Fletch(67)

Pretending to make a purchase of drugs from Witherspoon, Montgomery would in fact drop the drug-laden money belt in a place prearranged for Witherspoon to find it.

Although the widespread presence of illegal drugs in The Beach area was visible, the method of how the drugs came to be in the area was invisible.

An earlier drug-runner, a 19-year-old simply identified in the affidavits as “Jeff,” reportedly committed suicide four years ago.

The handwritten note allegedly from Cummings was written at the time of “Jeff’s” suicide. It refers to the problem of replacing “Jeff” as a drug-runner by Montgomery.

According to his own affidavit, Montgomery has been running drugs since the age of fourteen.

Originally, when it was time for another transfer, Montgomery would signal Cummings by leaving his bicycle chained to a parking meter visible through the window of the office of the chief of police. The bicycle had a distinct, purple banana seat and a high rear-view mirror.

Later, the signal that Montgomery wanted to be “picked up for questioning” so a transfer of money for drugs could take place would be his parking a flower-decorated Volkswagen minibus within sight of the police chiefs office window. The vehicle is registered to Witherspoon.

Witherspoon, 38, has been living apparently undisturbed by police in a lean-to on the beach for years.

He identifies himself as a former music teacher with the Denver, Colo., public school system.

In his affidavit, Witherspoon states that he and only he has been selling the drugs supplied by Cummings in The Beach area.

Both Witherspoon and Montgomery state they had no share in the profits from the illegal drug trade. Self-attested addicts, they profited only by having their own drug needs supplied free of charge by Cummings.

They both attest that they were forced to continue in this traffic by Chief Cummings, who threatened them with evidence in his possession that they had been involved in drug-dealing.

Witherspoon had sold drugs illegally in The Beach area before becoming an agent of the police chief.

Witherspoon stated, “I was as much a prisoner of the chief of police, both by my need for drugs and by evidence he had on me, as I would have been if I were sitting in the town jail.”

As chief of police, Cummings had refused offers of assistance from private sources to have the town’s drug problems investigated by outside experts. Such a repeated offer by John Collins, chairman of the board of Collins Aviation, was repeatedly refused.

According to Collins, Cummings always insisted he was “within a few months” of breaking the case.

He made a similar insistence to the News-Tribune Tuesday of this week.

After handing in the originals and duplicates of both stories to the copy desk of the afternoon newspaper, Fletch spent time identifying the photographs he had ordered processed two days before and drafting captions for them. The photographs were of Roberta Sanders, Police Chief Graham Cummings (which had been in the News-Tribune picture files), Charles Witherspoon outside the lean-to handing a small cellophane-wrapped package of heroin to Creasey, who was not identifiable in the photograph, and of Lewis Montgomery dressed in a Hawaiian shirt standing beside the Volkswagen minibus.

He Xeroxed two copies each of the affidavits and Cummings’s handwritten note and turned both copies over to the copy desk. One clear copy of each would be photographed, engraved and printed in the News-Tribune with his second story.

The originals of the affidavits and the handwritten note he brought back to his office and placed in an addressed envelope. He telephoned for a city messenger. Then he sealed the envelope.

It was only then that Fletch made the telephone contacts he had already reported in news stories already being printed.

“Beach Police. Please state your name and the number from which you are calling.”

With his handkerchief between his mouth and the telephone receiver, Fletch said, “I want to report a body.”

“Please state your name and the number from which you are calling.”

“There’s a body buried on the beach, of a girl—the girl Bobbi. She is buried in a sleeping bag. She’s dead.”

“Who is this?”

‘This is not a hoax. Bobbi is buried on the beach near the sea wall. The only place along the sea wall where the sand is perpetually in the shade. Where it curves and the sidewalk overhangs. Up the beach from Fat Sam’s lean-to. There is a rock from the sea wall placed over the exact spot where she is buried. Have you got that?”

“Please repeat.”

“The body of Bobbi is buried on the beach, next to the sea wall not far from Fat Sam’s lean-to. There is a rock placed precisely on the sand where she is buried.”