Cunningham radioed for backup and turned on his overhead flashers. The pickup accelerated quickly reaching speeds of ninety miles an hour as it approached the exit to State Highway 40. Cunningham blasted his siren in the faint hope that the driver hadn’t seen his flashers. The truck continued to gather speed.
As the truck hurtled toward the freeway exit, Amanda Bradshaw hollered, “What should I do? What should I do?” She had started to exit the interstate when Albert said, “Don’t get off. Stay on.” Amanda jerked the steering wheel left, trying to get back on the freeway, overcorrected, and sent the pickup catapulting off the roadway, down an embankment, rolling three times before it landed on its top.
Deputy Cunningham watched in horror. He saw the vehicle roll several times before it landed on its top in a cloud of dust. He jumped on the radio. “SC101, I’ve got a high speed rollover on the eastbound I-80 off-ramp to southbound Highway 40. I’ll need multiple ambulances, the fire department, and state patrol assistance.”
“Okay,” said the dispatcher. “Stand by.”
Cunningham pulled over on the freeway shoulder and hurriedly ran to the overturned truck. He quickly determined that nobody in the truck cab had been wearing seat belts. The driver’s chest appeared crushed by the steering column, the glassy eyes of the dead woman staring back at him. The male passenger had been ejected through the front windshield and Cunningham found his contorted torso some forty feet from the truck. There was no sound or sign of movement coming from the truck bed, either. Cunningham tried to open the canopy door, but it wouldn’t budge. “Can anybody hear me in there?” he shouted. No reply.
He could smell gasoline and realized that anybody trapped inside the truck was in imminent danger from a possible fire. A passing trucker stopped his eighteen-wheeler and produced a crow bar which he and Cunningham used to pry open the canopy door. Inside, they discovered the unconscious and badly broken bodies of Walter and Janine Bradshaw.
Cunningham surmised that they’d probably been tossed around the inside of the pickup like rag dolls. He was faced with a difficult decision, one that needed to be made immediately. If he didn’t remove the two individuals from the truck, he risked losing them in the event of a fire. If he did remove them, he risked killing them because of the strong likelihood of serious internal injuries. In the end, Cunningham, assisted by the trucker, lifted the bodies of Janine and Walter Bradshaw from the truck wreckage and carried them a short distance to safety. He detected a weak pulse from Walter, but nothing from Janine.
The Dixons and Joey Bradshaw drove until they reached Heber City. They rented rooms in two old motels nestled along the main drag and settled in to wait. Their concern grew when they repeatedly used the disposable cell phone and were unable to reach the other vehicle. It was Gordon and Joan Dixon who first heard the news about the Allred brothers. Minutes later, they heard the news of the high speed chase and the subsequent apprehension of the prophet. They called Joey into the motel room and gave him the news. After prayers, they held each other and cried. There was little else to do.
***
From the command post at the base of Little Cottonwood Canyon, we heard the frantic radio call, ‘Shots fired, officer down….’ A contingent of FBI agents and Salt Lake Police detectives jumped into two cars and raced to the scene of the Allred shooting. Robin Joiner had been placed in the back seat of an FBI car and didn’t hear the radio traffic. We decided not to tell her until after our interview. The grand compromise was that Kate and I would interview Joiner at FBI headquarters with an entourage of brass listening and watching from an adjoining room.
We scripted the interview while driving Kate’s Beamer to the FBI office. Joiner had complained about being hungry, so on our way in we stopped at a Wendy’s and picked up a burger, fries, and a strawberry shake. We fed her, had paramedics attend to her feet. After that, I advised her of her Miranda warnings and we turned on the tape.
We began at the beginning, asking Joiner several innocuous questions about her childhood, her teen years, and how she became acquainted with Joseph Bradshaw. She insisted that she had been trying to draw Joey away from the family for nearly two years. Joey, in turn, was trying to convince her to become his wife and join the family.
“He asked you to marry him. Is that it?” I asked.
“Yes, several times.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him I’d marry him if he left the family. He refused. He thought if he persisted long enough, I’d relent.”
“Did you understand that marrying Joey meant entering into a plural marriage?”
“We never spoke directly about it, but I know how it works. I know what they believe. They believe that a man must take at least three wives to reach the celestial kingdom. I would have ended up a first wife, and eventually, Joey would have taken additional wives. Those women would have become my sister wives. It was an arrangement I was unwilling to accept.”
When we got around to discussing the armored car robbery, I tip-toed into what I knew would be sensitive territory.
“Tell us how you came to be at the Super Target store on the morning of the robbery?”
She took a deep breath before answering. “I wasn’t supposed to be there at all, Amanda was.”
“What do you mean?”
“Amanda was supposed to be a lookout during the robbery. On the morning of the holdup, Amanda got sick—painful menstrual cramps combined with a hellish migraine. She couldn’t even get out of bed. Joey called and asked me to meet him.”
“Did you know what they were planning?”
She frowned. “Not until I met Joey that morning. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn’t listen. I even offered to run away with him if he would leave immediately, but he refused.”
“So you agreed to take Amanda’s place and serve as lookout during the robbery?”
She hesitated. “Yes.”
“Why did you agree to do that?”
The dam burst and tears began to flow. Kate pushed a box of Kleenex in front of her. “I’m not really sure,” she sniffled, dabbing at her eyes. “Joey promised that nobody would get hurt. I guess I believed him.”
“Do you think Joey intentionally lied to you, used you, maybe?” asked Kate.
“Used me, maybe. I’ve had a lot of time lately to think about things. In retrospect, I realize that I believed most of what Joey told me. It’s been difficult to accept the fact that I was never as important to him as the love and loyalty he felt toward his family, particularly his father.”
“The police report says that after the robbery, you came forward on your own. Why did you do that?”
“When I saw the carnage, I knew the right thing to do was turn myself in. That’s what I intended to do. But then I got scared. By then, I’d come forward and was giving a statement to one of the officers. I decided to play along as a witness.”
“Tell me something, Robin,” I said. “How did you ever expect to have a normal life with Joey? He and the family members are wanted fugitives. The authorities will hunt them until they’re caught.”
“I told Joey that, but he always said we’d start a new life in a safe place.”
Kate perked up. “A safe place. What did he mean by that?”
“I don’t know. He never got specific, but I assumed he was talking about going someplace where nobody would know him, a place where we could start over and build a life together.”
“And you think that’s what they’re going to do now?”
She paused. “Don’t you?”
Kate and I looked at each other. “They’re getting ready to leave the country,” said Kate. “That’s why the wives went missing and the house they rented left vacant.” I nodded.
“And you have no idea where they are now?” I said.
“I have absolutely no idea, and that’s the truth.”
“So what you’re telling us, Robin, is that your involvement as a lookout in t
he armored car robbery was a spontaneous thing, not something you planned?”
“That’s right. I went directly from my meeting with Joey to the Super Target store. Joey gave me a cell phone that I could use to call him if I needed to.”
“What did you do with that phone?” Kate asked.
“I threw it away—tossed it in a dumpster at a gas station later that day.”
I looked at my notes. I was about out of questions. “Were you involved in the commission of any other crimes committed by the Bradshaws?”
She blew her nose. “No,” she whispered.
“You might be asked to take a polygraph examination regarding the veracity of the information you just provided. Would you be willing to do that?”
Without hesitation, she answered, “Yes, I’d be willing to take a lie detector test. I’m telling you the truth. Can I ask you a question?”
“Fire away,” I replied.
“What’s going to happen to me now?”
There was only one thing to do and that was to tell her the truth. “Robin, you’re going to be booked into the Salt Lake County Detention Center, and sometime in the next day or two, you’ll be brought in front of a judge for a bail hearing.”
“So I’ll have to stay in jail until then?”
I nodded. The tears began to flow again. I explained that she’d be represented by a public defender at the bail hearing. That bit of information provided little solace to her.
“Would you like me to call your mother for you?”
She nodded.
What I didn’t tell her was that she’d probably end up charged with at least one count of being an accessory-before-the-fact in the robbery case. And considering two people died in the ensuing gunfight, and another had been seriously wounded, Joiner could probably expect to do some time. She’d been drawn into a bad situation by some particularly bad men, and now there was no easy way out.
When the interview was over, Salt Lake City PD detectives booked Joiner into the Salt Lake County Jail. That’s when Kate and I learned about the high speed chase near Park City, and the apparent apprehension of the prophet and some of his entourage. Details were sketchy, but from what we could tell, some members of the gang were dead while others were still at large.
Chapter Forty-four
By the time we left the FBI building, it was three-thirty in the morning. We were both exhausted. She drove me back to the Lucky Gent where I’d left my car. She invited me to stay at her place but I declined. Since the murder of Arnold Ginsberg, I’d been working long hours. I was anxious to reconnect with Sara, Aunt June, and Bob the Bassett Hound. Sleeping in my own bed didn’t sound too bad either. We agreed to get a few hours of shut-eye and then meet later in the morning. We still had plenty of work to do on the Ginsberg murder, plus I needed to stay abreast of activities in the SIB including the internal investigation involving Terry Burnham.
When I got home, I found a note on the kitchen counter from Aunt June warning me that I would find, not one guest in my bed, but two. It wasn’t hard to figure out who that would be. Sure enough, I found Sara asleep in one corner and Bob the Bassett Hound on MY side of the bed with his head propped on MY pillow. From the look of things, the lazy lout was enjoying his new digs. I was so damned tired that I simply pushed him over and laid down on the dog drool he’d left on my pillow.
I slept for several hours until I heard Aunt June. Sara and the dog were still conked out. I got up and looked outside. It was going to be one of those crystal clear, blue sky days in Park City, brisk in the morning, but comfortably warm throughout the afternoon. The best of the autumn colors were already on the ground. I showered, dressed, and joined Aunt June in the kitchen. I made us coffee and built a fire in the great room fireplace while she served piping hot coffee cake, fresh from the oven. I figured if I drank about a gallon of coffee, I might wake up. It worked for about thirty minutes and then I was on the nod again.
“What’s going on today? Do you have to go to work?” asked June.
“I probably should but I’m gonna try not to. I’ll need to give Kate a call and see if she’s got something we really need to do. I’d like to stick around the house and spend some time with Sara. I’ve been promising her that I’d take her to the city park and fly that new kite she’s so excited about. I’ve also got a mountain of aspen leaves in the back yard just waiting to be raked.
“What about you?”
“Baxter’s invited me out to dinner tonight, but I told him that I’d rather have him come to the house and I’ll fix us something. Why don’t you invite Kate to join us?”
“That’s a great idea. I’ll bet she’d like that. I’ll call her. But why don’t we all go out to dinner? That way you won’t have to cook. It’ll be my treat. What do you say?”
“A very tempting offer, nephew, one that I’m sure Baxter will like.”
I waited for another hour before I called Kate. I wanted to give her sufficient sleep-in time. I managed to convince her that this particular Sunday should be a day of R and R. The woman’s a workaholic and it’s often difficult to get her to slow down. That’s never been a problem for me because, basically, I’m lazy. Whenever I can find a convenient excuse not to work, I usually take it.
I spent all day catching up on household chores and doing things with Sara and Kate. In early afternoon, I packed a picnic lunch and took them to the city park. Kate read a book and snoozed on a blanket while I ran around like a mad man trying to get Sara’s kite in the air on a day without so much as a hint of a breeze. Afterward, Kate took Sara on a Christmas shopping trip to the Park City factory stores.
Baxter Shaw met us at the house in the early evening and I took the four of them to dinner at Café Terigo on Park City’s Main Street. It had been a Park City favorite because it turned out consistently good food. After dinner, we returned to the house where Baxter and I settled down with a brandy and watched NFL football. The ladies were in another part of the house doing I’m not sure what.
Baxter headed home when the game ended a little past ten. The poor guy was a dedicated and frustrated Atlanta fan—not much to cheer about lately with the Falcons. Kate spent the night. I’d given her the guest bathroom for her toothbrush, makeup, and female things. She had moved some of her clothes into the walk-in closet in the master bedroom. We slept fitfully and were up shortly before six the next morning. We had coffee and some of Aunt June’s leftover coffee cake while strategizing a plan for the day.
***
The plane came out of the southwest sky in the early dawn. It crossed the Wasatch Mountains on a path that took it over Mount Tippanogus and the Sundance Ski Resort before entering Heber Valley. The twin engine Cessna circled the sleepy town of Heber City once before landing to the west.
The pilot refueled and then taxied over to the small passenger terminal. Three people boarded the aircraft. Within fifteen minutes, it was airborne again following the same flight path it had taken when it arrived. The Cessna made one short refueling stop in Flagstaff, Arizona, before resuming its journey. The pilot charted a course due south, flying to the west of metropolitan Phoenix and continuing south into Mexico. Four-and-a-half-hours after leaving Heber City, the plane descended through the cloud cover revealing a hazy November day, with the water from the Sea of Cortez shimmering in the midday sun. The plane landed at Guaymas International Airport.
The Dixons and Joey Bradshaw deplaned and passed nervously through customs. They each carried new identity papers which included forged passports. They arranged ground transportation which took them to the isolated ten acre compound in the Sonoran Desert northeast of Guaymas. Gordon Dixon had purchased the property months before, having it deeded to a bogus American shell corporation allegedly in the import/export business.
Here, the surviving family members would begin a new life, a life free from the religious persecution suffered at the hands of state and federal governments to the north. For now, their task was simple: to assi
milate into the local culture while maintaining as low a profile as possible. Over time, others would join the enclave, but for now, it would be just the three of them.
***
Kate left for her office ahead of me. I got Sara up at seven, fixed her breakfast, and gave her a ride to school. On the way, she reminded me that I’d promised to help her on a school project, attend her soccer game later in the afternoon at four, and still find time to take Bob for a brisk walk. I tried to tell her how busy I was at work, but on the sympathy meter, that earned me a big, fat zero. So we compromised. I told her the soccer game was iffy at best, but that I would try to make it home in time to help her with her school project. In return, she agreed to take Bob for his evening stroll.
I was in my office at the state prison by eight-thirty. I found a voice mail message from Captain T.J. Dutton of the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Office. Dutton was the commander of the Internal Affairs Division. He asked me to call him ASAP. He didn’t say why he was calling, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that it must have something to do with the Burnham internal investigation.
I had just picked up the phone to call him when Patti walked in carrying a steaming cup of coffee. She set it down on my desk and said, “Figured you could use this. Director Cates called this morning promptly at eight. He wants you in his office at noon for what he described as a working lunch. Shall I call him back to confirm?”
“Yeah, you better. Did he say what he wanted to see me about?”
“He didn’t, but his tone suggested your attendance wasn’t optional.”
I nodded.
I caught T.J. Dutton on his way to a budget meeting. “Morning, Sam. I wanted to give you a heads up on something, but it’s important you understand we never had this conversation. Agreed?”
“No Problem.”
“Sergeant Egan was summoned to a meeting Saturday afternoon with your new boss and his administrative law judge, Rachel Rivers-Blakely.”
Silent Witness Page 23
