June, 2008

SFC HEADQUARTERS DOCTRINE

"Read by Thousands Round' the World!"

29 June 2008: The Man Who's Head Was On Fire

May I write to you a few moments about the man whose head was on fire? It really is important and covers many aspects of human nature, training and survival.

One night, in the 1970s I was dispatched to a house on fire call, to assist the fire department in traffic and pedestrian control. It was one of our older housing editions full of huge wooden, rambling style homes. The fire tucks beat me to the scene and I observed the usual residential shock and confusion. I parked sideways on my end of the street, and another officer did the same on the opposite end.

I began ushering people away from the house and immediate area. I saw the residents and the father of the family on the large front lawn, and firemen were pushing them back. The fire itself was concentrated on the back and second story of the house. When the firemen were distracted, I spotted the man dash up the large front porch and right into the front of the house. I went after him.

Inside he was scampering about, filling his arms with stuff. You know, family stuff.

“Come on! COME ON!” I ordered him. “You've got to get out of here. There was not much sign of fire in the living room and dining room, but some smoke and the distinct cracking of burning wood.

He listened to me, and we both left. I had other problems to deal with and took to them. But within ten minutes I saw the man pacing his front lawn, and he dashed in again. This time, the house was further aflame and more dangerous. I cursed to myself and ran after him, commanding him to leave yet again. His arms were full of more family stuff and he reluctantly followed, but only after snatching two arm loads.

I thought that problem was over. The house continued to burn. I was talking to one of the Fire Captains and he looked over my shoulder,

“Hock, your guy is back in the house,” he told me.

I dashed onto the porch, the Captain with me. This time there were signs of fire in spots in the front rooms and much smoke. The man gathered more belongings. But this time? There was a little patch of fire burning on the shoulder of his flannel shirt and a small part of is long hair was on fire!

“YOU are on fire! Get out of here!” I shouted from the doorway.

He still ignored me, making his last collection, but when he passed the fireplace, above which hung a huge mirror, I saw his stern demeanor change into screaming fright when he actually saw his hair on fire in the refection.He screamed in agony, dropped an armload of knickknacks and this time ran past me so fast, well, like he was…like running from a fire! Finally! Two EMTs virtually tackled him down on the front yard and threw a blanket over his upper body. As they corralled him on the lawn and suffocated his body fire, the house fire suddenly roared with roll of hot flame erupting from the living room. It blew across the porch ceiling and over the front of the roof.

We have all heard the Buddhist proverb about “living your life like your hair was on fire.” But actually seeing or being on real fire might not be such a good idea. And it smells bad. But, I did promise some related training ideas and here are some on adrenaline, strength, shock, and pain tolerance.

Adrenaline. I suspect that the hot-headed man would have continued his emergency packing until sufficient burn from his head afire would have alerted him to his injury. But how long? As we know adrenaline bathes the body with many chemicals that gives most of us strength and pain tolerance. Training programs of recent years have a tendency to over-sell adrenaline as an evil ogre to fear and overcome, but we need doses to survive. I do not completely trust the various studies and survey questions of the past about the negative aspects of adrenaline. For just one example – when exactly does tunnel vision and auditory exclusion become simple concentration and focus? I think fast-breaking, new medical discoveries will soon enlighten us all on these aspects, in particular from the portable MRIs now being used in performance studies. Tailoring training around these new, scientific truths will be our next big challenge.

Visual and Mental shock. The man saw his head afire and the shock took over his dogged concentration. Seeing yourself wounded usually has a very disturbing effect. Many of you know this first hand.

I was ambushed once, jumped by two men and one was choking me on the ground, I presumed to my death! In gasping desperation I broke the pinky of the choker's hand at his knuckle. He immediately let go of me, stood up and circled me, yelping and mesmerized by his broken finger and it's new 45 degree angle.

If we are fighting a suspect, and he fails to react to pain, injury or bleeding, perhaps you should call his attention to it! I remember an old FBI instructor telling us that he once broke the forearm of a suspect in a fight in a tenement-building, stairwell. In the scuffle they both fell down the stairs. The suspect stood to continue fighting. The agent saw the man's bone piercing the skin, pointed at it and shouted, “look at that!” The man did, yelped and clutched his forearm. The agent said the suspect lost about 75% of his will to fight. Further remarks like, “you need help with that right now. We can get it.” Or, “you are going to bleed to death!” are certainly worth trying at certain times. The pain of a broken finger, broken arm or any injury may not "hit" the brain right away from adrenaline, but the visual can in a non-pain manner. This is one form of what doctor's have called "psychic pain."

We must specifically learn to expect and overcome this kind of shock pain should this happen to us. A common way to do this prep work is by deep, almost self-hypnotic, visualization of such injuries. Then, we must learn to use this potential weakness in our enemies.

Adios, Amigos

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25 June 2008: The Strange Case of the Madame Psychic- the Conclusion : The Big Take

Downtown Dallas at deep, o'dark thirty is empty. Like a ghost town. A science fiction movie. Our sedans ripped through the empty streets in a caravan, my gold Dodge Diplomat standing out amongst the line of black sedans. We stopped at a back door of the Federal Building, and walked our suspect inside and upstairs to the FBI floor.

Over the next few hours we sat around and talked with Ronald Wren. Smoked and joked. He had coffee, snacks and cigarettes. I got a few color Polaroid of Ronald. I got a written confession of the Hawkins robbery. No promises made, just a show of cooperation to make things easier on him later. But what was really cooking there that night was the birth of insider informant on various organized crime felonies from Las Vegas to Chicago.

It must suck to be an albino in the witness protection program? That wasn't going to happen. He was to remain just an intel source and never played in the field. When all that mob talk got real deep, I excused myself. As the Lone Ranger would say, “Tonto, our work here is done.”

Gray followed me out with a hand on my shoulder.

“Thanks for calling me in on this Hock. This is going to help a lot of regional offices.”

“Hey, this ain't over yet! I still need to find the father.”

“We'll get him!” Gray said.

It was about 3 am and I coasted north on I35 to the ol' hacienda. WBAP radio had the Bill Mack, the Midnight Trucker show on, playing country and western songs. But the warbling took a distant second to the thoughts of my next steps in the case. I would use this confession to get a warrant on Carl Wren. The eventual fingerprints and K-Mart identification were now loose ends that would just firm up the case. Then I would obtain the FBI Interstate flight forms and begin the hunt for Carl Wren. I zipped over the Lake Dallas Bridge with the windows down and caught that cool, night breeze from the water, and wondered where in the world Carl Wren was. It was my job to find him.

The next day I came in at 3 pm as scheduled to begin my paperwork chase. Howard Kelly told me that both Tom and Della were released from the hospital and were back at their house. He told me that later that night we would drive over to the Hawkins house and give them some updates on our progress. No sooner did I sit down at my desk, and in walked Sheriff's Office Investigator Lt. Dale Winston and partner. They sat at my desk. Dale opened a file folder,

“Here's your man,” Dale said, with a smile. He laid the file down and spun it right side up for me. It was a file on Ronald Wren. A mug shot and miscellaneous arrest records from out of state, were stapled into it.

“Bubba? I arrested Ronald last night in Dallas,” I told him.

He sat there sort of shocked. He exchanged glances with his partner.

“Goood!” he said. “Tell ya' anything?”

“He confessed.” I answered.

“Gooood.”

We sat there and looked at each other. I think he wanted a copy of the confession? Honestly, I just don't know what was going on or what he expected? Did he think I was lost, or stuck or something? Coming in here almost a week later with this thin file?

Well, okay….do you need this?” he said while standing up.

“Oh...no, Dale. I have …a file….ahhh, here.”

“Well, if you need any help, give us a holler,” he said and they left.

I can only assume he was ordered by the sheriff to help solve the case and he was obligated to do something?

“Let's go!” Howard shouted to me and we left for the Hawkin's house.

This was the first of a number of sit-downs with Hawkins and honestly I found them all to be a bit uncomfortable. Mostly because Della insisted on “helping me” with her psychic abilities. But these times they did not cost me a ten bucks and a quarter each time like my first 'biker visit." She would often go on and on about the locations of the gold bars. She “felt” they were here. She “knew” they were there, and I was supposed to jump right up, disregard all laws, break and barge into some location and find the bars, or one bar. Carl Wren was in Canada. Next, Italy. If she was so damn good, why didn't predict her robbery and who the suspects were.

Ever see these psychic shows on TV at night? The “readers?” The host gets a message from dead Greg and tells his family thanks for all the pizzas, or “go ahead and buy the new house. Uncle Johnny would be proud.” What a connection? What a WASTED connection! Why aren't we solving some murders with this magic connection? Skip the pizza? Why isn't a ghost telling the host who killed Kennedy? Why aren't we contacting dead girls left on the roadside to tell us their grisly stories? WHY! They say these hosts are like magicians who work the crowd methodically to hone in info. I don't know.

The next few days, interspersed with other pending and new cases, I chiseled away on the loose ends and report writing. I got the cases filed, arrest warrants and FBI interstate requests done. I walked downstairs to the dispatchers and asked that Carl Wren be listed on the NCIC as a wanted man for aggravated robbery. There was nothing left but the ugly tedious business of chasing a guy across the United States…by proxy. I called the police stations of the all local areas we knew Carl would visit. Grayson Caine alerted the FBI Fugitive Task Force (my best bet in finding him) and I started cold-calling any and all relatives, friends and associates, anyone…to get a tip or a handle on where this sombitch might be.

Almost a year passed…I got a phone call one afternoon.

“My name is Troopah' Emory of the Pennsylvania State Police, “ he told me. “ I have some news. I don't know if I fucked something up or what here? I worked a traffic accident on the highway this morning. A woman named Linda Patterson. She hit a car on the turnpike. I had to collect, you know…the information and there was a guy in the passenger seat of her car. I got his name for the report. Finished the report. This afternoon I am closing out my paperwork and running the VIN and names on the computah' and I got a ‘wants and warrants' hit on the passenger in Linda's car. I let the guy get away!”

“Whats his name?” I asked anxiously. It could be any number of suspects I was looking for at the time.

“Carl Wren.”

“Nice.” I collected all the information and asked for a copy of the accident reports to be faxed to me. Linda Patterson lived in central PA, in what appeared to be a house by the nature of the address. Carl gave another address. False, I'll bet.

I called Grayson Caine who then forwarded it all to the Scranton FBI office. But, I didn't stop there. I called some of the local police agencies and one local patrol sergeant told me,

“I know that neighbahood'. Raymond Pobelski lives there. Yeah! Raymond is a state police investigator. He lives right there.”

I made several more calls, then got Raymond Pobelski at one of the state police barricks.

“I know this Linda Patterson. She's a real lookah'. A babe. I know this house. There is a new guy liven' with her now. Flashy. Black, dyed-hair all greased back. He has a red convertible. Cars always there at night.”

THAT…was surely Mister Carl Wren. I faxed him photos and the case. He called back.

“That's him! I will catch this mother-fucker for you. I see him all the time. He's just down the street from me.”

And, within 48 hours I heard back from a breathless Raymond.

“I saw him this morning by his car in Linda's driveway. I stopped, got out and walked up to him. He froze at first, then dropped what held in his hands , turned and ran into the woods and up the mountain…”

“Up the…mountain…?” I interrupted.

“Yeah. We live by a mountain. It's a big mountain.”

“Did you get him?”

“No. We have instigated a massive manhunt on the mountain. Dogs. Helicopters. We've got the state police and local police out. TV news. Everything.”

This was turning into a Humphrey Bogart movie! You know what flashed through my mind don't you. CAN I GET UP THERE! Can I possibly get up there and be a part of this?

“He can't last long. He has no jacket on and its really cold here. And the mountain is half-covered in snow. We'll get him or he'll freeze to death.”

“I'll settle for either way.” I told him. “Keep me posted.”

I sat back and imagined Vegas hotshot Carl Wren struggling through the snow on a PA mountain. The barking dogs. The thrush of chopper blades. I walked into Howard Kelly's office and told him the news. We both laughed out loud.

I was real lucky to find state investigator, Raymond Pobelski. Good thing Linda was a “lookah',” else Raymond might have overlooked his fugitive neighbor. Detectives can make their own luck sometimes. But luck counts. We had all kinds of names for it. The “Jazz.” Howard Kelly called it… “shaken' the trees.” Whatever the nickname, usually lazy detectives or those without a “detective's heart” didn't seem to have much jazz or luck. I told new detectives I would teach at the regional police academies, “call, call, and call again. Ask and ask. Push. And before you close a case, think of one or two more radical ideas for solutions and try them out too.” Squeeze the case dry. Dry! Then you have jazz or luck…sometimes.

Years later, on an episode of the Sopranos on HBO, Big Tony was visiting a fellow mobster and the police raided the house. Tony escaped into the snow and woods and for the better part of the episode, struggled to get home through the woodsy parts of New Jersey. I immediately thought of Carl Wren on the mountain and still do every time I see the rerun.

Unlike Tony Soprano, Carl Wren was found near dead on the mountain in just about 2 days of searching. We extradited him back to Texas. We convicted both he and his son a year later, but both had some kind of deal with the Feds, I am not at liberty to discuss. All the dangerous parties to the deal are long dead now anyway, even Carl.

The Gold bullion? Las Vegas Organized Crime office told me that there was loose talk of gold bullion on their streets. A payoff of some kind. They did hear talk that the gold bars were immediately melted down, reshaped and sold. Gone.

Yet for the next few years, Della Hawkins would call me frequently and just pester me about her psychic feelings about where a bar or two of the gold was. I tried to be polite but it was wearing on me. I would listen and explain why I couldn't kick in a stranger's door without a warrant and get her gold, just on her voodoo word. I would also add each time, “hey, I'm taking a big trip! Guess where?” She never knew what the hell I was talking about. But she kept my $10.25.

The Vegas gamblers got took by Carl who raised the debt price and kept the money. Carl got took by the mob who found out about the price fixing. Tom and Della got took by Carl and Ronald, who got took down by me and wheeled and dealed by the Feds, who took down some mobsters. Then Tom got "took", dying of old age first, a few short years later. Then the big "they" from above, the wispy folks that Della consulted with, took Della. Do you suppose she is now collecting etheral money and connecting dead people with living people this time? A new, reverse take?

Me? I'm out a lot of time, worry, sweat and ten bucks and two bits. Frankly, I think we all got snookered by a con. I can't tell when it started and I don't know when it all will end, but its still just about who gives and who takes...and the big take wins.

Adios, Amigos

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22 June 2008: The Strange Case of the Madame Psychic - Part 5: The Night Of the Corleone Pizzeria

I marched into Russell Lewis's museum of crime in the stone room basement of the police headquarters. He was busy as usual, processing and moving evidence around. All the evidence of the Hawkins robbery case surrounded him.

“You know the fingerprint-on-tape idea you mentioned?” he said to me over his lab-smocked shoulder. “Look here. I got something.”

Sure enough, Russell had lifted fingerprints from masking tape, just like in those wacky science fiction books!

“Wow! Workable?”

“There's enough points there for a match up,” Russell said. “It was tricky. I had to shape the tape. Fold it. Unfold it.”

Prints from the crime scene. Cool. Fingerprints identification "points" consist of bifurcations, ending ridges, dots, ridges and islands. A single rolled fingerprint may have as many as 100 or more identification points that can be used for identification purposes. Whew! Fingerprint class is now DIS-missed!

“Get this," he continued. “Rolling loose on the back floorboard of the rental car was a MacDonald's coffee cup. Look what I found.” He had the cardboard cup upside down and it tottering on a pencil. I could see the developed fingerprint on the cup.

“Ha! Different than on the tape?” I asked. I pictured Carl or Ronald mindlessly tossing the empty cup over their shoulder into the back seat. You might think this was careless, or stupid, but they probably assumed we would never connect the random rental car to the specific crime. What's a loose, used coffee cup in the back of a fleet of rental cars? And frankly, prior to me hearing the breaking news about the first masking-tape, fingerprint lifting? No one had done it before. Russel Lewis could well have been the second or third forensics guy to do it.

“Different. And look at this,” he handed me a sales receipt. “ From the back floorboard too. No prints on it.”

I looked at it. It was from one of our K-Mart stores. Several items were purchased. An item from the “sports category” and one listed as “household.” I took the slip and laid it on Russell's copy machine. Enlarged the setting. Hit the print button. A giant version scrolled out.

“I'll bet the sports deal is a ball bat and the household deal is tape,” I said. “I got Grayson Caine of the FBI in on this, this morning. He is going to get the Wren father and son fingerprints over-nighted to us. The albino son is wanted right now in Pennsylvania for beating and robbing a man, with of all things, a baseball bat.”

“So we will have prints here tomorrow?” Russell smiled.

“Yup,” I said.

You could get faxed prints pretty easily back then, but they usually weren't any good for comparison. Couldn't trust the quality. You needed a real good copy of a fingerprint card to work with and that almost always meant multi-day, land mail time and then “personnel” lag-time. By personnel lag-time I mean as in someone finding the cards, pulling the cards, copying the cards and mailing them out. How many, many times I've had to call and hassle some dunderhead, civilian clerk to get prints in the mail to us. Hundreds of times maybe. Two ways to speed that up and put the fear of God in the lazy and the uncaring? The Texas Rangers and the FBI

“Going to K-Mart? Russell asked as I left.

“Aaaa-ttention K-Mart Shoppers!” I shouted.

At K-Mart I sat in the manager's office and showed her my gigantor version of the sales receipt. She consulted with several thick books of folded, continuous printout sheets. All products now had these new scan code...things! This new scanning thingamajig that recorded each item purchased was just amazing. How did they do it? Those red lines wrapping around a can of soup or a hammer? And, whatever you bought was also typed right on the receipt! But you needed computers and scanners everywhere to do this. They told us back then that at some point in the near future, every home would have a computer. What in the world for? Why would I need a computer in my house? To run one of those robot maids of the future like Rosie in the Jetsons? All I needed was an adding machine.

“This number here is a baseball bat. This other number is duct tape,” the manager told me. "This number here is the cash register and here is the time of purchase. Lets go up there and see whose working now.”

“Lets,” I added.

We weaved our way through the store to the cash registers. After a conference with some of the cashiers, she managed to determine who was working the register at the time of the transaction. A hefty woman with her hair erected up into a frozen whirlwind looked at the copy of the receipt and then fanned herself with the paper. She squinted at me and asked,

“Was this guy an albino?”

As I said before, it must suck to be an albino criminal.

I didn't answer that. Couldn't. Shouldn't. Instead I said, “I will come back tomorrow or the day after with a photo-line-up and we'll see if you can pick the man out.” I knew it would be hard to get a photo line-up of albinos together, but I would have to try. Thats why I get paid the big bucks. “Much thanks folks.”

Back at the police station, Dotty Wren was waiting for me in the CID lobby. We sat at my desk and I spent about two hours getting a detailed statement. Times. Places. Motives. Whereabouts. One new lead developed,

“Carl's ex-wife is a waitress at Laurals Restaurant in Dallas,” Dotty said.

“The Laurals? That's a mob hangout.” I added. If Dallas has any kind of northeastern blend of mobsters - not the 'Cowboy Mafia' mind you who would rather be at beer and steakhouse - Laurels Italian Restaurant was where they would periodically hang out. (It mysteriously burned down in about 2004. Baddabing-badda-boom!)

“She has worked there for twenty years. Carl wouldn't dare darken the door, afraid that she would have him killed if he showed up. But Ronald? He's there all the time.”

“You think he's still going?”

“Yeah! He eats there for free. I know he went there many nights just this last month since they've been back.”

After Dotty left, I called Grayson with this Ronald and Laurel news. The FB-One always likes to hear about organized crime.

“Okay,” Grayson said, “We have confirmed he has an aggravated robbery warrant from Philadelphia. I'm going to watch it tonight, Hock.”

Which I thought was fast and great. “Well, I am stuck up on evening shift up tonight. But I'll get down there tomorrow night then.” I was sure Howard Kelly would agree.

“Okay, you and I will set a stakeout tomorrow night and maybe I can squeeze some more agents on this. I think I can get a week's stakeout on this, especially after what I found out from Vegas.”

“Whatcha' find out?”

“These are some bad boys and they are playing around with the Vegas mob. The Vegas office needs an informant, and either Carl or Ronald could be it. I am supposed to find out more tomorrow in a conference call and will fill you in tomorrow night.”

We hung up. He's saddled up for tonight! I sure did like working with Grayson Caine.

That first night passed. No Ronald. He called me at home while I was watching Johnny Carson, about midnight, to say the well was dry.

The next night I, Grayson and another agent watched the restaurant's front doors. Caine and sat I in a hidey-hole, dark, parking spot up a treed street from the restaurant. Caine filled me on the history of the Wren clan he'd gathered from his colleagues,

“The Vegas office says that Carl Wren was working as a collection man for some gamblers. The gamblers were 'connected' to Chicago,” he said. “Wren collected some money one time, and he asked some poor schmoe for more than the debt, and then Wren kept the difference. Somehow this word got out. The gamblers suspected Wren might have done this a few times to their clients. They presented Wren with a bill. A bill that included a punishment penalty with interest.”

“With interest. So Wren needed a robbery to pay them off, and with gold bars to boot,” I said.

“His kid is a punk. A loose cannon. A chip off the old Dad's block. He has helped the dad beat up a few people in Vegas. Very violent. No charges filed because they were mob debts. But he robbed an old man in a Philadelphia hotel as part of high-dollar robbery. Beat him bad with a bat. It was well planned. He had an accomplice. We could assume it was his father.”

That night passed. No Ronald.

The next night I was stuck working inside my city again on another case. Grayson Caine and a few agents were in place by the restaurant. About 8:30 pm my desk phone rang.

“He's here,” Grayson told me.

“Damn!” I cussed. I am in the wrong place at the right time.

“He just walked into the restaurant. We spotted his car and well, Hock…we'd rather arrest him outside and after his dinner, than rush inside and make a big scene inside the “Corleane Pizzeria.”

That was my cue. “I can be down there in 30 minutes. If he comes out? Take em' him down. If not? I can be done there in 30 minutes.”

I raced down the stairs, across the lot and into my car, busted through town and broke the sound barrier on the interstate. Then across north Dallas, pounding the wheel at every silly red light. I pulled up behind Grayson's car in about 40 minutes or so. I probably had a nosebleed.

We kicked over a plan or two, but this wasn't the D-Day Invasion. It's just that the punk could be armed. Grayson had called for two more agents from downtown and they were already in place at either end of the street. Within 20 minutes the doors of Laurel's opened and for the first time, I laid eyes on our albino prey. He was wearing a thick jacket, which could conceal knives and guns.

“Subject's coming out,” Grayson spoke into his car mike.

We started down the street on foot, but Ronald stopped on the walkway, reached into his pocket and made for a pay phone booth, not his car. He got in the booth and started using the phone.

I bolted for the booth with Grayson right behind me. We ran up to his rear and he never saw us. I pulled my .45 out and with my left hand shoved the phone booth collapsible door hard. It opened, hitting him aside.

Ronald was shocked. I pointed my gun right at his head, elevating his shock level to awe.

“I heard you were a real bad boy,” I told him. “Well…be bad now.” And this guy was about a half an ounce of trigger pull away from splatter city.

Grayson had his gun out in one hand and his badge in the other. The kid was all giant-eyed looking at us. Gray said calmly and with a growl,

“FBI. If you pull so much as a toothpick out of your pocket, we'll blow your brains all over this fucking phone booth.”

He dropped the phone and lifted his hands. Palms up. All the agents converged, and Ronald Wren, AKA Charles Huxley, was heretofore, under arrest.

I always like working with Grayson Caine… and we were far from being done...

Part 6 coming soon…

Adios, Amigos

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18 June 2008: The Strange Case of the Madame Psychic - Part 4: He Loves Only Gold

I stood by the apartment door with my .45 in my hand, down beside my thigh. In my left hand was my badge. Howard stood on the other side of the door. The lights were out in Dottie Wren's apartment for a good 30 minutes by then. It is always good to get after felons late at night while they were asleep or in their Ho Chi Minh flip-flops and Donald Duck pajamas.

I rapped on the door with my left hand, several sets worth and louder each time.

“Dotty!” I called out.

The door opened a crack, just enough to see a woman's eye. It scanned my badge.

“Police,” I said in a whisper and barged in, gun up. The door knocked her back and Howard followed, his gun up.

“Looking for Carl,” I said over my shoulder, dashing for the bedroom. Clean. Bathroom. Clean. The apartment was small and a quick search. No Carl.

Dotty stood there in her nightgown.

“Seen Carl lately?” Howard asked, holstering his pistol.

“Carl…” she muttered, shaking her head. “Yes. What has he done?”

“We think he and his son have beat up and robbed Della and Tom Hawkins tonight?”

Dotty sat down on a chair. She looked genuinely sad as well as shocked.

“How bad?”

“Bad,” Howard said. “They are in the hospital. Tom might not make it. One of them had a baseball bat.”

“On no,” she said.

“Yes. He and Ronald were have been around. They stayed here for a few days. In from Vegas.”

“Ronald an albino?” I asked. Howard and I sat down with her in the living room.

“Yes, he is not my son, but I raised him for awhile. He's Carl's son from another marriage.

I asked five critical questions in between this “get-to-know-you/we're-here-to-help session:

Question 1: “Where have they been?”

Question 2: “Why were they here?”

Question 3: “Where are they going?”

Question 4: “Did they use your Mustang?”

Question 5: “Tell us EVERYTHING you know about Carl and Ronald.”

In Toto, Dotty Wren said that her ex-husband Carl and step-son arrived on her doorstep about four weeks earlier, full of plans and business schemes. She reluctantly let them stay with her for a brief time; even let them borrow her car. She said that they also rented cars when Dotty needed hers. She swore she LOVED Della and would never do anything to hurt her, promising to report to Della's hospital room the next day. I asked her for her recent telephone bills. She retrieved them from the kitchen and I noted that there were some phone calls to Las Vegas. I wrote them on my small, pocket notebook. The very latest calls were coming on the next pending bill. I made a mental note to try and get those phone call numbers a.s.a.p. from the Ma Bell, Otherwise, no luggage. No left over possessions. She gave us birthdays and other important ID info. Both had been in jail in Nevada and Carl in Virginia and New Jersey. Ronald's mother lived somewhere in Dallas, but she despised Carl, and Dotty was sure the mother would have nothing to do with Carl. The son? Yes. She thought they'd been in Las Vegas. She did not know exactly what they were up to, and did not know where they going. And yes, Carl knew that Della collected gold bullion for mnay years. She received a lot of gold in her "profession" and would regurlarly smelt into bars when she could. Then she and Tom would also buy bars of it.

She told us that Carl and Ronald were always in trouble, but she guessed they were in some kind of new trouble for robbing people in Las Vegas. They needed money. And she said she was, “…worried that they were wanted by the law and the police would eventually come after me."

Howard nodded with a single side jerk of his jaw and a half-sneer. I knew what it meant so I spoke up for him in case she wasn't clear.

“Yup. Here we are.”

There was a lot to do and a lot more to learn. I asked Dotty to stop by the police station in the next afternoon after seeing Della and I would take a written statement on all this and more, upon which she promised. She was, after all, involved and had to officially clear her name with a signed statement.

When we got back to our headquarters it was nearly 3 am. We never went in. We called it a night. Howard just dropped me off by my detective car and we went our separate ways. Once at home, I tiptoed down the bedroom hallway, avoiding all the creaks and groans of the wooden floor, as I was an expert on their precise positions and tenor, so as to not awake the queen bee. I collapsed in bed and passed out.

The next morning, foggy-headed and baggy-eyed, I showed up about ten a.m. and the TV and radio news was abuzz about the Persian with the machine gun shooting up the disco the night before. THAT alone was depressing that we were so close and yet missed it, along with our suspects. But, Good Golly Miss Molly! it was like Christmas morning at my desk, thanks to Detective Santa Larry Brearley Claus. I sat and read his reports and looked over the poloroids he took. He'd hit a grand slam last night while Howard and I were sitting in the dark on our thumbs watching a dead lead Mustang.

After we left for parts south last night, Brearley called all the car rental businesses in town and found one that remembered renting a four-door Dodge to an albino. The albino must have used false identification because the name was Charles Huxley. Brearly had the idea that the robbery duo must have had another car to first bring the albino to the rental shop. He figured they dumped the rented robbery car after the robbery and left the city in the original car. Armed with this hunch, Brearley and another detective Ron Nimsom, started driving the city streets looking at parked cars on the streets and businesses between the Hawkins house and the interstate. He asked for help from the patrol cars. Thousands of streets. He found the Dodge! He found it! And, all within a few hours. Ironically, the car was parked not far from the car rental business on the Ramada Inn Parking lot. Larry impounded the car. That next morning, Russell Lewis was collecting some trash items from the car and fingerprinting them and it.

You know what? Its gotta' suck to be a albino criminal.

But wait, it gets even better. Brearley then called Love Field and DFW airports in Dallas and made a run at the airlines and lists of names of people flying to Las Vegas that night. On the list? Carl Wren flew to Vegas about two hours after the robbery. Not Ronald Wren or his alias - Charles Huxley. Just Carl alone. Probably with a suitcase of gold bullion?

Carl Wren had left the state. Hmmmm. Flight, as in interstate flight. I sat back in my chair and smiled. This case was still all circumstantial, mind you. I still had to absolutely place these two as the two masked men who actually committed the robbery. But Wren fleeing the state at that timely post-robbery moment helps the case. A nail in the proverbial coffin. And – it might qualify for a federal, interstate flight charge. Interstate flight means I could get the FBI involved and have tens, if not hundreds of agents, working on the arrests. But we'd need an arrest warrant and solid probable cause. Plus, our district attorney would have to make the flight investigation request in an official letter to the SAC (special agent in charge) of the Dallas office.

The FBI. We had lots of nicknames for the FBI. F.B.-One. Friendly, But Ignorant. But its usually a pleasure working the agents. I had however, no love lost with some of their professional profilers who had a penchant to be consulted on a crime, give you nothing much to work with at all, then when you cleared the case, they back-wormed their way into speeches and credits for the investigation.

Here's an example. One homicide detective told me he'd had a horrific murder of which I'll spare you the details here. He consulted the infamous, yet at the time, budding, profiling unit. You've seen them glamorized in the Silence of the Lambs movie. The unit profiler gave him back the most generic info. White male. 16 to 28 years old. Had trouble with authority. Blah-blah-etc. Then this detective, through his own hard work solved the case. Years later this homicide detective attended a national murder and death investigation school and one of the speakers was this very profiler. The profiler presented several murder cases “he'd” worked on in his lecture and one was this horrific case! Crime scene, statements, photos and everything. He'd made it inadvertently sound like he had figured out everything but predict the killer's middle name. Worse, the actual investigator's name was never mentioned in the presentation. It's real easy to summarize a closed case, and back-pad some profile conclusions into it. This type of thing was not an isolated incident back then. I trust that is not going on now.

Many of the regular FBI field agents were well-meaning lawyers and accountants but with very little street grit and creds. Director J. Edgar Hoover's predecessors, all thin-blooded and paranoid following the Watergate scandal, hired real clean-cut, milk-drinking, professionals who super-understood the law and deep bookkeeping, as is the nature of much of their white-collar crime work. But it soon became apparent that a certain…well… savvy was missing. The FBI then began hiring a small percentage of non-college grad, police veterans to kind of “man-up” the ranks, peppering them through the field offices. One such man in Dallas was a Grayson Caine.

Caine was an ex-big city, patrolman and detective from the mid-west, and was part of that city's new SWAT team. He was recruited in this “get-vet,” hiring program. We had worked some cases together and after teaming with Grayson Caine it was hard to settle for any other FBI agent in our region when the pushen' came to shoven.' He'd kick an ass and pull a gun in a New York minute, while other men would stand stuttering in a pool of their own piss and indecision.

Armed robbery. Vegas. The Mafia. Gold Bullion. I needed multi-state records, fingerprints, documents from airlines, Vegas Organized Crime Unit Intel and I needed them all - FAST! If I got Grayson involved early in this, he could cut through this red tape like a G-Man, laser beam. If it all panned out, then we'd get the interstate flight cases up and running. I flipped through my rolodex and found Grayson Caine's card. Called him. He answered.

“Gray. I am working on something I think you might find interesting.”

“I'm all ears…” he said.

Adios, Amigos,

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

15 June 2008: The Strange Case of the Madame Psychic - Part 3 Purgatory PD

Howard and I planned to pow-wow back at the police station, minus the shadow I had inherited. That is thee Lt Dale Shadow. He and I left the hospital, but I still had to drive back to the Hawkins house and drop him off at his car. I tried to concentrate on the armed robbery during the drive, but couldn't because Dale would not shut up. Once back at the Hawkins museum, it was sealed up and I dropped him off by his car and partner.

“We'll work on some leads,” he had the gall to shout to me! If he had leads? I'd sure like to know them. “See ya' tomorrow!” he finished as he got into his car. Tomorrow. My new partner.

I got to the station and met up with Howard, Russell and Larry Brearley on the CID offices. Howard had some teletypes in his hand.

“I have a gut feeling these guys might've used a rental car tonight for this," I said. "They sound like travelers. I mean who else do they know around here, but…”

“…Dotty Wren,” Howard finished for me. He lifted up the papers he held. He'd run her name on NCIC. “She lives in north Dallas. She drives Ford Mustang. Betcha' its white. We need to bust our little asses down there right now. I have them (dispatchers) searching on Carl Wren's name now but we might have to make some phone calls to Vegas and the FBI in the morning.” That we meant me, by the way. I would be expected to work a day and evening shift tomorrow. No extra pay. Maybe some comp time. And that was no problem.

“What can I do?” Brearley asked.

“Can you check the rental car companies and see if they rented a car to a Carl Wren or an Albino?” I asked him. “And what if they are flying to Vegas or up north out of Love Field or DFW airport?”

“I'm on it.” Larry said. Back in the early 1980s, there weren't that many car rentals businesses and less of them in our city. And when the police called them, they didn't freak out with all kinds of privacy concerns. They just coughed up any and all information willingly, on anything we asked. After all, “we was the PO-lice.” I miss those days and one thing more I miss, now that we are talking about it? Working with Howard Kelly on a hot crime with fresh, hot trail and making a plan at the station at am dark-thirty, either at the crime scene or at the police station, and hitting the streets with it. Lord, I miss that so. Around that same time period - that era - Howard and I were working a fresh killing in the a.m. hours one night and were scrambling to look up mug shots of our bad guy to see who he was. I found him and called out, “I got em!” yanking the mug from the stacks. We smiled at each other and well…we both knew, life just doesn't get any better than this. We caught the shooter that very night.

Detective Heaven? If there is a heaven? Some people say there's golf in heaven. Not for me. No. I'd like to work murders and robberies with some of my old friends in a heaven. I don't know how that would work out exactly, being that Heaven has no bad guys, we would assume? Maybe there is a working liaison with Hell or something? I don't know. Or a Hell Police Department maybe, staffed by agnostic, miscreants like me headquartered in Purgatory? Hell, somebody's gotta' do it!

Any-who…back to this case. The rental car people would help, but the airlines information would be different bucket of monkeys to wrestle. Back then, they did not have immediate information on hand of who was flying where. You pretty much had to call the desk worker at the very flight gate of some airlines to see who bought tickets and who checked it. Then, some airlines recorded the info, processed it, but only held that information for a short period of time. So, unless there were some extenuating circumstances? The window of opportunity to easily collect names and destinations was short. The last resort was asking them to perform a hideous hand search of paper trails, which they hated to do for a half-clue, guess or assumption. You pretty much had to ask the FBI to ask them to do it. Another job for me in the morning. I knew just who to call.

Howard and I jumped in his pick up truck, forgoing our easily identified, detective cars, and we high-tailed it down Interstate I35 and then to Highway 635, a major, looping road around the city of Dallas. All we had for a radio was Howard's CB radio on his truck dashboard and a police handset radio with the range of a cheap water pistol. We were effectively disconnected from any authorities except for CB trunken' “good buddies” like “Lightening Rod Jack” or any other "handle" we might get on a channel. Imagine... "Breaker, Breaker good buddy...hate to break up your convoy, Rubber Ducky, but can you call the Dallas Police department and send us Smokies?"

We found the apartment complex of Dotty Wren off of 635. Sure enough, the white Mustang was on the lot. Howard backed off of it and I wandered up to the stang' with a flashlight, keeping an eye on Dotty's apartment windows. I looked inside the car and saw nothing suspicious.

“See anything?” Howard asked as I climbed back into his tricked-out, Chevy truck.

“Nope. Clean.”

We drove back out of the complex and parked on a strip center parking lot across the street, at a vantage point where we could see both Dotty's apartment door and the Mustang.

“Let's sit on this for awhile and see what happens. After a bit? Then we'll hit that apartment,” Howard said.

(Note- Little did we know that very night, in the shopping center behind us, a disgruntled “Persian” male stomped out of a disco, went to his car, got a machine gun and re-entered the disco. He shot half a dozen people. Survivors jumped him. All while we sat there down the street, oblivious. We didn't know something was up until we saw the responding Dallas units and ambulances drive past us. And still, we didn't get the whole story until we read the newspapers the next day!)

Part 4 coming soon...

Adios, Amigos,

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

12 June, 2008: Killshot! The Knife Duel

(this comes form my Military Knife Combat book and history course)

If and when two participants are actually forced to engage in a knife-versus-knife duel, the basic physical construct of the battle is as follows, in a give-and-take series progression for study purposes.

Construct 1: Footwork/environment
Construct 2: Strikes
Construct 3: Blocks
Construct 4: Counters to Common Blocks
Construct 5: Counters to defeat the counters to common blocks - Strikes and Blocks
Construct 6: Counters to - and so on...

The Combat Action Badge (or CAB ) is a military badge worn in the US Army. The emblem features both a bayonet and a old-school grenade. The CAB may be awarded to any US Army soldier after the date of September 18, 2001 performing duties in an area where hostile fire pay or imminent danger pay is authorized, who is personally present and actively engaging or being engaged by the enemy. The fixed-blade, combat knife will always represent the fiercest of close quarter combat. Any troop should be be proud to wear this symbolic, bad-boy and deserves our upmost acknowledgement.

Construct 1: Evade/Invade: The Principles of Footwork and Footwork/environment
There are three participants in a two-party face-off. You. Him. The “room...” the arena, or the battleground. This is the “where” of the who, what, where, when, how and why survival questions. Your ability to stand ground, move or retreat is dependent upon the the layout and conditions of your location. It is wise to exploit the layout and conditions. The body evades with ducks, dodges often with minimum-to-no footwork. Training for this construct covers sport/kick-boxing body maneuvers and footwork, obstacle course runs and windsprints. knife sparring.

Construct 2: Strikes:

Strike Set 1- The knife strikes four ways. The tip. The edge. The flat of the blade. The pommel. The knife slashes or stabs in a saber or reverse grip.

Strike Set 2 - The support, empty hand strikes with the hand forearm, elbow, shoulder. The support legs kick with the foot, shin, knee.

Strike Set 3 - The empty hand may grab a support weapon and strike and block with it.

Strike Set 4 - The science of Fakes and feints. Feint is a French term that entered English language from the sport of fencing. Feints are maneuvers designed to distract or mislead, done by giving the impression that a certain maneuver will take place, while in fact another, or perhaps even none will. In military tactics there are two types of feints: feint attacks and feint retreats.
All weapon and empty hand attacks invade in power lunges, pumps, hook angles or thrusting angles.

Training for this construct covers solo command and mastery of all strikes, hitting targets for power and accuracy and knife sparring.

Construct 3: Blocks:
Block Set 1 - The knife and weapon-bearing limb blocks incoming attacks
Block Set 2 - The empty or other limb blocks incoming attacks

Training for this construct covers all blocking movements and skill drills.

Construct 4: Counters to Common Blocks "CCB"
Counter common blocks three ways:
CCB 1 - Cut or hurt the blocking limb
CCB 2 - Re-direct your attack on another line of attackCCB 3 - Invading hands-use your hand and forearm to execute "the Four Ps." Pinning, Passing, Pulling or Pushing on the blocking limb to clear a path for a major or best target. Not the closest target, the best target.

Training for this construct covers the partner drills of strike and block, then countering the block.

Construct 5: Counters to defeat the counters to common blocks - Strikes and blocks - and so on.
Train them again.

Construct 6: Counters to - Train them all again.

(The Madame Psychic Robbery Story part 3 continues here soon...)

Adios, Amigos,

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

7 June 2008: The Stange Case of the Madame Psychic Part Two - The White Albino in the White Mustang.

That night of the robbery, I had just arrested a burglar on an arrest warrant and was busy booking him into the city jail, when I got the phone call from the front desk that I was needed ASAP across town at an armed robbery crime scene at a residence. I'd wanted to interrogate the burglary suspect, but this new duty called instead.

By the time I got over there, it was quite a crime scene at that. Many patrol and detective cars were outside on the street. The house was a mess, and by a mess I mean a real mess. Not only had the Madame maintained her massive collection of exotic and weird stuff, much of it was busted up and strewn all over the place. And the house was full of uniformed patrolmen, and detectives traipsing around to no good end in my opinion. Even several of the county sheriff's office investigators were there? It might seem crazy but back then, the common cop shop was at the cusp of new, crime scene advancements. Mandates for pristine crime scenes for evidence collection had not really immigrated successfully across the squad rooms of America yet. Should have. But just hadn't. One of the common problems back then was how to diplomatically keep all unnecessary personnel (that means supervisors for one, and "blue"-rubber-neckers ) out of crimes scenes.

I spotted Sgt. Howard Kelly in the kitchen and he called me over.

“Hock, do you know Tom and Della Hawkins?” he asked.

“Know of them,” I answered, not wanted to slow the conversation down with a silly psychic story from my past.

“Della is a psychic. Famous,” Howard told me. “She has rich clients from all over the world.”

A county detective walked up with a big grin, replete in a white, snap button shirt, bolo tie, western hat and vest, and a Texas Ranger-like gun belt. He nosed right into our conversation. Nothing against this garb, as I've been know to wear pieces of this get-up myself. I'm just reporting the facts.

“Tonight,” Howard continued, ignoring the the detective, “two men in masks got in the house, jumped Ted and Della. Beat em'. Tied them up and beat them some more. Wrapped them up with masking tape and duct tape. They got them to admit where all there money and gold was.”

“Jewelry?” I asked.

“Bullion,” Howard answered. “Bars of gold.”

“Where are they now?”

“They are at the hospital. Tom is damn near dead. Della's in better shape.”

“Investigator LT. Dale Winston,” the county detective interrupted us, shaking my hand. “Della was a big supporter of the Sheriff and if there is anything we can do?”

I nodded to him.

“Russell Lewis is in the bedroom now,” Howard continued with a thumb over his shoulder. I walked that way, followed closely by Dale Winston and his partner, another county detective. Russell was bathed in the flashing, white lights of a photo session. The room was also a mess and I saw a mummy's amount of duct tape on the floor. I kneeled down and knocked the tape around with my writing pen,

“You know Russell, I read in a police journal the other day that a case was made somewhere in Missouri by getting fingerprints off of duct tape. Even the sticky side.”

There were new advancements in fingerprint detection back then by the use of glue, or superglue fumes. If you put your evidence inside a sealed case, (usually a fish tank) and hide and watch – the fumes produced hands-free, dust-free fingerprints. The discovery was made by mistake by some small town cop.

“You think a suspect may have touched something around hers?” Russell replied sarcastically, shaking his head. Any part of the house could have been touched by the bad guys or the near dozen of EMTs, cops and detectives parading around.

“I guess I'd better get to the hospital and interview the Hawkins,” I told him. Then we might isolate a few more printable places.”

“Off to the hospital,” I told Howard Kelly as I passed him in the hall. I saw another evening shift detective Larry Brearley there now. A dozen? Make that 13.

“I'll go with ya',” Kelly said.

“Me too,” Dale Wilson counted himself in. Dale insisted on riding with me and I was subjected to a 15-minute dissertation on how police agencies should work together and be all kinds of real friendly-like.

The one-way conversation ended at Flow Hospital, where nurses told us both Della and Tom were placed in separate rooms, as Tom, in his 80s was in horrible condition. While he was “still around,” I figured I'd better talk with him, pronto. When I got there, I found a man in the room who identified himself as Tom's son. Tom was as still as corpse. Eyes closed. His face and arms were visible above the beds covers, and though treated and bandaged, I could see the seriousness of the wounds on an old gentlemen like this.

I badged the son and bent down to Tom's face,

“Tom?”

“Yup?” he mumbled, his eyes still closed.

“Tom, I'm Hock, a detective with the city police department…”

“Hi, Hock.”

“I gotta' ask you a few questions.”

“I know you do.”

And in a low, gaspy whisper, Tom told me the story, helped by the son, and it went like this…

…Della Hawkins had an employee a number of years earlier, more like a maid or an assistant, named Dotty Wren. Dotty and Della were close. Dotty married a guy from up north named Carl Wren and it was trouble from the start. Carl Wren had been married many times and stayed in trouble with the law. Arrested for scams, robberies and muscle for debt collectors, eventually Dotty divorced Car, but not after much cost and emotional heartache. Della and Tom had met Carl Wren several times through the marriage.

Three weeks earlier, in a total surprise and after 14 years, Carl Wren showed up at the Hawkins house for a social visit! Carl had lots of business deals in the works and he really needed Della's psychic advice. Carl came in alone, but Tom said a man waited in a parked car outside.

“I didn't see him, But Della said she saw him out there.” Toms whispered. “A figure of a man. I'll tell ya' what Carl really wanted. To case our house, the son of a bitch. Della talked with him that night. Hell, I can't stand the summa-bitch. Do you know he robs and beats up people for the mafia in Las Vegas?”

Della set an appointment for Carl Wren for that very night. And when the doorbell rang, Tom answered the front door and saw a strange car out on the street. Then two men in masks jumped in the doorway and hit him. He fell. They kicked him and one ran through the house looking for Della.

“I heard his voice and one of them sounded like Carl Wren.”

Sounded like Carl, wasn't a, “it was Carl” in court.

“Was he about the same size and shape as a robber? "

“I guess.”

I guess wasn't an “ID” in court.

“What kind of car was on the street?”

“It was a four-door sedan. It wasn't the same car Carl had the first time he visited."

This was adding up to damn near a bunch of circumstantial nothing.

“Different cars,” I repeated. I noticed that Lt Dale was beside me taking notes. He was taking this friendly agency thing pretty far. Wondered if I'd get those notes, or would they be helping me in his file cabinet?

“Tom, you get some rest,” I said. “I'm gonna' talk to Della.”

Dale and I walked out and down the hall to Della's room, where Sgt Kelly and now the Denton S.O. Detective Captain, “Tracker” Ron Douglas was present. Della was sitting up in bed, bruised, but much better than Tom.

“I'll tell you who did this! That robben' bastard Carl Wren and his son!” she yelled.

“His son?” I asked.

“When they came the two weeks ago? His Albino son was sitting in the car outside waiting for him. He never came in that night, that thieving little fuck. He use to steal things from me when he was a kid, whenever his mother was over”

“Al...bino?”

“That's right. White-skinned, curly, white hair like a Brillo pad. Who are you?” (so much for her psychic powers…and memory)

“That's Hock, Della,” Howard introduced. “He's gonna' be working the case.”

“And we'll help, Della” Lt. Dale chimed in, like a pet schoolboy.

“Hock's solved a number of big crimes for us,” Howard added, obviously a little peeved for the Dale proclamation of help and to sure up confidence in her eyes.

“When the…Albino son was in the car, waiting? What kind of car was that?” I asked Della.

“A white Mustang.”

A white albino in a white mustang…how about that?

Part 3 coming soon….

Okay! Okay! This is not a white Albino male and a white Mustang.

But this story does give me half an excuse to show a white, hot chick

and a white Mustang. Okay? Happy? I am.

Adios, Amigos,

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

1 June 2008: The Strange Case of the Madame Psychic: Part 1

It was 1972 in Stony Point, Texas. I was on a Harley with a chick on the back, whose name I now forget, but I do recall she had longer hair than I did. Which made me jealous. She had cajoled me into this ride into the countryside to meet with…a psychic.

Those that know me, know I am a natural-born skeptic. I am so skeptical? I am skeptical of my skepticism. But the girl was persuasive and as a younger man, I was easily persuaded by girls - which take heed all young men reading this, this not always such a good thing.

The psychic – a she - named here as “Della Hawkens,” entertained her customers right there at her Stony Point house by manifesting predictions and problem-solving on demand. The two-story house was set on a rocky and sparsely, treed rise of land northwest of Dallas. The immediate grounds and long front porch were chock full of artifacts and lawn goodies. Statues, globes, cones, wind chimes, benches, cheap, plug-in fountains. Even a tasteless punk like me could tell “gosch” when I saw it.

We parked and walked into the front room of the house, crammed with the same kind of, well...shit. You couldn't see the walls or the floor but for the collection of antiques and non-antique junk! Stuff peppered everywhere! Weird looking voodoo, magic stuff, interspersed by Christian crosses, pagan symbols and Jesus statues. I don't mind all that diversity, but jeez lady…pick a plan for Armageddon and run with it, will ya? Such peppering was a personality flaw to me, but after all, this was a popular psychic and henceforth, a little weird by nature don't you think? Popular? I could discern through this mess a wall of photos. Elvis. Nixon. Several governors of Texas. Johnny Cash. The wall of big names sitting or standing next to Della was impressive. The girl with the long hair clung on my arm, her boots heels chaffing with excitement as we perused the collection of celebrity photos. Come to think about it now, she was kinda' cute.

A wooden door opened and another excited woman, giddy-voiced and all teeth, emerged with thee Della Hawkins in a flowing smock following her. I guess the giddy girl got some giddy, psychic news?

Della was a short, stocky, white, women with dyed, bright-white/blonde hair brushed back and magic-marker eyebrows. “Next,” she drolled. My cue for me and mine to enter to the twilight zone. We took a seat before a large oriental desk in an insanely cluttered room. She introduced herself.

“I am Madame Della Hawkens,” she started. “I can help people and predict the future.” So on and so on. “We will start with $10 dollars.”

Now the running gig was you got a “reading” for $10 and you also had to produce a quarter coin from your pocket. You see the metal in the coin was a touchstone for her to hold and get mystical vibes and mojo from. You heard of the metal vibe schtick before? Right? Oh by the way, The “Madame” keeps the quarter too! Now ten bucks and 25 cents back then bought a lot of Lone Star beer and bar-b-cue, plus a few nights at Casey's Campground. Gas was 38 cents a gallon back then and a skinny feller like me could go a log way on Harley for a buck. But I coughed it up as entertainment for this long-haired, cute gal. And these ten-buck shots were how Hawkins continued her obvious addiction to this hoarding disorder.

She asked me a few questions with I replied with my thick, ‘Archie Bunker” New York yankee accent. She looked me over and I had transient written all over me. All the while, she dipped the quarter in Jerkins Lotion - a fourth dimensional conductor? - and rubbed the coin in her hands. The pitch is too impress you with some secret observations, then hook you into her amazingness, then predict something-er-other' that you will believe and maybe come back again. Soon! With another $10 and 25 cents, please! I hate to be such a killjoy, but bubba? That is how the psychic, cookie crumbles!

Next came the swami part. She told me I had just taken a trip. Well! No shit, Sherlock. And I would take another trip.” And that was about it. We left. Bye!

I quickly came to realize that the cute, long-haired girl was just interested in seeing if I would stay in Texas with her and what my “prospects” were. I considered myself immature and utterly prospect-less. But some women need to get outside confirmation from a Voodoo/Christian shaman to make these life-changing decisions. I never saw the cute, long-haired girl again. In fact, this would not be the only time that female psychics jacked with my so-called…love life. These sad and strange stories should appear in another kind of blog. But, though the princess left for good, I would indeed see the Grand Madame Della Hawkins again, despite my wishes! She never warned me that, "our paths would cross again - with blood!"

Now...fast forward about twelve years to the 1980s…

One Friday night, as a farily new police detective I was summoned - code red - to a private house in our city. Armed robbery. An elderly couple was almost beaten to death and robbed at gunpoint. Gold bullion was stolen. The woman of the house was the one and only Madame Della Hawkins! The robbers were a team from Las Vegas, connected with the mob. Patrol and detective supervisors were standing by the crime scene for the detective on call - me - to pass the whole mess off to - me. Lucky me.

“Where's a good psychic when you need one?”

Part two coming soon…

Adios, Amigos,

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Email Hock at Hock.Hochheim@sbcglobal.net

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