by Robert Rand
Chapter 15
A huge Indian, dressed in an elaborate private security uniform of brown pants, tan shirt, golden badge, shoulder patches depicting a teepee that spread into a modern casino and edged in gold letters that said ‘Desert Pueblo Casino Security’, was leaning against the tailgate of a white Ford pick-up parked in the driveway, when April arrived home. There was another guard sitting in a lawn chair on the Sullivan’s front porch.
April and Vasquez approached the guard in the driveway, after pushing through a tangle of reporters. “Let the lady by! No questions!” boomed the voice of the guard. The reporters stayed on the sidewalk or in the street. “Ralph, take her inside, away from this mess” the big Indian urged.
They made it in the front door. Vasquez, at first being thrown off by the uniform, didn’t recognize Chief Donny De la Cruz. Then recognition set in and he went back out to talk to the man.
“Donny, what gives – uniform – gun – my clients’ house?” asked the lawyer.
“I saw the speech you gave at the hospital on the news. Sullivan Rourk runs the casino and he’s my friend. I figured reporters would be camped out so I ordered security ‘round the clock for Sully’s place.
“Thanks, Donny. The lady needs rest.”
“How’s Sully?” asked the Chief, with genuine concern.
“The doctor is optimistic, but it will be a long time before he is up and around,” the lawyer said honestly, then walked back into the house.
April was watching him enter on the live television feed from the channel 2 news crew out front. Moments after seeing her front door close beyond the talking head of the reporter, she felt the lawyers’ gentle touch as he put his hand on her shoulder.
“Missus Sullivan, you don’t need to watch that shit”, he told her.
Turning to face him, she said, “Call me April, please, and I do have to watch it. That’s my house on the TV. That’s my life they’re beginning to snoop into, and that’s the man I love laying in the hospital!”
April suddenly turned pale and fled the room. Vasquez heard a door slam down the hallway, followed by the distinctive retching of a person vomiting. The lawyer found a piece of paper and left April a note asking her to call him if she needed anything. He left the note and his business card on the dining room table.
L.A. Michaels popped two Rolaids into his mouth and chewed the chalky antacid tablets. The ass chewing he had just received from the Deputy Director over the long distance line from Washington D. C. caused his ulcer to flair up instantly.
The congressman from Palm Springs was the chairman of the House Oversight Committee that played watchdog over the FBI. Following Vasquez’s news conference, which had gained national attention, the congressman had been demanding to know what was going on in his district with the Deputy Directors agents. The Deputy Director, who hadn’t known that there was an agency-involved shooting until the congressman had told him, had taken out his personal embarrassment on L.A. Michaels.
Reaching out with his right hand, L.A. depressed the intercom switch and asked his secretary to hold all calls.
Taking a legal tablet from the center drawer of his desk, he began outlining a press release. Using the standard, “NO COMMENT” had created a feeding frenzy with the shark-like reporters who circled the scent of blood. L.A. wrote:
‘The Federal Bureau of Investigation categorically denies the inferences brought about by the false and inflammatory remarks made by Attorney Ralph Vasquez regarding the Bureau’s tragic response to the situation which resulted in the necessity necessary use of force following during an otherwise routine investigatory lawful stop of Sullivan Rourk Robert Rourk.’
‘Use his full middle name’, thought Michaels, ‘just as if he were a serial killer. Like John Wayne Gacy.’
Then, allowing his frustrations to pour out of his pen, he added another line:
‘Furthermore, the FBI will now include all liberal lawyers like Ralph Vasquez as subjects of all future lawful stops in hopes of achieving the same damn results!!!!!’
Obviously, this line was never intended to be seen by anyone. After scratching out the remark about the lawyers, L.A. made a note at the bottom of the page telling his secretary to turn the above into an immediate press release. After drawing an arrow to the intended paragraph for added clarification, he called his secretary over the intercom and had her come in and retrieve the paper.
L.A. Michaels didn’t know it then, but within the next half-hour, his career would effectively be over.
Krystee Komoidia, L.A.’s secretary, inserted the Bureau’s standardized press release form into her typewriter, lined up the document, and began typing by touch, while reading the handwritten scrawl on the yellow 8 ½ x 14 inch lined paper that her boss had given her.
She had only gotten three words typed when she had to pee. “Shit!” she muttered under her breath, and got up from her desk. She waddled off toward the woman’s restroom, which, of course, was on the opposite side of the building from her desk. She pressed her left hand against the small of her back and held the lower curve of her swollen belly with the other as a sharp pain nearly sent her to her knees midway to the bathroom. The baby wasn’t due for another three weeks. As the pain eased, Krystee began to feel wet warmth spread down her thighs.
Another secretary, seeing the alarmed expression on Krystees’ face, rushed to her side. “Are you okay?” she asked, while taking the pregnant woman by the arm to give her support.
“Oh, yeah, just fine”, she began, and then was interrupted by another contraction. “Oh, damn it! Oh, shit! A one night stand nine months ago after too many beers and one Hell of a boot-scoot-boogie, now I’ve got a little rodeo star doin’ a two-step on my bladder. Just fine!”
“I’ll help you to the bathroom,” offered Sharon.
“I think I already peed,” whispered Krystee.
“No. I think your water broke. Your rodeo star is coming home today!” Sharon smiled and helped a suddenly petrified first-time mother-to-be into the bathroom before going out and calling an ambulance.
While Krystee sat on the toilet with her wet polyester maternity pants around her ankles, waiting to pee and waiting for help, Associated Press reporter, Patrick Boatwright, entered the front doors to the Bureau’s office and asked directions to L.A. Michaels’s office, claiming to have an appointment. The receptionist was unable to confirm or deny Mr. Boatwright’s assertion of having an appointment with Mr. Michaels, since Krystee wasn’t answering her phone, so she directed the blue-eyed man with the alluring smile to Supervising Agent Michaels’s office.
Pat Boatwright found his way to the correct door and walked into the combination secretary’s office and waiting room. Since no one was in the office, and having an ornate sense of curiosity, as befitted a man in his profession, he began to read the open file sitting on the secretary’s desk. Seeing the handwritten press release with it’s much delineation, Patrick couldn’t not take the sheet of paper.
Thirty minutes after L.A. Michaels wrote out his frustrations, the words became front-page news.
Chapter 16
Edgehill Lanes was a 16 lane bowling alley in the city of Banning; a town first built as a stage stop, then, years later, developed as a residential community for the black domestic workers employed by the affluent whites in Palm Springs. This is where L.A. Michaels came to drink. The dark recess of the Stagecoach Lounge, with its mostly middle class clientele of all races, was a place that a man like Michaels could feel comfortable. Here was, if not a happy medium, then at least an acceptable compromise between the ghetto of his past and what he saw as the bigoted white world in which he worked. Here, L.A. Michaels could get drunk and not worry too much about ending up in a fight. There hasn’t been a bowling alley bar built yet that can be construed as a swinging singles joint, so if a man wanted to drink and be left alone, the bowling alley bar was the place.
L.A. had been drinking more and more during his off duty hours in the three weeks since Sullivan
Rourk had been shot.
Three weeks. Twenty-one days. The events that had taken place in that short amount of time were many and had led to confusion.
Henry Kellerman was the first Bureau casualty. However, his transfer was probably a blessing in disguise. His house now sat empty with a Century 21 sign in front and the black Jeep still in the driveway where it had been since all this shit began. He and his family were now safely relocated in Seattle.
L.A. Michaels had resigned under protest less than a week after the press got a hold of his notes.
The case against Sullivan Rourk now rested on one shaky piece of evidence. A smudge of Tovex found inside his coat pocket that held what amounts to a chemical fingerprint that matched the explosives used at all five robberies and matched the missing explosives from the reservation theft. The problem was, though they could prove conclusively that those explosives were all produced in the same batch, that batch wasn’t limited to just the few dozen tubes that were stored at the reservation. That batch produced 1200 kilos of explosive compound, of which nearly 1000 kilos could not be adequately accounted for.
There was plenty of circumstantial evidence to show that Rourk could be the person responsible. Nevertheless, it would take one Hell of a prosecutor to gain a conviction against Vasquez and the public sentiment he had garnered for his client.
L.A. Michaels watched the television that was suspended from the ceiling in one corner of the bar. Sullivan Rourk was being wheeled up to a dais in the hospital auditorium. Flanked by his wife and Doctor Roger Mortimer, he faced the cameras.
Before he spoke, L.A. noticed that Rourk had lost a lot of weight, grown a beard and was in need of a haircut. He looked ragged enough to gain a couple more sympathy points. Then he spoke and L.A. Michaels knew that there wasn’t a jury in America that would convict this man.
In a rattling, hoarse whisper that quieted the crowd out of necessity to hear, Sullivan Rourk addressed America. “I have some things to say, but first, I have some people to thank. God, who, as far as I’m concerned, lives in the hands of Doctor Roger Mortimer, who, with the help of a lot of other talented people, has managed to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.” Turning to the doctor, he smiled, then, very shakily, stood and embraced the surgeon as everyone in the room fought to choke back the emotion of the moment. Sullivan turned back to the crowd and went on, “And I want to thank April”, he reached out for her hand and pulled her to him. Leaning down, he kissed her as cameras clicked, flashes flashed. Following the kiss, Sullivan returned to face the cameras, “There are countless others who have sent cards, letters, flowers and prayers, thank you one and all.” He took a slow, deep breath and his eyes turned hard. “Three weeks ago I was shot twelve times by the FBI. They said that they shot in fear for their lives. I think that anyone that scared doesn’t belong in law enforcement. To try and justify having tried to murder me in my own driveway, the U.S. Attorney’s office has now secured a multi-count grand jury indictment, charging me with crimes I did not commit. Crimes for which I will not be convicted
“The twelve bullet holes, the destruction of one kidney, my spleen, muscle, bone, intestine wasn’t enough. I had to post a half a million dollar bail bond to keep from being taken to the jail ward of Riverside General Hospital, where I couldn’t receive the quality medical care I have been receiving here. The over-zealous pursuit of a scapegoat in several bank bombings has turned the FBI into a squad of thugs to be feared. I pray that the next time a bank gets robbed and just because you own a vehicle kind of like the one the robber may have used, that the FBI doesn’t ambush you in your driveway, in front of your friends, neighbors or children. Thank you.”
Sullivan sank into the wheel chair, exhausted. April had to help lift his legs up so his feet would rest on the chairs’ footrests. Once situated April and a nurse wheeled Sullivan back to his room, while Dr. Mortimer stayed to answer a few questions about Rourk’s medical prognosis.
“You were great!” April told Sullivan when the nurse had finally left them alone in his room.
“Thanks, beautiful,” he whispered, as a deep exhaustion that only lingering pain can bring swept over him.
He lay back against the elevated head of his hospital bed and closed his eyes. April took his hand in both of hers as she sat on the edge of the bed.
April was crying. It seemed like she was always crying, but for the first time in a long time, the tears she shed were brought by joy, rather that sorrow. She sobbed and leaned over to gently hug him. With her head on his shoulder and his arms wrapped around her comfortingly, lovingly April told Sullivan, “I’m pregnant. You’re going to be a daddy.”
She could feel and hear Sullivan’s heart as it instantaneously thundered into high gear. This heart, which had several times ceased to beat just a few short weeks ago, was now pounding with life, just as inside her womb, a new heart would bring new life. Sullivan was her once in a lifetime, one true love, and she was happier than she had ever been.
“She’s going to be beautiful, just like her mom,” Sullivan finally managed to say.
“What if she’s a he?” April asked, with a big smile, as she sat up and looked down at Sullivan.
“It’s going to be a girl,” his voice held a conviction that left no room for argument. “Help me back into my Ferrari and we’ll celebrate with a dinner of green Jell-O down in the cafeteria.”
Chapter 17
“All rise and come to order. The Honorable Donald Bennett presiding in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California,” announced the uniformed Federal Marshal who served as bailiff.
The Judge, with his flowing black robes, thick mane of steel gray hair and neatly trimmed beard, brought a style to the bench rarely seen in American courts. His subtle British accent added dignity and charm to the proceedings. His Honor sat behind the ornately carved bench, placed his gold framed half-lens reading glasses low on his regal nose and peered down at the people gathered.
The Marshal spoke again, “In the matter of The People of the United States of America versus Sullivan Robert Rourk, this court is once again in session. Be seated and come to order.”
Everyone in the court got situated quickly. An electrical charge filled the air as the full courtroom waited for the final 12 seats to be filled by the jury members, who were now entering.
It had been a relatively short trial. Three weeks for the prosecutor to present his case in chief, followed by two weeks of defense witnesses. The prosecution had opened the door for Sullivan’s attorney, Ralph Vasquez, ESQ., or as Sullivan had taken to calling him, ‘Esquire”, to use the shooting to gain sympathy from the jury. If they hadn’t added the five counts of assault with a deadly weapon on a Federal officer, it would have been difficult to get the shooting allowed into the defense of the bank robbery charges.
Vasquez had chewed up the prosecution throughout the trial. G. David Evan, the cocky prosecutor, had done a decent job of linking Sullivan to the robberies through circumstantial evidence, the most damaging being the small amount of Tovex presented as being found in Rourk’s jacket pocket. It held the same chemical ‘fingerprint’ as that used in all of the robberies and that which was missing from the reservation. He had even gained prosecutorial jurisdiction over the Orange County bank due to the ATM being a wire transfer device and, as such, protected by Federal laws.
However, whenever Evan would come in for a slam-dunk, Vasquez would block the shot. He deflected the damage of the explosives with a combination of witnesses. A chemical engineer, who was employed by the manufacturer of Tovex, testified that the compound was produced in lots weighing 1200 kilos and was shipped all over the United States. The attorney was also able to elicit from the ATF expert, on cross-examination, that though the ATF was the agency charged with tracking such explosives, they were unable to account for 927 kilos of the Tovex produced in that particular lot.
The prosecutor had never found any of the money. Therefore, he inferred that Sullivan had washed it
through the casino. A claim that was countered by defense witnesses who swore that, though Sullivan Rourk ran the casino, he did not make use of the vault room. The log from the vault showed that he hadn’t even been inside the vault since before the first robbery. Every cashier and clerk who handled money at the casino came in and testified that they had never seen Sullivan spend any money at the casino. If he wanted to give free play or other comps away to customers, he would sign for them. If he wanted food, it would be given to him without charge. If he required chips or tokens, those, too, he would sign for. Cash, he simply did not spend at the Desert Pueblo Casino.
The old man who had suffered a heart attack during the most daring, and final, robbery, had recovered. He testified that his name was William Koeller. “Though everyone calls me Bill,” and that the “nice young man sitting next to that high priced shyster” could not have been the robber. “He’s to damn short. That bastard was huge, I tell ‘ya!” insisted Mr. Koeller.
April provided an alibi for Sullivan for all but the last robbery. With her stomach now swollen to accommodate the seven and a half months of growth that the baby inside had completed, and her long red hair pulled into girlish pigtails, her testimony was very believable. She had a natural aura of innocence that survived all the dirt that the prosecutor tried to shovel around her. In his attempt to attack her credibility.
“Have you ever stayed at the Valley Motel in Lancaster?” Evans asked.