Empty Promises

happens,” he recalled. “I knew in my gut that I was looking at the getaway car. It was dirty and dusty, but on the trunk I saw two perfect handprints in the dust—from small hands—as if maybe the girl had been forced to lean against the car.”
    The car sure looked road-worn and the interior was cluttered. There were broken crackers, crumpled cigarette packs, an old blanket, and a small man’s jacket on one seat. Chafin radioed Bob Andre and Bill Endicott to tell them about the car. The color and the plates were right; it was close enough to take a second look.
    The highway patrol officers called for backup to meet them in Jamestown. Trooper Lloyd Berry, who had just delivered emergency blood to the Sonora hospital for Susan Bartolomei, headed for the scene.
    When the lawmen checked the guest register in the local hotel, they realized they weren’t looking for criminal masterminds. The names Mike Ford and John Ford were scrawled on the page. They hadn’t even bothered to change the names they had used with their victims.
    “You know them?” Chafin asked the clerk.
    “Nope. They’re strangers.”
    “What do they look like?”
    He shrugged his shoulders. “Young, messy, wild hippie hair. Both of ’em could do with a shave and a change of clothes—and a night’s sleep.”
    “Are they upstairs now?”
    “I think so. In rooms 19 and 26.”
    Within a matter of minutes, Andre and Endicott had cleared the lobby and the area surrounding the hotel. They were given a master key and they headed up the staircase to the second floor. Trooper Berry, armed with a shotgun, waited at the rear exit of the hotel while other deputies and highway patrolmen, who had sped to Jimtown, surrounded the building. Room 26 was at the top of the stairs while number 19 was near the end of the hall. The lieutenants bypassed number 26 and walked quietly to the more distant room. Endicott carried a shotgun while Andre held a handgun. Andre slipped the key into the lock of room 19, and the door swung open, but only a few inches; it was secured by a chain. Through the crack in the door, they could see a figure sleeping on the bed. Andre pushed his gun through the opening and said, “Put your hands up—come over here and unlock this chain.” The man on the bed hardly seemed dangerous. He followed Andre’s orders meekly, sliding the chain along its slot and letting it hang free. He was a small man, and young—probably a teenager. He wore only sagging undershorts and he seemed bewildered. He put up no resistance as they instructed him to lie down on the hall floor while they handcuffed him.
    The next stop was room 26. Again the chain lock held. “Kick it open,” Endicott ordered urgently. He could see the second suspect lying facedown on the bed, but his hands were hidden under the pillow. If he was only feigning sleep, he would have the opportunity for a clear shot at the officers through the door opening. As the chain snapped, Endicott shouted, “His hands—watch his hands!”
    Andre was beside the bed in an instant, grabbing the man’s hands before he had a chance to go for a gun. The second suspect was taller and more muscular than his partner but they hadn’t given him a chance to fight back.
    The two had been sleeping soundly. They must have believed that Susan Bartolomei was either dead or so near death that she would never identify them. They were caught only twenty miles from the spot where she was found.
    Lieutenant Andre entered room 19 and emerged with a brown plaid plastic bag—the type used to carry car blankets. He’d found it very heavy when he lifted it and he checked its contents. In the bottom lay two hand weapons; a fully-loaded automatic .22 caliber Ruger, and a Frontier Colt single action .22 caliber pistol, also fully loaded. The drawers in the nightstands in both suspects’ rooms had .22 caliber hollow-point bullets rattling around in them. Constable Chafin and Lieutenants Andre and Endicott led the surprised suspects from the hotel to waiting patrol cars. They were transported to the Tuolumne County sheriff’s headquarters in Sonora. They didn’t look like desperadoes, but they did look nervous as they underwent intensive questioning.
    They finally admitted that they were not Mike and John Ford. Nor were they from Oklahoma as they had told Susan Bartolomei. They were from Ritzville, Washington, a little town of 1,500 residents that sat on a lonely stretch of I-90 west of Spokane. The taller,