Free The Choirboys by Joseph Wambaugh

to pick up a thirty-five dollar prostitute.
    By now a dozen of the trapped cars were flashing their high beams in the policemen’s faces and blowing their horns whileRoscoe violently waved them toward the alley where Dean Pratt was laying flares.
    “Terrible wreck,” the traffic policeman muttered. “A woman in the station wagon was decapitated. She’s one of the ones still inside.”
    “Yeah?” Roscoe said. He crossed the street, flashed his light at the heaps of debris in his path and stood beside the half of the station wagon, trying to make sense of the pile of mutilated flesh which had been a young couple. The tin cans and “Just Married” sign were still tied to the bumper.
    And then Roscoe Rules was reminded of one of the two hilarious photographs he carried in his wallet from his Vietnam days.
    “Oh yeah!” said Roscoe Rules excitedly. “Move the flares, partner!” he shouted to Dean, who was angrily waving his flashlight at the string of cars to get them moving through the alley, as at last the fire engines’ sirens could be heard.
    “What for?”
    “I want them to pass by the wreck here across the gas station parking lot.”
    “What for?”
    “I think it’ll be easier to divert them down the alley.”
    “Okay” Dean shrugged, moving the line of flares, and then Roscoe Rules stood quietly on the far side of the station wagon, hoping the fire trucks or another ambulance wouldn’t get there too quickly and spoil things.
    The first car to pass Roscoe was not suitable. The driver was well dressed, prosperous, just the kind of prick who’d call in and make a complaint, Roscoe thought. Neither was the second car. The traffic was crawling by, most of the drivers gawking hungrily for a glimpse of blood.
    The twelfth car in the line was perfect. It was a late model Dodge containing a man and two women. The bulging luggagerack, travel stickers and Ohio license said they were tourists passing through and not likely to take time to stop and complain about a policeman, no matter the outrage.
    When the station wagon crawled by, Roscoe, still standing half hidden beside the wreckage, smiled encouragingly at the pudgy woman on the passenger side. Her window was down and she said, “Quite a wreck, eh, officer?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Roscoe answered, and he knew this was the one.”
    “Over here, partner!” he called to Whaddayamean Dean, since every legend needs a Boswell.
    The woman shook her head sadly and clucked. As her husband was revving the engine and the creeping traffic was starting, she said to Roscoe, “Anyone hurt bad?”
    Then Roscoe Rules came from behind the wreckage and stepped to her window, lifting the dripping, severed head of the young bride, and said, “Yeah, this one got banged up a bit.”
    The woman from Ohio drowned out the fire engines’ sirens with her screams as her husband drove into the flow of traffic.
    Dean Pratt told the story to at least thirty policemen before going home that night. Roscoe Rules had achieved a place in police folklore, and was a Legend in His Own Time.

SIX

7-A-33: SPENCER VAN MOOT AND
FATHER WILLIE WRIGHT

    W illie Wright was also destined to become a police celebrity It happened four months before the choir practice killing. On the night he met a brother in the basement.
    Of course he could not have dreamed of the bizarre turns this tour of duty would take when he sat in the rollcall room late that afternoon and wished he could grow a moustache like the one belonging to Sam Niles of 7-A-29, or Calvin Potts of 7-A-77 who had a heavy one which made the muscular black policeman look even more formidable.
    Willie was sure that if he grew one it would look like Francis Tanaguchi’s sparse and sad one, which many old women could duplicate.
    It was a peaceful, untraumatic rollcall that afternoon. Lieutenant Finque was on a day off and Sergeant Yanov sat before them alone at his table on the platform.
    “Got an unusual one last night,” Sergeant Yanov