The Racketeer (44 page)

During his lunch break, the judge who had sentenced Quinn to seven years for trafficking reluctantly signed a Rule 35 order of commutation. The day before he had chatted with Stanley Mumphrey, Victor Westlake and his boss, George McTavey, and to underline the importance of what was before him, the Attorney General of the United States.

Quinn was immediately taken from the jail in Roanoke to the law offices of Dusty Shiver, where he hugged Dee Ray and changed into some jeans and a polo. One hundred and forty days after being arrested as a fugitive in Norfolk, Virginia, Quinn is a free man.

It’s almost 2:30 by the time all the orders and documents are properly signed, examined, and verified, and at the last minute I step outside the room and call Dusty. He assures me we’ve “got ’em by the throat,” all paperwork is in order, all rights are being protected, all promises are being fulfilled. “Start singing,” he says with a laugh.

Six months after I arrived at the Louisville Federal Correctional Institution, I agreed to review the case of a drug dealer from Cincinnati. The court had badly miscalculated the term of his sentence, the mistake was obvious, and I filed a motion to get the guy released immediately with time already served. It was one of those rare occasions in which everything worked perfectly and quickly, and within two weeks the happy client went home. Not surprisingly, word spread through the prison and I was immediately hailed as a brilliant jailhouse lawyer capable of performing miracles. I was inundated with requests to review cases and do my magic, and it took a while for the buzz to die down.

Around this time, a guy we called Nattie entered my life and consumed more time than I wanted to give. He was a skinny white kid who’d been busted for meth distribution in West Virginia, and he was adamant that I review his case, snap my fingers, and get him out. I liked Nattie, so I looked at his papers and tried to convince him there was nothing I could do. He began talking about a payoff; at first there were vague references to a lot of money stashed somewhere, and some of it might be mine if I could only get Nattie out of prison. He refused to believe I could not help him. Instead of facing reality, he became more delusional, more convinced I could find a loophole, file a motion, and walk him out. At some point, he finally mentioned a quantity of gold bars, and I figured he had lost his mind. I rebuffed him, and to prove his point he told me the entire story. He swore me to secrecy and promised me half of the fortune if I would only help him.

As a child, Nattie was an accomplished petty thief, and in his teenage years drifted into the world of meth. He moved around a lot, dodging drug enforcement agents, bill collectors, deputies with warrants, fathers with pregnant daughters, and pissed-off
rivals from other meth gangs. He tried several times to go straight but easily fell back into a life of crime. He was watching his cousins and friends ruin their lives with drugs, as addicts and convicted felons, and he really wanted something better. He had a job as a cashier in a country store, deep in the mountains around the small town of Ripplemead, when he was approached by a stranger who offered him $10 an hour for some manual labor. No one in the store had ever seen the stranger, nor would they ever again. Nattie was making $5 an hour, cash, off the books, and jumped at the chance to earn more. After work, Nattie met the stranger at a pre-arranged spot and followed him along a narrow dirt trail to an A-frame cabin wedged into the side of a steep hill, just above a small lake. The stranger introduced himself only as Ray, and Ray was driving a nice pickup truck with a wooden crate in the back. As it turned out, the crate contained a five-hundred-pound safe, too much for Ray to handle by himself. They rigged a pulley with a cable over a tree branch and managed to wrestle the safe out of the truck, onto the ground, and eventually into the basement of the cabin. It was tedious, backbreaking work, and it took almost three hours to get the safe inside. Ray paid him in cash, said thanks and good-bye.

Nattie told his brother, Gene, who was in the vicinity hiding from the sheriff two counties away. The brothers became curious about the safe and its contents, and decided to investigate. When they were certain Ray had left the cabin, they attempted to break in but were stopped by heavy oak doors, unbreakable glass, and thick dead bolts. So they simply removed an entire window in the basement. Inside, they could not locate the safe but did manage to identify Ray. Riffling through some papers at a worktable, they realized their neighbor was a big-shot federal judge over in Roanoke. There was even a newspaper article about an important trial involving uranium mining in Virginia, with the Honorable Raymond Fawcett presiding.

They drove to Roanoke, found the federal courthouse, and
watched two hours of testimony. Nattie wore glasses and a baseball cap in case the judge might get bored and look around the courtroom. There were plenty of spectators and Ray never looked up. Convinced they were onto something, the brothers returned to the cabin, reentered through the basement window, and again searched for the safe. It had to be in the small basement because that was where Nattie and the judge had left it. One wall was lined with shelves and covered with thick law books, and the brothers became convinced there must be a hidden space behind the wall. They carefully removed each book, looked behind it, then replaced it. It took some time, but they eventually found a switch that opened a trapdoor. Once it swung open, the safe was just sitting there, at floor level, waiting to be opened. But that proved to be impossible because there was a digital keypad that, of course, required a coded entry. They toyed with it for a day or two, with no luck. They spent a lot of time in the cabin but were always careful about not leaving a trail. One Friday, Gene drove to Roanoke, about an hour away, went to the courtroom, checked on the judge, then hung around long enough for him to adjourn for the weekend, or until 9:00 a.m. Monday. Gene followed him to his apartment and watched him load his truck with what appeared to be a brown paper sack of groceries, a cooler, several bottles of wine, a gym bag, two bulky briefcases and a stack of books. Ray left his apartment, alone, and drove west. Gene called Nattie and said Ray was on his way. Nattie tidied up the cabin, replaced the basement window, swept away any boot prints in the dirt by the porch, and climbed a tree fifty yards away. Sure enough, an hour later Judge Fawcett arrived at the cabin, unloaded his truck, and promptly took a nap in a hammock on the porch as Nattie and Gene watched from the thick forest surrounding the A-frame. The following day, a Saturday, Judge Fawcett dragged his canoe to the water’s edge, loaded two fishing rods and some bottled water, fired up a short, dark cigar, and shoved off across Lake Higgins. Nattie watched him with
binoculars while Gene removed the window and hurried inside the cabin. The trapdoor was open, the safe was visible, but it was closed and locked. Out of luck again, Gene quickly left the basement, reinstalled the window, and retreated to the woods.

The boys were determined to find out what was in the safe, but they were also patient. Ray had no idea he was being watched, and if he was adding to his treasure each week, then there was no hurry. For the next two Fridays, Gene watched the exterior of the courthouse in Roanoke, but the judge worked late. A federal holiday was approaching, and they guessed the judge might get away for a long weekend. According to the newspaper articles, the bench trial was arduous and hotly contentious, with a lot of pressure on Judge Fawcett. They guessed correctly. At 2:00 p.m. Friday, the proceedings were adjourned until 9:00 a.m. the following Tuesday. Gene watched as Ray loaded up and headed for the lake, alone.

The cabin was too deep in the mountains for electricity or gas; thus, it had no air-conditioning or heating, except for a large fireplace. Food and beverages were kept on ice in the cooler Ray hauled back and forth. When he needed lights to read by at night, he cranked up a small gas generator outside the basement, and its low, muffled sound echoed through the valley. Usually, though, the judge was asleep by 9:00 p.m.

The basement was one room and one closet, a narrow space with small double doors. Inside the closet, Ray stored stuff that appeared to be forgotten—hunting clothes, boots, and a pile of old quilts and blankets. Gene cooked up the plan of hiding Nattie in there, for hours, with the idea that through the tiniest of cracks in one of the doors, he would be able to watch as the judge opened the safe and stashed away whatever it was he was hiding. Nattie, at five feet seven and 130 pounds, had a long history of hiding in cracks and crevices, though he was initially reluctant to spend the night in the closet. The plan was revised yet again.

On the Friday before Columbus Day, Judge Fawcett arrived at
his cabin around 6:00 p.m. and took his time unloading the truck. Nattie was curled up in the basement closet, virtually invisible amid the hunting clothes, blankets, and quilts. He had a pistol in his pocket in the event things went wrong. Gene was watching from the trees, also with a gun. They were nervous as hell, but also wildly excited. As Ray went about his business of settling in, he lit a cigar and the entire cabin soon smelled of rich tobacco smoke. He took his time, talked to himself, hummed the same song over and over, and eventually hauled a bulky briefcase to the basement. Nattie was hardly breathing as he watched the judge remove a law book from a shelf, flip the hidden switch, and pull the trapdoor open. He punched in the code on the keypad and opened the safe. It was filled with cigar boxes. He backed away and removed another cigar box from the briefcase. He paused for a second, lifted the lid, and took out a beautiful little gold ingot. He admired it, caressed it, then returned it to the box, which he then placed carefully in the safe. Another cigar box followed, then he quickly closed the safe, programmed the code, and closed the trapdoor.

Nattie’s heart was pounding so violently he worried about shaking the entire closet, but he urged himself to stay calm. As he was leaving, the judge noticed the crack in the closet door and shoved it tight.

Around 7:00 p.m., he lit another cigar, poured a glass of white wine, and sat in a rocker on the porch to watch the sun fade over the mountains. After dark, he turned on the generator and puttered around the cabin until ten, when he turned it off and went to bed. As the cabin became still and quiet, Gene appeared from the woods and banged on the door. Who is it? Ray demanded angrily from inside. Gene said he was looking for his dog. Ray opened the door and they spoke through the screen. Gene explained he had a cabin about a mile away, on the other side of the lake, and his beloved dog, Yank, had disappeared. Ray was not the least bit friendly and said he had seen no dogs in the vicinity. Gene
thanked him and left. When Nattie heard the banging and the conversation upstairs, he quietly sneaked out of the closet and left through a basement door. He was unable to relock the dead bolt, and the boys figured the judge would scratch his head and remain confused as to why the door wasn’t properly locked. By then, they would be lost in the woods. The judge would search and search but would find no signs of entry, nothing missing, and would eventually forget about it.

Naturally, the brothers were stunned at what they had learned, and they began making plans to rob the safe. It would require an altercation with the judge, and probably violence, but they were determined to follow through. Two weekends passed and the judge stayed in Roanoke. Then three.

While watching the cabin, and the judge, Gene and Nattie had returned to their meth business because they were broke. Before they could get the gold, they were busted by DEA agents. Gene was killed, and Nattie went away to prison.

He waited five years before he strong-armed Judge Fawcett, tortured Naomi Clary, robbed the safe, and executed both of them.

“And who, exactly, is Nattie?” Westlake asks. All six of the men are staring at me.

“His name is Nathan Edward Cooley, and you’ll find him in the city jail in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Take your time, he’s not going anywhere.”

“Might he also be known as Nathaniel Coley, your friend with the fake passport?”