The day closed with an impressive mid-July sunset. Outside my Capitol Hill office in the Longworth Congressional Building, the intense late-day sun spanked the Capitol Dome with reflected fireballs of light, splashing sizzling orange across the white fascia. Reflections from the Dome's thick glass windows dappled the Capitol grounds with seasonal color, as trees slow-danced in the heat of an early evening summer breeze.
As a congressional press secretary in the mid-'70s, I began my morning before dawn with audio news feeds to radio stations in the district. The boss’s recorded statements addressed the day's issues. In the afternoon, I answered reporters’ phone questions, then drafted a précis for the Congressman's weekly District newspaper column. It was a lazy summertime day.
Contented as I leaned back in my chair, I didn't take long to hit the road to dreamland, the land of nod. A passionate, warm, smoky rhapsody drifted through my psyche. At eight sharp, my phone rang! It was Detective Ted Manjoras with the D.C. Metropolitan Police Homicide Squad. “The Greek.” I played softball with the third baseman on former President Gerald Ford’s team. Ford was no longer the Commander-in-Chief. The team was now called the “Out-House Gang,” and the roster was filled with uniformed Secret Service agents who guarded the mansion. The Greek and I filled out the rest of the crew. We played games twice a week on the Ellipse, south of the White House, for three seasons. It was a full schedule with lots of beer and banter.
The detective wanted company for the overnight shift. Legally, the D.C. Metropolitan PD cleared me to do so after I signed my life away. Several years earlier, I had started writing a novel titled Plausible Denial, a Washington potboiler. Through the lens of the MPD, I saw the District of Columbia with its pants down. No office hours on Saturday. I asked the Greek how soon he could be out front at the Capitol.
It was a slow night for the murder police. We took a dinner break around 3 a.m., casting our fate to the wind at an all-night Asian joint in Chinatown, when the radio call came in. Body, female, inbound curb lane, New York Avenue, NW.
“Who did it?” I asked her.
Nothing but guttural, bloody gurgles and hollow, empty eyes. I cursed.
We were first on the scene in a detective plane wrap, a slick-back sedan with red flashing dash lights. The EMT’s bus pulled up from behind, and two uniformed patrolmen set up roadblocks. A satiated moon cast haunting, granular lines and shadows across the crime scene. The vic sustained a single gunshot wound to the left torso and was alive on the fetid, begrimed asphalt when they zipped on black pressure pants, pushing blood topside and keeping the heart pumping. “Who did it?” I asked her. Nothing but guttural, bloody gurgles and hollow, empty eyes. I cursed. It turns out she was a teenage prostitute. So young, she thought life would last forever. The kid was DOA at Washington MedStar Shock Trauma Center just after sunup. With no redemption, her life expired.
To catch a killer, the Greek, a smart lad that he is, set up a sting operation a few weekends later, using prostitutes in the Franklin Square and K Street area. Detectives staked out the area, and the community of harlots helped. Working girls labored with cops to take down a murderer. A lady of easy virtue remembered the suspects’ car. It seemed he was a regular. Darn if the guy didn’t show up looking to score a party girl. Police pounced, making the arrest as the God of Guilt hovered. It was a flawless maneuver. True Detective Magazine ran a picture-story spread on the operation, featuring Detective Manjoras in all his glory. Case closed in The Murder Book.
Detective Manjoras retired from the MPD in 1991. During his storied career, he served with SOD, the Special Operations Detail. In 1977, SOD helped end the Hanafi Muslim siege of Bnai Brith’s headquarters in D.C., where nearly 150 hostages were held. Manjoras and a team of SOD members fast-roped from a helicopter through the building’s glass roof, freeing the captives. After retiring, he became a personal bodyguard for the Secretary of Health and Human Services, who was Arizona’s former governor. Today, at 79, Manjoras is a 9-handicap golfer, living the dream on Amelia Island in Florida, where he often searches the beach with his grandchildren for shark teeth.
If you’re a fortunate fellow, someone comes into your life and changes you for the better. The Greek remains my long, rewarding friend, the kind of pal I’ll recall the day I die. If given the opportunity when it’s time to blow this joint we call heaven on earth, SaddleBrooke, I’ll do it.
Jerry Wilkerson has served as a press secretary for two U.S. congressmen and as a correspondent for CBS NewsRadio Chicago and the Chicago Daily News. He has also served as a police commissioner and is a Navy veteran. Email: franchise@att.net.
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