looked from one to another. He held up a finger, and in a diving motion, zoomed it down to the picture on the right. “This one,” he said, emphatically. “No doubt about it.”

  “You’re sure, Mr. Pearl?” Pittman asked. “Those three guys look enough alike to be brothers.”

  “So maybe they’re brothers,” Manny said. “What do I care? This is the putz who shot me. He was the leader. I wouldn’t forget the face.”

  Pittman turned over the photograph and read aloud. “Senior Master Sergeant Perkerson, Harold C. (retired), 400 Airport Road, East Point, Georgia.” He looked at Keane. “That’s South Atlanta. How come he wasn’t in the Atlanta area batch that we showed Mr. Pearl?”

  Keane shrugged. “We screwed up there, I guess.”

  “Mr. Pearl, thank you,” Pittman said. “Can I use your phone?”

  “Sure, right beside you, on the table,” Manny said.

  Pittman called his captain on his direct line. “Captain,” he said, “Manny Pearl has made an identification of his assailant from photographs we got from the Pentagon. The man is a retired army senior master sergeant named Harold C. Perkerson, of Airport Road in East Point.”

  “Good going, Chuck,” the captain replied. “What do you want to do?”

  “I want to take him now,” Pittman said.

  “What do you need?”

  “I want a warrant, a SWAT team, ready for anything—this guy is a pro and has access to automatic weapons—and an East Point Police Department liaison.”

  “Where?”

  “There’s a gas station at the old airport exit from I-85 South. We’ll rally there in”—he looked at his watch—“twenty minutes; make it ten A.M.”

  “You got it,” the captain said. “Anything else?”

  “I don’t mind press, if you don’t,” Pittman said.

  “Why not? The crime got a lot of play, why not the arrest?”

  “And, Captain, I’d like the Pentagon to fax us this man’s service record. We’re going to need it eventually anyway, but I’d like to have it when I question him.”

  “I’ll make the call myself, as soon as I’ve got this together.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Pittman hung up the phone. “Let’s get going,” he said to Keane.

  Manny Pearl grabbed Pittman’s sleeve. “Listen,” he said, “you be careful. This guy’s a hard one.”

  *

  Pittman used the siren all the way, and so did Keane, right behind him. There was an East Point police lieutenant named Brown waiting for him at the gas station.

  “What we got here, Sergeant?” Brown asked.

  “You remember the killings at the dirty bookstore Christmas Eve?”

  “Oh, yeah. Those guys?”

  “One of them, anyway, the guy in charge.”

  “I’ll stay outta your way, unless you need my help,” the lieutenant said.

  “I think we’ve got it covered,” Pittman replied. “Thanks for coming o
ut, though.”

  The SWAT team van pulled into the station, followed by a brightly painted van with a microwave dish on top. Pittman shook hands with the SWAT commander, a captain named Meadows, then went to the TV van. A young man in a tweed jacket got out and approached him.

  “Sergeant Pittman? Jerry Cross, Channel Six News.”

  “Hi, Jerry,” Pittman said. “Now listen, this is a dangerous one.” He explained whom they were arresting. “Now, first, I have to case the location; then I’ll come back for you. You stay behind the SWAT van at all times, got that?”

  “Sure,” the reporter said.

  Pittman, Keane, and Captain Meadows got into Pittman’s car to reconnoiter. They drove down Airport Road, but they couldn’t find number 400.

  “Wait a minute,” Keane said, “I think it’s in that little shopping center there. Maybe we’ve got his address at work.”

  Pittman drove into the center and circled the parking lot slowly. “There you go,” said Meadows, pointing at a small shop. “Number 400.”

  A sign outside proclaimed that printing and passport photographs were available inside.

  “Let’s have a look around back,” Meadows said.

  Pittman drove back into Airport Road, then turned into an alley behind the shopping center. He drove slowly along the alley, checking numbers.

  “There,” Keane said, pointing.

  There was nothing but a back door and a small loading platform.

  “I’ll place my van behind the Dumpster, there,” Meadows said. “I’d suggest you and Keane and the East Point guy go in the front door like customers. I’ll bring my men in through the back.”

  “Sounds good,” Pittman said. “That’ll give us a chance to get any customers out.”

  They drove back to the gas station, where Meadows briefed his men, and Pittman explained things to Lieutenant Brown.

  “You sure I won’t be in your way?” Brown said.

  Chickenshit, thought Pittman. “Tell you what, you back us up from outside, okay?”

  “Okay,” Brown said, looking relieved.

  Pittman walked over to Captain Meadows. “Listen, maybe I should go in and ask for the guy. We got a lot of civilians around that store. I’d hate to see a lot of live ammo flying around there.”

  “Take it from me,” Meadows said. “Go in heavy; don’t take any chances with this guy. My people aren’t going to start shooting indiscriminately, and if they do shoot, they’ll hit what they aim at.”

  Ten minutes later, they were all in place. Pittman parked his car a row away from the storefront, then picked up a handheld radio and punched in a frequency. “Team leader?” he said.

  “Read you loud and clear,” Meadows said. “I need one minute to get my men in position. Stand by.”

  “Roger,” Pittman said. He took out his service revolver and checked it. Keane and Brown did the same. Meadows came back on the radio.

  “We’re in position.”

  “Roger,” Pittman said. “Don’t call me. I don’t want the radio going off in that shop while we’re waiting for the customers to leave. I’ll call it with one word—’go’—okay?”

  “Roger,” Meadows said, “you’ll call it with the word ‘go.’ ”

  “Keane and I are going in,” Pittman said.

  The three men got out of the car. While Brown waited, using the car for cover, Pittman and Keane walked toward the front of the shop.

  “I see one woman inside,” Pittman said.

  “Right,” Keane replied. “Let’s be sure, though.”

  The two detectives walked into the shop. A tall, thin man behind the counter was waiting on an elderly woman.

  “Be with you in a minute,” the man said to Pittman.

  Pittman nodded and looked around. There was a sign identifying the shop as a pickup point for Federal Express and United Parcel Service, and a wall of mailboxes on the other side of the room.

  “Thank you so much,” the woman said to the tall, thin man.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he replied. “Come back to see us.”

  The woman walked slowly past the policemen and out the door.

  Pittman and Keane approached the counter. There was a blank wall behind the counterman, so they could not see into the next room.

  “Hi,” said Keane to the tall, thin man, “I wonder if you could help me.”

  Pittman turned away from the counter, took the handheld radio from his belt, and spoke into it. “Go!” he said.

  Immediately, there was a loud pounding from behind the wall—the back door was being knocked down. Pittman and Keane simultaneously produced badges and guns.

  “Police! Freeze!” Pittman shouted, holding the pistol and the badge out in front of him.

  The tall, thin man backed away from the counter, his hands out in front of him. “Hey, now …” he was saying.

  Pittman vaulted over the counter, spun the man around, and threw him against the wall. Then, signaling to Keane to cuff the man, he edged toward the end of the wall and executed a quick peep behind it, exposing himself to view as briefly as possible. The back room was full of SWAT policemen. Two store employees were braced against the walls, being searched. Pittman turned to Keane, who had the counterman handcuffed. “It’s okay,” he said. “Everybody’s nailed down.”

  Pittman, followed by Keane and the counterman, walked into the back room.

  “See your man?” Meadows asked.

  Pittman looked at the two back-room employees, then at the counterman. “This guy looks a little like him, but younger,” he said. “All right,” he said, raising his voice, “where is Harold Perkerson?”

  “Huh?” the counterman said. “What the hell is going on here? What do you mean, busting into my place of business?”

  Pittman looked at the man and held up the photograph. “We’re looking for this man. His name is Harold C. Perkerson. This is his address.”

  “Yeah?” said the counterman scornfully. “That name sounds familiar. Come here, I’ll show you.” His hands still cuffed behind his back, he walked over to where Pittman stood and nodded down a hallway. “He lives right down there in one of those mailboxes,” the man said.

  “Oh, shit,” Keane said mournfully.

  “What’s your name?” Pittman said to the counterman.

  “Robert Wickman,” the man said. “I own this place. Now, will you take these goddamned handcuffs off me? Then I’ll see if I can help you.”

  Pittman nodded to Keane, who began unlocking the cuffs. Then he looked up and found himself staring into a television camera.

  24

  Chuck Pittman and Mickey Keane stood before their captain’s desk and sweated.

  “A mail drop?” the captain demanded, incredulous. “A fucking private postal box? That’s all it was?”

  “Yessir,” Pittman said. “We had no way of knowing until we got there.”

  “And Channel Six News got the whole thing?”

  “Yessir, I’m afraid so.”

  “Are they going to run it?”

  “Ah, I was hoping you’d speak to their news director, sir. If they run it and this guy Perkerson sees it, or somebody who knows him sees it, then he’ll go to ground.”

  “Jesus Christ,” the captain said in disgust. He picked up the telephone. “I hate asking favors of press people,” he said, dialing a number.

  Pittman and Keane stood and sweated some more while the captain pleaded his case with the TV newsman, alternately cajoling and demanding. Finally, he hung up the phone.

  “I’m going to owe that guy now,” he said to the two detectives, “and it’s your fucking fault. I’m going to remember that.”

  “He won’t run the tape, then?” Pittman asked, hardly daring to believe it.

  “Oh, you’re not that lucky, Pittman,” the captain said. “He won’t run it on the noon news, but he’s running it at six. You’ve got till then to find Perkerson.”

  “We got a phone number from the guy we raided,” Pittman said. “It’
s outside the city; I’m having it run down now.”

  “You be sure you’ve got local support before you go crashing in someplace,” the captain said. “And for Christ’s sake, don’t take any TV people with you. Now get out of here.”

  Pittman and Keane returned to their desks. Pittman sat down and called his telephone-company contact again, making notes. He hung up and turned to Keane. “We got lucky. It’s a rural address, east of La Grange, in Meriwether County. Who’s the sheriff down there?”

  “Dunno,” Keane said. He reached into a desk drawer and pulled out the Georgia Law Enforcement Directory. “Dan Cox, it says here.” He read out the phone number.

  Pittman called the number and asked for the sheriff.

  “Dan Cox,” a deep voice said.

  “Sheriff, this is Detective Sergeant Chuck Pittman of the Atlanta Police Department.”

  “Morning, Sergeant, what can I do for you?” the sheriff drawled.

  “I have to make an arrest in your county today, and I’d like your support.”

  “What do you need?”

  “As many men as you can spare.”

  “Who’s your man?”

  “One Harold C. Perkerson. Know him?”

  “Know him to see,” the sheriff said. “What do you want him for?”

  “Three counts of murder one.”

  There was a brief silence, then Pittman heard the sheriff say to somebody in his office, “Says he wants that fellow Harold Perkerson on three counts of murder one.” Then the sheriff spoke into the phone again. “You sure about this?”

  “I’ve got an eyewitness, made him from his army photograph.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Cox said. “I wouldn’t have thought he was the type. War hero, they say.”