Where Mercy Is Shown, Mercy Is Given - Duane Dog Chapman [56]
“I’m going to catch you, boy,” I growled.
“Not before I come get your mother.” And then he hung up.
I told Mary Ellen that Guenther threatened my momma and was on his way to come and get me. He was a coldhearted killer who got lucky the first time he murdered someone because he got away with it without doing time. I figured he thought he was invincible, which made him capable of anything. However, once he brought my momma into the conversation, the rules of the game changed.
“That son of a bitch. Let him come.” Mary pulled a tiny .38 from her desk drawer and called the district attorney to tell him she needed backup. She played like she was brand new in the business and this case was over her head. She told the DA that Guenther was on the highway coming to get us.
Later that night Fred, Mary, and I were driving around Guenther’s neighborhood in Mary’s Cadillac. Fred was driving, Mary was riding shotgun, and I was in the backseat, still holding Woody Woodpecker. When they spotted us, the cops waved us through the police line that had been set up outside Guenther’s home.
“Look, it’s Mary and her Dog.” The cop shined his flashlight in the backseat, saw my gun, and said, “What are you hunting for, bear?”
“Naw,” Mary said. “He’s hunting Guenther.”
“Yeah, I know. Good luck, Mary Ellen. Hope you get your man.” They sent every available squad car and local highway patrolman they could get. They were watching for Guenther until they finally spotted his car on the highway and pulled him over. They snagged my capture but probably saved my life.
It was over. Although Mary Ellen was off the bond, I wouldn’t get paid my thousand dollars because I didn’t successfully make the capture. I knew he would have been gonzo, no one would have caught him if I hadn’t left him the note in the phone booth. It was a bittersweet moment. I laid my gun across the table in Mary Ellen’s office. She was happy, but I pretended to be really pissed. I turned Woody toward me and said, “Guess I’ll end it all right now.”
“Don’t be stupid!”
“I’m going to do it, Mary Ellen.”
“Whatever.”
I began pulling on the trigger. Nothing. I pulled again. Nothing.
“Is that thing fake?” she asked.
I smiled and winked.
Then I said, “Look at this.” On the gun it said, “Made by Mattel.”
Every time Mary Ellen and I go out on a bounty it is a hell of a battle, and you never know exactly what’s going to happen.
One time, I was headed up to Northglen, and I thought I was being sent to pick up just another punk who was dumb enough to jump his bond on Mary Ellen. On my way, I got a call from one of my kids saying their mother, Lyssa, was being beaten up by that very same bastard. And it wasn’t until I got that call that I realized that the guy I was chasing was Michael Volosin, the same guy whose wife had been killed by David Guenther a few years before. Big Lyssa and Volosin had started dating shortly after she and I broke up. It was such a bizarre coincidence that even I had a hard time figuring out what was going on. But like everything else in my life, it must have happened for a reason.
By the time I got to the house, the cops had the whole place surrounded. I told them that my ex-wife was inside. The police recognized me right away and said Volosin had a rifle and was holding my ex-wife hostage.
“You tell that son of a bitch that if he doesn’t come out of the house right now, not ten seconds from now, NOW, I am coming in after him, rifle or not.” And I was serious too. Even though there was no love lost between Lyssa and me, that bastard was holding the mother of my children in there. At first the police were resistant to relay my message, but when they did, Volosin let Lyssa go and surrendered to the cops. I could see Lyssa wrapped in a blanket, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at her battered body. I hopped in my car and drove away without another glance as they loaded her into the ambulance. The reason the Lord sent me up to the house that day was so I could stop Volosin from hurting the mother