Marriage meant that Worden had to put in at least one more year to qualify his bride for full benefits, but that milestone came and went, and he is still working murders. He has stayed close to the Monroe Street case file and followed up on the few leads that have come into the unit in the last two years. Still, the death of John Randolph Scott in an alley off Monroe Street remains an open investigation-the only unsolved police-involved shooting in department history. The officers concerned remain, for the most part, on the street, although some, including Sergeant John Wiley, were subsequently reassigned to administrative duties within the department.
But other outcomes are more gratifying. Once last year, Worden was driving out to a shooting scene in the early morning hours when he passed the downtown bus station and noticed a clean-cut U.S. Navy seaman walking with a ragged-looking man on West Fayette Street. The combination seemed strange to Worden; he filed it away in that memory of his, and when the sailor turned up dead later that morning, beaten to death during a robbery in a nearby parking garage, Worden walked over to Kevin Davis, the primary on the case. Worden gave Davis a full description of the suspect; the two men got back in a Cavalier and found their man within hours.
The newspapers said the crime was solved by sheer luck, proving once again how little this world understands about what it means to be a detective.
A final postscript: In 1988, 234 men and women died violent deaths in the city of Baltimore. In 1989, 262 people were murdered. Last year, the murder rate jumped again, leaving 305 dead-the city’s worst toll in almost twenty years.
In the first month of 1991, the city is averaging one murder a day.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book is a work of journalism. The names of the detectives, defendants, victims, prosecutors, police officers, pathologists and others identified in the text are, in fact, their real names. The events described in the book occurred in the manner described.
My research began in January 1988, when I joined the Baltimore Police Department’s homicide unit with the unlikely rank of “police intern.” As often happens when journalists hang around one place long enough, I became a piece of furniture in the unit, a benign part of the detectives’ daily scenery. Within weeks they were acting as if allowing a reporter to gawk at the chaos of criminal investigation was entirely natural.
So that my presence would not interfere with the investigations, I agreed to look and dress the part. That meant cutting my hair, purchasing several sport coats, ties and slacks and removing a diamond-stud earring that had done little to endear me to the detectives themselves. Throughout my year in the unit, I never identified myself to anyone as a law officer. But my appearance, coupled with the presence of other police, often led civilians and even other police to assume that I was, in fact, a detective. To journalists trained to identify themselves while reporting, this may be perceived as a crime of omission. But to declare myself at crime scenes, during interviews or inside hospital emergency rooms would have dramatically impaired the investigations. In brief, there was no other way to research this book.
Still, the ethical ambiguity was there every time I quoted a witness, an emergency room doctor, a prison guard, or a victim’s relative who assumed I was a law officer. For that reason, I have tried to accord these people as much anonymity as possible, balancing questions of fairness and privacy with the need for accuracy.
All of the detectives on Lieutenant D’Addario’s shift signed release forms before seeing any portion of the manuscript. Other characters central to the book also gave approval for their names to be used. In order to obtain these releases, I promised the detectives and others that they would be allowed to review relevant portions of the manuscript and suggest changes for purposes of accuracy. I also told the detectives that if there was something in the manuscript that was not essential to the story but that could nonetheless harm their careers or personal lives, they could ask that it be deleted and I would consider the request. In the end, the detectives requested remarkably few changes, and the handful to which I agreed involved mundane items, such as one detective’s comment about a woman in a bar or another’s criticism of a specific superior. I allowed no changes that involved the handling of a case or in any way altered or muted the book’s message.
In addition to the individual detectives, the police department itself had a limited right to review the manuscript-but only to ensure that undisclosed evidentiary material in pending cases (bullet calibers, manner of death, clothing of victim) was not being released in instances where such facts, if kept secret, might later help identify a suspect. No changes or deletions resulted from the department’s review.
Representatives of the Baltimore state’s attorney’s office and the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner also reviewed relevant portions of the manuscript for purposes of accuracy only. Like the detectives, they could suggest, but not insist on, changes.
Most of the dialogue in this narrative-perhaps 90 percent-comes from the scenes and conversations that I personally witnessed. In a few instances, however, important events occurred on shifts when I was not working or when I was busy reporting on the activities of other detectives. In those instances, I was careful not to use direct quotes for long portions of text, and I have tried to use only those quotes that were specifically recalled by the detectives. And when a character is shown to be thinking something, it is not mere presumption: In every case, subsequent actions made those thoughts apparent or I discussed the matter with that person afterward. And by reviewing the material with the detectives, I have tried to ensure that their thoughts have been portrayed as accurately as possible.
For the unprecedented and unparalleled cooperation of the Baltimore Police Department, I am indebted to the late Police Commissioner Edward J. Tilghman as well as the current commissioner, Edward V. Woods. I am also grateful to Deputy Commissioner for Operations Ronald J. Mullen; retired Colonel Richard A. Lanham and Deputy Commissioner Joseph W. Nixon, both of whom headed the Criminal Investigations Division for portions of 1988; Captain John J. MacGillivary, commander of the Crimes Against Persons section; Lieutenant Stewart Oliver, administrative lieutenant for the persons section; as well as the multitude of BPD commanders, line officers and technicians who went out of their way to assist me.
This project would also not have been possible without the invaluable assistance of Director Dennis S. Hill, chief public information officer for the Baltimore department, and Lieutenant Rick Puller and Sergeant Michael A. Fry of the department’s legal affairs unit.
I would also like to thank Chief Medical Examiner Dr. John E. Smialek and others in the medical examiner’s office for advice and assistance; and Dr. Smialek and Michael Golden, spokesman for the state health department, for providing access to the OCME. In the city prosecutor’s office, I am indebted to State’s Attorney Stuart O. Simms, Chief of the Violent Crimes Unit Timothy V. Doory, and Chief of the Trial Division Ara Crowe.
On the editorial side, this book comes into the world only through the determined and devoted efforts of John Sterling, editor in chief at Houghton Mifflin, who saw the possibilities from the outset and simply refused to let any of them slip away. His patience, talent and expertise are responsible for much of what may be called good writing in these pages; I plead guilty to the rest. This book also benefited immensely from the efforts of Luise M. Erdmann, who proved that manuscript editing, when done well, is more art than craft. My thanks also to Rebecca Saikia-Wilson and everyone else at Houghton Mifflin who gave this project such strong support.