The Fence - Dick Lehr [60]
Minutes later, he was on the radio again: “Get behind me. Don’t hit me, please!”
In the Lexus, Smut was now the backseat driver, commanding Tiny to take this turn or that. To get off Harvard Street, he ordered Tiny to turn right, then right again and then another right, a zigzagging southerly route taking them deeper into Mattapan. This was Smut’s turf, and he had begun to formulate a getaway plan in his mind. He knew about a dead-end street named Woodruff Way that bordered the east side of the former Boston Sanatorium, which most called the old Boston State Hospital. Smut knew the area well because West Selden Street bordered the opposite side of the wooded fifty-one acres of city land. He’d grown up riding bikes and cutting through the grounds. Woodruff Way was also one of a handful of streets that made up a housing project known as Morton Village and, as a dead end, was used by car thieves to dump stolen cars.
To get there, Smut needed to direct Tiny to the other side of Mattapan Square. But first there was a matter of the incriminating evidence in the car—the guns. While the Lexus was on Itasca Street approaching an intersection, Marquis opened his front window, cocked his arm, and tossed out one of the semiautomatic handguns. The gun bounced along the asphalt and came to rest on the lawn of a corner house.
Mike saw the projectile and was all over it. “He threw something out on Itasca!” he yelled. “He threw something out on Itasca!” Listening was a police officer named Roy Frederick, who lived a few doors down from the intersection. Frederick was off duty and up late, glued to channel 3 and listening to the amazing chase. He immediately hustled outside, looked around his neighbor’s lawn, and spotted the silver-plated 9mm Ruger. He called in that he’d recovered one of the suspects’ weapons and stayed put to secure the scene.
Seconds later, Marquis got rid of the second gun. It hit a mini-van and then landed in the driveway of 235 Itasca Street. The Lexus had shed its weaponry, but once again, Mike called in the gun’s location.
With Smut pointing the way, the Lexus kept winding its way toward Mattapan Square. During slowdowns that came with making a series of quick turns, Ian Daley thought the long line of cruisers resembled a “funeral procession.”
Police cars were all over the place, trying to catch up or figure out a way to cut the Lexus off. Donald Caisey, driving the gang unit car carrying the unit’s supervisor, Sergeant Thomas, never got in the conga line and was instead monitoring the radio, trying to stay close by. Then, in Mattapan, Caisey realized the Lexus was on the next street heading their way. He turned down the street, his siren blaring and lights flashing. He turned the car sideways with the idea of forcing the oncoming car to stop. “We were in the middle of the street moving back and forth.”
But the Lexus kept coming. “The vehicle never slowed.” In Caisey’s mind was the earlier near head-on crash on Crawford Street that ended with Rattigan smashing into a parked van. The Lexus kept coming, “so I immediately pulled out of the way.” The Lexus and the line of police cars following flew by.
Like Caisey, Gary Ryan and Joe Teahan kept working the perimeter, trying to outsmart the Lexus and anticipate its route but without much success.
It was in this stretch of the Lexus cutting back and forth toward Mattapan Square that Kenny Conley and Bobby Dwan joined the hunt. They’d roared into Mattapan and even drove past where Bobby grew up on Violante Street. The two officers were still under the impression the shooting victim was another officer, having missed the correction when it was broadcast. They raced up and down side streets; at one point they even found themselves in front of the Lexus, only to lose it when the Lexus turned down a side street; another time they found themselves a block away on a street parallel to the Lexus. Finally, they approached a main road and the Lexus drove past them. “Now we get into it,” said Kenny. Not only were they