But it was John Connor—not Niemi—who squired young Natalya Kruglova from Vegas to Frisco to Kansas and beyond during the winter of 2000. Following their extended New Year’s holiday, Pickard returned to Carneiro in February. According to Skinner, Apperson was still there tinkering with the swimming pool project. Leonard leant a hand.
Using his alter ego, the silver-maned Connor and his mistress checked in at the nearby Salina Ramada Inn from Feb. 11 through 19. Over the next four months, the Connors returned periodically, according to Skinner. While in Kansas, Leonard and Natalya scrupulously followed the first rule of Ivy Mike: draw no attention.
In Leonard’s version, they drew no attention because they weren’t there.
“Natalya was never at Carneiro,” he said. “She was at university.”
Pickard’s one Kansas visit had been a mercy mission. At Skinner’s insistence, he and Apperson traveled to Carneiro to retrieve Todd’s Mexican tile man, who was trapped inside the silo.
“Skinner had locked him inside for weeks to work on the tile,” insisted Leonard. “If we hadn’t gone to get him out, Lupe might have starved.”
While both Skinner’s and Pickard’s stories tried credulity, Leonard pointed out that nowhere did his or Apperson’s fingerprints appear inside the Carneiro facility. By contrast, Skinner’s and those of his employees were everywhere. In Pickard’s version, he and Apperson were being set up.
“In retrospect, it’s apparent to me that Skinner needed a witness to say he saw us there,” said Pickard.
Similarly, Skinner made up a story about paying Natasha’s college tuition with a $27,000 cashier’s check from the Mirage Casino. Natasha tried using it to pay for her first semester at Berkeley when the government put a hold on it. Natasha called Leonard. Leonard called Todd.
“We went to high-burn security status,” Skinner recalled.
According to Todd, Pickard leapt to the worst conclusion. Natasha would be deported. For three days, Leonard sweated it out at the Wamego silo, his imagination on overdrive. He ordered Gunnar Guinan to rent him a Ford Explorer with four-wheel drive, suitable for evasive off-road chases. He was 150 miles west of Wamego when he learned that Skinner cut another check and made good on Natasha’s tuition.
Ultimately, the whole episode had been false alarm. Skinner seemed to take it all in stride. There had never been any real danger. Kansas was one big snooze.
Leonard labeled all of it fiction. “Nat never tried to cash a check from the Mirage, and Skinner never paid her tuition,” he said flatly.
The one Carneiro fact upon which both men could agree was the death of Skinner’s landlord.
On March 27, a despondent Tim Schwartz paid a visit to Osage County an hour east of his home. Troubled over his recent divorce, the owner of the Carneiro silo found a remote fishing hole, loaded his rifle, and took his own life. He left his suicide note on his computer.
Skinner shed no tears, but had to wonder: when would Schwartz’s heirs demand to tour their silo? That couldn’t happen. The Control Center had flooded during recent winter storms. The lab chemicals set-up reeked and there was nowhere to safely hide equipment.
Skinner waited for a phone call from the Schwartz family, but there seemed to be no immediate threat. Within the month, things relaxed back to Skinner’s version of normal. That meant manufacture, distribute, launder, repeat. Life went on.
Skinner maintained that he picked up another load of laundry in early April. Apperson met him at the San Francisco airport and they swung by the Kruglovas’ new California Street apartment to pick up a briefcase containing between $176,000 and $197,000.
Once again, Pickard begged to differ.
“This is nonsense,” he said. “Skinner would say anything, secure in his confidence that whatever he said would be believed.”
According to Leonard, there were no funds, no briefcase, and no visit. Skinner never even knew where the apartment was.
When Skinner got back to Kansas, an indictment was waiting. The Department of Justice accused him of impersonating a federal official four months earlier at Harrah’s Prairie Band Casino. The prosecutor assigned to the case was an ambitious young Assistant US Attorney out of Topeka named Gregory Hough.
Things looked grim, and yet, as in the past, Todd skated. Freed on his own recognizance, he was told to return to court with his plea in June.
Skinner’s reaction to yet another close shave was celebration. He invited a dozen of his best buds to join him in Vegas, including Todd’s mom. Following the death of his stepfather a year earlier, Todd had reconciled with Kathrine Magrini. They planned a Mother’s Day bash like no other at the Paris Casino.
Krystle Cole and Emily Ragan were there. So were Leonard and Natasha. Billy Wynn came, as did Mike Hobbs, Todd’s gofer-in-chief Gunnar Guinan, and a couple of silo gals who dropped by for a dose of Skinner’s Eucharist from time to time.
“Our whole group paraded around the casinos like we owned the place,” Krystle recalled in her self-published 2007 memoir, Lysergic. “We were decked out in expensive clothes, Armani, Gucci, etc.”
Todd staked them all, enlisting each in his lysergic laundromat. Even Pickard gambled, winning $14,200 one day and $8,000 the next.
“I remember one occasion when Todd and Leonard went to play French Roulette,” wrote Krystle. “We were staying at the Paris, in their best rooms of course, so all we had to do was take the elevator downstairs. Todd started playing with a large stack of plaques. They ranged in value from $1,000 to $10,000. He started throwing them down across the board, like they were pennies. After an hour of play he was up $64,000 and decided to stop. It was amazing! Afterward we all went over to the Bellagio for beluga caviar and wine, costing only a measly $4,000!”
Natasha
