-Caveat Lector- an excerpt from: Loud and Clear Lake Headly and William Hoffman©1990 Henry Holt and Company 115 W. 18th St. New York, NY 10011 ISBN 0-8050-1138-2 272 pps — out-of-print/one edition --[3]-- 3. The Plumber I ate lunch at a small diner in Florence, surrounded by sullen citizens bristling at what they considered a one-man invasion of their turf. The prison constituted Florence's main industry, and word had spread about the stranger, the p.i., paying a visit such as none of his type had ever made. What did these suspicious people think? That I'd disrupt their way of life? From the waitress slamming a plate down in front of me to the unfriendly stares singeing my face, the folks in this backroads desert town weren't exactly dusting off the welcome mat. With time to kill, I cruised the bleak landscape until I found a cemetery, an apt place for my mood, spread out a blanket, and read more of the discovery. Before this long, complicated, dangerous case ended for me, I would set a record for visits to the Arizona State Prison-seventy in all-and the quiet graveyard would become a regular resting spot between morning visits with Max and afternoon sessions with Jim. What I read that day in the few hours before I was scheduled to see Robison was even more mind-blowing than my reading of the night before. It began with Hank Landry, a one-legged card cheat and buddy of Neal Roberts and John Adamson. I read the story from a police report penned by none other than Jon Sellers: On 4/11/78 at approximately 3:00 P.m., Hank Landry was contacted by telephone. The purpose for the contact was to determine what knowledge Mr. Landry possessed of the Bolles incident. At this time Mr. Landry related to investigator that he was present at a Memorial Day weekend picnic of 1976 at Neal Roberts's house at 90 W. Virginia. He further stated that during this picnic there was a conversation between Neal Roberts and John Adamson concerning the [Anarchist] cookbook, as well as explosives. He said that during the conversation, Don Bolles's name was mentioned, and that he interceded in the conversation asking, "Why not just use a gun and get it over with?" He said that as a result of this statement, Neal Roberts replied he wanted it to be loud and clear. I read this report four times before convincing myself that my eyes weren't deceiving me. The weekend before Don Bolles's car exploded, Adamson and Roberts had talked about blowing him up-using dynamite for a "loud and clear" warning that other reporters should keep their noses out of sensitive investigations. The ramifications absolutely chilled me. As did Sellers's next report, which threw all his professed beliefs into a cocked hat. Evidently amazed by what the onelegged gambler had told him, Sellers conducted a second interview with Landry: On April 13, 1978, at approximately 1:00 P.m., Mr. Hank Landry was interviewed at the Organized Crime Bureau of the Phoenix Police Department. During this interview, Mr. Landry related things that he remembered happening prior to the incident, the day of the incident, and the days following the incident. Mr. Landry related that he believes he arrived in Phoenix on Friday, May 30, 1976. He said his purpose for coming to Phoenix was to attend Robert Letierre's wedding. Mr. Landry stated that he had originally intended to stay with Dink Miller. However, he wound up staying at John Adamson's apartment. Mr. Landry stated that on Saturday he took a ride with John Adamson and they went to the Arizona Republic parking lot looking for Don Bolles's car. He said that during this occurrence, Adamson told him that he was going to blow Bolles up for $50,000. He also stated that Adamson told him that he had other work to do after this was done. The Robert Letierre referred to in Landry's statement would later testify that Adamson had asked him to help kill Bolles, only to have Letierre refuse. Adamson told Sellers his "other work" involved murdering Alphonso "King Al" Lizanetz—a former Marley publicist and eccentric who dressed in funny costumes and seemed convinced of his own royalty-and Attorney General Bruce Babbitt: a three-murder deal, said Adamson, contracted by Kemper Marley. Adamson claimed Marley wanted Babbitt assassinated because he feared the attorney general was investigating him, and Bolles was merely the first of three hits. But why kill King Al, widely regarded, with considerable justification, as the Town Clown? Because, said Adamson, Lizanetz had gone around Phoenix hinting at skeletons in Marley's closet. Hogwash! All of this made no more sense than the motive given for Bolles's murder. Babbitt wasn't any threat to Marley, and no one in Arizona took King Al seriously. He was a nut. His organization—Unity with Humanity for All—wrote letters over a "King Alphonso" signature to Kurt Waldheim at the United Nations, calling Al himself Robin Hood and Waldheim "a real gem of God." Al passed out recipes on Phoenix street corners for "King Alphonso's Freedom Cake" and "Freedom Icing," concoctions so heavily laced with alcohol they might indeed convey a sense of freedom. However, more important to me than the obfuscations of Adamson-no one even considered prosecutions in the "conspiracies" to murder Babbitt, the attorney general, for heaven's sake, and Lizanetz—was the information Landry provided Sellers: Landry also related to investigator that on Memorial Day, he went with John Adamson to a black barbecue place and purchased some ribs which they ultimately took to Neal Roberts's home and ate. He said that some of the people he remembered being present at Neal Roberts's home on Memorial Day were John Adamson, Mary Adamson and her son, Neal Roberts, a young couple who he described as living in one of Neal Roberts's apartments, and possibly Barbara Gant. He said he remembers doing card tricks for them. Landry stated that during the afternoon hours he was present when John and Neal were talking about dynamite, and explosives, and how a person could buy normal items in a store to make a bomb. He said at this time he asked Adamson, "Why do it with a bomb? Why not just shoot him with a gun?" Adamson replied, "My people want it done with dynamite." He said that during this same conversation Neal Roberts also said, "I want it to be loud and clear." Landry also stated that at some point in the conversation, Roberts indicated Bolles was a son of a bitch anyway. The more I read the report, the more I wondered why Sellers, after interviewing Landry, hadn't come forward with arms waving to demand a dig-out-the-truth investigation. Was it to avoid egg on his face for having immunized Neal Roberts who, according to Landry, had prior knowledge of the bombing? Or was he simply obeying orders- something like "go through the usual detective routine, but don't make waves"that he'd followed from the beginning of the case? Why didn't Sellers employ the Landry information to paint in missing parts of the picture instead of dwelling on nit-picking points? For example: Upon reading the transcribed interview with Mr. Landry, which was taken on April 15, 1978, it was noted that investigator had failed to bring out with Mr. Landry as he had on April 13, 1978, which word Neal Roberts actually used when he said, "I want it loud and clear." As a result of this, investigator contacted Mr. Landry on April 25, 1978, and queried him as to his memory of the words that Neal Roberts actually used when he said, "I want it loud and clear." Mr. Landry stated that he could not remember for sure whether Neal Roberts used the word[s] "I want it loud and clear," or whether he used the words "We want it loud and clear." Hell's bells! What's the difference? By using either word, "I" or "we," Roberts included himself, and Sellers should have been on the attorney's doorstep asking for an explanation. On the morning of April 26, 1978, Sellers contacted John Adamson, described thus in his report: At this time Adamson was advised by investigator that further information had been learned concerning the Bolles incident.... He was asked if he remembered taking Hank Landry to the Arizona Republic parking lot and looking for Don Bolles's car. He stated he did not remember doing this. He said he also did not remember confiding in Landry that he had a contract to kill Don Bolles. Adamson was asked whether or not it happened, or he just couldn't remember; and he stated that he would not say it didn't happen, but that he just couldn't remember it. I had to wonder about Adamson's lapse of memory in the Landry matter when compared to the gambler's passing a policeadministered lie detector test, but by then it was time for me to go see Jim Robison. Again a hassle slowed my entrance into the prison that afternoon (this song and dance never changed—the guards, bent on not bending, figured if they threw up enough roadblocks, I'd tire and back off), but after forty minutes I found myself in the tiny visitor's enclosure sitting opposite Max Dunlap's convicted coconspirator. Jim Robison stood five foot seven, weighed 220 pounds, and had big bulging shoulders and forearms and gnarled hands, which had wrestled for years with rusty pipes and clogged drains. A long sear zigzagged through a deep dent on his forehead, as if someone had struck him with a sledgehammer and then wielded an ax. A rough character. It was soon apparent that whereas the gods had blessed Dunlap with hundreds of friends and a loving, supportive family, Jim Robison had nobody. Unlike Max, who wore "easy mark" stamped all over his face, the rugged, powerful Robison could hardly be mistaken for a pushover. Robison opened the conversation by interviewing me. What had I done? Where had I been? Who did I know? Finally, "Why do you think you can do something for Max and me when nobody else has?" In day-to-day life I had more friends who resembled Robison than Dunlap. Robison, wise in the ways of the alley, would think twice and three times before agreeing to help a Neal Roberts. Yet I was to discover that Jim wasn't a selfish or venal man. Once you got past his forbidding exterior, there was a sensitive, extremely learned individual. I had to halt his barrage of questions. He possessed good cause to want information about me, but I wasn't on death row, and we had limited time. "Jim," I said, "I've read a good deal of the discovery, and it looks like you know more about Adamson than anybody else. Tell me about him. It's critical." "John Adamson is the smartest s.o.b. connected with this case." "Why do you say that?" "He got everything he wanted, didn't he? He has the cops backing his story. The prosecutors cut him a deal made in heaven. Remember, he admitted planting the bomb. Max and I are on death row, when it's really Adamson who belongs here. I'd call that being a smart s.o.b., wouldn't you?" "I need to know what he's like." "Everyone thinks he's a crude street hustler, lots of noise and bombast. Not true. He's a damn good con man. For years he avoided both arrest and a job by cultivating friends at all levels of Phoenix society: judges, doctors, lawyers, politicians, pimps, dope dealers, whores. A cocaine junkie-people called him 'Cocame John'—and always in a shadowy alcoholic haze. But still, even the upper crust sought him out, for his conversation, his wit, his free-spending camaraderie, but most of all for his services. He'd sell a hot coat at a fraction of its value. Get them dope. A woman. Beat the shit out of someone for them. Several of his closest acquaintances—I don't think he has any friends—said under oath at our trial that Adamson shouldn't be believed under any circumstances. Yet that cop, Sellers, and the assistant a.g., Schafer, bet our lives on his word, and won." "How did Adamson obtain stolen merchandise?" "Boosters." "What do you mean?" "He had connections with big-time shoplifters in San Diego. One was called San Diego Ralph, and of course Adamson had ties with the Mob." Mafia. Emprise. Adamson. Bolles's last words. I had just stepped into the investigation, on a trail almost two and a half years cold, but already those three names loomed ever more prominent. I became silent, eyes downcast, and Robison must have thought his new investigator had turned catatonic. But I needed to get my thoughts together. What with all my reading of last night and today, and interviewing both alleged co-conspirators, too much was coming at me too quickly. I flashed back to the accounts I'd read and heard of concerning those days immediately following Bolles's death, recalling the futile efforts to solve the case. The police knew Adamson had not acted alone; he'd had no motive and no technical expertise. After several months thrashing about, and a suspiciously channeled investigation (everything focusing on Roberts's theory and the hope of Adamson plea bargaining-why no close look at Bradley Funk?), Jon Sellers was no closer to the answers of "who" and "why" than he'd been on the day the bomb exploded. Pressure from the public, politicians, and media mounted as time dragged by. Because of the Bolles killing, CBS's "Sixty Minutes" cast an unwelcome eye on wheeling/dealing Arizona. Where were those additional promised arrests? Perhaps fearing what a real investigation might reveal, the state waited for Adamson to accept its generous offer. Gone were the final words of the murdered reporter. Forgotten were those critical clues, replaced by the clever "evidence" of con artist John Harvey Adamson. The Schafer-Sellers position couldn't be condoned, even with the best possible face put on it: they feared, without the testimony of Adamson-who insisted on implicating Robison and Dunlap-that the case could not be solved. Worse, Schafer and Sellers needed no foresight to realize, once they'd embraced the hoodlum's version, that they were stuck with it forever. I had to caution myself to avoid forming my own theories too soon. It wasn't my role to play prosecution or police. Still, the short time I'd spent with that unappetizing mound of discovery material had convinced me that the stampede to accept Adamson's plea bargain covered with a cloud of dust all leads not connecting Dunlap and Robison to the crime. Somehow, I had to bring the case back to Bolles's last words: Mafia, Emprise, Adamson. "Tell me more about San Diego," I said to Robison. In the discovery material I had read the previous night, Adamson's girlfriend, Gail Owens, traveled with Adamson to San Diego and financed his purchase of the remote-control device used to trigger the bomb. Gail Owens, who stored the dynamite and detonator in her apartment, had received immunity from the prosecution, despite her full knowledge of Adamson's intentions to kill Bolles. "Adamson knew a guy in San Diego called Frank," Robison said. "He was killed in a phone booth." "Frank Bompensiero?" A major San Diego Mafia figure. Adamson dealt in the big time if he rubbed elbows with Bompensiero. "That's the one." "Who else?" "You heard of Jimmy the Weasel?" "Jimmy Frattiano." "Well, Frattiano and Adamson put their heads together and came up with a drug rehab scam. That pair, believe it or not, intended to get into the drug rehabilitation business. They figured to rake in fat federal grants." "Okay, so Adamson sold cocaine. What did he have in mind, treating the addicts he supplied?" "That's about the size of it. Adamson told me rehab was more profitable than selling the stuff. Anyway, I've harbored a serious suspicion for quite a long time, and I'd like to lay it out. I think Frattiano played the role the police assigned to me in the Bolles killing: detonating the dynamite. He's been an FBI informant since 1970 and has received immunity for seven murders, including Danny Green in Cleveland. Green died when dynamite got set off under his car by a remote-control device, the same m.o. used to murder Bolles. You know, the police keep harping the Mob doesn't use bombs, they pump a bullet in your head and stuff you in a car trunk. That's Hollywood bullshit. The Mafia sure as hell didn't blow Danny Green and his car to bits with a bullet." "Was Frattiano questioned?" "Hell, no, he wasn't questioned." "Why not? He was Adamson's business associate." "Jon Sellers knows the answer. He headed the investigation and made that rotten immunity deal with Neal Roberts. Did you ever hear of a cop giving immunity?" No, I hadn't. I also thought it unusual for Sellers, still only a detective after twenty years on the police force, to be picked to head up the most famous murder case in Arizona history. A single thought recurred, as it would for the entire year and a half of my investigation, and I voiced it aloud to Robison. "The motive's no good-that Bolles was killed for stories he'd already written." "It's ridiculous, and I'll tell you what. Bolles was close to something: poking around, asking questions, scaring the day lights out of somebody. The guy had a reputation for printing what he uncovered. And he was stubborn as a government mule. Couldn't be bought off or scared off. I believe someone found out he was close to a big story, and stopped it right then, no questions asked." "What do you think Sellers overlooked, or covered up?" "Well, the Hank Landry information, for sure." It was what I'd been waiting for. Quickly and easily, Robison related the same basics I had just read in Sellers's police reports. "How did Adamson and Landry get hooked up?" I asked, when Robison had finished. "I don't know how they met. But John invited Landry to cheat in a big gin game at the Arizona Club. Neal Roberts got Adamson into the club, and Adamson brought Landry." "Tell me about your relationship with Adamson." "He's a sick braggart. The kind of guy who steals paintings, hides them in his basement, and is compelled to show them to someone. He needs credit for what he's done but is smart enough to choose a person who doesn't drink and can keep his mouth shut. Well, I was that guy. Adamson confided in me. He told me a lot." "How did you meet him?" "Through my girlfriend, Betty, who knew Adamson's wife, Mary. Adamson liked me, began to trust me, and soon told me about many of his harebrained schemes. I listened, and commented when appropriate." I had to approach this juncture carefully. If I leaned too hard at this first meeting, I might look like a cop to Robison, who had good reason not to trust anyone. Exploration of "harebrained schemes" was tempting, but I decided not to push and said simply, "Tell me more about you and Adamson." "He came to my house on a regular basis, or to my job at Ashford Plumbing, crowing about his latest deals and capers. John was on duty twenty-four hours a day. He lived, breathed, ate, and slept hustling." "What do you mean?" "For instance, he kept a police scanner next to his bed. When he heard a promising report, he hit the ground running." "Give me a specific." "I'll give you one he used to help frame me. When Ashford Plumbing burned down, I went over to assess the damage. Adamson was already there. He said he heard about the fire on his police band. But later, after Bolles, he claimed we torched that building. Of course, people saw us together at the fire, and their testimony 'proved' an ongoing criminal relationship. Then there was Tops Tavern." "Tell me about Tops." "Adamson knew I almost always stayed home, so he felt safe saying I went out ripping with him. Since I usually was alone, I had a flimsy alibi when he implicated me in one of his crimes. He said we burned down Tops Tavern, and I couldn't prove otherwise." "Why would he implicate you in these arsons?" "To sell the Bolles killing, by claiming we committed other crimes together. He almost messed up with Bolles." "How's that?" "He said I detonated the bomb he put under the car with a device like kids use to fly model airplanes. But the bombing occurred during the day, eleven-thirty-four, when I worked, and a hardware store clerk, Chris Stamps, testified I was buying a brass pipe coupling from him at eleven-fifteen in the morning. No way could I have driven all the way across town in nineteen minutes to detonate that bomb. Regardless, Adamson testified that I was with him at the Clarendon parking lot at eleven-ten." "How did the prosecution beat the alibi?" "They said to the hardware clerk, 'How do you know your watch wasn't five minutes fast?' Well, he couldn't know. Then the prosecution had a cop drive the distance, racing across town, flying through school zones, running red lights, a regular bat out of hell. He made it to the Clarendon Hotel with thirty seconds to spare. Phenomenal. Even with all that, though, I couldn't have been there at eleven-ten, like Adamson swore." Robison shook his head, and I saw his fists and jaws clench. "So I guess I screeched to a stop at the Clarendon, probably sweaty and shaky, and in all of thirty seconds concealed myself in a spot that provided an unobstructed view-the device had to be pointed directly at the vehicle to explode the dynamiteand blew him up." The condemned man had been talking quickly, agitated by the memory, but now he slowed. "So you see, both Tops and Ashford were at night, when my only alibi was being home reading a book. Bolles happened during the day. My lawyers messed up bad by not making a bigger fuss over the cop's time trial. Mario Andretti probably couldn't have beat it." Robison had been portrayed to me as thoughtful and selfeducated. That seemed accurate enough. He had lived almost as a hermit (because of his fearsome appearance?), happy with his books and himself. His attitude toward death row confinement differed from any other I encountered: "They sentenced me to death, and I want them to carry out the order. The judge didn't mention one word about torture, yet this is it-a' terrible fucking place with subhuman conditions. Dying here is preferable to living. They say they want to kill me, and they should have the guts to do it.,, The interview drew to a close. "Jim," I said, "I'd like to know, did you have anything at all to do with killing Don Bolles?" "No. Absolutely no. But remember, when Adamson asked me about metallurgy and the mechanics of plumbing, I often explained them to him. He might have used my answers to construct a bomb. I don't know. But I had nothing at all to do with the murder." A guard knocked on the door. We had five minutes left. "I hope you do some good," Robison said, not a trace of emotion in his voice, "but I'm afraid you're Don Quixote off on a tilt with windmills." "Maybe not," I said. "Anyway, I look forward to your coming back, and I certainly enjoyed this conversation. I know I'll be more helpful to you than poor Max-he's just in a state of total confusion-and there's other information I may give you. But I think you understand." I thought so, too. He needed to trust me more before opening up completely. On the outskirts of Florence, headed for the freeway, a red light flashing in the rearview mirror short-circuited my afterimages of Max and Jim. I slowly pulled to a stop on the shoulder, fumbled out my driver's license, and walked toward an enormous redfaced block-of-granite state trooper making like Rod Steiger of In the Heat of the Night-mirrored sunglasses, hand on holstered pistol. "What did I do wrong, officer?" I asked, handing him my license. "What you've done wrong would make a list longer than your arm." He returned to his car with its light flashing and initiated a record check on the radio. A few moments later he came back and stared down on me again. "You have any outstanding warrants?" "No, sir, I don't." "Well, if you do, you're going to jail." "Yes, sir. I know the drill." "What do you do for a living?" "I'm an investigative journalist." "Then why did you say at the penitentiary that you're a private investigator?" Most cops hate people in my profession. Worse, I didn't have an Arizona p.i. license, though I did in Nevada and California. Getting credentials in Arizona, I figured, would mean eternal red-tape delays by a state apparatus not eager to see the Bolles murder rehashed. No, I hadn't yet contracted a magazine assignment for this story, but I'd done investigative pieces before, so the title "investigative journalist" fit. The truth was I didn't want to sit on my hands, possibly for months, waiting for the state to decide if it wanted me investigating how it screwed up the Bolles case. Regardless, I had to tread gingerly with this big cop. "A person can," I said, "be both p.i. and investigative journalist. I'm wondering. How do you know what I told them at the joint?" "Listen, asshole. I ask the questions. You may be a whiz in some circles, but you ain't shit on this road. I'm king out here. This is my highway, and I'll ask the fuckin' questions." The radio crackled. "Stand where you are," he ordered and headed back to his car to see if I was a wanted man. "Well, no warrants." He looked disappointed. "I'm not putting you in ]*all this time, so you can go now, Mr. Private Investigator, or Mr. Investigative journalist, or whatever you call yourself. But I'm gonna give you some advice: we don't like people who murder reporters in this state, or the scum who work for them. Since you like those killers you just left, we'll do everything we can to see that you join them. If you're half as smart as I think you are, you'll climb in your vehicle, drive off, and never come back. If you do return, you ain't gonna like it." pps.31-44 --[cont]-- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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