22

Tuesday, January 10, 1984

The hearing on the postponement of the trial was scheduled for one-thirty before Superior Court Judge Seaborn Buckalew. In court papers, Fred Dewey noted that Kitty Larson had an extensive arrest history, and requested that the trial be postponed from mid-February to May 1, 1984.

“My client has not been charged with murder,” Dewey told the judge. “He has been charged with kidnapping and rape. And a key factor in this case is going to be the background of the woman who says she was raped. In fact, the state’s present case rests entirely on the credibility of the alleged victim. She is their case. But in order to defend my client, I need time to investigate her extensive history of arrests for prostitution in Portland, Oregon, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.”

Dewey then repeated his earlier charges that the state had been withholding information from the defense. “For all these reasons,” he concluded, “I would request that the trial be postponed.”

Then it was Frank Rothschild’s turn. He had already filed a six-page rejoinder to Fred Dewey’s allegations of incomplete discovery, detailing precisely what the police had found. “I am here to deny Mr. Dewey’s accusations,” he told the judge. “Mr. Dewey is really on a fishing expedition to get information pertaining to the murder investigation.”

Judge Buckalew did not waste much time in contemplation. The next day, he denied the motion to postpone the trial.

When Glenn Flothe realized that the maps showed the presence of bodies Hansen had left in the bush, he also came to another realization. Hansen had about thirty weapons in his house, but under the terms of the search warrant they could only seize five of those weapons, including the .357 magnum used in the Larson case and the .223 Mini-14 they thought had been used in the Morrow and Goulding murders. Yet any of the remaining weapons in his house could have been used to kill one or another of the victims. How many guns had he used in his murder spree? They just didn’t know.

With this in mind, Flothe went to the DA’s office. he wanted a search warrant authorizing him to seize all the other weapons and related ammunition from the Hansen residence. Both Vic Krumm and Frank Rothschild were in court on other matters, so Gail Voitlander helped him prepare the preliminary documents.

At four, Flothe and Haugsven met with Krumm and Rothschild, and went before Judge Carlson to request another search warrant for the Hansen residence. Flothe brought the maps with him, since they supplied the basis for his request.

“This is what we have, Your Honor,” Flothe said. “We found these two maps at Hansen’s residence and they are identical. Both of them are marked with Xs, Your Honor, and we have found bodies at four of these marks already. We feel that the bodies we’ve already found verify the map’s authenticity regarding gravesites. But, Your Honor, we weren’t able to seize all the weapons at Hansen’s house when we searched it, because the previous search warrant limited what we could seize.”

“If other bodies should be found at these other locations marked on Hansen’s map,” DA Krumm interjected, “the weapons and ammunition in Hansen’s house would have to be seized for purposes of comparison.”

“And the reason we want to search for weapons now,” Flothe said, “is because he could call his wife or anybody, and they can go in the house and remove these weapons. And come spring, Your Honor, we won’t have these weapons to compare with the bodies we expect to find.”

Flothe knew they were making a pretty big supposition. They were, in essence, telling the judge there were people in all the graves that the map supposedly marked out. And on top of that they were telling him the guns in Hansen’s house could help connect him to all these murders. In effect they were telling the judge that Bob Hansen was no longer the suspect in just a couple of murders, but ten times that many.

Judge Carlson approved the search warrant. At 7:30 that evening, Sgt. Flothe, Sgt. Haugsven, Sgt. Stogsdill, and Trooper Von Clasen served the search warrant at the Hansen residence. Darla Hansen was present the entire time, in which they seized more weapons, ammunition and reloading equipment. When the search finally ended at ten, the troopers felt that they had just removed half the National guard armory from his house.

For Flothe, the beauty of serving the second search warrant against Hansen was that it kept the pressure on. The sergeant knew from Hansen’s past that he’d never gone to trial on any of the crimes for which he’d been charged. When the time for his trials had come, Hansen copped a plea. Flothe hoped that by dumping and dumping on him they’d be able to work the same effect. It was, he hoped, like pouring water on a drowning man. And with the omnibus hearing getting closer and closer, Flothe wanted to keep the pressure on.

Hansen learned of this police activity the next day, when his attorney told him that the search warrant had been served at his home. Hansen had to know, at that point, that the police had his maps and understood what they meant. The search warrant spelled out the link between the maps, the bodies they expected to find at those sites, and the weapons they seized from his house.

Hansen had to figure out that, come spring, after the ice and snow had melted, troopers would be searching for bodies along the Knik. The troopers told the judge there was a good chance they’d find some. Robert Hansen was the only one who knew for sure whether there were bodies along that picturesque and isolated river.

As expected, Hansen’s defense attorney filed a detailed motion challenging the legality of the search warrant. Fred Dewey asked the Superior Court to reject evidence seized in the October 27 search of Hansen’s property. He also asked that the trial be moved to “a location not readily influenced by the print and electronic media of Anchorage.” According to Dewey, “Extensive publicity linking Robert Hansen with the missing dancer investigation has made it impossible to seat an impartial jury in Anchorage.”

Dewey accused police of resurrecting the rape accusation—four months after dropping it for lack of evidence—as a pretext to obtain the search warrant. By October, he charged, Hansen had become a suspect in the case of the disappearing dancers. But police had no evidence against him and could not have gotten a search warrant in that case.

The warrant that was finally issued, Dewey wrote, was illegally broad and allowed police to “rummage about” Hansen’s home, plane and vehicles. Dewey also noted that when police searched Hansen’s property the June rape accusation was too old to provide legitimate probable cause for a search. Therefore, he said, all evidence found in the various searches should be ruled inadmissible in court.

Dewey’s motion also made a pointed attack on the FBI profiling techniques, which argued that Hansen fit the profile of a serial murderer. Dewey argued that the inclusion of the FBI serial killer profile, and the comments of Dr. Rothrock to the effect that Hansen “might be involved with the missing dancers,” improperly influenced Superior Court Judge Victor Carlson to approve “an illegal search.”

Dewey also took issue with the list of Hansen’s past convictions cited in the search warrant. He noted that such references are not considered legal grounds for issuing search warrants.

Taken together, it was enough to cause the prosecution plenty of worry. All the second-guessing done by the DA each step of the way had finally been borne out.

Only Frank Rothschild seemed unimpressed with Dewey’s suppression motion, even though he knew that a success by the defense meant the murder case against Robert Hansen was a goner. Flothe was sufficiently worried about the motion’s chances of success that he made an appointment to meet with APD vice cop Gentile that very evening.

“You got trouble, eh Flothe?” Gentile said when they met.

“Hansen’s attorney is trying to get the evidence thrown out.”

“You got trouble.”

“There’s somebody I need you to help me find.”

“Shoot.”

“I need to find a prostitute by the name of Gina Williams. I have some information that Hansen raped her in 1972. I need to find her.”

“Need some more witnesses, huh? Well, let’s see what we can find.”

Again, Flothe trekked into the streets of Anchorage with Gentile as his guide. Gentile drove his car up by the Sheraton Hotel. They got out and walked from there.

It was cold as permafrost, the sky dark as a black curtain. Even the neon looked frozen as it struggled against the icy evening. Streetwalkers huddled in doorways, dressed in furs and trying to keep their bare legs from blistering gusts of wind. They shared cigarettes between them, blowing icicle ropes of smoke into the glow of streetlamps.

The lucky ones, Flothe knew, caught a trick right away, and snuggled into the warmth of someone’s automobile. The unlucky ones made a tortuous pilgrimage from the street to the beckoning lights of a nearby cafe and back, their every move under the dispassionate eye of a pimp. Yet even on a night as cold as this, the women sauntered lasciviously along the streets, with as much of their wares on display as the Arctic chill would allow.

During the next few hours, Flothe and Gentile hit every street corner and bar on the strip. It was all promises and no prospects, as though the street had swallowed her up and would not disgorge her. The street people had a secret society of sorts. Tomorrow was not a concept that interested them. Now was what mattered, and the only way to find Gina Williams was to find someone who knew where she was right now. But when Flothe finally dragged his numb body home, all he had was tomorrow.

The suppression hearing wasn’t scheduled until February 1. The state still hadn’t responded to Dewey’s charges, although a response was expected by January 27th. For Flothe, that meant that the waiting game continued, as forces beyond his control waged a struggle of their own. Meanwhile, many little things kept him busy.

On January 18, he contacted Kitty Larson at the Gentleman’s Retreat. Accompanied by Trooper Von Clasen, he served her with a subpoena for the Hansen trial. Kitty didn’t quite know what to make of it. It almost seemed like a breach of trust. She had no way of knowing that Flothe was simply trying to cover his ass.

Five days later, the FBI returned most of the evidence troopers had gathered during their investigation. The only item remaining at the FBI laboratory was the .223-caliber Mini-14.

That same day, Flothe got a call from the mother of one of the missing dancers. There was not much Flothe could tell her, since the search for bodies would have to wait until spring. On the plus side, however, she did have her daughter’s dental records, and agreed to send them to trooper headquarters in his care. So it was that Flothe started a collection of dental records from women who’d been reported missing and were suspected victims of Robert Hansen.

On the 25th, Flothe and Haugsven interviewed a former associate of Hansen, who volunteered that he might have some information useful to the investigation. Wanting anything they could get, they agreed to talk to him.

“I think Hansen might have been involved in the disappearance of some women down in Seward,” the man told them.

“Why do you think that?” Flothe asked.

“Because of some newspaper articles I read at the time,” he said. “And because at one time Hansen asked me if I knew any girls in Seward he could party with.”

“When was this?” Haugsven asked.

“Back in the early seventies. I think Bob was on parole, or staying in a halfway house.”

On January 3—just the day before the scheduled suppression hearing—Rothschild filed another round of papers in Superior Court. In it he summarized the forty-eight-page affidavit Flothe had presented to Judge Carlson in support of his request for a search warrant. The information in the affidavit, when taken together, established a solid justification for the search warrant, Rothschild said. Hansen’s history suggested a pattern that “evolved into picking up dancers and prostitutes, abducting them at gunpoint and flying them off into the wilds where they were murdered and buried,” Rothschild noted.

Rothschild also noted that the judge had properly considered Hansen’s criminal record and the opinion that he fit the profile of a serial murderer in issuing the search warrant. Those facts, Rothschild said, are “just the type of information on which a reasonable judge can base a belief that a crime has been committed,” particularly when faced by a serial killer.

Defense attorney Dewey had earlier suggested that use of the FBI profile was a gimmick, which essentially gave police free rein in their search of Hansen’s house. Even in the June rape case, Dewey argued, police had no right to assume Hansen would be foolish enough to keep evidence around his house for four months when there was a risk it could be used to link him to a serious felony charge. Yet Rothschild had a pointed rejoinder to Dewey’s complaint that the search warrant was not issued in a timely manner.

Rothschild argued that Hansen himself had caused the delay when he trumped up a phony alibi that temporarily threw police off the track. “No criminal defendant should be allowed to take advantage of his own wrongdoing—creating a smokescreen and then whining when it takes time to blow the smoke away and discover the truth,” Rothschild said.

In another development, the suppression hearing itself was postponed until the following week because Rothschild wanted another judge. A hearing on that matter was scheduled for February 7th before Judge Lewis, who was expected to rule on whether Judge Seaborn Buckalew would be the judge to rule on the legality of the search. There was no question now that things were getting interesting, even as the spotlight shifted from the police to the prosecution.

Behind the scenes, Flothe conducted an interview with Hansen’s friend John Sumrall, trying to get information about where the two of them had hunted together.

Sumrall was quite cooperative. Yes, he told Flothe, the two of them had often hunted the sand bars along the Knik River. And yes, they’d taken target practice there. They’d also hunted in the area around Jim Creek, which eventually flowed into the Knik River along its northeast margin.

Those weren’t the only places, Sumrall said. They’d also hunted in the Chugach, the Kenai Peninsula, and among the hundreds of little lakes that dotted the Susitna River basin. In fact, they’d hunted in a wide arc that extended about one hundred and fifty miles from Anchorage in any direction.

During the interview, Sumrall also told Flothe about a Ruger #1 pistol that Hansen had given him as a present. suspecting it was stolen, Flothe requested the serial number of the weapon. Sumrall promised to get back to him with that information. Before he left, however, he wanted to know if Flothe really felt his friend was responsible for killing the dancers.

“Yes, I do,” Flothe told him.

Sumrall shook his head vigorously. It just didn’t seem like the type of thing Bob would do. Especially when he’d known him as long as he had.

Later that day, Sumrall called Flothe back and gave him the serial number on the Ruger. Flothe immediately ran the serial number through the computer. Sure enough, the weapon was stolen. Soon, Flothe was back on the phone to Sumrall. “Could you bring the weapon into trooper headquarters?” he asked. “The weapon’s stolen.” There was a moment of silence before Sumrall answered. “Yes,” he said, “I’ll bring it in.”

On February, Kitty Larson moved out of the Gentleman’s Retreat without telling Flothe. It was a cause for concern, but not worry, since she still worked there. Then, three days later, Flothe got a call from his inside informant.

“Kitty doesn’t work here anymore,” she said. “And I don’t know where she is.”

Glenn Flothe panicked. The trial was only weeks away. The suppression hearing had not yet taken place. The result was by no means assured. And now Kitty Larson had disappeared. How could she do this to him?

Flothe had no choice but to start hitting the streets. He figured, it being winter, that she was either working in another massage parlor or in a topless club. That was more than an educated guess on Flothe’s part, because the informant also told him, “I think this other pimp came by and got her,” she told him. “But don’t ask me where he took her.”

The possibility existed that the pimp had taken her out of the area—a contingency Flothe had not prepared for. He had been ready to arrest her, and maybe he should have, although it would have broken the trust between them. But this disappearing act left Flothe feeling foolish and betrayed.

The very next day Flothe got word that Kitty was now dancing in one of the topless places. Almost immediately, Flothe was there looking for her. It was a real dive—one of the worst in Anchorage. It smelled of urine and stale beer. The men seemed bored and half-smashed. The women had seen better days; there were no show girls here.

“I’m looking for Kitty Larson,” Flothe told the bouncer. “Is she here?”

“I dunno,” he said blankly. “Ask the bartender,” he suggested.

“I’m looking for Kitty Larson,” Flothe asked the bartender. “Is she here?”

“I dunno,” she said, sounding preoccupied. “Ask Veronica.”

“Who’s Veronica.”

“The manager.”

“Do you know where Veronica is?”

The bartender shrugged her shoulders. Flothe turned to one of the dancers instead. “I’m looking for Kitty Larson…” The dancer walked away without acknowledging him. Flothe went looking for the manager.

Suddenly, Kitty materialized from out of a back room and ran to Flothe. As she gave him a squeeze Flothe noticed she wasn’t alone. Another woman hovered nearby as they talked. Flothe soon figured she was the pimp’s main lady, there to keep an eye on Kitty.

“So you moved out of the Gentleman’s Retreat?” Flothe asked.

“Yeah,” Kitty said matter of factly.

“How come you didn’t tell me?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

She wore a dancing outfit — a G-string and a top so thin her breasts were hanging out. She looked absolutely horrible. Her legs were skinny. Her skin was white and pasty. She had bruises up and down her legs, shins and arms. There were also big scabs on her arms. She’d been picking them. Her hair was a mess. She was shaking. She looked like death warmed over, as far as Flothe was concerned. It wasn’t hard to tell that she was strung out on cocaine.

“So where are you staying?” Flothe asked.

Kitty cast a sidelong glance at her guardian, then shrugged. She wouldn’t tell him. She looked scared. He sensed that she wanted to go to the safe house he’d found her, but was too fearful to tell him so with the pimp’s main lady standing by. He decided to leave things where they stood, banking on the trust they’d built in the past five months.

“Well, just be sure to stay in touch with me,” he told her, trying to sound fatherly. “You had me pretty scared there when you just disappeared on me like that.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice trailing off.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Good. I’ll come by and see you in a couple of days.”

On his way back home, Flothe figured out what the problem was. The pressure was starting to get to Kitty Larson. He knew she had been having a hard time, and Flothe was bothered enough by her situation that he’d repeatedly asked her, “The pimp knows we’re coming to scoop you up, doesn’t he?” He’d been trying to approach the difficulty as sensitively as possible.

“Yeah,” Kitty had always replied.

Despite Kitty’s assurances, however, Flothe had a hard time believing that her relationship with the police was all right with the pimp. He knew she’d told him the police were interested in her because of the Hansen case, but still wondered why the pimp let it continue so long. Then it hit him: As long as Sgt. Flothe of the Alaska State Troopers needed someone who was in the pimp’s stable—and needed her desperately—then the pimp was confident the police wouldn’t do anything to him, even if they were aware of his various activities.

Yet the pimp must have had an underlying fear that Flothe would gain her complete confidence, and Kitty would dump on him. That was the source of the pressure. That’s why she moved out of the Gentleman’s Retreat and in with the other pimp. Kitty wanted out.

She was paying a heavy price, though. She’d gone down hill drastically, and looked worse than he’d ever seen her. He resolved to visit her more often, just to see her through her ordeal. He had no choice. He really did need her desperately.

Later in the day, Roy Tuberger called Flothe from the FBI lab in Quantico. “Hansen’s blood is A-sector,” he told him. “And that’s the same as we found in the semen of the underwear from the rape victim.”

All things considered, February 7 was an eventful day. Earlier in the day, Flothe had met Frank Rothschild in court, where the DA requested that the assigned judge in the Larson case be preempted. Hansen’s defense attorney, Fred Dewey, had law clerked for the presiding judge, Rothschild argued, and that judge should be removed from the case. Rothschild’s request was granted. The suppression hearing was rescheduled for the next day before Judge Henry Keene.

 

Wednesday, February 8, 1984

Of all the milestones in the Hansen case until now, none had loomed larger than the suppression hearing. It was the last hurdle to be cleared before Hansen’s trial. If the defense won, they stood a good chance not only in the Larson case but in any future charges that might be brought against Hansen. Flothe awaited the hearing with trepidation. If it went Hansen’s way, all the critics who feared being associated with a major failure would be justified.

Flothe knew that they’d gone out on a limb by requesting the search warrant on such unusual grounds. Anyone who had to go through the Office of Special Prosecution and Appeals before going to a judge with his affidavit had to be acutely aware of that. Usually, getting a search warrant called for police to detail each item they planned to seize. The items had to be connected to a specific crime. The reasons they believed each item would be found at the place they intended to search had to be explained. Once a search was under way, moreover, police could seize only those items specified in the search warrant and any items they found in plain view.

In the Hansen search warrant, troopers had specified items they wanted to seize, but they also searched for other items broadly defined as “mementos” and “implements of murder.” The seizure of these last items was in part justified by reference to the FBI profile.

After hearing arguments on both sides, Judge Keene ruled that the search of Hansen’s home was proper. He said in his ruling that the physical evidence linking Hansen to the slayings of Sherry Morrow and Paula Goulding—the ammunition that killed both women, an Ace bandage wrapped around Morrow’s head and face, the fact that Hansen made frequent trips in his plane to the Knik River area—was enough in itself to justify the search warrant.

He added that the psychological profile put together by the FBI was not needed to justify the warrant, effectively turning back Dewey’s argument that police should not be allowed to search a person’s home simply because of his past record or because a psychiatrist says the person “looks like he could have committed a crime.”

It was an important victory for the prosecution. The way was clear for murder charges to be brought against Bob Hansen. It was the next act in the continuing drama, the logical escalation that might finally make Hansen to break.

When Major Gilmour came across Flothe in the men’s room the day after Judge Keene’s ruling, however, he noticed that his main man looked sad.

“How’s it going?” Gilmour asked.

“Not too hot,” Flothe replied. “There’s some question about the four month rule and how it applies to the timelines of taking the bastard to trial on the murders. The DA’s telling me we’d better just go with the kidnapping and rape charges, and see what the jury does with that.”

Gilmour’s could feel for him. There was no way Flothe would be content getting Hansen on rape and kidnapping when a dozen or more murders hung over him. Gilmour decided to cheer him up.

“Tell his attorney and the DA that you think that’s great,” Gilmour said. “Because every time he serves one sentence, you’ll be waiting to indict him on the next one, and that he can never be sure he won’t end up in the shit five or ten years from now. I mean, every time we find another body, we’ll bring him up on murder charges.”

Warming to the theme of the social good that could come from stretching the case out, Gilmour went on, “Flothe, the best thing that could happen is for him to be in the joint for the rape and kidnapping of some pimp’s girl. And when they get done with him in the joint, he can come back and we can try him for murder, and with a little bit of luck Alaska will have reinstated the death penalty. Hell, with a case like Hansen hanging fire, all the notoriety could get people stirred up so we could get the death penalty by referendum.”

“Oh,” Flothe said. Gilmour could tell he was uncomfortable, and would be happy just to get out of there.

“Like I told you before,” Gilmour said, “no one confesses on the street, and the man in jail has ten times the pressure on him.”

It was time for Kitty to meet with the DA, and on the evening of the 10th Flothe made his way to the topless club. This sleazy dive was at this point their designated meeting point.

Once inside the dingy darkness of the club, Flothe made his way to the bar and asked for the manager. He’d learned his lesson. Always go directly to the top.

While he waited for the manager to appear, he watched a listless striptease by a past-her-prime dancer. Her every move seemed arthritic. He couldn’t help but feel slightly amused.

“So you want to see Kitty Larson?” the manager asked when she reached Flothe’s side. She was a busty hard-looking woman in her early forties.

“Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” she said. “Only she don’t work here no more.”

“What do you mean she doesn’t work here anymore?”

“I mean she don’t work here anymore. What do I have to do, spell it out for you?”

“Do you know where she went?” Flothe asked with a tinge of horror in his voice.

“I got no idea. Sorry.”

There was nothing Flothe could do but hit the streets. Kitty had to be somewhere. Didn’t she? Maybe she went back to the Gentleman’s Retreat.

She wasn’t there. No one had seen her. “Call me if you do,” he said. Somehow he knew no one would call.

Flothe’s next move was to find Gentile. He might know where Kitty went. Gentile didn’t know anything, though. “Shit,” Flothe said. “Tell me this isn’t happening.”

Flothe spent most of the night cruising the streets, exactly as Hansen had done for more than a decade. Every time he turned a corner, he hoped to see her. Every time he saw a group of women, he hoped she was among them. But it was no use. She was gone. “Jesus,” he said, “how could she do this to me?”

By the time Flothe gave up his search it was morning. A new day was starting. The worst day of his life.

As Flothe tried to sleep, he could almost hear Hansen laughing.

Early Saturday morning Kitty Larson called Flothe at his office. It seemed urgent. She was speaking in a whisper. “I can’t talk too loud,” she said. “I just got out of bed and I’m in the bathroom. I went to the bathroom so I could talk on the phone. I need you to come pick me up.”

“What’s the address?” Flothe asked without hesitation.

“Over on Government Hill,” Kitty said, then gave him the street address.

“Are you at your pimp’s place?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be there in a half hour or less.”

Before going to Government Hill to pick up Kitty, Flothe rounded up some reinforcements. He didn’t expect any trouble, but wanted to make sure he didn’t have any. When he got to the unprepossessing apartment building, he had three plainclothes officers with him as back up.

Inside the building, the troopers marveled at the set-up. The first floor was like an atrium, with a ceiling that opened to the floor above. In the center of the atrium was a pool table. There was a bar off in the corner. In every direction they looked there were doorways leading off to individual rooms.

It was a party house. People could party, and when it was time to have sex they went off to one of the many rooms, not only on the first floor but on the second level, which was reached by a stairway snaking up one side of the atrium. It was the perfect layout.

They found the room number Kitty gave them and knocked. No answer. “She knows we’re coming,” Flothe muttered. He knocked again. He wasn’t about to barge in. The guy might have a gun. A second later, Kitty came to the door, holding a bathrobe to her chest for cover.

“Come with me,” she said to Flothe, “I gotta talk to you real quick.” She led him to the bathroom, which was the next door over. Kitty closed the door behind them.

“I gotta get out of here,” she said. “Get me out right now.”

As a precaution, Flothe had already called the safe house. “I think Kitty’s ready. Don’t be surprised if we show up in the next hour.” Kitty had already met the woman who lived there, and seemed to like her. Now Flothe had to find out if she was really ready.

“If you go to this place, you’re gonna have to do as they tell you. You can’t be leaving and coming and going and visiting your girlfriends in the street and all that bullshit.”

“I know.”

“Where’s your stuff?”

“It’s in the room.”

When they walked out of the bathroom, the pimp was standing outside in a pair of jockey shorts. He looked angry. Kitty headed to the room, but froze as he spoke.

“What’s you doin’ witch my lady?” he said.

“We’re with the Alaska State Troopers,” Flothe told him, “she wants to go and she’s coming with us. Period.”

Flothe caught a glance of Kitty out of the corner of his eye, as though to give permission for her to go into the room and find her clothes. The pimp looked worried, but didn’t want any hassle and let her pass.

When she reemerged from the room, she had the bathrobe on and clutched a blouse and some pants. She headed for the bathroom to put them on.

Having dressed quickly, Kitty rushed back to the bedroom to gather up a bunch of odds and ends, including a worn and tattered teddy bear. When she was ready to go she had most of her worldly possessions stacked in a cardboard box the size of a case of beer.

“What about my clothes?” she suddenly remembered.

“We ain’t got time for your clothes,” Flothe said.

Kitty nevertheless hurried back into the room after thrusting the box onto Flothe. When she came back out she was carrying some of her clothing and a few pieces of tacky costume jewelry. She slipped on her rabbit jacket, draped the clothes over one arm, and looking slightly scruffy, put her free arm around Flothe’s waist as they walked out. She seemed proud of her police escort.

The pimp, meanwhile, watched implacably as Kitty left. She never looked back. The troopers drove her straight to the safe house.

Later that same day, Flothe decided to write a letter to Robyn Patterson, asking if she would be willing to come testify against Hansen. Even though she was married now, had gone to college and started a new life, a letter soon came back saying that she, too, was willing to testify against Robert Hansen. It had been more than twelve years. She was thirty, a different person. But, yes, she would do anything she could to put this man in jail. It was where he belonged and, as far as she was concerned, had belonged for some time.

There was at least one irony about the safe house where Kitty Larson was staying. It wasn’t that it was a Christian family taking in a prostitute. It wasn’t that Flothe got her to go there only after an escape from a pimp. What was ironic was that this Christian family went to the same church as Darla Hansen.

Under this family’s influence Kitty started to clean up her act. She called her parents and let them know her whereabouts. She stopped wearing the multiple layers of make-up, the eyeliner dark as night and just as thick. She helped make dinner, helped with vacuuming the house and the laundry. She started to become a real person again, at least as far as Flothe was concerned. She was even going to town and shopping with the family.

It was during this period that Frank Rothschild met with Kitty to discuss her testimony. Flothe was glad it hadn’t taken place sooner. He could hardly imagine what Rothschild would have thought had he seen her fresh out of the topless club, or at her pimp’s place on Government Hill. But now they had her off the street. She was skookum and ready to testify. This thing might work after all.

Hansen was cracking inside the confines of a cell – Gilmour was right. On Thursday, February 16, Flothe got a call from Frank Rothschild. “I want you to come down here and meet with us,” he said. “Right now if possible.”

“What’s it about?” Flothe asked, sensing an undercurrent of triumph in Rothschild’s voice.

“Hansen’s attorney just called. Hansen says he wants to ‘clear the decks.’ Those were Dewey’s exact words. ‘He wants to clear the decks.’”

“We’ll be right down,” Flothe answered.

All the way downtown, Flothe kept repeating the refrain in his head. “He wants to clear the decks, he wants to clear the decks.” The moment of truth had finally come.