S Street Rising: Crack, Murder, and Redemption in D.C. (28 page)

I could always interview him some other time, I figured.

Chapter 11

D.C. Confidential

In September 1995, Lou and his detectives received recognition from the Justice Department for their effectiveness in locking up suspected killers. The homicide squad had continued to maintain a closure rate of a little more than 50 percent, the milestone it had first achieved under Lou twelve months earlier, eight weeks after he had detective teams in place in every police district.

Justice sent Lou a shiny plaque commemorating the achievement and announced that it was awarding a $200,000 grant to the scandal-plagued New Orleans Police Department to study and try to emulate Lou’s district-squad concept. Lou appreciated the recognition, but he was focused on closing cases. He stuck the plaque inside a desk drawer. He figured he’d find a place to display it later.

Meanwhile, I spent the first half of the month in Durham, North Carolina, attending Duke University on an “academic fellowship.” Duke had a deal with the
Post
, offering reporters and editors short fellowships that allowed them to audit any class, so long as the instructor approved. The university provided an off-campus apartment.

I sat in on a handful of journalism, psychology, and sociology courses, and faithfully attended two classes: basketball and tennis. I was back at my apartment every day by early afternoon, allowing me plenty of time to watch the final weeks of the O. J. Simpson trial on cable television, a luxury I didn’t have at home in D.C.

Every year, dozens of
Post
staffers applied for six fellowship slots, spread out through the academic year. Executive editor Len Downie chose the recipients. I was being rewarded for doing a good job on the crime beat, a veteran editor told me.

By then I was going well beyond pro forma coverage of the most spectacular crimes of the moment. I had good police sources, but I was also interviewing gangsters and their friends. In March, I’d written a story about D.C. gang culture, describing the significance of various types of graffiti and discussing mourning rituals for fallen comrades. In D.C. combat zones, the sight of sneakers and boots hanging from power lines was as familiar as slingers on street corners, but their meaning remained a mystery to many. The suspended footwear honored the dead—friends and adversaries alike—gangsters told me.

At the corner of 1st and T Streets Northwest, once a backup corner for my crack buying, I interviewed a teenage gangster who called himself Dogg. He explained the graffiti on a nearby wall, the names of ten teenagers or young men who’d been killed. “It’s in memory of the homies who died. We got to keep their memories alive,” Dogg said as he thumped his arm against his chest.

As I wrote down his quote, I wondered if I’d ever copped crack from any of those homies whose names now adorned the wall.

Just before I drove to North Carolina for the fellowship, I filed a story for the
Post
’s
Sunday magazine chronicling the extraordinary measures Lou and other white shirts and detectives had taken to keep the peace between white and black officers after a white cop had shot and killed a gun-wielding black man who was in street clothes in Southeast D.C. The cop thought the man was a bandit; it turned out he was a fellow officer from the white cop’s own district. The black cop, it turned out, was trying to stop two men who were robbing a cabdriver.

I hadn’t covered the shooting, which occurred in February, because I was out sick that week with the flu. But Lou had tipped me off to the story that summer, when I was at his house for a barbecue.

“We did a lot of unusual things to keep the lid on,” he’d said. “It almost became a race riot within the department.”

Many black officers, as well as some white ones, believed the shooting officer might have been quick on the trigger because he saw a black man with a gun. The district commander, Inspector Winston Robinson, held his shop together by keeping everyone informed and calm. Lou and Robinson arranged for the homicide detectives who were conducting the investigation to brief the officers in the station.

Reporting on a racially charged mistaken-identity police-on-police shooting was complicated, and Lou’s cooperation was crucial. Many other white shirts, street cops, and detectives hedged when I first called them to talk about the tragedy—until I mentioned that I’d interviewed Lou. His name worked like a key card. Lou might not have been liked by everyone in the department, but he was universally respected.

The article became a cover story. Steve Coll, the magazine’s editor, would later tell me that publisher Don Graham bear-hugged him in congratulations the day after the piece was published. Post editors would nominate it for a Pulitzer Prize.

By then, Phil Dixon had moved on. Earlier that year, Milton Coleman had been promoted, so Phil put in for the job of Metro editor. He was passed over in favor of another editor, Jo-Ann Armao. Phil worked for a couple of months in the sports department, but by the end of the summer he’d moved to Philadelphia to work for the
Inquirer
.

I missed Phil, but I kept churning out stories. Around the time I left for the fellowship, in August, my editor, Keith Harriston, told me how much he appreciated my work. “You’re the best police reporter the
Post
has ever had,” he said.

My fellowship ended in mid-September. I was given a nice certificate saying I’d completed the program. I stuck it in my duffel bag and drove back to D.C. I’d enjoyed my respite as a quasi college student, but I was looking forward to getting back to work.

Like Lou, I had every reason to feel optimistic about my career.

In mid-September, Lou received a strange phone call from a fellow white shirt he’d known for years. “I hear the mayor wants you out of homicide,” the caller said. “What gives?”

“News to me,” Lou said. He figured it was just the police rumor mill working overtime. Why would Marion Barry want him out? Lou and Barry didn’t know each other and hadn’t had any run-ins. Why mess with the one unit in the police department that was clearly succeeding?

A few days later, in the underground parking garage at police headquarters, Lou ran into Ron Linton, chief of the police reserves. Lou and Linton were friendly. Linton and Barry were tight. Lou buttonholed Linton and said, “I hear the mayor wants me out. Can you find anything out for me?”

“Get out of here,” Linton said. “Why would he want to bounce you?”

“He probably doesn’t,” Lou replied. “But can you look into it?”

Two weeks later, Linton called Lou. He sounded perplexed. “You’re right,” Linton said. “The mayor wants you out. I don’t know why.”

Lou needed to know what was going on. Fred Thomas had retired as chief in July. Barry had named an assistant chief, Larry Soulsby, to step in as interim chief.

Lou went to see Soulsby in his office. “Am I being transferred?” he asked.

“No way,” Soulsby said. “Everything’s fine.”

Lou kept working cases. Soulsby wasn’t known as the most honest guy in the department—the rank and file called him Lyin’ Larry. But if Barry was going to make a move on him, Lou wondered, what could he do?

Lou told me about the rumors shortly after I returned to Washington. By early October we’d both verified that the talk was true. Worse, Lou was being transferred to night patrol. It was a slap. Traditionally, homicide captains were promoted to the rank of inspector once they’d finished their time in charge of the squad.

Lou had been arguably the most effective homicide commander in the department’s history. He’d launched a bold and successful initiative under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. He’d turned things around. Homicide wasn’t just holding its own—it was being lauded by the Justice Department.

Still, the transfer was a done deal, sources told Lou and me. All that was left was the formal announcement.

In late October, Barry called a press conference to announce that he was removing the “interim” from Soulsby’s title. Soulsby would be the permanent chief. That meant he could appoint and transfer white shirts.

A couple of hours before the press conference, Lou was outside police headquarters, walking to a deli to get lunch. His pager went off. Lou checked the number—it was an informant. Not just any source—a friend, an ex-cop Lou had known since his patrol days.

Lou pulled out his cell phone and called back. “I need to see you
right now
,”
the informant said, his voice tense. They met outside a burger joint on New York Avenue, just east of downtown.

Lou arrived first and waited by an outdoor table. His source roared up in a rental car. He had a gig returning other people’s rentals. He didn’t bother with niceties: “What’s this I hear about you getting kicked out of homicide?”

“It’s true,” Lou said. “Soulsby’s announcing it today at a press conference. He’s putting me on night patrol.”

“Do you want me to kill him for you?”

Lou knew his informant was serious. He wasn’t just running his mouth. And he was fully capable of hitting the chief.

The source’s street skills were legendary. In the early eighties, when the entire police force was looking for a cop killer, he’d put on street clothes and found the guy within twenty-four hours, then taken him down in a shootout. The cop was a hero for a minute. But he met a woman who liked heroin and coke. Internal affairs got wind and busted him for supplying her with drugs. He went to trial and beat the charges, but the department fired him anyway.

Until then, Lou’s friend didn’t use. He loved the job—it gave him purpose. Without it, he fell down the rabbit hole. He started drinking, then using crack. He hung out at nightclubs and followed drug dealers home. The former cop would take them at gunpoint as they entered their apartments. He’d jack their money, their drugs, or both. He did a couple of jolts in federal prison for cocaine possession. By the early nineties he was back on the street. Other cops turned their backs on him after he was fired. Lou never did. He even slipped him money now and then.

Lou’s friend was grateful. Through the years, he gave Lou enough good tips to close out two dozen felonies: armed robberies, attempted murders, a handful of homicides. His information always panned out. Lou figured he was probably still doing some dirt himself—his tips were
too
good; he was too close to the violence to not be part of it. Lou never pressed him, though. He didn’t want to know.

The source was one of the toughest men Lou had ever known. And one of the most loyal. He was loyal enough to take out the chief or die trying.

“No!” Lou said. “Listen to me, I don’t want you to go anywhere near Soulsby. Don’t try to kill him. Don’t hurt him. Don’t scare him. I don’t want you to do anything. I’ll handle this myself, do you understand?”

“Whatever you say,” Lou’s ex-colleague said reluctantly. “But someone’s got to do something about that motherfucker.”

“Let me handle it,” Lou pleaded.

The informant nodded. Then he got back in the rental and sped off.

Lou took a deep breath and went for a walk to clear his head.

About an hour after Lou met with his informant, I stepped into a city government building across the street from police headquarters and took an elevator to the fourth floor for the mayor’s press conference.

Barry said he’d scoured the country and decided Soulsby was the best choice for the job of chief. He shook Soulsby’s hand. The new chief, clad in his dress blues, smiled from the Potomac River to the Washington Monument.

Over and over, Soulsby thanked Barry. He giddily hugged the mayor. Then Soulsby announced a series of white-shirt transfers.

Oddly, he said nothing about Lou Hennessy or homicide. The presser broke up.

A TV guy, a radio guy, and I stepped up to Soulsby. The TV guy made small talk with the chief and asked a couple of questions. The radio guy asked a question, too.

“What about Captain Hennessy?” I asked. “What’s happening in homicide?”

Soulsby’s grin disappeared.

“Captain Hennessy is being transferred to night patrol,” he said.

“That sounds like a demotion,” I said. “Sounds punitive.”

Soulsby pointed at the radio guy’s tape recorder and barked, “Turn that thing off.”

The radio guy complied.

Soulsby said he would tell us why Hennessy was being busted down to night patrol—but only if each of us agreed the information was off the record.

The TV guy nodded yes. The radio guy nodded yes. I should have said no. I should have demanded that Soulsby explain the transfer on the record. But I knew that if I didn’t agree, Soulsby would ask me to leave and then tell the other two reporters.

Okay
,
I nodded.

“Hennessy’s under a criminal grand jury investigation. I can’t go into detail, but it’s bad,” Soulsby said. “It will all come out in a few weeks.”

I went light-headed for a few moments. Lou the target of a grand jury investigation? No way. The new chief had just lied to me and two other reporters. Right to our off-the-record faces.

The three of us questioned Soulsby about the purported investigation: When had it started? What crime was Hennessy suspected of? Would he be indicted?