-Caveat Lector- an excerpt from: Loud and Clear Lake Headly and William Hoffman©1990 Henry Holt and Company 115 W. 18th St. New York, NY 10011 ISBN 0-8050-1138-2 272 pps — out-of-print/one edition --[16]-- 16 File #851 The Barrel Bar sat in a rundown section near downtown Phoenix, a high-crime, low-employment area that most middle-class Phoenicians avoided. Jim Robison had suggested I look up the tavern's owner, Ralph Clark, a friend of his, but until now, midMay, I'd been too busy with Michael JoDon, Keith Nation, and the press conference. Some checking had revealed that Ralph Clark had come from Chicago; and his brother had been identified by the Chicago crime commission as a Southside Mafia rackets boss. "Is Ralph here?" I asked the bartender, who looked like an ex-heavyweight prize fighter. "Who are you?" I handed him my card. "Just a minute. I'll see if he wants to talk to you." He came out from behind the bar and disappeared down a corridor in the back. I assumed it led to an office. The bartender returned a minute later, followed by a rough-looking, heavyset man in his forties. "I'm Ralph," he said in a gravelly voice, shaking my hand and motioning toward a booth away from the action. "Do you see Jimmy?" he asked when we were seated and the bartender had brought us Cokes. "At least once a week." "How's he getting along?" "He's not eating, you know." "Yeah. I read that in the paper. It's too bad. I like Jim. I've known him a long time. He's a helluva guy." "Jim told me to come and see you. He said you might be able to help us." "Well, I might. I got this cop who maybe would talk to you. Clark was vague. I suspected he had it all mapped out, otherwise he wouldn't waste time with me. Everything about Ralph Clark suggested secrecy and organization. "I'd like to see the cop," I said. "Can you set up a meet?" "Maybe. I can't be too upfront about all this, you understand? I got plenty of heat myself." "I'm sorry to hear that." "You know about heat. I heard you been catching some yourself, trying to help Jim and the other guy." "Max Dunlap." "Does Jim need any money? I could send some up by you, but nobody could know where it came from." "He suspected you'd offer. He said, 'Tell Ralph thanks but no; I don't have anything to spend it on.' He doesn't smoke, and he isn't eating." "Give him my regards." "I will." "Yeah. I'll talk to the cop and try to put you two together." I sensed that wouldn't be a problem. I had no inkling what the cop wanted to talk about, and I didn't ask. Robison was in a wheelchair when I saw him. Very thin and drawn. In the joint everyone's complexion fades to a prison pallor, but Robison's had worsened and become chalky with a sickly tinge of gray. The prison authorities hadn't tried to intervene in his refusal to eat, calling his actions a "hunger strike." "It's typical that they'd misunderstand," he said. "This isn't a hunger strike. I'm not making any demands. I'm starving myself to death." It irritated Jim that Max and others had joined him in what they did call a hunger strike. He doubted they'd stay with it long because they lacked his own serious intent, and he felt their attempt at solidarity had somehow diminished the impact of his own actions. We shook hands. His was bony. I learned later that even his shoe size had shrunk. "How do you feel?" I asked. "I'm weak, but not as weak as they think I am. I've continued to exercise, and that helps. If I'd just been lying around, I probably wouldn't have the strength to get out of bed. That'll come, but it's not here yet." "Is there anything I can do?" "You're doin' it. Workin' as hard as you can. If you find something that radically changes the perspective, I can stop this program. Lake, I don't want to die. I lust refuse to live under these circumstances. I) "Speaking of investigation, I saw Ralph Clark." "Nice guy, isn't he?" "He was friendly." "Did he say anything that helped?" "He said he has a cop who might meet me. I'll follow through on it." "Be sure to. Clark's all right. He's been around Phoenix for a while, and he has his fingers in a lot of pies. But be careful with him. Ralph's got his own problems. Keep his name out of the newspaper." While I was there, I visited with Max. Increasingly I saw only Jim-Max, truly, had nothing that could help the investigation. He himself had said, "I appreciate your seeing me, but probably I'm better off with you on the street looking for information." Max, still the optimist, thought the press conference had gone well, especially with the New York Times coverage, and asked questions about his appeal (nothing happening, waiting for a ruling from the Arizona Supreme Court). After entering the prison at Florence, Max had discovered a special talent for drawing, and today he proudly showed me his most recent work: a large picture of his wife and kids. Over the months the contractor-turned-artist had produced a sizable collection of sketches, experimented with style, and refined his technique. But he never varied his one and only subject, his family: pictures of Barbara, of each child, combinations of Barbara and the children. The five-foot-tall group portrait of his loved ones was Max's piece de resistance. Three nights later I stood in front of a booth at the Barrel Bar looking down at Phoenix Police Detective Harry Hawkins, a husky man in his forties. Ralph Clark had given me his name, pointed him out to me. "You Hawkins?" "Yeah." "I'm Lake Headley. I'm working on the Don Bolles case." "I know who you are and what you're doing. Sit down, Mr. Headley." "Call me Lake. Ralph said you wanted to talk to me." "I never thought Dunlap and Robison got a fair shake. When I read in the paper what you're doing, I figured there was something I should tell you." "You know I want to hear it." Hawkins looked nervous. His eyes searched the bar, as if fearing one of us had been followed. "I decided you're serious from reports in the media. Damned if I know how you found out some of those things, but you got balls. I suppose I could have gone to the defense lawyers at the time of the trial, but they've got Arizona connections. Know what I mean?" Yes, I did. "I've checked you out," Hawkins said. "It looks like you're the guy I should talk to. There wasn't anybody else before," the veteran police detective added with a sigh. I sensed Hawkins was about to reveal something significant, but I couldn't have imagined its immense, long-range impact on the investigation. Nor could 1. have known that the outwardly passionless, hard-boiled Hawkins harbored a haunted conscience be needed to unburden. There could be no other reason: what he told me, guaranteed to torpedo his career, came out like longpent-up water rushing through a dam break. "At the time of the Bolles murder, I worked in the detective bureau assigned to the organized crime section. You worked intelligence, so you know we get a lot of unsubstantiated information. Rumors from the street, that sort of thing. "Well, for years we'd been putting together a file on the Funk family. Their connection with Emprise. Also, in general, what went on at those race tracks. As you can imagine, that file contained some heavy shit. "I guess the brass got nervous, or something. One day, toward the last of September 1976-1 don't remember the exact date, but it's written on my calendar—I got a call from Sergeant Weaver. That's Jack Weaver, our resident expert on organized crime. He's lectured all over the country, knows the family trees of the Bonannos and Horseface Licavoli, all that stuff. "Anyway, Weaver told me to meet him in the intelligence office. So I did. And Lieutenant Sparks, the intelligence commander, was also there. "Weaver said, 'Harry, there's a lot of material in that Funk file that might be subpoenaed when the case goes to court. Take this key and open the door over there. Inside that room you'll see a table. On that table you'll find a file numbered Eight-Five-One.' " Hawkins described how Weaver had given him step-by-step instructions fit for a child. Clearly, Weaver wanted no mistakes. "He told me: 'We want you to go through File Eight-Five-One and take out every piece of paper that connects the Funks to organized crime, Emprise, or John Adamson. Take out anything that might damage the Funks in this community. After you've read the file and removed the material—I don't care how long-it takes—I want you to bring me what you took out. Then I want you to renumber the file pages and recopy them so no one can tell that anything has been removed. You got that?' "I said, 'Sure.' Weaver then said, 'After you've done all this, type up new index cards on the contents of the file. I want you to start right away, and not stop until the job is done. This is important, Harry. Take out everything that's not public information.' "So that's what I did. I gave the material to Weaver, and it's bothered me ever since. I hope this information does you some good." Does some good? It was like receiving a road map to Atlantis. I looked at Hawkins, and he started to stand up. He'd said his piece. "I need time to digest this," I said, not wanting contact between us broken. "How can I get back to you?" "Set it up through Ralph. Let him know when you want to see me, and I'll be there. But I don't want to talk to attorneys or anyone else except you. I'm probably in for a lot of heat. Regardless, I've given you the information. Run with it if you can." I'd found a monster: the systematic destruction of a key intelligence file, an act in itself denying a fair trial to Dunlap and Robison! As I walked out of the bar, it struck me that my life might be in danger. Not from the Funks, Neal Roberts, or the Mafia, but from the police. I drove straight to Don Devereux's home, told him what I'd learned, and urged him to follow up if something happened to me. When it came to knowing about Harry Hawkins, two beat one. Despite repeated efforts to meet with Hawkins again, he avoided me for more than two weeks. Finally, with help from Ralph Clark, the cop and I sat together in the same booth at the Barrel Bar. He looked even more uptight than before. A warning signal—APPROACH WITH CAUTION—flashed in my brain. I had to guard against scaring Hawkins away, and besides, I didn't want to get him into a jam. I soon learned, however, that the line of communication had been scrambled since our first contact. "This will be the last time I talk to you," Hawkins said. "It's possible the brass are on to us. Last week they had a big conference at the department. Captain Kimmell told me personally to keep a tight lid on the document-purging incident and warned me not to tell anyone about it. I'll bet that fucking Lieutenant Sparks is trying to pin the whole thing on me, and he's got some help. Calvin Lash—he's a sergeant—told me not to talk to Weaver about anything, not even personal business. You can see what a mess this is. Here I got one sergeant, Lash, ordering me not to speak to another sergeant, Weaver, who's my boss. I can't risk being seen with you. That would put my ass in a sling for sure. "How high do you think this goes?" "Right to the top. Strong, the assistant chief, told everybody at the meeting not to talk about purging the file. Afterward, some of us talked about why Eight-Five-One got altered, and the older guys pretty much agree that the documents taken out of it would rebut the state's theory of the Don Bolles murder case. So you see why I have to be careful. Lash told me there'd be a directive right out of Chief Wetzel's office to screen every file for references to Adamson, Emprise, and the Funk family. I wasn't permitted to assist in the search." "Why not?" "Beats me. I guess they don't trust me anymore. Maybe they found out I talked to you." "I'm sorry you've got all these problems. But as long as you're here, can I ask you a few questions?" "Go ahead, shoot." "What did you do with all that material you took out of the Funk file, Eight-Five-One?" "I gave it to Sergeant Weaver." "What did he do with it?" "I don't know. I never asked, and he never said. I always suspected he destroyed it." "Do you think our getting together prompted that conference the other day?" "I have no idea. They call meetings; I go. It seems pretty coincidental, though. I do know they're down on me, and I don't like it." "What can you do about it?" "That's what I've been wondering. Do you think you could get me in to see Robison?" The question came out of the blue. I could see enormous positives if Hawkins met Robison (perhaps even solving the Bolles case), and plenty of negatives. The bad news: Hawkins was a cop, and this could be a trap. The good news: Robison's friend, Ralph Clark, evidently vouched for Hawkins. I didn't know if Robison would agree to see the intelligence detective, and if he did, how we'd pull it off against a likely phalanx of objections: from Robison's lawyer, the attorney general's office, the police department in general, and Hawkins's superiors in particular. Dealing with not only a cop but a member of an elite unit put me in a tough spot. What if the police brass had thrown Hawkins at me as bait, and he aimed to obtain a confession from Robison? Or, through Robison, to get at Kemper Marley? On the other hand, a meeting with Robison would allow me continuing contact with Hawkins, maybe a chance to obtain affidavits from him, something clearly impossible as matters stood. Best of all, Hawkins might bring another detective in as corroboration. "Why do you want to see Jim?" I asked. "There are things I know about this case that have never been discussed. Robison was Adamson's pal. If Robison and I got together and talked, we might combine our information and figure out who was behind the Bolles murder. It's a tall order, but I'd like to try and arrange it." "I'll give it a shot. I need to see if Robison will go for it." I hoped it would work out. I thought Jim would agree, based on Ralph Clark's endorsement of Hawkins, but I had serious doubts about others who would probably try to insinuate themselves into the situation. Two days later I laid the pros and cons out for Robison, saying I didn't believe-assuming a worst-case scenario-that Hawkins could trick him. Jim was, after all, innocent. Robison agreed, but with one stipulation: my presence. thought Hawkins would buy that. I called Carolyn Robinson—part of a dreary drill we went through every time I wanted to visit the penitentiary—and she set in motion the needed bureaucratic machinery. So—two key players wanted to meet, but the sabotage from others started immediately. I talked it over with Tom Henze, Robison's new lawyer (replacing Derickson, who would shortly accept a superior court judgeship). Henze didn't oppose a Robison/Hawkins meeting, but insisted he'd have to be there too. The police said okay, but they demanded that a homicide detective be present. The attorney general's office said okay, but William Schafer III had to sit in. "Jesus Christ," I said to Terri Lee, "pretty soon we'll need a stadium." Alas, the meeting fell through because of the many conflicting demands of the "interested" parties, and the door closed forever between Hawkins and me. I never saw him again. A few months later, however, I interviewed Sergeant Jack Weaver. A retired street-smart cop with more than twenty years on the force, Weaver specialized in organized crime, and he knew his business. "Don Bolles wasn't as lily white as people think," Weaver opened. "What does that mean, Jack?" I said, irritated that he seemed about to malign someone I'd viewed all along as a hero. "I tell you, Lake, a lot of people hated Don Bolles, and they were glad to see him dead. He was always poking his nose into places it didn't belong." Well, if that was all he had on Bolles, my admiration for the late reporter was safe. "I'm interested in what happened to File Eight-Five-One," I said. "I have information from a good source that it got purged." "Your source is right, to a degree." "What do you mean?" "That file didn't get cleaned out once, but three times. I couldn't talk about it while I was still on the force. Now I'm retired, and they're trying to blame me for the purging. I'm not going to let them dump that on me. I didn't initiate those purge orders; they came from Lieutenant Sparks, and higher up than him. You can tell those attorneys for Robison and Dunlap that I'll testify to this." He paused. "There's something else I'll testify to. I haven't told anybody this, but a couple of months after the Bolles bombing, I took an intelligence report to Sergeant McKenzie and suggested it go in the Bolles bombing file. Mac said, 'No chance. There's nothing going into that file concerning Adamson, the Funk family, or Emprise.'" Not only were the files purged, they were closed! Nothing could be developed by the police on what obviously were three key players. "What happened to the material taken from the file? I guess you destroyed it?" "No. I couldn't stomach what Sparks had ordered me to do, and I knew it surely would come up again. So when Harry Hawkins handed me the material, I locked it in my desk drawer, which only I have a key to. I kept it there until they forced me to retire." "Did you take the papers with you?" "No. They outsmarted me. The day I cleaned out my desk, two detectives were present to take possession of all official documents." "Where do you think the documents went, Jack?" "Right to Chief Wetzel. Those papers had such a high priority, I don't think Wetzel would have trusted them with anyone." "Did you read what got purged from Eight-Five-One?" "Sure I did, but remember, this was almost three years ago, and I've read hundreds of reports since then. I can give you a general idea what they said: information about the Funk family's connection with Adamson; the different deals the Funks had with Emprise; and organized crime individuals who had been associated with the Funks, or been observed meeting with Funk family members." Jack Weaver had been forced into retirement over the controversy generated by purged File #851. Harry Hawkins's reward for whistle blowing, I was shortly to learn: assignment to a foot patrol in the most dangerous and crime-ridden section of Phoenix. pps. 172-182 --[cont]-- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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