The End of the Dream (33 page)

You guys are just coming out of the woodwork everywhere! “ Indeed, they were at least in North Seattle, West Seattle, and in Madison Park.

Feeling somewhat disloyal to his old partner, Mike told Chris that the FBI was there because some neighborhood kids had been robbed. Kids were one of the things that worried the task force the most. Many of the banks in the target area were located near schools, and they dreaded the thought of a gun battle near one, particularly since Hollywood had often favored the noon hour, a time when a lot of children would be walking home for lunch. On Friday, November 22, there was a robbery at the Wells Fargo Bank’s Laurelhurst branch. A lone robber had come in wearing a ski mask and a fake beard. He’d robbed both the tellers and the vault.

He had gotten away with $40,000. It didn’t sound like Hollywood’s disguise, and $40,000 was small potatoes for him. Detectives had followed the Wells Fargo robber and lost him as he turned corner after corner and then disappeared. Still, Mike Magan wondered.

Could the Wells Fargo bank robber have been Hollywood but a Hollywood who, for his own reasons, was varying his pattern? The bank was definitely in the northeast section of Seattle where Hollywood had struck so many times before. On a hunch, Magan drove the route that the robber had taken from the bank. If the guy was heading for the freeways, he took such a circuitous route to get there that Mike figured he had to be from out of town. If the man in the ski mask had been Hollywood, Magan’s retracing of his getaway route validated something he felt instinctually, he had never believed that Hollywood lived in the north end of Seattle. For that matter, he suspected he didn’t even live in Seattle at all. Mike and Shawn Johnson both felt that he lived south, or that he had connections there. He had bought his throwaway cars in Kent, Tacoma, Auburn all south of Seattle.

Both of them realized that they were only guessing. And it was more difficult than counting the number of pennies in a gallon jar.

The “Hollywood Detail” was in its fourth month of surveillance in November without one sighting of the man they wanted. If interest flagged, nobody would blame them. Mike Magan was afraid that enthusiasm to catch Hollywood was going to dissipate as the fall wore on. Maybe he knew they were waiting for him and he was getting the last laugh, again.
 
“Even the merchants recognized us, “ Mike laughed.

“And we recognized them. That wasn’t all bad.

That meant that we were sure going to spot any strangers who showed up.

“ But nobody lost interest. Besides Shawn Johnson and Mike Maganthe two task force members who probably wanted Hollywood the most everyone involved was in it for the long haul. But they all knew it couldn’t run at this pitch forever. The law of diminishing returns was bound to factor in. It had happened with the Green River Killer Task Force, when they failed to find the serial killer in two years, taxpayers grumbled and financial support collapsed, leaving the probe terribly understaffed. Ellen Glasser talked to Magan in late November. “We may have to taper down .. . or go to the media again, Mike.” He begged her for more time at full throttle. “Just a few more weeks, “ Magan asked.

“Hollywood loves it when it rains. And it’s raining.” He pointed out that they’d had lots of luck with other cases because of the surveillance teams. He reminded her about the Wells Fargo bank robbery in Laurelhurstright in Hollywood territory on November 22.

Even though the MO and the description didn’t fit, that surely made it a good argument to keep the teams active. “Hollywood could be gone, Mike, “ Ellen Glasser pointed out. “He could be on the other side of the country. He could even be dead.” Magan knew that. But he argued that Hollywood had laid low for more than a year before. And he had always popped up again. He had hit twice before in November. Finally, Ellen agreed to give the detail some more time at full strength. Two days later, all hell broke loose. In 1996, Thanksgiving Day fell on November 28. By the twenty-seventh, people all over Seattle were in a holiday mood, getting ready for a feast and a four day weekend. Ellen Glasser called off the usual Wednesday-Thursday-Friday surveillance.

It had been raining so hard and so steadily that even someone directly across the street from a bank wouldn’t be able to see what was going on.
 
After four solid months of stakeouts, everyone craved and deserveda couple of days off.

Kevin Meyers was in Virginia spending the Thanksgiving holidays with his mother while Ellen was near Seattle with her daughters, getting ready to cook the holiday meal. Marge Violette Mullins was in Missouri, trying to keep her three sons out of her way while she made pies for the next day.
 
Sabrina Adams was in Arizona, but she planned to catch a flight to Se’tac International Airport on Thanksgiving Eve so she could be with Scott for the holiday.

He had promised he would pick her up on Wednesday evening, the twenty-seventh. Steve Meyers was in Washington State, and Mark Biggins had made a quick trip upalthough he planned to be home in plenty of time to have Thanksgiving dinner with Traci and Lori.

Both Steve and Mark were relieved that Scott had dropped the plans to do a three robberies in one day. Something had changed his mind.

Every one seemed to be taking time off cops and robbers alike. Except for homicide detectives, who know all too well that a certain percentage of families cannot deal with much holiday togetherness without violence, and state patrolmen who have to cope with the fatal highway accidents that proliferate after holiday parties, most law-enforcement officers can expect a spate of calm over Thanksgiving and Christmas. Shawn Johnson left the Puget Sound Violent Crimes Task Force offices a little before 5,30 on that Wednesday afternoon, and headed toward his West Seattle home, looking forward to family time with his wife and two small children. Mike Magan’s partner, Sheila, left the task force office early that afternoon to go home and stuff her family’s turkey. Mike planned to play basketball with a bunch of the guys from SEAFAT (the FBI’s Seattle Fugitive Apprehension Team), but he had forgotten his gym bag, so Lisa brought it down to him.

After the game, the players were going to meet at the Metropolitan Grill in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood to have a couple of beers.

“I played lousy that afternoon, “ Mike recalled, “and I stopped at the office before I went to the Met. The only members of the task force still there were Ellen Glasser, Kevin Arataniand Pete Erickson, a Mercer Island detective assigned to the task force.” Far below their twenty-eighth floor offices, on the streets and freeways of Seattle, traffic was backed up because of the rain and the fact that it was the beginning of a long holiday weekend. The winddriven storm was so full of water that it seemed that half of Eliott Bay on the west of Seattle and Lake Washington on the east were caught up in it as it drenched hapless pedestrians and impatient commuters alike. At 5,40 P. M. , Kevin Aratani wished Ellen, Pete, and Mike a happy Thanksgiving and left the office.

At 5,41 P. M. , the tones of a silent alarm sounded. The Sea first Bank in Lake City was being robbed. “Fuck! “ Magan shouted. “It’s Hollywood!
 
“ What had begun as one of the most meticulously planned bank robberies in the annals of crime in America had already started to disintegrate.
 
Before Hollywood was even inside the bank and before Steve Meyers had switched on the police radio frequency one of the tellers had spotted him and pushed a silent alarm button not once, but twice. The bank’s cameras were set a minute fast, but they began efficiently and mechanically taking pictures of everything that was happening in the hushed bank. The two robbers, one lithe and athletic with a weird masklike face and a hooded jacket, and the other taller and bulkier, his face, too, disguised, knew about the cameras and were unconcerned.

With their makeup, their hoods, and their dark amber aviator-style sunglasses, they were confident that they were fully disguised. The one in command, the smaller man, walked up to a teller whose first name was Scott and said calmly, “Don’t touch any buttons. Don’t set off any alarms or I’ll take a hostage.” It was, of course, already too late but Steve had not picked up the “Bank robbery in progress” call on his scanner. Now, the robber shouted for the vault teller, and the teller, Scott, said that he could assist in opening the vault. “OK then, let’s go.

“ The customer service representative and Scott, the teller, waited at the entrance to the vault as the robber hopped over a partition and a gate. He seemed infinitely familiar with their bank, and calm. He walked through the safe deposit room to the vault entrance. The robber apparently knew that there was more than one section to the vault itself, and he demanded that they all be opened. He readied his navy blue duffel bag. “This cash is new, “ he said, his voice disappointed.

Did he expect them to apologize for having crisp new bills?

Nevertheless, he began grabbing bricks of bills and shoving them in the bag. “Don’t let me take any dye packs, “ he cautioned. Odd. It was as if somehow he believed that they were all working together in his assault on the bank. The teller and service rep said nothing. There was a cardboard box in the top vault, and the robber looked at it, and then dumped its contents into his bag, along with another brick of $20 bills.
 
He had seemingly lucked out once more. He hadn’t picked up any dye packs, though he did have a stack of bait bills.

He had been in the vault only a very few minutes. As he came out, he called to his accomplice, asking what sounded like, “Is she here? Did you hear the call? Any alarms been set off? “

“No alarms.”

“We’re out of here.” The two men left through the door on the south side of the bank building. They had not seen Steve Woods, who had been standing in line, as he’d moved to the window where he could watch their escape. He stared after them as they walked west on NE 125
^th
Street and then turned north around the bank. He himself exited through the north side of the building and followed them. They weren’t running. He watched, marveling at their self-control, as they walked rapidly through a library parking lot and then past a park up a hill.

He wasn’t far behind but he was hidden from them by the darkening sky.

After Woods had crossed through the park himself, he noticed a blue station wagon with Washington, or maybe Idaho, platesit looked as though it might have been a Subaruspeed out of the church parking lot next to the park. The driver was reckless and took an abrupt left turn onto NE 125
^th
Street a busy thoroughfareand disappeared. Woods, on foot, lost sight of them. He could not swear that the bank robbers were in the station wagon, but he somehow knew that they were. The moment that the alarm tones had sounded in the task force office, Mike Magan was halfway out of the office. Pete Erickson was right behind him, and Mike turned back to ask Ellen Glasser if she wanted to come.

“I said yes, “ Ellen Glasser recalled. “I grabbed my fanny pack (which held her gun) and together we all ran out of the office immediately, and got into Magan’s car on Second Avenue.” Ellen got in the rear seat right behind Mike Magan, and Pete Erickson rode shotgun. They were in downtown Seattle and they had to drive ten miles to get to the Lake City Bank. In the middle of the afternoon on a sunny weekday, it would have been a piece of cake. But this was the night before Thanksgiving, there was a virtual monsoon out there, and the entrances to the I-5 freeway were like parking lots. Mike Magan slapped a bubble light on the roof of his unmarked car, hit the siren, and called the FBI radio center on his portable radio.

“Call 505 at home! “ he shouted. “Tell him that Hollywood has hit!

“ Shawn Johnson was 505. Magan asked SPD radio to notify the Special Patrol Unit. Sergeants Mcdonagh and Rolf Towne, monitoring the call on Tac I, reported that they were on their way to the scene. If they could just get through the massive traffic jam, the FBI, the Seattle Police Department, the rest of the task force, and Hollywood and Friends just might meet up in Lake City. A patrol officer was at the scene and he was reporting by radio that the robber inside the bank had worn heavy makeup and carried a Glock. When word of this came over the air, there was little doubt that Hollywood had, indeed, hit again.

Mike could see that he wasn’t going to get on the freeway going north, all the lanes were full and, even if drivers tried to move over, they had no place to go. “I took the shoulder the whole way at sixty-five miles per hour, “ he remembered. “I looked in the rearview mirror and Kevin Aratani was right behind me he’d picked the calls up on the radio, too.” The SWAT team had been training at the old Sand Point Naval Air Station all day, and that put them closer to Lake City than Mike, Ellen, and Pete, though they were closing in. Mike was glad now that he had practiced pursuit driving, but he realized his bulletproof vest was in the trunk of his car. He doubted he would have time to put it on when he reached the crime scene. And, at the same time, he realized that he probably had never needed it more in all his years on the Seattle Police Department. As they raced north, the police radio spat out bits and pieces of information. There was a possibility that the bank robbers had driven off in a blue Subaru station wagon possibly with Idaho plates.
 
Unfortunately, there had never been a direct linkage between the Seattle radio channels and the FBI’s, so there was no way beyond a walkie-talkie radio and a cell phonefor SSA Ellen Glasser to notify the FBI office that she was with Mike Magan and Pete Erickson. Most of the information on the bank robbery was coming from Seattle Police dispatchers. When they arrived at the Lake City Sea first Bank location, they found organized chaos. Seattle Police patrol cars blocked escape routes now, but no one really thought that Hollywood was still in the area, although Mike Magan would not have been surprised if he had taken one triumphant sweep down the street before he headed for wherever his sanctuary was.
 
No, he would be gone by now. One tip was that a citizen had seen two men run into a pizza restaurant, but Seattle police had already checked them out.