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  Timbo roared with laughter as his dago buddy cop continued with his tale.

  “‘Stop! Put your hands up and move away from the elevator doors,’ I says again and they both put their hands up, but their big black dicks are still squirtin’ away, pissing down the elevator shaft. Then, one of ‘em asks, ‘Can I put my Johnson back home, Officer?’ and that’s when Timbo here loses it and starts fuckin’ laughin’ so fuckin’ hard I think he’s gonna start pissin’ his pants!

  “So I says, ‘No! Move away from the elevator and put your fuckin’ hands against the wall, raised over your fuckin’ heads,’ and they both do as I say. So, then, while I’m keeping one fuckin’ eye on them, I walk over to the elevator and look down the shaft.”

  Rossi can’t continue because he’s laughing so hard. That’s when Timbo interrupts and continues with the story, laughing only a little less but able to finish.

  “Right. And Rossi walks up to the elevator shaft and sees fuckin’ Murphy and Accardo stuck in the elevator six floors down. Someone below musta jammed them on their way up and then opened the trap door above them. Before they could get out they were both drenched in nigger piss!”

  The whole team laughed uproariously, unable to control themselves. McGovern, the Tac guy chain-smoker who had covered the back of the building, laughed so hard he coughed up gobs of phlegm. Mays from Gang Crimes held a handkerchief to his eyes, wiping away tears from his uncontrolled laughing spasm. The others shook their heads, trying in vain to recover from their own laughing jags.

  “So, whadya think?” Stick asked the group, recovering from his own laughter. “I say, next week those two should get promoted to fuckin’ Youth Division Commanders. Don’t you?”

  “Fuck you, Hanley!”

  Stick turned around. There stood Murphy and his partner, Accardo.

  “Fuck me?” Stick said. “I’d say you’re the one who got fucked, Murphy, and it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. I told you two to keep your silly Juvie asses out of big man’s work, but you just couldn’t listen. Couldja?”

  Murphy lunged at Stick, but before he could reach him, Timbo grabbed him in a bear hug.

  “I think you’ve already lost one battle today, Murph. Let’s not make it two. Heh?” Timbo said.

  “Get your fat fuckin’ hands off of me you fat fuck. Let me at that skinny little motherfucker!” Murphy shouted. “Let me at him! Let me at him!”

  CHAPTER 18

  Pokie Turner, the fifth boy James Overstreet had earlier IDed, remained on the loose and his whereabouts were unknown. The police surmised he had left town with his family as officers went to his apartment on South Drexel Avenue and discovered no one at the boy’s home. A Gang Crimes Tac Team, search warrant in hand, had broken down the door and entered the squalid, four-room flat, finding half-emptied drawers with clothes and other articles strewn about, presumably in an unplanned, hasty exit.

  The others were brought to Area 1 Aggravated Asssault Headquarters in a 21st District paddy wagon. Upon their arrival, detectives placed the arrested youths into separate interrogation rooms. On heater cases, the whole Homicide unit dropped what they were doing and offered help. Stick asked fellow Detectives Bill Rhino, a twenty-two-year veteran, and Joey Manfish, a fifteen-year vet, to each separately question Bertrand Rhodes and Bobby DeSadier.

  “Let me take the Clarke kid, Stick,” Timbo said, leaving Stick to question Tyrone Witherspoon.

  Uncharacteristically, Assistant State’s Attorney Norbert Dushane joined Timbo in Pick’s interview, which started by reading the alleged bat-wielder his rights again, as was done at the scene of his arrest. Pick snapped gum and looked up at the ceiling as Dushane recited Miranda.

  When the ASA finished, Timbo began his questioning. “So, knowing these rights that have just been read to you by Mister Dushane here,” Timbo nodded at Dushane and then looked back at the boy, “Monroe Clarke, do you want to talk to us about your whereabouts on Tuesday, July 29 at approximately ten in the morning?”

  “They call me Pick. And yeah. I ain’t afraid to talk to ya’ll. I was in Burnham, protectin’ my turf, that’s where.”

  “Okay, Pick. And just what turf is that?” Timbo asked.

  “My turf, fool. Can’t you hear or sumpin’?”

  “I know you don’t want to be here, son, and that this must be hard for you. I understand. Honest. I do. But if you talk to me that way, I really can’t help you. And I want to help. Really. So talking to me that way isn’t really in your best interest.”

  “Whachew gonna do, big man? Beat me? My daddy used to beat me until he learned his lesson.” Pick leaned back on the two rear legs of his chair. “Maybe I should git me a lawyer or sumpin’? Yeah, that’s it. I need one of doze dee-fense lawyers—”

  “Of course you can talk to a lawyer,” Dushane interrupted. “Do you want a lawyer or would you rather make a statement to us?”

  “I don’t need no fuckin’ lawyer to talk to you two fools. Whachew wanna know?”

  “So you do want to talk to us then?” Timbo asked.

  “You must have shit in yo’ ears, fool. Diddenchew hear me?”

  “Yes. I heard you.” Timbo paused, jotted a note on his pad, and then continued. “Okay then. Good. Let’s talk. So exactly where were you this past Tuesday at around ten a.m. when you said you were in Burnham Park?”

  “Like I already told you, watching my turf, man, on the bike paths wif my boys—like we do every day. Nobody comes through our turf without us knowin’ about it. You dig, fat man?”

  “Did you see this man there, Pick?”

  Dushane slid a picture of Manny Fleischman across the table in front of him. The photograph showed the old man sitting on his red Huffy bicycle. It had been taken on the dead man’s last birthday, a little less than three months earlier. Fleischman, coincidentally, wore the same clothes in the picture he had on the day of the attack.

  “Yeah, I know that dude. Dat’s the ol’ Jew works up at Hyde Park Foods,” Pick said.

  “Did you see him this past Tuesday morning?” Timbo asked.

  “Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t. Who wants to know?”

  “Did you or didn’t you see him, Pick?” Timbo asked again.

  “Yeah, I seen that ol’ fuckin’ Jew. Motha’s always riding that fancy, cherry red Huffy o’ his up and down my turf. We warned the mo’ fo’ to stop ridin’ his silly white-haired ass up ‘n’ down Ranger turf.”

  “You warned him?” Timbo repeated, making a note in his book. “Are you saying that you threatened this man?”

  “Wassa matter whichew, man? You better have yo’ fuckin’ hearin’ checked by some mother fuckin’ poe-leese ear-checkin’ fuckin’ doctor, man, ‘cause you can’t even fuckin’ hear me.” Pick jerked forward, bringing the chair to the floor with a thump. “Maybe you got too much fuckin’ fat between yo’ fat ass fuckin’ ears?”

  Dushane raised his eyebrows with Pick’s last rant. He looked over as Timbo cracked a smile. The youngster possessed a large set of brass balls, particularly since Timbo outweighed the boy by at least a hundred and fifty pounds. His Italian temper began to run short. Had the assistant state’s attorney not been present, Timbo would have long ago pummeled the boy for his belligerence, smacking him around the room a few times. Every officer in Homicide might have done the same, or at the very least would have seriously considered it.

  “That’s some big talk for such a little man like you, Pick,” Timbo said, getting up and circling behind the boy. “Maybe you’d like a piece of me, too, just like you got a piece of that old man, huh?”

  Pick didn’t reply but rolled his eyes upward, staring again at the ceiling while the detective stopped and stood in back of him.

  Timbo felt the boy’s indifference. He bent over him and whispered, “’Course, I’ll bet that old man woulda whooped your black bony ass had you two been alone, huh?” Timbo snickered and continued his hushed tone. “Yeah. Whooped by an eighty-five-year-old man on a bicycle. I woulda paid to see that.”
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  “Fuck you!” Pick shouted, trying to get up from his chair, but Timbo put his big paw of a hand on Pick’s right shoulder, holding him down in his seat. The youth fought to get at the big cop, grunting as he tried to push himself away from the table. The chair’s legs screeched on the damp cement floor but stopped when Timbo laid both hands on Pick’s shoulders.

  Pick became rigid. Timbo reached over him and picked up one of Pick’s hands in his own. It was as small as a child’s in the cop’s mitt-sized hand. “Who could you possibly beat up with these puny little fists of yours?” Timbo asked him.

  “Whatchew talkin’ about, man?”

  “What you gonna do, Pick? You got no friends here. No bat.”

  The boy tried to pull his hand away from the detective. Timbo leaned in ever so close. He whispered again, prodding the youth as he held him down with only one hand now. “You know what I’m talkin’ about, my little bro. You beat that old man with a baseball bat. A Dick Allen Louisville slugger to be precise. We found it in your apartment with bloodstains all over it.”

  Pick shook his head back and forth repeatedly.

  “You’re just like every other stupid killer I’ve known—you kept the evidence. Our lab is running tests on it right now to see if it matches the blood of that—what did you call him—oh, yeah, ‘that ol’ fuckin’ Jew’ you beat to death Tuesday morning on your turf. I mean you must know about all that because it is your turf. Right, Pick?”

  Pick didn’t reply but kept shaking his head. Timbo wondered if the talkative youngster had lost his bluster.

  “Do you wanna make a statement, son?” Dushane asked.

  Pick kept mum. The investigator released the boy and came back around the table, sitting next to Dushane.

  “Mr. Dushane. Would you leave me alone for a few minutes with Mr. Clarke here?”

  The boy squirmed in his seat as Dushane stood up and left the room. Timbo knew from his many interrogation experiences punks like Pick wanted to brag about what they had done. This kid was like all the rest, he thought, and would soon lose his composure, and, along with it, his ability to keep his mouth shut.

  Timbo knew that the next person to talk would be the one to break first—and it wouldn’t be him. He would sit there, perfectly still, all day and night if he had to. He raised his gaze to the ceiling and crossed his arms.

  Patience, Timothy Joseph. Patience.

  Timbo could hear his partner’s words repeating in his head. Stick Hanley had much more patience than he did when it came to not speaking in these situations, in all situations, and biting his tongue. A good homicide cop could wait a very long time for his perp to speak first; Stick could wait an eternity. “That’s something they don’t teach you in dick school,” Stick had always told Timbo. This something was waiting for the perp to cave in. Timbo had struggled with this all the years he had been a detective. But now he held fast and continued to stare at the ceiling, occasionally glancing at his watch.

  After an hour, the boy snapped. He jumped up out of his chair, knocking it hard against the wall behind him. Dushane ran back into the room in time to see Pick, standing now, thump his chest, alternating blows against it with each of his diminutive fists.

  “I warned that ol’ Jew. I told him, ‘Stop usin’ my park without my permission, ol’ man,’ but the motherfucker never listened. Just kept ridin’ that sweet cherry red Huffy up ‘n’ down my turf. We had to do sumpin’. We has to show everyone this is Rangers turf. Oakwood Rangers turf. Ain’ nobody crossin’ that turf wiffout our permission—nobody.”

  “So you took his bike and beat him? Is that what you’re saying, Pick?” Dushane asked as the boy stood behind the table.

  “Yeah, I whacked the motha’ fucker. Whacked him good. He ain’t never comin’ through my turf again—ever.” Then he stood in silence, fists still clenched. Timbo could feel the attacker’s hatred as it filled his deep brown eyes.

  With that statement, Dushane got up and walked out of the room, leaving Timbo alone again with the boy.

  Outside the room, standing behind a two-way mirror where they had been during the entire Monroe Clarke questioning, watching and listening: Headquarters Commander Gerald Lyons and Cook County Lead Assistant State’s Attorney Ron Spencer. Typically, an audience with these two in attendance wouldn’t have occurred during an interview such as this, but this heater case had brought the brass out of the woodwork.

  “Let’s get this in writing from him and have him sign it,” Spencer said to his underling, Dushane, as he exited the interrogation room.

  “Shouldn’t we get a court reporter over here for this one?” ASA Dushane asked the lead state’s attorney.

  “No time for that. State’s Attorney Carey’s gonna want to get this news to Mayor Daley’s office before the press finds out that we have a confession. Just have Detective Boscorelli write it all down and get the kid to sign it. Do the same with the others, too, since they’ll start singing when they know their leader caved in.”

  Shrugging, Dushane replied to his boss Spencer, saying, “Okay. Whatever you say.”

  “What about the Turner kid? Any word on his whereabouts?” Spencer asked, turning to Commander Lyons.

  “Yeah. I just got word from Jim LaFrance they found him. He was holed up over on Berkeley Avenue in his aunt’s flophouse.”

  “And what about this phantom sixth kid?” Spencer asked. “Any word on who he is yet?”

  “Nothin’ yet.”

  “Okay. Let’s get that Overstreet kid in here right away to ID these punks in a lineup. I’ll also need him to ID that bat, too. And get Detective Hanley to get his witness’s statement on paper as to what he saw and have him sign it, too,” Spencer added.

  “We probably have time to get a court reporter for that one, don’t we?” Dushane again asked his superior.

  “Yeah, yeah. Roust somebody up and give ‘em a little overtime.”

  “You got it,” said Dushane.

  “Oh, and Gerry,” Spencer said, turning his attention back to Commander Lyons. “Good work roundin’ up these little pricks so fast. Downtown’s gonna like that. But keep a lid on this for a little while, would ya, until we get our all our ducks in a row back in the County Attorney’s Office. Okay?”

  As Spencer finished his words, Stick walked up to the group outside the interrogation room.

  “Timbo get a statement from the Pick kid yet?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” said Spencer. “He sang to your partner and my man Dushane here just a few minutes ago.” Spencer, inhaling on a cigarette, nodded toward his assistant.

  “Did he ask for a lawyer?” Stick asked.

  “Nope,” Spencer said. “The little smart-ass said he didn’t need one.”

  “What about his family? Or someone from Youth Division? Were they called over yet?”

  “Got no time for that,” Spencer puffed his answer to Stick around the cigarette in his mouth. “Media’s all over this and so is downtown. We gotta move fast.”

  “Juveniles are supposed to have a parent with them when questioned or at the very least a Youth Division officer,” Stick said, eyeing Dushane with raised eyebrows.

  “We got our perps, Hanley. This is an open-and-shut case. You just make sure that little nigger eyewitness of yours shows up for the lineup. My office’ll do the rest.” Spencer doused his smoke in a nearby ashtray, and walked away.

  CHAPTER 19

  ABOUT A MONTH LATER

  Later in the morning of July 31st, the day after police arrested the suspects, during a lineup James had easily identified the five boys who attacked Manny Fleischman. With his father at his side, the boy had positively IDed all five of the alleged offenders in custody. Besides the witness and his father, also at the lineup: Assistant State’s Attorneys Ron Spencer and Norb Dushane, Commander Gerald Lyons, Detectives Stick Hanley and Timothy Boscorelli, and the court-appointed public defender for the accused, attorney Mare-Beth Siegel.

  Siegel, a prim, thirty-something, prematurely gray-ha
ired graduate of UC–Berkeley School of Law, had only been a Cook County Public Defender for six months when Juvenile Court Judge Cecil B. Parsons appointed her to the case file. She had been a Public D.A. for a total of five years, first serving in Marin County, California. The Chicago Tribune had quoted her at the time of her appointment as saying that what propelled her to take the job in Chicago was, “An opportunity to work in the largest and most active judicial system in the nation.” The case would be the most highly publicized she would ever defend in her position at the CCPD office.

  Her next order of duty, after the lineup had taken place, had been to appear at her clients’ detention hearing the next morning, regardless of the fact that it was only one day after she received the case file. At the hearing, Judge Parsons had denied Siegel’s petition to remand the children to the custody of their parents, and incarcerated the five alleged offenders in the Audy Home, the juvenile detention center at 1100 South Hamilton Avenue.

  But Siegal won a major battle a week later against her opponent, Assistant State’s Attorney Ron Spencer. Her victory came in the 702 hearing, the proceeding where the court determines whether or not juvenile offenders should remain in the jurisdiction of the Juvenile Court for trial versus the State’s desire to have them tried as adults.

  Also during that same week, Monroe “Pick” Clarke’s aunt had called the police and alleged that her nephew’s civil rights had been violated when he was taken from her apartment, in her words, “For no reason other than he was black and the man that been killed was white.” Aunt Della Clarke didn’t trust the court’s appointment of Siegel, a white woman, and called the local office of Operation PUSH, the Reverend Jesse Jackson’s neighborhood watchdog group. Shortly after she had contacted them, the Chicago headquarters of Jackson’s Operation PUSH—People United to Serve Humanity—released a statement that read, in part:

  Proper legal counsel for the five innocent, African-American boys unlawfully incarcerated by the Chicago Police Department will be provided at no cost to these young men and their upstanding and law-abiding families at the expense of Operation PUSH and its founder, the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson. PUSH cannot sit idly by and watch the destruction of innocent young lives along with the abominable perpetuation of black genocide imposed by the Daley administration and illegally executed by our city’s Aryan-like police department in collusion with State’s Attorney Bernard Carey’s equally biased county attorney’s office.