CHAPTER 9

SATURDAY, JAN AWAKENED STEEPED in foreboding.  He was headed for a clandestine meeting with someone who would probably turn out to be a weird Sherlock wannabe.  Maidenform, for heaven’s sake.  Besides that, he had been forced to change his plans.  His Saturday afternoon flight would put him into Billings at 6:00 p.m.  He had planned to make the drive to Basin in daylight, but his conversation with Deck changed that.

He had asked Deck to elaborate on the Mormon doctrine of blood atonement, but Deck had instead made an appointment for him to meet a retired Utah state investigator who now lived near Billings.  Deck said Chuck Black had worked the polygamy clans for nearly thirty years and had recently retired to the town of his youth.  In this case the town was Hardin, Montana, an hour from Billings.  Deck had arranged for Jan to meet Black for dinner at the Northern Hotel in Billings.

Jan had told Monster he would be safe driving back alone from Billings to Basin.  Hansen could track his movements in and around Basin, he had argued, but he couldn’t watch the Billings airport 24-7, could he?  Monster had frowned, but finally shrugged his massive shoulders and moved the conversation to something else.

But now, the meeting with Chuck Black would put Jan on Highway 310 after 9:00 p.m.—after sundown.  Jan disliked that idea, but he had agreed to meet Black anyway.

After a breakfast over USA Today in the Seattle Hilton, Jan moved to the bank of pay phones in the lobby and waited.  At 10:00 a.m. one rang and he answered it.

“Walk west on Pike, turn left on 5^th Avenue and walk south two blocks.  On the west side of the street, on the corner of 5^th and University is the Chamber of Commerce.  Wait out front.  A cab will pull up.  Get in the back.”  The line went dead.

“Brother!” Jan said.

Outside the Hilton, cumulous clouds punctuated what Perry Como had (for whatever reason) called the bluest skies he’d ever seen.  This morning a brisk wind swept off Puget Sound and whipped Jan’s jacket as he stood on the curb in front of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce.  He stood there for ten minutes.  He found himself grinding his teeth as he watched a dozen cabs go by without slowing.

Eventually one slowed and stopped.  Jan looked in the front passenger window but the driver jerked his thumb toward the back seat.

The cab started down 5^th Avenue; it was one-way south.  The driver, who had a beret pulled down over his eyes, watched Jan in the mirror.  Neither spoke.  They turned right on James and drove four blocks, gliding to a stop at Pioneer Square.

“Get out,” a raspy voice said.

Outside the cab Jan was surprised to see that the driver was a painfully skinny man with translucent skin.  Small dark eyes peered out from under the lip of the beret.  The man sort of rocked back and forth from one foot to the other and exhaled heavily through his nose.  Jan decided his best course of action was to remain patient and wait for Ichabod Crane in hippie clothes to speak.

Finally the man said, “Follow me.”  He walked toward a park bench.

“Sit down,” Ichabod said, blowing a couple more breaths through his nose.  But he didn’t sit down himself.  He stood before Jan, making weird circular movements with his shoulders while peering at him.  Finally, he pulled a small electronic device out of his breast pocket.  Jan noticed that his nails were immaculately manicured.  He deftly passed the device over Jan’s body.

“OK, man, the gun is copasetic.  I just want to be sure you ain’t wired.”

“Am I?”

“Nope, you’re clean, man.”  He paused. “I called our boy in Wyoming.”

Jan assumed he meant George Olson, but said nothing.

“He really didn’t give me much to work with,” Ichabod said.

To break the image that was imprinting itself into his brain, Jan said, “What should I call you?”

“Granny.”

“Granny?”

“My dad named me Granville.  I guess he had never heard of ‘A Boy Named Sue.’”  Granny snorted.

“Oh.” Jan waited.

“Here’s what I know,” Granny said. “And I’ll call you Mr. Smith if that’s OK?”

Jan shrugged.  He hoped he hadn’t rolled his eyes.

“What I understand, Mr. Smith, is that you want to snag some microwave info.”

“Well…”

“You want to intercept certain transmissions and relay them to another location.  Let me tell you what that takes.”

“OK.”

“First, you have to put an antenna roughly between the transmitter and the receiver.  Depending upon the configuration of the equipment—the frequency employed by the transmitter—you may have difficulty getting an antenna in the right spot.  It’s fairly tricky.  Secondly, you will need to spend some serious cash.”

“How much?”

“Depends.  The equipment, plus my fee.”

“Which is?”

“Depends.  If I just provide you with equipment, might only be twenty-five percent of the cost of the stuff.  If I get involved in further consultation or installation it could get expensive.  And I don’t put myself in harm’s way.  If it’s dangerous, I can get you the electronics, but you’ll have to install it yourself.  Before I can be precise about the bread, I’ll have to have more specific information.  Some of that I can get, some of it you have to get.”

“You seem to be rather thorough.”

Granny didn’t react except to exhale sharply through his nose.

“Anyway, Mr. Smith, I’ll need to know what equipment is being used by our friends and where their relay stations are.  Once we know that, we’ll know where we can intercept their signal.  Then I’ll need to know where you want to send the signal.  That’s why I can’t be more specific on the price of the equipment.  Stock electronics will give us relay links of about forty miles max per link.  You can probably figure an equipment cost of ten grand per link site.”

Jan said, “Let me be frank.  I have no idea how to answer any of your questions.  This whole idea is very new to me.”

“Well, you come to me on a pretty good recommendation, so I am willing to work with you.” 

Granny abruptly sat down on the bench and then jumped back up.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” he said.  “The first thing you should do is fax me all the known corporate entities involved—all the probable company names and the names of likely corporate officers.  Then I can search FCC license records.  I can probably find out the location and frequency of the transmitters if I know who to look for.  When I have that information, I can be more exact on the equipment costs, but there is still the hook-up cost.”

“Well, it’s possible that I might be able to hook up the equipment.  I do have some electronic background.”

“I know.”

Jan raised an eyebrow.

“I pulled your military records.”

“You really are thorough.”

Another snort.  “Mr. Smith, I learned my trade from Barney F. White.”

“Should I know him?”

“Nope, I’m sure you never heard of him.  But he taught me everything I know.  The last job he was on he tapped two phones belonging to a connected gangster here in Seattle.  A week later a guy at a loading dock down on the Pike opened what he thought was a barrel of pickles and found Barney upside down.  Drowned in pickle vinegar.  So, you’ll pardon me if I am, as you say, ‘thorough.’”

Granny handed Jan a card.

“Do you know how to get a hold of me?” Jan asked.

Granny stared at him.

Jan smiled.  “Sorry to insult you.”

Granny displayed what might have been an embryonic smile and said, “Can I drop you at your hotel?”

***

At the hotel Jan retrieved his car from the parking garage.  He had checked out and stowed his bags in the trunk of the car before meeting Granny.

Driving to the airport, he replayed the encounter with the tall, strange, electronics wizard.  Jan wondered if he had already become involved in felony conspiracy.  Where was all this leading?  If successful, what information would they capture from Hansen?  Foreboding hovered like a Seattle fog.

***

The one-hour flight to Billings was uneventful.  After deplaning Jan did the bathroom arming routine, picked up his rental car and headed for the Northern Hotel to meet Chuck Black, the supposed expert on blood atonement.  Even the words “blood atonement” made Jan uncomfortable.  The foreboding he felt that morning returned in force.  He drove from the airport along the rim rock bluff skirting the northern edge of downtown Billings.  He turned down 27^th Street, passing Saint Vincent Hospital where his friend Freddy Johnson spent six months during the winter of 1958 after shattering his leg in a football accident.  Jan had hitchhiked up to see him every weekend.  Monster came on one of those trips.  They got very drunk on tequila in Freddy’s room, sneaking in after lights out, thinking the nursing staff didn’t have a clue.

Jan turned right on 1^st Avenue, went a block, turned left on 28^th Street, and pulled into the parking garage.

He had twenty minutes before Black arrived, so he went into the Golden Belle Lounge and ordered a plain Coke.  Suddenly he felt tired.

“And old,” he said aloud to his face in the mirror.

The bartender, leaning against the back bar, his apron doubled over and tied neatly around his waist, smiled.  “I hear ya, brother.  I hear ya.”

Jan smiled back, sipped his drink, and watched as the bartender walked to the end of the bar to talk to a petite blonde in a smart business suit.  A few serious drinkers occupied the lounge, which was quiet for an early Saturday night.  One guy in a cowboy hat sat alone and motionless at a table.  A couple in a corner booth held cigarettes stylishly.  The blonde smiled at him and winked.  Jan shuddered at the thought of the complications of dating.  He hoped he would be smart enough to remain single.

“Jan Kucera?” a voice said at his elbow.

Turning on the stool, Jan looked into the brightest blue eyes he had ever seen.

“Chuck Black,” the man said and stuck out his hand.

Jan looked at him with surprise.

“Chuck…uh…Chuck, nice to meet you.  Thanks for coming.”

Chuck laughed.  “You were not expecting a Latino.”

Jan colored.

“Forget about it, my friend,” Chuck said.  “I have this effect on everybody.  It worked to my advantage when I was on the force.  Nobody ever expected to see a Chicano cop in Utah with blue eyes.  Great for undercover work,” he said with a grin.  “And the ‘Chuck’ part.  That grew out of the fact that my Christian name is Armando.  When I first got into the cop business, my lieutenant said, ’You are going to have to chuck that name.’  So I have been Chuck ever since.”

Jan surveyed the tall, nattily dressed, copper-skinned man with bright blue eyes.  Chuck’s hair was slicked back, reminding Jan of Pat Riley, the basketball coach.

“Thanks for meeting with me, Chuck.”

Chuck spoke with the slightest trace of a Latino accent.   “I do whatever Deck Edwards asks,” he said in a soft, melodious voice.  The “Edwards” sounded a little like “Ade-words.”

“Don’t we all?” Jan replied.  “How did you recognize me?  Deck must have given you a good description of me.”

“Actually I had a picture in my files.”

“Of me?  Really?  Why?”

“I caught your New York Times story on the Hansen Cult and looked up your bio on the Internet.  When Deck set this up I went to the site and printed your picture.”  Chuck smiled.  “Once a cop always a cop.  No?”

Jan thought about all the information Granny had known about him when he met him in Seattle.  He wondered if he needed to rethink his libertarian position on electronic privacy.

“Well,” Jan asked. “Ready for dinner?”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll join you for a drink first.”

“Great.  What’s your pleasure?”

“Clarence has some Crown Royal.  Is that not so, Clarence?”

Clarence—apparently the barman—materialized with two fingers of Crown Royal.  The saloon was old and high ceilinged, with ornate scroll trim.  It was dimly lit and cool and quiet.

Chuck motioned Jan to a table across the room.  Seated, he sipped the drink. 

“Si, Señor!  My father told me no evening should ever start without something to warm the guts and, if possible, no evening should end without something to warm the heart.”

“Your father sounds like he had a positive outlook.”

“My father came up here after World War II from Chihuahua.  One of the original wetbacks. Worked as a farm laborer.  Eventually wound up owning a small farm near Hardin.  It’s my place now.  I went to school in Hardin.”

“You explained the ‘Chuck,’ but I don’t get the ‘Black.’”

My father’s name was Del Negro.  He just made it easier for the locals by going to Black.  My birth certificate says ‘Black.’”

They were silent for a moment.  “Deck tells me you are hooking up with Ronnie Hansen.”

“Yeah, well I guess he is hooking up with me.”

Chuck was silent, engaging Jan with eyes so blue the pupils seemed almost to float above the irises.  Even in the dim light of the bar they were remarkable.

“I was very sorry to read about the loss of your wife.” Chuck said.

Jan continued to be locked onto Chuck’s eyes.  Finally he dropped his gaze to his own glass and said, “Thanks Chuck.”

Chuck continued.  “Mr. Ronnie Hansen is a piece of work.”

Jan nodded.  “I grew up with him.  Well, at least we went to school together.  He didn’t really have any friends.  His family was pretty self-contained.”

“Was his father the classic Mormon patriarch?”

“I didn’t ever speak to his dad.  I remember he was very aloof.  I even saw the grandfather once when I was very young.”

“Ronald, Sr.?”

“Yeah.  Actually, Ronnie is the third generation in the Big Horn Basin.  Ronnie’s grandfather came to the Basin in the 1890s,” Jan said.

“Fleeing Utah and The Manifesto on polygamy, no doubt.”

“Well, I suppose, but I don’t know for sure.  In fact the church may have sent him to the Big Horn Basin to practice polygamy.  Fact is, I don’t know as much as I need to about that history.  I’m hoping you can help me out.”

“A little, maybe,” Chuck said, “but I think I probably can serve you better with more recent history.”

“Anything I can get will be appreciated.  You were with the Utah State Police?”

Chuck looked away.  “I was twenty-eight years with the Utah Department of Public Safety.  For about twenty of those years I was plain clothes.  Sometimes undercover, as I said earlier.”

“You specialized in the polygamous groups.”

“You could say that.  There was no such official position.  But I worked those groups.”

“The LeBarons for example?”

“Yes.  I became quite close with Ervil and his clan.”  Chuck smiled.

“He died in prison, I recall.”

“Yes, he did at that.  He was fifty-six.  He lived one year for every kid he had.  Actually, I think he only had fifty-four kids, but no one knows for sure, even the family.”

Jan chewed his lower lip.  “I saw Brian Dennehy in ‘Prophet of Evil.’”

“Very realistic account.”

“Dennehy is the best.  Who was it played your part in that movie?”

Chuck shrugged.  “I don’t remember.”

Jan raised his eyebrows at Chuck’s apparent humility, and then added, “It’s a very difficult story to believe.  LeBaron was behind some twenty murders?”

“At least.  Probably as many as thirty,” Chuck said softly.  “Nobody will ever know for sure.  Ervil never fired a shot.  His wives, sons, and disciples pulled the triggers, or strangled the victims.  He had one of his own daughters strangled.  One of his wives and several of his children are doing life in prison.  I saw a picture of one of Ervil’s daughters recently on America’s Most Wanted.  She is sought in connection with the Four O’clock Murders in Houston.”

Chuck’s voice trailed off and he looked past Jan, apparently lost in thought.  Finally Chuck spoke.  “But about evil…”

“Chuck, LeBaron was evil, was he not?”

Chuck laughed without mirth.

“Sure.  Of course!  It’s just that…Well, I don’ know how to explain it.  I have worked a lot of bad-guy cases.  Guys like Gary Gilmore.  The Lafferty brothers.  The Laffertys slit the throat of their brother Allen’s wife and that of her fifteen-month-old daughter because the wife refused to accept polygamy.  The Laffertys, they used as their defense that they were acting on a direct revelation from God.  Not that it helped them at their trial.”

Jan waited.  Chuck’s voice hadn’t changed.  But the words came slower and the blue eyes seemed to deepen even more.  Jan felt as though Chuck had left the room while his body remained.  He had seen this in police officers before.  And in criminals.  And in Monster.  And who was Monster really, Jan wondered, cop or criminal?   Jan felt as though the room temperature had dropped.

“Well, Jan, I don’t want to get philosophical.  You are interested in facts.”

“I want to know whatever I need to know to understand Ronnie Hansen.”

“Well,” Chuck sighed, “then I guess you need to hear a little philosophy.”

“Shoot.”

“Remember, my friend, you asked for it.”  Chuck smiled a plastic smile.  “As to evil, well that characteristic, I have concluded, is not so much resident in people as it is in ideas.”

“Interesting.  Explain.”

“Whenever one gets close to the bad boys, like I have been close to them, you spend a lot of time with them, interviewing them, trying to understand them.  Trying to discern their motives.  Something funny starts to happen to you.  You kind of have trouble figuring out how they are different from yourself.”

“God, Chuck!  That’s a strange thing for a lawman to say.”

“Former lawman, my friend.  Citizen Black now.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“Perhaps I can illustrate it with a story.”

“Sure.”

“The newsman, Mike Wallace, was doing a 60 Minutes piece about the Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann.  You will remember him.  He was one of the central players in the Holocaust. Mike Wallace posed a question at the program’s outset: ‘How is it possible,’ he asked his audience ’for a man to act as Eichmann acted?  Was he a monster?  A madman?  Or was he perhaps something even more terrifying: was he normal?’”

“What a strange thought,” Jan said.

“Yes, sir, it is.  Anyway, Wallace interviewed Yehiel Dinur, a concentration camp survivor who testified against Eichmann at the trial. Mr. Dinur, while a prisoner at Auschwitz, had seen Eichmann.  At Eichmann’s trial, in 1961, Mr. Dinur walked into the courtroom, seeing Eichmann for the first time in eighteen years. A film clip shows Mr. Dinur as he began sobbing, then he collapsed—he fainted.”

Chuck took a sip of his drink, rolled his shoulders, and continued.  “So Mike Wallace asks him about that.  What was going through Mr. Dinur’s mind when he saw Eichmann?  Was he overcome with hatred, with fear?  No, not that, Mr. Dinur explained.  When he saw Eichmann he realized the Nazi was just an ordinary man. ‘I was afraid about myself,’ Mr. Dinur said.  He saw he was capable of doing what Eichmann did if he had been in his place.  He said, ‘I am exactly like he is!’”

“But that’s ridiculous, Chuck!”

“Is it?  I don’t know.”  The soft voice had taken on a steely edge. 

They were both silent, sipping their drinks.  Jan found himself becoming uneasy.  What was Chuck saying?  Am I really no different from Ronald Hansen?

“All I know,” Chuck continued, “is that there exists a connection between what a person believes and what he does.  When he believes—really believes—fantastic things, he seems to be capable of fantastic acts.”

Chuck shook his head quickly as though throwing off something unseen, and then he continued, “Anyway, ol’ Ervil was an interesting man.  I met him in the summer of 1979, at the Salt Lake County jail.  He obviously was a man with a brilliant mind, but he had lived with unreasonable ideas for so long he was not easy to follow verbally.  His language was flowery.  He could speak nonstop for hours—and he often did.  The ideas were rich and confusing.”

Chuck laughed softly, apparently lost in a momentary thought.  Then he said, “Ervil had been arrested in Mexico and turned over to the FBI in connection with the murder of Dr. Rulon Allred, another polygamous leader from Utah.  Allred was a naturopathic healer with an office in Murray, Utah.  Ervil sent his youngest wife, Rena, along with one of his daughters, to put the hit on Allred.  I interviewed Ervil regularly.  He was finally sentenced to life in prison for the death of Allred.  Did you know that his first hit was on his own brother, Joel?  Anyway, he died in prison—Draper—in August of ‘81, just a year or so after he was convicted of Dr. Allred’s murder.”

Chuck stopped, scanned the room, and continued.  “Anyway, Ervil eventually went down for Allred.  Even after his death, his followers continued to wipe out other polygamous leaders.  His own clan split into four factions.  I interviewed his son, Heber, who is doing four life sentences.  At that time he was in Florence, Colorado.  Heber killed as many as a dozen rival clan members.  He went down for the infamous Four O’clock Murders in Houston.”

“So,” Jan interrupted, “sounds pretty evil to me.”

“My point is that as I got to know these criminals during my service in Utah, in every case, they seemed to be forced into their roles by their theology.  So, I always came away angry at the ideas.

“See, Ervil, for whatever else he was, was a true believer in Mormonism.  First, he believed that Mormonism was actually the ‘One True Church.’  He believed that God’s only channel of communication with mankind is through the Mormon Church.  So then he looked around and saw that Mormonism had radically changed since its inception—namely by dropping polygamy.  Like so many of the Fundamentalists he went back and carefully read the history of Utah Mormonism and discovered that God supposedly had said that polygamy was to be practiced forever.  But he saw that Mormon leaders had jettisoned it when the going got tough.”

Jan interrupted, “So he decided the True Church wasn’t true anymore or something like that?” 

“Exactly.  He was deeply sincere about Mormonism.  And, like the other Fundamentalists, what he did was appeal directly to God for a vision, and—like so many others—he got one!  He believed God told him to be the Restorer of true Mormonism.”

“The One Mighty and Strong?”

“Yes, sir.  The One Mighty and Strong.”

Jan looked around the room.

“Chuck,” he said, “this is going somewhere.  It is important.  I am making a mental connection to what you said with some material I read on the psychology of mind control.  But, I’m famished!  Can we eat?”

Chuck laughed.  “Certainly, my friend, certainly.  But why don’t you let me walk you a few blocks to the only genuine Tex-Mex food in Montana?”

“Now you really have my attention.”