Huggins recalled, “Gary said, between you and me, Jim, I’m not about to accuse an FBI agent of any wrongdoing or even contact you guys without any evidence—but I’ll tell you, from what I’m hearing about this thing, I think you better come down and take a look. He might be involved. And I said, ‘Holy cow, we need to resolve this, Gary.’”
After speaking with O’Connor on May 1, Huggins contacted superiors in Louisville and was given the go-ahead to commence a preliminary kidnapping inquiry, a procedural matter that allowed the FBI entrée to a missing person case by invoking a presumption of possible kidnapping, which is a federal crime.
“The order was, let’s get to the bottom of this,” said Huggins, who was told to pick a few of his best agents and go to Pikeville to launch a joint investigation with the state police there.
“So I picked four guys—Sam Smith and, who of course had been down there for years; Bill Welch, another guy from the mountains; Tommy Gayheart, who was born and raised in Harlan; and Tim Adams. All of them knew the territory. Richard Ray didn’t know any of them except Sam.”
Captain Rose instructed Ray, who bristled at having to put up with an elite squad of FBI agents barging into his case, to cooperate fully when they arrived in Pikeville and began reviewing his files.
“Our guys said, ‘Hey, what’s with Richard Ray? What’s he so pissed about?’ I said he probably thinks that we’re trying to make him look bad, which was not true,” Huggins recalled.
All of the agents stayed at the Landmark, Pikeville’s only major motel at the time, and thoroughly read through Ray’s comprehensive missing person’s file on Susan Smith.
“I said, OK, guys, you’ve all read the report. Let’s just go around preliminarily here. Let’s say this girl did meet with foul play, somebody killed her. Based on what you’ve read, who is the likely suspect?”
“I think it was probably her husband. He had the motive; he beat her before; he’s unstable,” Agent Welch said.
“Yeah, I think it probably was Kenneth,” Gayheart concurred.
“I’m guessing it’s old Cat Eyes. She testified against him, so he had a motive,” Smith said.
Adams shook his head. “I think it was Mark,” he said, stunning everyone in the room.
Huggins recalled, “We all went ‘What?’”
Adams replied, “Well, look at the guy. If everything we read is true, that he’s alleged to be having an affair with her, that she threatened to expose him, he definitely had a motive. We can’t rule him out.”
Huggins had to agree. “So I said, let’s eliminate him or make him, one of the two. Let’s zero in on him, from the minute he arrived in Pikeville to the minute he left.”
The FBI agents quickly went to work, sorting through the rumors, half-baked speculation, and false leads that had confounded Ray for months. They, too, soon gathered plenty of indications that Susan was unreliable and disreputable, a drug user with criminal friends—and enemies. Informants often—almost inevitably—became disgruntled. Agents were routinely falsely accused by unhappy former informants cut loose from the gravy train. If this woman had been harmed, it would appear, at least on the surface, Mark Putnam barely made first cut on the list of likely suspects.
For example, David Blankenship told them that Susan’s brother Bo had told him that he believed Kenneth had killed Susan. According to the FBI’s investigative file, Blankenship said that Susan claimed she had been paid $12,000 for her work on the Cat Eyes case and described to him the way she had subsequently set up Cat’s uncle in another bank robbery. Susan “feared for her life because people had threatened her,” he told them.
A few days later, Ray drove agents Adams and Welch across the Tug to Vulcan, to talk to Ronnie Mounts, one of the old friends who used to sit around the kitchen table for hours on end with Kenneth and Susan, drinking beer and playing cards.
Mounts said Susan was mainly a “pill popper.” He told the investigators that, while he had no idea where Susan was, he had heard reports that she had gone off to Chicago. But he had also heard she might be staying with a sister of hers in Texas. On the other hand, he said, Kenneth had told him that he thought Susan was somewhere in Florida—though Mounts hadn’t seen Kenneth in weeks and thought he was “on the run,” too. He said that he knew Kenneth had accused his ex-wife of “going with Mark Putnam.” Mounts said he hoped they found her soon.
“Why?” he was asked.
“Because she owes me sixty-five dollars.”
In early May, the agents fanned through the area re-interviewing many people who had already talked to Ray for his own report. Just as Ray had found, the FBI discovered the people who knew Susan had a multitude of theories to explain her disappearance. Most mentioned her drug use and drug connections. Mark Putnam’s name often came up, but always in the context of secondhand information.
Pam Daniels, a thirty-year-old former neighbor on Barrenshee Hollow, was among those who told agents that Susan had a “bad drug habit.” She claimed Susan had come to her house in the spring after being “run off” by Shelby and her husband during an argument over her relationship with Mark Putnam. She also said that Susan told her that if Mark did not give her enough money to support the baby, she was going to “set him up,” which Pam Daniels interpreted as a threat to tell his wife about the affair. Daniels said she did not allow Susan to stay at her house after Shelby kicked her out because of Susan’s drug habit. Instead, Daniels said she gave Susan a pillow and a blanket and she “believed that Susan probably slept in her car.”
According to another bureau investigative report by Smith and Gayheart, Troy Ward, Shelby’s husband, described Susan as “the type of person who would make stories up and make statements that she knew who was involved in a criminal act when, in fact, she would have no idea who committed the crime.” He also told agents that Susan was a heavy cocaine user who would take any kind of drugs except marijuana and would do “anything” to obtain them, although that had become more difficult for her because of her reputation as an FBI informant. Personally, he said, he thought that Susan was dead, “possibly killed by drug dealers or someone she testified against.”
Ward told the agents that Susan, who “had lived with him and Shelby off and on since they had been married,” had told everyone who would listen that she worked for the FBI and was “bonded.” It was Ward’s impression that “Susan felt superior to other people by running around with FBI agents.” He said he had never observed Mark with Susan, although he had once seen Poole pick her up at the car lot. Still, Susan was “in love” with Mark and would have done anything for him. He added that while he seldom believed anything Susan said, he did believe she had an affair with Mark and was pregnant by him.
Ward also told them about the beating Susan had received from Sherri Justice, who, he said, “threatened to kill her.” Further clouding the picture, he said that Shelby had told him a man Susan knew as a drug dealer had, in the past, said he and his family “would keep her” if she ever needed a place to live.
Ward certainly underlined a number of motives that implicated many possible suspects that could have done Susan harm. According to the agents’ report, “Ward stated that Susan had made many people mad at her and since it was widely known she was informing to the FBI, she was having difficulty buying drugs from people for her own use. He stated that Sherri Justice had threatened to kill her.”
The agents’ report on their interview with Troy Ward concluded: “Ward advised that he was not trying to get anyone in trouble and would not swear against Mark Putnam or Ron Poole because all the information he has is hearsay and that Susan was a cheat and a liar.”
Shelby herself was more specific on the relationship between her sister and Putnam, but her account, too, mostly lent support to the notion that Susan had a lot of enemies. According to the agents’ report: “Shelby stated that Susan, Kenneth Smith, and Tennis Daniels went to the Pikeville
FBI office to pick up the money for testifying, and supposedly later in the day, Kenneth stole the money from Susan, who later got the money back. Shelby does not know what Susan did with the money, because Susan and Kenneth were both heavily on drugs at the time. The money was supposed to be for Susan to get out of the area, because Susan was getting a lot of threats from Sherri Justice and Cat Eyes, who said if he ever got out of prison, he would have her killed.
“About the first part of May 1989, Sherri Justice beat up Susan, causing cuts and bruises, and also smashed out a window in Susan’s car. Justice swore she would kill Susan. . . . Shelby stated that she and Susan would often talk about the threats made against Susan, inasmuch as Susan was very afraid of Sherri Justice and Cat Eyes and wanted to get away. . . . Shelby advised that during the two-year period Susan worked for Putnam, Susan and Kenneth fought continuously, with Kenneth getting physical with Susan. Kenneth was very jealous over anyone. . . . Shelby advised that Susan was on cocaine bad enough that she had to have it, and that was Susan’s reason not to completely stay away from Kenneth. . . . Shelby further added that Susan lied a lot. However, she told the truth a lot also.
“. . . On Thursday morning June 8, 1989, Shelby received a phone call from Susan. Susan seemed real happy, being with Putnam and talking about the baby, and laughed about Putnam not giving her money, and that Putnam would send her money when he got back to Florida and got straightened out. Susan was going to get Poole or Putnam to bring her back to Shelby’s. Susan was not upset and was laughing.
“About two hours later on Thursday morning, Susan called again, and her attitude changed. She was not happy. Susan wished there was some place she could go with the kids and be away from Kenneth. Shelby wanted Susan to come home, and Susan told her that she loved her, but could not stand to be around Kenneth and could not take it anymore.
“Shelby advised it was very unusual for Susan to say she loved her. Shelby stated if someone would have given Susan money, she would have left. Shelby advised this phone call on Thursday was the last time she had heard from Susan . . .”
Meanwhile, there seemed to be a new wrinkle in the FBI investigation. The agents had come across a witness who had actually heard from Susan Smith, five months after she had supposedly disappeared.
They had found the loquacious Josie Thorpe.
The official report of the FBI interview with Thorpe, who had already been ruled out as categorically unreliable by Ray, read as a model of just-the-facts investigative objectivity. Any one reviewing it at a desk far away in Lexington or Washington would have had cause to wonder just what the fuss over Susan was about, since she appeared to be still alive.
“Josie Thorpe, date of birth December 19, 1937, Freeburn, Kentucky, advised that she knew Susan Smith and Susan would visit with her on occasion. Thorpe stated that sometime after Susan’s disappearance she got several telephone calls from her. . . . During one call, Susan inquired as to how Thorpe was getting along and if she was still taking her medicine. Susan also inquired about her own children and told Thorpe that she (Susan) had a dark blue sweater and orange fingernail polish that she had left at her sister Shelby’s house and that Thorpe could have them.
During the last telephone call, Susan inquired about her children, Miranda and Brady. Thorpe stated that the telephone call had to be after Thanksgiving, since she told Susan that her ex-husband, Kenneth Smith, and the children ate Thanksgiving dinner with her and that she served spaghetti. Thorpe stated that she told Susan that people were worried about her and looking for her and that she should call her sister Shelby. Thorpe also told Susan that Ron Poole, Federal Bureau of Investigation, had also interviewed her regarding Susan’s telephone calls Susan told Thorpe not to tell anyone that she had called or she would not call anymore.
Thorpe stated she believes the person she was talking to was Susan and that Susan was alive. Thorpe stated that she has had her telephone number changed and that Susan had called her on the old number, which she could not recall . . .”
The Huggins task force had come up with the same snarl of conflicting information that Richard Ray had uncovered in his investigation. The case was thoroughly perplexing. Like Ray, they concluded that Putnam’s role required further investigation, and they had an advantage that the state police lacked. They could ask Mark Putnam himself about it. To Ray’s great relief, Huggins returned to Lexington with his squad determined to do just that.
Mark was aware of what was going on in Pikeville because both Poole and Myra had called to say that Huggins and his men were in the area retracing the state police investigation. Mark received the information with an odd mixture of dread and relief. In a month, Susan would be dead for a year. Mark was intensely aware—the thought, he later said, never left him—that she had been out there in the woods all that time. When he looked at his own two children, he often thought of hers, a little girl and a little boy who had no idea where their mother was.
In early May, feeling close to the abyss as Huggins’s team was starting its work in Pikeville, Mark had gone in to see Roy Tubergen once again, repeating his request for an internal Office of Professional Responsibility investigation “into the allegations against me.”
“No way,” the supervisor said, aware of the bureaucratic complications posed by an official OPR investigation and the potential damage it could do to an innocent young agent’s career. But, he did bring up the polygraph. “If the Kentucky state cops want you to go on the box, would you do it?”
“Yes,” Mark said, not certain in his own mind whether this reply was motivated by a desire to confess or to appear eager to deal decisively with the situation and get it behind him. Later, he would understand that it had been both.
A week went by without further mention of the situation. Then, at the end of a workday, Tubergen took Mark aside and mentioned that Jim Huggins and a couple of state police detectives wanted to come to Miami to talk to him.
“It’s strictly your call,” Tubergen said.
Mark felt his toes and fingertips go cold. He forced himself to be steady. “I have no problem whatsoever with that,” he said.
He needed a little time, he thought, to brace himself. He had been overwhelmed with work lately on a major undercover theft investigation. His unit had rented an apartment in Fort Lauderdale to set up a sting. It had been a heady experience, almost like the thrill of the chop-shop case, except that this time he was part of a well-oiled unit, not a lone wolf who had to watch his back even against local cops. Now he was a professional among professionals, all prepared to go the extra mile for one another. He could see himself now, however transiently, as the agent he had always wanted to be—but never would.
He savored the thought briefly, but was quickly overcome with another wave of fear, shame, remorse, resignation, submission, and mental exhaustion. His life had become a severe headache that never eased.
Okay, he thought, I’m ready. But he wasn’t about to simply surrender. The outcome was inevitable—he would lose it all, and soon—but he wouldn’t just give it up, not after all of the decent things he had done. They’re going to have to work a little bit to take it away from me. And then that’s it.
He struggled to stop from reflecting on what was about to happen to Kathy and the children. It was as if he were watching his family from afar as they were about to drive off a cliff—he could see the deadly hidden turn in the road, the car accelerating, the coal truck bearing down—but there was nothing he could do. It would be futile to shout.
On the afternoon of May 15, he left the office, telling the receptionist that he had an interview to do. Knowing he would be alone, he drove to the apartment the FBI had rented for the sting. He sat on the couch, in the orange slats of late-afternoon sunlight. In his hand was his bureau-issue Smith & Wesson .357, which he studied as if he had never seen it before. He could smell the oil. The gunmetal was cool in his hand. He raised the barrel and pressed it hard agai
nst the perfectly squared sideburn at his right temple. How would it look? Who would find the mess? Would there be pictures? He lowered the gun and tapped the barrel thoughtfully on the palm of his left hand, probing his feelings as if poking at a broken filling with his tongue. He tried to cut through the bullshit: If I do this, who benefits?
He lowered the gun. Had he just spared his own wretched life? Or was this an exercise, another step he had to take to face his fate like a man? Again, the fragment of a headline came to mind: tragic accident.
He was cop enough to know they didn’t have much of a case against him. He had the case all in his head. Had the flurry of FBI activity in Pikeville meant that they had found her body? If so, why hadn’t they simply arrested him? Why talk now? If they had the body, they still obviously didn’t have any other evidence. Did this mean that he could make his inner peace with himself and with Susan, whatever the cost for the rest of his life, and brazen his way through the rest for the sake of his family? All trouble got easier over time. Why not this?
He left the apartment utterly unable to decide. He stopped back at the office to check out and before heading home. Roy Tubergen spotted him at his desk.
“They’re coming down tomorrow,” Roy said.
All Mark remembered driving home was looking down to see the speedometer needle edge past ninety on I-95 out of North Miami Beach. He let up fast and checked the rearview mirror for a sign of a police car’s flashing lights in the line of cars strung out behind. Queasy with guilt, he imagined that a Florida highway cop who pulled him over for speeding would easily guess what everyone else failed to see—a murderer. He could see the cop’s impassive face at the window, his nostrils sniffing the panic sweat, his hand poised with his gun.
Mark found himself turning into the driveway, his temples throbbing. It was almost six o’clock, the usual time. The kids tackled him at the door. Little Mark tottered off into the playroom while Danielle wrapped her arms around his legs and held on, chattering about her day. But when he only stood there silently for a minute, she stopped talking and looked into her father’s eyes, and he thought that she read there a deep and sudden sorrow. He knew then that he was going to prison for a long time, and that when he was a part of her life again, she would be grown.
Above Suspicion Page 24
