Public Enemies_ America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI - Bryan Burrough [280]
In Washington, Hoover paced his office. Already rumors were flying in Chicago that Dock Barker had been arrested. They had days, maybe hours, before the story broke. Tuesday morning, as Connelley’s men set out to study Lake Weir, a reporter from the Chicago American called the Bankers Building and was again passed to Mickey Ladd. “What can you tell me about Dock Barker?” the reporter asked.
Ladd denied Barker was in custody. But the reporter wouldn’t give up. “Where are you holding Dock?” he asked in a second call. After the second call, Ladd called Washington. If they kept Barker in Chicago, Ladd warned, the story would get out.7 Hoover ordered Barker moved to the Detroit office, which had a gun room with bars on the windows. Ladd promised to move him at nightfall.
As Chicago jousted with the inquisitive reporter that morning, Agent Bob Jones climbed into a motorboat with the deputy sheriff, Milton Dunning, and cruised the shoreline of Lake Weir. While the two inspected lakeside cottages, Connelley took a gamble on the postmaster in the village of Oklawaha, on the north bank of the lake. The postmaster couldn’t identify photographs of Barker or Karpis. But when Connelley asked if any strangers had moved into the area, he mentioned a Mr. Blackburn, who was renting a nice lakefront house with a dock. He received several out-of-town newspapers. The postmaster suggested they approach Mr. Blackburn’s neighbor, a man named Frank Barber, who had once worked as a guard at Leavenworth. Connelley drove to Barber’s house and immediately received the confirmation they needed. Barber identified a photo of Fred Barker as his new neighbor Mr. Blackburn.
Connelley studied the Blackburn house through the trees. It lay on the south side of Route 41, the area’s main road, and as he cruised past it at 11:00, he caught a glimpse of a small man and an aged woman in the yard. It was Fred Barker and his mother.
Back in Ocala, Connelley called and briefed Washington. The situation looked ideal. The house sat a hundred yards back from the road, maybe ten from the lakeshore. There were no natural obstructions around it, only what appeared to be a guesthouse, a garage, and some chicken coops. They could use these buildings as cover. Connelley was determined to avoid another Little Bohemia. He sat down with his men later that day, drew detailed maps of the Blackburn house, and outlined every man’s position in the raiding party. Weapons were checked, then double-checked. They would move in before dawn.
Oklawaha, Florida Tuesday, January 15
The inky tropical night still enveloped the hamlet of Oklawaha as the FBI cars slid to a stop and extinguished their headlights out on Highway 41. Fifteen agents stepped from the cars into a primeval scene of lush woods dominated by ancient oak trees dripping with Spanish moss. Deep in the shadows they could just make out a smattering of darkened houses and outbuildings. There was no movement, no light, no clue anyone knew they were coming.
The Barker house, a two-story white clapboard with green trim, sat a hundred yards off the road, facing south toward the lake. There was a screened-in porch facing the water in front, a long dock out to a boathouse, and two grassy lanes on either side of the house. Connelley positioned cars at the end of each lane. At 5:30 they moved in and surrounded the house. Connelley took five men and crept down the west side of the property, jogging through a grove of spindly orange trees to the lakefront; they took shelter behind a small guesthouse, which sat thirty paces from the front porch. It was a strangely intimate setting for a potential shoot-out; Connelley’s position was so close to the porch he could underhand a softball and hit it.
A group of the Cowboys—Charles Winstead, Jerry Campbell, and two other