Chapter 3
North Side - South Side
(Ó 2007)
(Ó 2007)
Sergeants Noel Jaworski and David Todd have been Chicago Police officers for over fifteen years. They both met at the police academy together when they were eighteen and right out of high school. They spent their rookie years together in the same precinct, and later became partners in their uniform days, and have been ever since. They both ere promoted to sergeant together, and then making detective. Both men were full Chicago boys through and through. They shared a passion for sports, and the one mania they had in common not only united them, it also divided them. That particular obsession, was baseball.
Noel grew up in the Polish neighborhoods on the north side. His parents came from communist Poland in the mid 1950’s and became the stereotypical American success story. Working hard at menial jobs saving their money so that they could open their own business. Which became a very lucrative Polish delicatessen. Noel played baseball in high school and was an excellent shortstop with great speed and reflexes. He had the sleek muscular build and he also excelled in playing basketball, and being a “northsider,” he was what is known as a “die hard” Chicago Cubs fan.
Noel married a girl from his church, who was from the old country out of the city of Krakow, and she and Noel kept a traditional Polish family.
David spent his youth on the south side of Chicago, in a predominately black neighborhood and high school. Three things helped David survive those years, the first was his combination of a great sense of humor that was mixed with attitude. The second was that like Noel, he played baseball for his high school team, and was a magnificent catcher. He was the stereotypical, wisecracking catcher whose joking behind the plate and while at the bat. He would not only intimidate his opponents, but charm them as well. His size was the third factor which helped back up the attitude, The coaches in high school were always trying to recruit him to play linebacker on the football team, but he chose to stick with one sport because his parents wanted him to pay more attention to his schoolwork. His size was also a great factor when an opposing batter felt that the pitcher threw the ball just a little to close, or out right hit him on purpose. Being a “southsider,” he was an avid Chicago White Sox fan.
Now people from outside of Chicago would wonder about this North Side - South Side baseball rivalry that the citizens of the Chicago area have. David put it in perspective one day when his high school sweetheart, the former Regina Johnston, the homecoming queen who later became Mrs. David Todd, had some relatives from Louisiana come in for a visit.
“OK, take two guys from Chicago,” he began to explain, “one is a liberal Democrat, the other a conservative Republican, and you put them in a bar. There will be a debate, granted . . . it may get a little heated, but they will stay civil, talk the issues, and still remain friendly. Now, take the same two guys, have one be a Cub fan, and the other a Sox fan, in the same bar, talking about whose team is better? Well, I tell you, there’s going to be a fight”.
David’s sense of humor even charmed Regina’s family when he first met them, because of the fact that they were of different races. Regina’s mother was the first to accept the situation, her dad soon followed, and over the years when they gave them two grandsons and a granddaughter, it sealed the bond.
David’s parents accepted anything that came along, David’s parents were 60’s flower children. The one “medal of honor” they were most proud of from their generation was that they were at the Woodstock music festival for all three days. They had taken David with them when he was seven years old. All he remembers from the time was the mud and the smell of everyone around him. He didn’t enjoy it as much as his mother and father had.
They still held onto some of their flower children ways. “Earth Day is like another Christmas to them I think,” David would say in jest.
One thing about their son they would find hard to accept though was his wanting to become a police officer. They used to always refer to all Policemen as “the Man.“ But as the years went on they saw the view of “the man” from their son’s eyes, and soon found that they may have been wrong on many things. But, David grew to be the exact opposite of them, as it is with most families.
Now David and Noel were standing over the two men that they have been searching for now over three years. David was by Billy Freeman and Noel with Raul Ortega. They got to speak briefly to Stephanie through Officer Rosario, and the details that they heard had practically confirmed that these men were in fact the ones they had nicknamed “the Dynamic Duo”. The name was given to them not for being anything near dynamic, but because of what one of their fellow officers, who was Jewish had to say about them. It was a word he used, chutzpah. The Italians also had a word, stugatz. In American slang, it was “Balls”. Because they were responsible for a serial rape spree that knew no boundaries, and they did it when they pleased, and how they pleased.
They decided then to let Stephanie go on her way to the hospital, but had Officer Rosario stay with her when they had to collect the evidence from her body.
Both rapists were still lying face down on the pavement of the alley unable to move. The paramedics had arrived some twenty minutes earlier and were trying to figure a way to lift both men from the ground without making whatever injuries that they sustained even worse.
“I’m no doctor,” one medic said to them, “but I have to say, from what I’ve seen so far? These guys are never gonna walk again”.
Noel and David kept going back and forth from each man. They were treated there on the pavement so that they could at least breathe easier. Noel then signaled to David to come to the side to start to discuss their next move.
“Isn’t this the damnest thing you’ve ever seen in your life?” He asked David.
“Sure as hell is,” David answered, “What next you think?”
“Well, I say we read ‘em their rights, then we split up,” Noel said, “one of us go to Northwestern with the girl and the other to Cook County with them. You got any theories?”
Noel looked around and said, “The only thing I can come up with is that, from what the girl told us, one of the good citizens of Chicago just happened to stumble upon this, and took matters into his own hands.”
“Well, whoever he is, he’s long gone,” Noel said.
“That is if it’s a man,” David halfway suggested.
Noel gave a surprised look and said, “I don’t even want to picture what she may look like, probably some of the women from my old neighborhood”.
Noel and David went first to Billy and knelt down near his head. The medics were about to slide a backboard under him to stabilized his back and neck.
“ Hey! Bud! Can you hear me? Blink twice if you can!” Noel said to Billy.
Billy then blinked his eyes twice, with that Noel read him his rights from the Miranda card that every police officer carried, but had memorized from all the times they had to say it from all of their arrests. Noel then finishing asked Billy if he understood his right, and if he did to blink twice again. Billy blinked twice.
Noel and David then went over to Raul and did the same thing. Both times when asked, Raul blinked twice also.
Both officers then stepped away to let the paramedics do their work. They decided that Noel would go to Northwestern Hospital to get any further information from Stephanie. But, to make sure to do so through Officer Rosario, she had a connection to the girl, and it would be better to keep it that way for the time being.
David would go to Cook County Hospital with the assailants, get anything he could from them, and to keep abreast of their condition and see how long it would be before they could be questioned. To be on the safe side, he would read them their rights again whenever he could speak with them.
Before they split up David looked to Noel with his index finger in the air to hold his attention and said, “Ya know, if it’s them, well, it wasn’t supposed to be like this man, I mean after all the time and work, it may end up like this?”
“And by ‘a big dark man’, as she said. Right?” Noel asked.
Now they both turned to look down at the two degenerates that they have spent many a day and night trying to find. David had a point, all those days and nights, away from their families, following every lead, and endless clues. Interviewing the victims, constantly going over the evidence and stories. Following the trails of their escapes the victims provided them with. Constant assurance to the husbands, brothers, boyfriends, sons, daughters, mothers and sisters that they were doing their best and they will get them. That they would not stop until they did so. But after every promise, came another victim. Then the victims from outside of Chicago, and the traveling to the outer suburbs, working with other police departments.
And now, they were just handed over to them on the proverbial “silver platter”, by some “big dark man,” whom from the way it all sounded at first, did this to Billy and Raul with lighting speed.
“Well, you’d better get going with her,” David now said, “it’s probably going to be some time before they can move these guys. I’ll call you at Northwestern from Cook County as soon as I get there.”
“OK D.T., talk to ya then.”
Noel turned and left to join the ambulance, David would take the car over to Cook County Hospital. David remained with the paramedics and just stared down again at “The Dirtbag Duo” and thought that they now don’t look so terrorizing. It mostly turned out that way sometimes. When your after someone whose done some horrific crime to another human being. You start to picture in your mind what this person might look like. Nine times out of ten you picture them as some dramatically drawn comic book villain, or some sort of other monster. But then they’re finally captured and you see that they are the complete opposite of what you had in mind. Just average looking people, nothing really special.
He looked down at Billy and Raul and thought that these guys just looked like the typical “weasel,” the guy with Napoleon complex, just a couple of two-bit wimps.
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