The Death of an Heir

by Philip Jett

  Corbett ignored her suggestion and flipped the page. “How much for this Pontiac Bonneville convertible?”

  “Oh, that’s a fine car. Excellent choice. And we have one in red just like the picture. Let me look that up.”

  Corbett removed his checkbook. He scribbled out a check for the amount of the rental, signed it “Walter Osborne,” and accepted the rental agreement.

  “Do you have a road map I can use to get to Vancouver?” he asked.

  “Of course. It’s mostly Highway 1 all the way. Takes you to Calgary and then Vancouver.”

  Corbett drove the shiny red car to his boardinghouse. He’d only lived in Winnipeg a few weeks, but could sense the FBI was on his trail, and he needed to keep moving. He was right. The deposit he gave to his Winnipeg landlady was by check, written on his old Toronto checking account. Worse, it was a bad check, and still worse, it wasn’t the only bad check he’d passed. He’d also just given one to the Hertz rental agency. Now agents knew the type of automobile Corbett was driving and where he might be staying in Winnipeg. They weren’t far behind. So Corbett drove on, heading west.

  III

  THE

  CAPTURE AND TRIAL

  CHAPTER 17

  “I’m calling about the American fugitive Joseph Corbett who’s wanted by the FBI,” said a man to a Toronto police officer. It was October 25, 1960. “I know him. I worked with him this summer at McPherson’s Warehouse, here in Toronto … but he didn’t call himself Corbett. Said he was Walter Osborne.”

  The day before, the man had read the November edition of Reader’s Digest that included a large photo of Corbett and a headline that read, THE FBI WANTS THIS MAN. The opening paragraph of the article began:

  High on the list of the Most Wanted Fugitives is tall, brown-haired, intelligent and scrupulously neat, 32-year-old Joseph Corbett Jr. Agents in all 54 field offices of the FBI are hunting for him. A convicted killer, Corbett escaped from prison five years ago. Now the finger of suspicion is pointing at him again … an intensive investigation is under way to locate him.

  The article continued with a description of Ad Coors’s murder and Corbett’s early life and prison record. The article described Corbett exactly, his teeth, clothing, and habits, but it was the photograph that was critical to gaining the readers’ attention.

  The FBI headed to Toronto and learned that when filling out a new employee card, Corbett used the alias he’d used most often in Denver, Walter Osborne, and incredibly used his actual boardinghouse address. Realizing his stupidity, Corbett marked through the actual address and added a fake one, but the real address was still visible underneath. The FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police spoke with Corbett’s Toronto landlord.

  “Yes, I had a roomer, but he left several weeks ago,” Antanas Laurinaitis recounted. “He didn’t take his things with him. He left everything he had, his clothing, books, screwdrivers, whatever he had. He left everything. I have them stored in the basement.”

  On that August day when Corbett quickly exited a Toronto bus and fled to Winnipeg, he had abandoned more than he had at the Perlmor Apartments in Denver. A wallet with his Colorado driver’s license, California union card, Colorado hunting license, Denver library card, Social Security card, and pass to enter the Benjamin Moore factory; a four-foot length of chain similar to that found at his Denver apartment; several magazines that included the American crime pulp, True Detective, and a large stack of paperback books, such as Teach Yourself Flying, Teach Yourself Spanish, and, ironically, the bestseller Anatomy of a Murder. The FBI realized that by leaving behind so many personal effects, Corbett had been in a hurry and was becoming careless.

  Before the FBI could write a report on the evidence left at the Toronto rooming house, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police relayed a call they’d received from the manager of Corbett’s rooming house in Winnipeg.

  “I read Reader’s Digest about that man Joseph Corbett Jr. I’m sure he roomed here last month. But he said his name was Ian McIntosh.”

  It seemed Reader’s Digest was very popular in Canada.

  * * *

  Eight months after the kidnapping, the FBI finished gathering all the evidence it needed. As field agents followed a warm trail left by bungling Joe Corbett, FBI special agents, fingerprint experts, lab specialists, and forensic scientists solidified the case against Ad’s suspected murderer. They had assembled so much evidence that it filled a five-inch-thick investigation report that included guns, hand and ankle restraints, typewriters, paper, camping supplies, chain, fingerprints, cars, hats, and witnesses. The only thing the report lacked was the arrest and conviction of their suspect. But that chapter was very close to being written; but to write it, they needed to find Corbett.

  * * *

  Mary had not waited for Ad’s remains to be discovered before leaving his dream home behind. Four months after his kidnapping, Mary moved her children to exclusive Cherry Hills Village, composed of only a few hundred wealthy residents just outside the Denver city limits. Mary’s new home in the Polo Club subdivision sat near the thirteenth hole of Cherry Hills Country Club, where Arnold Palmer had famously defeated Jack Nicklaus that summer in the 1960 US Open golf tournament. Bill and Geraldine Coors had lived there since the early ’50s.

  The change of scenery had not helped Mary, and the discovery of Ad’s remains provided no finality to her grief. She couldn’t even have a memorial service. Ad’s bones were amassed in a refrigerated cabinet in the Douglas County Coroner’s Office. When she asked for them, she was told they couldn’t be released until after the trial. Like everything in her life, a memorial service would remain in limbo.

  Mary found comfort in alcohol more often. Though she was still graceful, friends and family could see the effects that alcohol was having on her appearance and demeanor. Her children had been stung by the loss of a father. They were beginning to lose their mother, too.

  On Friday, October 28, Mary awakened and pulled open the bedroom curtains of her beautiful Cherry Hills home. It was almost noon. She’d sent the kids off to school and returned to bed. Her daily routine now. She ambled into the den and clicked on the television set. The smell of lukewarm coffee in the percolator coming from the kitchen filled the air. She poured a cup and added a little gin and sugar. Before she could make it to her chair in front of the television, the phone rang.

  It was Holly, asking to have Spike and Jim stay over that night. Mary agreed and then hung up the phone and picked up her cup. It may have been As the World Turns or The Guiding Light she sat down to watch. She may not have even noticed. The soap operas all seemed the same. Exaggerated story lines clouded by gin and despondency.

  Before she knew where the hours had gone, the door from the garage flung open, and in ran Jim, followed by Spike and Cecily. Mary stood and met her children in the kitchen and gave them hugs. She was still in her robe. She asked about their day, made them a snack, and then walked out of the kitchen and down the hallway. Her bedroom door closed.

  Mary had shut out the world once again. But on the following day, her solitude would be unexpectedly interrupted.

  * * *

  Corbett entered a café in the West End neighborhood of Vancouver, British Columbia. Ordinarily, he ordered a hamburger and a Coke, but today was not ordinary. It was October 25, his thirty-second birthday.

  “Ever been to Seattle?” Corbett asked the bartender. “I grew up in Seattle. My father still lives there,” said the typically quiet Corbett.

  No one could accuse him of looking over his shoulder that day. He was affable and carefree. He was using a different alias at last, but he had not changed his appearance.

  Out came a cherry pie topped with a burning candle carried by a waitress singing, “Happy Birthday.” Corbett blew out the candle, and despite being warned not to, he divulged his wish.

  Corbett was having the best time he’d had in months. The normally closemouthed fugitive was talking to everyone, telling them everything, except that he was a fugitive
. And not just any fugitive. One of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted. Did he have a plan? After all, he was in Vancouver, the busiest port city in Canada and one of the busiest in all of North America. In fact, he had been hanging around the docks and asking about jobs aboard liners leaving port soon.

  * * *

  “I’m expecting the delivery of a typewriter. I rented one to type some résumés. Would you let the deliveryman up when he arrives?” Corbett asked his new landlady, Mary Bell. Not since he’d typed the Coors ransom note had he used a typewriter.

  He left his Vancouver landlady at her desk and walked out the front door onto Bidwell Street. His flashy 1960 fire-engine-red Pontiac chromed convertible he’d rented in Winnipeg but failed to return was parked out front. He drove down the street a few blocks and abandoned the car in a parking garage. From there, Corbett walked to a nearby park and sat on a bench on the Vancouver shore, gazing out over the largest body of water on the planet. Before him stretched more than sixty million square miles of international and territorial waters, where ships from every major sovereign nation can freely sail on a seemingly infinite blue surface under the protection of their flags, providing asylum to all those aboard from US interference and capture. Corbett understood this, and so did the FBI. It was a race against time for both, and time was running out.

  * * *

  “Men, we’re searching for an American driving a 1960 red Pontiac convertible with Manitoba plate U9. He’s wanted for attempted kidnapping and murder in the United States. Here’s a description with a photo,” visiting special agent Don Hostetter announced to a team of Vancouver police constables on the morning of October 29.

  After the briefing, one of the constables hurried to his patrol car and drove to the rear of an old Mission Revival style apartment called the Maxine Hotel. He was sure he’d seen a red Pontiac exactly like the one described in the briefing parked in front of the Maxine two weeks earlier, but didn’t want to alert his superiors until he was sure. He entered the apartment building.

  “Hello. I’m Jack Marshall, constable for the Vancouver police. I’m looking for a man. His name is Joe Corbett.”

  “I don’t have anyone here by that name,” said the sixty-one-year-old proprietress, Mary Bell, standing behind a counter. “I know everyone, and he’s not a resident.”

  “Maybe he’s here under another name. He sometimes uses Walter Osborne or Ian McIntosh.”

  The landlady shook her head.

  “How about William Chiffins or Michael McLean?”

  “No, I don’t know anyone by those names.”

  The Vancouver constable reached into his uniform pocket and withdrew the FBI circular distributed by Hostetter at the morning briefing. “Have you seen this man? An American. Tall. Over six feet. Drives a brand-new red Pontiac convertible.”

  The landlady looked at the photo. “Oh, you mean Mr. Wainwright. Is he in some kind of trouble?”

  “Wainwright? What’s his first name?”

  “Thomas. It’s right here in the register. See? ‘Thomas C. Wainwright. Room 15.’ I can’t believe he’s done something wrong. He impressed me as a very nice person. Always keeps to himself. Paid sixty dollars in advance.”

  “Is he here now?”

  “Yes, I believe he is. He came to the lobby for a newspaper about an hour ago. Would you like me to ring him for you?”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  Marshall directed the landlady to go to the basement. “Now don’t say a thing. Not a word. This man is dangerous. Don’t do a thing until I come back,” Marshall instructed. He then hurried out the rear of the Maxine to his patrol car. He drove to the nearest call box and telephoned the Vancouver detective bureau. Minutes later, Canadian detectives Sam Fowlow, Harry Gammie, and William Simmons met Marshall at the Sylvia Hotel, where Special Agents Hostetter and Al Gunn were staying. By sheer coincidence, in a metropolitan area of more than 750,000 people, the FBI agents’ hotel was only three blocks from the Maxine.

  Several unmarked cars swarmed the hotel as seven FBI agents and a handful of Vancouver detectives in plain clothes sneaked into the building and took their positions. Some covered the exterior entrances and exits, two others covered the stairs on the first floor, and the remaining men met Mrs. Bell in the basement. She was nervous and a bit afraid, but was assured by the lawmen that she and her tenants would be safe.

  “What did he say when you spoke with him?” asked Detective Fowlow, a middle-aged man, over six feet tall and stocky.

  “Only that he’d come from Winnipeg and needed a place to stay,” the landlady replied.

  “Anything else?”

  “The usual, you know, what everybody asks—how much for the room, is there a deposit, is it refundable, is it quiet here, that kind of thing. Oh, he did ask me to help him rent a typewriter. It’s coming this afternoon.”

  “There’s our hook,” said Special Agent Gunn, looking at the others. “Let’s go.”

  Agent Hostetter and Detective Simmons stayed with the landlady while Detectives Fowlow and Gammie and Agent Gunn slipped up the stairs to the first floor. They drew their revolvers as they neared Corbett’s room. Each gave one another the signal they were positioned and ready. Agent Gunn knocked on the apartment door. He was the only one visible. Detectives Fowlow and Gammie hid along the wall to one side of the door, waiting for it to open.

  There was no answer. Gunn knocked again.

  The men heard a faint “Who’s there?” from behind the shut door. It was 9:45 a.m., October 29, 1960.

  Before Gunn could reply, “I’m here with your typewriter,” as he’d planned, he heard the door lock click as it unbolted. The detectives braced, gripping the handles of their revolvers. The door opened wide. There stood Joe Corbett without a gun, wearing matching green gabardine shirt and trousers with the same haircut and horned-rim eyeglasses he’d worn in Denver. Gunn couldn’t believe it. Corbett appeared as if he’d posed for the FBI Most Wanted poster earlier that morning.

  The lawmen pushed the door and rushed in, shoving Corbett backward into the one-room apartment and against a wall.

  “Joe Corbett?” shouted Gunn as he pulled Corbett’s wrists behind him and squeezed handcuffs on.

  “Yes,” said Corbett calmly. “I’m your man. I’m not armed. I give up.”

  “Where are your guns?” an agent shouted. Before Corbett had a chance to answer, someone yelled again, “Where are your guns?”

  “It’s over there, in the bag,” said Corbett, jerking his head in that direction.

  Detective Gammie grabbed a brown zippered travel bag that was open. He withdrew a Llama 9 mm pistol fully loaded with six rounds of .38-caliber ammunition in the clip and one in the chamber.

  “What about the others?” yelled Gunn.

  “That’s it. That’s all I got,” said Corbett.

  “Check under the bed, in the closet … and check the washroom,” Fowlow told Gammie.

  “Where’s the car?”

  “Car?”

  “The red Pontiac. Where is it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t own a car.”

  “Cut the act. We know you rented a red Pontiac convertible in Winnipeg. Where is it?”

  “In a garage on West Fourteenth Street. The street number’s in the bag. I parked it there a few days ago.”

  The man responsible for Corbett’s capture, Constable Marshall, had not been allowed to participate in the arrest because he was still in uniform and at six feet, three inches tall, he could have been spotted by Corbett. He arrived at the Maxine soon afterward and joined detectives and FBI agents canvassing Corbett’s room. Among Corbett’s few possessions, the lawmen discovered a new brown felt hat, size 7⅜.

  Corbett’s captors escorted him out, jerking and tugging him along a hallway and out the back of the hotel into an awaiting Vancouver police car. Inside the patrol car, Fowlow began questioning Corbett.

  “How long have you been in Vancouver?”

  “You know the
answer to that,” replied Corbett.

  “I think we should wait to question him further till we get to the station,” interrupted Agent Gunn.

  Fowlow agreed. He knew the FBI had its procedures, and after all, the man was not wanted for anything in Canada other than possessing an unregistered firearm and passing bad checks.

  When the men arrived at Vancouver police headquarters, Corbett was taken into an interrogation room and seated across from FBI agents Hostetter and Gunn and Vancouver detectives Fowlow and Gammie. The FBI wanted a confession. The desire was partially personal. Corbett had eluded the FBI for eight months, and a Canadian constable had tracked him down.

  “Before we start with the questions, anything you need?” asked Agent Gunn.

  A glass of water already sat on the table. Corbett shook his head.

  “I want you to understand, Mr. Corbett, you are not required to make a statement, and any statement you do make may be used against you in court. You may obtain the services of an attorney of your own choice if you wish, and can have free counsel if you are unable to pay.” The landmark case of Miranda v. Arizona, which made the reading of certain constitutional rights mandatory, wouldn’t be decided for another six years, but the FBI was already advising individuals of their right against self-incrimination.

  Corbett acknowledged his rights, and the questioning continued.

  “Are you Joe Corbett?”

  “Yes.”

  “When and where were you born?”

  “Seattle. October 25, 1928.”

  “Happy birthday,” said Fowlow.

  Special Agent Hostetter shook his head at Fowlow.

  The FBI agents asked more questions. Corbett said very little, but did tell them, “I realized the futility of being a fugitive while living in Toronto. I couldn’t make a lot of money and was away from my family without a real life, so I decided to go back and give myself up in California, but I ran out of money, so I sold my car. You caught up with me before I made it.”

  The agents weren’t completely sold on that story, since their investigation had uncovered that Corbett had attempted to locate a ship to board that would take him to Australia.