Jeff Guinn
Page 35
The letter was written on stationery of the Lafayette Hotel in New Orleans. Raymond enclosed not only a hundred-dollar bill, but also a hotel receipt that he had decorated with an inky fingerprint.
Basket knew exactly what to do with it. Raymond’s letter was published on April 9 in the Dallas Morning News and caused considerable speculation: if Raymond wasn’t the other man with Clyde and Bonnie in Grapevine and Commerce, then who was? Even Percy Boyd had assumed his third captor was Raymond Hamilton. Boyd told reporters that Clyde and Bonnie never addressed the fellow by his given name—they called him “Boodles.”
Clyde was predictably aggravated by Raymond’s letter. He probably learned about it in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he, Bonnie, and Henry Methvin were hiding out after releasing Percy Boyd. The Tulsa stopover was a break from Barrow Gang tradition. Instead of waiting out the post-Commerce heat in some backwoods camp, they holed up in a small house owned by Joe and Willis Newton, brothers who were notorious train robbers. Clyde had apparently met them sometime earlier. His mood following the Commerce gunfight was remarkably upbeat. For one thing, the events in Grapevine and Commerce had convinced Clyde that Henry Methvin would never betray him. After all, Henry had participated in the highly publicized murders of three lawmen. If the gang was captured, Henry’s date with the electric chair would be just as certain as Clyde’s.
It’s possible that Clyde may have felt cocky enough to write one or two letters of his own that month. The first that has been widely attributed to him was addressed on April 3 to Amon Carter, publisher-editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. In the wake of the Grapevine murders, the newspaper had crammed its pages with graphic, inaccurate stories about Bonnie’s role in the killings, always citing the cigar clenched between her teeth as she blew the two motorcycle cops to pieces. The letter advised Carter to “think, decide and make up your mind and not let your Editor make another remark about Bonnie like you did the other day. They called her a cigar-smoking woman. Another remark about my underworld mate and I will end such men as you mighty quick. I know where you and your reporters live.”
Clyde’s objection to Bonnie’s description as a cigar smoker rings true, but the rest of the letter doesn’t. It uses a coarse obscenity in describing the couple’s sex life and concludes that “men ought to abuse lots of women because they don’t respect the men in the city or country either.” Clyde wasn’t given to graphic descriptions of his and Bonnie’s lovemaking, and he was always respectful of, and chivalrous with, women. But Amon Carter, at least, believed Clyde wrote the letter, and also that the famous killer was ready to carry out his threat. Carter ordered his reporters not to refer to Bonnie in print as a cigar smoker, and only rescinded the edict after she and Clyde were dead.
The second letter reputed to have been written by Clyde in April 1934 has slightly better odds of authenticity. On the 13th, Henry Ford received a letter at his corporate office in Detroit. Its postmark indicated that it had been mailed on April 10 from Tulsa. The short missive read:
Dear Sir:
While I still have got breath in my lungs I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusivly when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got ever other car skinned, and even if my business hasen’t been strickly legal it don’t hurt anything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V-8.
Yours truly
Clyde Champion Barrow
The letter sounds like Clyde—writing a fan letter to Henry Ford would have appealed to his sense of humor. The spelling and grammatical errors are appropriate to Clyde’s limited education, and the date of the mailing and the Tulsa postmark jibe with where Clyde was at the time. But after Ford made the letter public, Clyde’s family swore it wasn’t authentic because of its signature—“Clyde Champion Barrow.” Clyde had entered “Champion” as his middle name on Huntsville records when he entered prison in 1930. His real middle name was “Chestnut.” In any case, Ford had his secretary draft a thank-you note, which was mailed to Clyde via General Delivery in Tulsa. By the time it arrived, Clyde, Bonnie, and Henry Methvin had moved on.
They surfaced on Monday, April 16, when they robbed the First National Bank in the west Iowa town of Stuart, not far from Dexfield Park. Clyde and Henry walked into the bank lobby just after 9 A.M., told two cashiers and a customer to sit on the floor, and stuffed about $1,500 in bills and change into a bag. It was one of the few times that Clyde pulled off a relatively substantial bank job without Raymond Hamilton there to help him. Clyde and Henry ran outside to where witnesses reported a woman was waiting in a car. The gang’s getaway wasn’t quite clean—some Stuart residents chased after them in two cars, but lost the Barrow Gang after a few miles. From there, Clyde drove back to Texas. He and Bonnie hadn’t seen their families since March 27, before the debacle in Grapevine. Henry Methvin was sent ahead by train to alert the Barrows and Parkers about meeting in the countryside outside Dallas, probably on the night of April 18.
As soon as the fugitives reunited with their families, Bonnie gave Sonny Boy the rabbit to Emma. “Keep him away from the cops,” she cautioned her mother. “He’s been in two gun battles and he’ll land at Huntsville if the law finds it out.” But Emma and the rest of the Barrows and Parkers weren’t in the mood for jokes. Everyone thought Clyde and Bonnie looked terrible, drained and prematurely aged from constant stress. Food was passed around. Even though Cumie was still distraught over the stories about the bereaved fiancée of highway patrolman Murphy, she brought the food Clyde loved, including fried chicken. Clyde spent several minutes raging that Henry shouldn’t have killed the two highway patrolmen at Grapevine. He called it “a damn fool stunt,” and Emma Parker felt he was less upset that two men died than the fact that Henry Methvin had misinterpreted an order. Bonnie calmed Clyde down by saying that whatever was done, was done. He might as well let it go. Henry was apologetic—he made a point of assuring Emma that he, not Bonnie, fired the fatal shots.
Someone suggested that Clyde and Bonnie leave the United States for Mexico, where they might be able to avoid arrest and extradition to Texas. At first, Clyde didn’t respond directly. Instead, he mentioned how he and Bonnie still said their prayers, especially whenever they approached “a place where there may be a trap.” Then he said they would never flee the country because, besides their love for each other, seeing their families was all they had left. “We’re staying close to home and we’re coming in as long as we’re alive,” Clyde declared.
Then he brought up another subject, something he’d never mentioned before. Life in West Dallas was getting harder for the Barrows and Parkers, Clyde said. Harassment there by reporters and police had become commonplace. But he and Bonnie had found this wonderful community in Louisiana where Henry Methvin’s family lived. Clyde said he planned to buy land there. The West Dallas Barrows and Parkers could use the property for long visits, and at night he and Bonnie would slip in to see them. The response he received was more polite than enthusiastic. No one asked where Clyde thought he could get the money to purchase property. He and Bonnie had trouble stealing enough just to cover their daily expenses. But it was nice to see Clyde and Bonnie excited about something even if it was so far-fetched, Emma said later, so “we let them plan.”
By the time they met with their families in mid-April, Clyde’s sister Marie wrote in her memoir, he and Bonnie were finally aware that they were being tracked by Frank Hamer. It would have been impossible for Hamer to keep his activities secret forever, but after Grapevine and the resulting pressure from various government agencies and business organizations, Hamer had been more open about his mission. The former Ranger captain gave interviews to Oklahoma newspapers after the murder of Cal Campbell and kidnapping of Percy Boyd. Apparently, he even began poking around West Dallas, not caring anymore who might alert Clyde or his family. Clyde wasn’t especially worried. He and Bonnie already had a lot of people after them. As far as they were concerned one more, even a legendary figure like Hamer, hardly
made much difference.
Clyde and Bonnie met several more times with their families over the next few weeks. They apparently also made a short visit to the Methvins in Bienville Parish. Texas prison general manager Lee Simmons told reporters later that it was April 22 when Henry learned from his father that a deal with Hamer and the state of Texas was in place. But the trip must have been too whirlwind for the Methvins to pass along word to Bienville Parish sheriff Henderson Jordan that Clyde and Bonnie were there. The Methvins’ task was further complicated because the couple didn’t still sleep in the Cole house as Henry’s father, Ivy, had hoped. That would have allowed Ivy to tell Jordan exactly where the couple could be found. Instead, Clyde and Bonnie alternated spending the night between several different spots in the Louisiana backwoods, and some of these were as much as seventy-five miles or more from Bienville Parish. It was going to be more difficult than anticipated, if not impossible, for Henry’s family to put Clyde and Bonnie “on the spot” in a convenient place so Hamer could sneak up on them while they slept.
In late April, Clyde, Bonnie, and Henry drove to Missouri and picked up Joe Palmer in Joplin. Palmer had traveled there after being left behind in West Dallas following the Grapevine murders. He wasn’t upset with them for driving away without him. Palmer’s connection to the gang was always sporadic. He and Clyde were pleased when news reached them of the arrest of another occasional Barrow Gang member. Raymond Hamilton was back in custody.
After more than three weeks of staying out of sight with Mary O’Dare, Raymond was broke again. He and his girlfriend wanted to move to California for a while. The obvious way for Raymond to bankroll their relocation was to knock off a bank, so around April 23 he and Mary came back to Texas. She stayed in Amarillo while Raymond and a new partner named Teddy Brooks went to Lewisville, a town about twenty-five miles north of Dallas. On the morning of April 25, Raymond robbed the First National Bank there while Brooks waited behind the wheel of their getaway car. They drove away with about $1,000, but Teddy Brooks couldn’t handle a car nearly as well as Clyde Barrow. Area police erected a series of roadblocks, and Raymond and Brooks were cornered. They gave up without a fight. Raymond told his captors, “Don’t shoot, boys. I’m fresh out of guns, ammo, whiskey and women.” Then, almost preening, he asked, “Do you know who you’ve got?” They did. The next day, Raymond was back in a Dallas cell.
Clyde couldn’t resist. Even the most otherwise skeptical members of his family later agreed that he wrote the letter delivered to Raymond at the jail. Bonnie undoubtedly helped—the lengthy message was typed, and lots of words were set off by the quotation marks she loved using in her poems:
Raymond Hamilton
505 Main Street
c/o Dallas County Jail
Dallas, Texas
Raymond:
I’m very sorry to hear of your getting captured, but due to the fact you offered no resistance, sympathy is lacking. The most I can do is hope you miss the “chair.” The purpose of this letter is to remind you of all the “dirty deals” you have pulled. When I came to the farm after you I thought maybe the “joint” had changed you from a boastful punk. However I learned too soon the mistake I had made.
Clyde made reference to Raymond’s threat in January to shoot Joe Palmer while he slept in the car, to Raymond’s “Prostitute Sweetheart,” and noted that “I don’t claim to be too smart. I know that some day they will get me but it won’t be without resistance.” The letter closed by assuring Raymond that “you can never expect the least of sympathy or assistance from me.” It was signed “So long—Clyde Barrow.”
The envelope was postmarked from Memphis, Tennessee, where Clyde, Bonnie, Henry Methvin, and Joe Palmer were treating themselves to a short vacation. While they were there, Bonnie bought Palmer a new suit. He probably wore it on May 3 when the gang robbed the Farmer’s Trust and Savings Bank in Everly, Iowa. Clyde and Palmer went inside while Bonnie and Henry waited. They emerged with about $700, not a bad take but much less than the $2,000 initially reported in the press.
The gang escaped in a magnificent new Ford V-8 sedan stolen in Topeka, Kansas, on April 29 from the home of Ruth and Jesse Warren. The Ford was Cordoba gray, an odd tint that often reflected red or tan in different angles to the sun. It was the last car the Barrow Gang stole, just as Farmer’s Trust and Savings was the last bank they ever robbed.
CHAPTER 32
The Noose Tightens
April was a hard month for the lawmen pursuing Clyde and Bonnie. In Dallas County, newspapers openly mocked Sheriff Smoot Schmid. Two cartoon punch lines read, “Clyde and Bonnie give Smoot Schmid twenty-four hours to get out of town” and “Clyde and Bonnie let Smoot Schmid get away again.” Schmid was up for reelection in the fall. Defeat would completely crush his hopes of being elected to state office someday. He’d placed two of his deputies, Bob Alcorn and Ted Hinton, with Frank Hamer’s posse, but Schmid couldn’t afford to wait and see whether Hamer caught the Barrow Gang. Even if Hamer did, Schmid wouldn’t get much, if any, credit. The Dallas County sheriff still hoped for the recognition, the glory, that would come to whoever finally brought down Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker.
So, in April, Schmid stepped up harassment of the Barrows living in West Dallas, and of their friends as well. Clyde loved his family—it was one of the few human traits for which the sheriff gave him credit. Maybe if Clyde’s people complained to him, he’d be reckless enough to storm back home and leave himself open to capture.
So Clyde’s brother L.C., his sister Marie’s boyfriend Joe Bill Francis, and Steve Davis, husband of Raymond Hamilton’s mother, Alice, were all repeatedly hauled off to the Dallas County jail and held for days at a time. Often, the charge against them was “investigation,” which in 1934 Texas was not considered a violation of civil rights. Their families were not allowed to see or communicate with them while they were in custody. Once even Cumie Barrow was arrested. Nobody believed Clyde’s fifty-nine-year-old mother had committed any offense beyond loving her wayward son. She was released after a few hours of questioning.
On April 18, Schmid finally tapped the phone at the Barrow family service station. The tap lasted only through April 30. Schmid didn’t glean any crucial new information from it—the Barrows and Parkers had long assumed their phone conversations were being monitored, so they continued using the codes they’d invented. Whenever Cumie called her hairdresser daughter, Nell, or Emma Parker with an invitation to dinner that included beans, it meant Clyde had left one of his Coke bottle messages asking for a family meeting that night. Typical was a coded conversation on April 26 that a sheriff’s department secretary transcribed in ungrammatical fashion:
Mrs. B. called Nellie said what are you going to do tonite? She said I’ve got a down head of hair to curl at 6:00 p.m. and it will be too late to do anything when I get through with that. Mrs. B. said I wish you would come out I’ve got a big pot full of beans and some corn bread. Nellie said maybe I’ll get through in time to come out a little while.
Sometimes, Cumie would pass along messages from “Mr. Howard”—that was Clyde, using his hero Jesse James’s favorite alias. But mostly the phone tap picked up teenaged Marie chattering with girlfriends about going to the show or dancing, and Cumie and Emma Parker mournfully discussing their stress-filled lives. Bonnie’s younger sister, Billie Jean, had just left Dallas to live and work anonymously in East Texas because she was sick of all the negative attention. Emma was heartbroken, but she understood. On April 30, Cumie called to commiserate:
Mrs. P. said she had been writing Billie a letter Mrs. B said what did you do tell her to come home Mrs. P. said I sure would like to have her here but I am not going to tell her that I am lone some.
Mostly, the phone tap logs reveal two families succumbing to unrelenting tension. Even Marie interrupted gossiping with friends to complain that the police wouldn’t allow her to see L.C. in the county jail. She described how, on a date with Joe Bill Francis, she was left to walk home alone after he
was pulled in for investigation. There was also a great deal of drinking going on. Bonnie’s brother, Buster, was one of the worst culprits, but even stoic Henry Barrow wasn’t immune to seeking temporary oblivion through alcohol. On April 28, Nell lost her temper with her mother about it:
Nellie called B. Buster ans. She asked to speak to mama. Mrs. B. ans. Nell said who was that ans? B. said it was Buster. Nell said well what was the matter with him? B. said he is drunk and your dady is too. Nell said he has got no business ans the phone why don’t you run him off? B. said I can’t afford to do that…. Nell said well I’ve been busy as the devil all day. I’ll see you tomorrow.
Despite everything, Cumie hadn’t entirely lost her trademark feistiness. On April 28, Mary O’Dare—who’d been picked up by police in Amarillo after Raymond Hamilton’s arrest—arrived in Dallas while free on bond. Cumie and Emma Parker speculated in a long conversation that Mary must have betrayed Raymond to the cops. It was one of the few times the phone tap caught someone directly mentioning Clyde and Bonnie:
[Cumie Barrow] said [Mary O’Dare] tried to get the kids caught when she was with them and finally got Raymond caught. Said she made the remark when she left C&B that she would get them caught before it was all over. [Mrs. P] said if you let her come in your house I’ll never come to see you again. B. said I’ve got a big iron here if she starts in my house I am going to hit her over the head with it. Said I am not going to let that dam hussy sit her foot in (my) house.
On May 1 Schmid discontinued the phone tap. He’d learned about Marie’s tastes in fashion, but not how he might get the jump on Clyde and Bonnie. It seemed that Schmid’s best hope for even reflected glory would come if Hamer, with the assistance of Schmid’s two Dallas County deputies, somehow managed to catch the Barrow Gang instead.