J. Jance - Without Due Process

Shaking her head in disapproval, Sue nonetheless started for the side aisle, leading the way and excusing us to the people whose feet we had to step over in the process. In the vestibule, she asked directions to the nearest phone while I took up a station outside the door just as the last coffin emerged followed by Emma Jackson and Harmon and Junior Weston. They disappeared into the waiting limo while the rest of the people began to trickle out of the church into the courtyard. I looked around, trying to catch sight of Ron Peters and Knuckles Russell, but they were nowhere to be seen.

Sue erupted through the doors and looked around anxiously until she caught sight of me. “How’d you do that?” she demanded.

“Do what?”

“Come up with Gary Deddens’s name. Freeman says you’re right. Kyle Lehman’s copy of Ben’s deleted files finally turned up on Tony’s desk. He says we’ve got probable cause. He wants us to take Deddens into custody and bring him down for questioning right away.”

“But wait a minute,” I objected. “I’ve got to be here in case…”

“Captain Freeman is sending a squad car for us and for Deddens both,” she replied. “He wants the two of us there. He was very specific about that.”

Just then the first batch of uniformed officers emerged into the fitful sunlight, where they joined the growing crowd milling around the limo and the collection of hearses. I turned my attention on the officers, scanning faces, hoping to see that of Gary Deddens. I examined each one, some of them familiar and some not, and wondered how far the cancer of corruption had spread and how many more officers were involved in the protection racket. The possibility made me sick.

“There he is,” Sue whispered. “He’s just now shaking hands with Reverend Walters.”

“Who’s going to do it?” I asked. “You or me?”

“I will,” she volunteered over her shoulder. “You watch for trouble.”

Making an arrest of any kind in a crowd situation is always a hairy, volatile proposition. Protecting the lives of innocent civilians must always be the primary consideration for the police officers involved.

Already Sue was moving purposefully toward the door, pulling Flex-cufs rather than a weapon from her blazer pocket. I followed, closing the distance between us so that I was only a step or two behind her when she reached the place where an unsuspecting Gary Deddens stood chatting casually with several of his fellow officers.

Sue stopped directly in front of him. He was saying something to the others, but he paused and half smiled a greeting. “How’s it going, Sue?” he said.

“You’re under arrest,” she returned.

He stepped away from her, but his back was to the wall of the church, and he couldn’t go far. “Come on, Sue, that’s not funny. Don’t even joke about something like that.”

Around us the crowd fell strangely silent.

“It’s no joke. Face the wall, hands on the back of your head, feet apart. I’m placing you under arrest in connection with the murder of Officer Benjamin Weston.”

Surprise and shock registered on the faces of the men who, moments before, had been chatting amiably with Gary Deddens. Now they melted away from him, opening a circle where the three of us stood in isolation.

“There’s got to be some mistake,” Deddens said, his eyes darting questioningly from Sue to me. “This is crazy.”

“No mistake,” Sue insisted. “Turn around.”

For an electric moment, he stood glaring and belligerent. Time seemed to stretch into an eternity before finally, with a casual shrug, he started to turn. As deftly as any professional pickpocket, Sue unfastened his holster and removed his automatic which she handed over to me. Behind us the wailing siren of the arriving squad car squawked once and was quickly stifled.

Sue had successfully negotiated the first danger-cornering Deddens and capturing his weapon without anyone being hurt-but the incident was far from over. There was another danger as well, and every cop in the courtyard knew it. As the news of what had happened spread through the crowd, every police officer present realized that outrage over the multiple murders was an open, sucking wound in Seattle’s African-American community. I think we all feared that once the grieving people from the funeral realized what was going on, they themselves might very well evolve into a dangerous and potentially lethal mob.

The danger in mobs is that they have no brain and no conscience. They are immune to innocence and equally blind to justice and guilt. You can’t talk to them or reason with them. If the searing spark of vengeance is once allowed to erupt into flame, there’s no stopping it until the glut of violence has run full course. If the people in the courtyard perceived Gary Deddens to be Ben Weston’s killer, if their rage was allowed to get out of hand, they might very well turn on the killer and on whoever was with him as well-Sue Danielson and me included.

Speed was of the essence. Every moment of delay compounded the danger. With businesslike efficiency, Sue patted Deddens down. Other than the automatic, there was no weapon.

“All right, you guys,” she barked at the clutch of stricken police officers surrounding us. “Help us get him over to the car. Now!”

For a moment no one moved. An angry undercurrent of comment rumbled through the crowd as more people spilled out of the church, forcing their way into the now motionless crush in the courtyard. Near the door, someone shoved against someone else, and that backward and forward movement eddied through the entire gathering.

“Let’s go!” Sue urged.

Finally the nearby cops shook themselves alive. With me leading the way and with seven or eight officers forming a human shield around Deddens and Sue Danielson, we moved away from the protection of the church wall, past the hearses, and across the courtyard. Professional behavior forestalled the possibility of an unfortunate incident. The officers with us, all in uniforms but from several different jurisdictions, reacted instinctively as a unit. They might have been executing a procedure they’d practiced together time and again.

As we made our way through the sullen but silently watchful crowd, I knew how Moses must have felt as he parted the roiling waters of the Red Sea. A way through the multitude opened magically and silently in front of us, revealing a cleared path that led directly to the patrol car waiting on the street.

At last we were there, opening the door, shoving Deddens unceremoniously into the backseat. Behind me a car horn blared. It sounded over and over. One of those horn alarm security systems, I supposed.

“You get in front,” I said to Sue. “I’ll ride in back.”

By now the courtyard crowd had spilled over onto the street itself. When the officer driving the patrol car started to move, the way was blocked by fifty or sixty people with more being added all the time.

“Come on. Let’s get out of here,” I urged the driver. “We’re all right so far, but we’re not home free, not by any means.”

He turned on the siren and started nudging his way into the crowd. Some of the bystanders leaned over and stared into the car, trying to catch a glimpse of whoever was there as we eased by them. And then, just as I thought we were close to breaking out, someone began pounding furiously on the trunk of the car.

I figured it was the beginning of the end and that we were all in for it. Even Gary Deddens seemed concerned.

“We’re not going to make it,” he whined. “If they get hold of me those people will tear me apart.”

“Maybe we should let them, creep,” I said. “Maybe I should just open the door and let them have you.”

He paled. “No, please. Don’t do that.”