Читать книгу A Rookie Cop vs. The West Coast Mafia - Tanya Chalupa - Страница 8
ОглавлениеOn the last day of the Columbus Day weekend, the persistent ringing of the phone at 6:15 in the morning forced Detective Bill Palmini into consciousness. He reached reluctantly for the receiver, if only to silence it. Suddenly, he became aware of muscle aches, followed by a throbbing in his head and a churning in his stomach, which elicited memories of the night before when drinks flowed freely in the midst of blaring music and laughter.
George Rudimenkin was the patrol sergeant on duty that morning at the Sausalito Police Department. His tone was deadly serious. “There was an armed robbery and safe burglary during the night at the Trident. Meet me there pronto. I’ll fill you in on the details when you get here.”
Palmini struggled to digest Rudimenkin’s words.
“What do you mean, a safe burglary at the Trident?” He raised himself up on one elbow with great effort, gripping the phone to his ear.
“Bill, I need you pronto. I’ll explain later; just get your ass over here quick.”
Palmini heard a click on the other end before he could utter another word. This was not the easy-going George Rudimenkin he had known since their days as fraternity brothers and campus cops at San Francisco City College, several years before they both coincidentally ended up working for the Sausalito Police Department. He could not recall George ever sounding so agitated.
Palmini had no choice but to follow Rudimenkin’s request. There were just two detectives in the small Sausalito Police Department: Palmini and Walt Potter. Palmini was the lead investigator, and at the age of twenty-six, he was then the youngest detective in Marin County. He was also the one on call that day. With a heavy pounding in his head, he showered and dressed as rapidly as his aching body allowed. At the same time, insecurity swelled inside him, adding to his physical pain and discomfort.
A native San Franciscan, Palmini had three years of experience on the police force in Sausalito. Most of this involved regular patrol duties: responding to domestic dispute calls and residential burglaries, citing tourists and locals for minor traffic violations. Then he was moved into the detectives’ unit, where his most common job involved investigating violent domestic disputes and following up on fraudulent checks to merchants.
Palmini had served in the Navy for two years during the Vietnam War, most of which included duty on a nuclear submarine tender, the USS Sperry, with a short stretch in Hawaii and Oregon. It was while the crew awaited orders on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay one afternoon that Palmini’s superiors noticed his skill with a baseball bat. When the USS Sperry moved to San Diego, Palmini was issued new orders to fly down to San Diego and report for duty to the sub tender. Once in San Diego, he was assigned to entertain his fellow enlisted men by playing baseball for the remainder of his stint in the Navy.
In spite of his experiences in the Navy, as a campus cop and his three years in the Sausalito Police Department, Palmini lacked confidence in his ability to meet the challenge he was about to undertake. Nickel-and-dime thieves rarely burglarized safes. Safecrackers tended to be professionals with connections to organized crime. That much Palmini knew. It bothered him that, unlike baseball, he was stepping up to the plate in a game where he did not know the rules. Self-doubt in his ability to handle a case of such magnitude was multiplying. After all, the Trident was not your run-of-the-mill place.
Why, he wondered, of all places, does it have to be the Trident? And why me?
The Kingston Trio, a popular folk and pop music group, and their manager, Frank Werber, were owners of the Trident. The group’s ties to the restaurant guaranteed scrutiny by the media and promised political heat on the police department. And if that wasn’t enough, there was another worry gnawing at him. It concerned his police chief, Jim Wright.
Wright had been with the Sausalito police for five years, brought in by the former police chief from the Hayward Police Department. The buzz around the department was that Wright had ambition to run for Sheriff of Marin County. He hung out with the county elite, giving some people the idea he was lining up support and future funding. Among those he entertained were top business executives and council members. Palmini and Walt Potter were frequently asked to join him when he was dining with a CEO or local business executive and encouraged to discuss the workings of the police.
There was a safe burglary that had happened almost seven months earlier in another Sausalito restaurant named Ricco’s. The heist attracted little notice from the press. But then again, Ricco’s, although a popular place, was not in the Trident’s league. Ignoring the deep discomfort throughout his body, Palmini readied himself mentally to tackle the investigation by focusing on the Trident and its significance, as well as its connection to Ricco’s. There had to be one, but where could he start? The same thoughts kept circling in his head. He needed a path to lead him to the answers.
Palmini decided to follow George Rudimenkin’s instructions and head straight to the restaurant without stopping at the Sausalito Police Department first. Fortunately, the drive from his apartment in Mill Valley, with its panoramic views of lush hills and waterways, had a soothing effect. A cup of coffee he picked up at a diner and the aspirin he had popped into his mouth earlier helped soothe the hangover. Being behind the wheel of his car helped him regain his sense of control. It was his pride and joy, for it was the first new car he had ever owned. The lively music coming from the radio helped him forget the muscle pain he’d been so aware of earlier.
The traffic was not heavy on Interstate 101 that morning and he soon exited the freeway onto Bridgeway Street. He passed glistening shops, art galleries and restaurants for which Sausalito is still well known. Then the street curved and there was the tall, two-story building housing the Trident, perched like a giant pelican facing the San Francisco skyline across the bay.
Palmini guided the car into the Trident’s parking lot, which was a large wooden deck. Two police cars were stationed at one end and Palmini pulled in behind them. As he did, he spotted Rudimenkin waiting for him at the far end of the wooden platform by the dock near the entrance to the restaurant. It felt good to see his buddy standing there. Images of Rudimenkin’s mother setting piping hot pierogies on the table at the family’s cabin by the Russian River, an hour’s drive north of San Francisco, flashed before him. The nostalgia quickly dissipated when he got a better look at his colleague and realized Rudimenkin was miles away with his own thoughts. Palmini figured they did not involve pierogies.
Rudimenkin looked cold and aloof and made no effort to walk over to meet him. He just stood there puffing his pipe and eying Palmini. Only the nutty aroma of the pipe tobacco reached out to greet the young detective, its scent mingling with the salty morning air.
“So, what’s going on?” Palmini grinned, hoping for any sign that Rudimenkin might lighten up. “Are we going back to your folks’ place after this? I miss those pierogies.”
Ignoring Palmini’s attempt at humor, Rudimenkin clutched the end of his pipe and indicated with his head for Palmini to follow him to the other side of the wooden platform. Together, they turned their backs to the street and stepped toward the edge of the deck, to face San Francisco in the distance. Sounds of hungry seagulls and water splashing against the pier sliced through the silence between them.
Rudimenkin spoke first. Getting right to the point, he briefed Palmini that armed men had entered the Trident around 3:45 A.M. At gunpoint, they subdued and handcuffed two janitors working in the restaurant. Then they burned through the safes and escaped with the contents. He said the dispatched officer, who took the report, would clue Palmini in with more details, adding that he had asked the two janitors, twenty-eight-year-old Patrick Pendleton and twenty-three-year-old Thomas Ribar, to hang around so that Palmini could interview them.
Rudimenkin reported that he had put in a call to the Kingston Trio’s business partner, Frank Werber. Werber told him that one of the safes contained probably $50,000 and two passports. One passport was his and the other belonged to a female friend.
Palmini asked if Werber was around for him to interview.
“No.” Rudimenkin shook his head. “But the night manager is on his way over. He’s the guy who routinely deposits the day’s receipts through a slot in one of the safes. And get this,” Rudimenkin leaned forward and lowered his voice to almost a whisper, “That night he dropped off $4,300 in the slot and then he left around 2:30 in the morning.”1
Palmini whistled and shook his head, “Hell, they take in that much in one night?” He thought of how many months of regular shifts and overtime he would have to put in to make that kind of money.
Rudimenkin nodded. Then, a mischevious grin spread across his face. “Bill, there’s more, but I’ll let that be a surprise. You’ll know soon enough.”
Palmini did not understand what Rudimenkin was talking about, but at least he was beginning to see signs of the “old” Rudimenkin he knew. The two walked to the west end of the building, then entered the restaurant through one of its side doors leading to the kitchen. Inside, they met with the officer dispatched to respond to the call. The officer briefed Palmini and introduced him to the two employees, who provided him with more details of their nerve-wracking experience. When Palmini finished interviewing Patrick Pendleton and Thomas Ribar, he had gotten a clear depiction of the harrowing experience the two Trident workers went through that night. He also discovered what George Rudimenkin had been hiding. The Trident heist came with its own dress code.
The gunmen had assaulted the restaurant dressed as frogmen. They were all wearing black wetsuits with blue stripes on the sleeves. And they all had on black rubber hoods, the same kind deep ocean divers wore, except for one of them. He had the attached hood hanging off of his collar in the back, but his head was covered by a brown knit cap.2
According to the police reports, the wetsuited gang made their initial assault in the kitchen where Patrick Pendleton was cleaning up. One of them sneaked in from behind, grabbed Pendleton by the left arm and pointed a 45-caliber handgun at his head.
“Just stay calm and you won’t get hurt.” The man twisted Pendleton’s arm, forcing him to his knees. “Get down,” he barked.
Pendleton felt the assailant’s knee press against his spine as he fell to the floor. Leaning over him, the wetsuit jerked both of Pendleton’s arms behind his back and snapped handcuffs on his wrists. Rising swiftly back up on his feet, the wetsuit snatched a kitchen towel lying on a counter and spread it over Pendleton’s head. Pendleton later told the officers he felt himself breaking into a sweat, waiting for the last sound he would ever hear: the blast that a bullet makes when it is fired from a gun.
There was music piping through the restaurant’s speaker system. Thomas Ribar was washing the deck windows in the Southeast corner of the dining room, unaware of the intruders. A noise behind him startled him. He stopped working and turned around. At first Ribar thought it was a joke when he saw a guy standing there in a wetsuit but then he realized the man was pointing a blue steel gun at his face. Suddenly, it stopped being funny.
Ribar described the man to Palmini as being in his late twenties or early thirties, dressed in a black wetsuit with a brown knit cap on his head. He ordered Ribar to go into the kitchen.
“I was scared shitless,” Ribar stated when he recounted how it felt to walk into the restaurant’s kitchen with the gunman following closely behind him, shoving him every couple of steps, ordering him to move faster. Inside the kitchen, Ribar’s eyes fell on Pendleton lying on the floor with his head covered with a towel. Suddenly, Ribar felt his arms forced back. The wetsuit in the brown knit cap handcuffed Ribar and ordered him to lie down next to Pendleton.
Going down on his knees, Ribar got a glimpse of two other men in the room. They were both dressed in the same black wetsuits and hoods. He noticed a walkie-talkie with a chrome antenna on a nearby countertop. Then, the oldest-looking one in the group threw a towel over Ribar’s head.
“Shit,” Ribar murmured, “they’re going to execute us.”
In describing his assailant, Pendleton recalled he was clean-shaven, between forty and fifty years old, of medium build and approximately six feet tall. Pendleton also noticed the man had on black tennis shoes and no socks, and that his calves and shoes were wet. He also recalled that the man spoke with a slight Southern twang. Meanwhile, Ribar described his assailant and the others he got a brief look at as all clean-shaven. He had noticed that they all wore black tennis shoes without socks. Ribar also described his gunman’s ankles and calves as being red, as if the man had been standing in hot or ice-cold water.
Instead of shooting the Trident workers, as Pendleton and Ribar had feared, the wetsuits ordered the two men back up on their feet. They led the pair, with their heads covered with kitchen towels, to the men’s room. There the gunmen ordered the two to lie down on the floor with the towels still draped over their heads.
Ribar and Pendleton whispered back and forth to each other, wisely deciding not to do anything to risk their lives. It was Frank Werber’s money anyway. They both agreed it was not worth dying for.3
As the two employees lay handcuffed in the bathroom, they heard rapid movements in the nearby hallway. They heard equipment being moved, followed by the high-pitched shrieks of drills and the chopping, sawing and ripping of walls. All the while, music flowed from the restaurant’s sound system, interrupted only by the clamor created by the wetsuits. The doors leading to the safes were in the same hallway as the men’s room, which enabled them to clearly hear the wetsuits’ conversations and their movements, the employees reported to the police.4
They overheard a male voice talking to the wetsuits through a walkie-talkie. Pendleton recalled bursts of static from the receiver. Ribar remembered that the radio emitted an even and constant background tone when the wetsuits transmitted messages back and forth with the man.
Pendleton and Ribar both said that once they were forced to lie down on the floor in the men’s restroom, the wetsuits’ behavior appeared more relaxed toward them. They were polite and professional in their interactions with each other and with the two hostages. Occasionally, one of the wetsuits came into the lavatory to check on Ribar and Pendleton and sometimes to change their positions on the floor to make them more comfortable. During one of these visits, the first assailant, the one who had forced Pendleton to the ground at gunpoint, asked Pendleton if the office was bugged by an alarm.
“Yes, it is,” Pendleton told him, perhaps hoping this bit of information might get them to scatter sooner.
Both employees mentioned to the Sausalito police that the burglars referred to the bathroom as the “shitter,” a term common among convicts and military personnel.
“Can you identify your assailants?” Palmini looked up at Pendleton and Ribar from his notepad.
“Yeah,” Pendleton nodded. It was the first good news Palmini had that morning.
“It looks like one of these guys had time on his hands,” Rudimenkin pointed to a cigarette machine standing near the entrance. It had been broken into and stripped of change and all its contents.
Pendleton stated in his deposition that when the wetsuits were leaving at around 4:30 A.M., he heard one of them say, “Joe, hang around for about five minutes and watch these guys.”
After they were sure all the wetsuits were truly gone, Pendleton and Ribar got up. The two employees struggled with their handcuffs. Finally, Pendleton was able to free one hand. He then called the police. Sausalito Police records show that the alarm went off at 6:05 A.M. and the responding officer, Douglas Morgan, arrived on the premises at 6:08 A.M.5
