Todd concurred. That was why he was leaving the country. He couldn’t trust anyone. Henceforth, they’d have to communicate only by email. “Bubba” would be their code word.
For all his rehearsing, the reality of winding up back behind bars caught Leonard by surprise. He told police he’d only been trying to be a Good Samaritan; that all he was guilty of was helping Todd Skinner dispose of his illegal lab. None of the equipment or chemicals belonged to Pickard. He and Apperson were just trying to help out a friend.
Leonard had suffered similar misunderstandings in the past. The San Mateo police once mistook him as a meth manufacturer. As a science buff, he’d come into some second-hand lab equipment tainted with illegal chemicals. He wound up in jail during the late eighties for being the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was why he’d counseled Skinner to let him and Apperson trash his stash.
While inside on the 1988 beef, Leonard said, he’d learned his lesson. He’d buckled down, became a Buddhist, went to Harvard, earned his Master’s, and landed a position at UCLA. He was respectable, if financially challenged. He owned no car or real estate, dedicating his life and modest means to his children and furthering the cause of international drug diplomacy. They didn’t have to take his word. Just look at his record!
Why had he run from police? Because he realized how bad it looked. It was impulsive and bad judgement, but nothing more. Appearances could be deceiving.
At the end of November, Leonard remained ignorant of Skinner’s duplicity. He wrote Bill Wynn care of Gardner Springs, assuming that Wynn would pass the warning on to Todd, whom he identified in his letter as “J. B. King.” Leonard wrote that he believed the case would get tossed for illegal search and seizure. He cautioned J. B. that “discretion is the better part of valor.”
Leonard wondered in a postscript whether Skinner’s mother might be able to help him get a lawyer. Wynn passed the letter on to Katherine Magrini, who faxed it to Karl Nichols.
For his part, Skinner remained in hiding. Even his own mother didn’t know where he was.
In the person of Todd Skinner, Karl Nichols had landed an extraordinary stoolpigeon. He meant to milk him for all he was worth.
Just three days after the Wamego raid, San Francisco’s US Attorney wrote Nichols’s boss about Todd. In a terse one-page opinion, he deemed Skinner exempt from a routine DEA requirement that informants provide handwritten statements each time they met with their handlers:
This Office believes it is generally unnecessary and cumbersome to require confidential informants to prepare written statements at each meeting with DEA Special Agents. In our experience, DEA Special Agents in this district accurately record or report informant information in DEA reports. . . .
The US Attorney gave Nichols free range to handle his golden snitch in an informal manner. The US Attorney’s name was Robert S. Mueller III.
By the end of November, Nichols and Skinner had become tight. While they built the case against Pickard and Apperson, Skinner maintained a low profile. The DEA had already found lots of cash. Before long, Nichols expected to hit the Mother Lode: millions upon millions.
Immediately following the bust, Skinner relocated to Mendocino at government expense. Krystle Cole, Gunnar Guinan, and a half-dozen others went with him. Skinner hired a couple of caretakers to protect the silo from vandals during his absence.
No sooner had Todd & Company settled along the California coast than he began to imagine reporters behind every tree. He told Nichols he had no interest in Witness Protection with US Marshalls hovering over his every move, but it seemed apparent that he had to move.
Nichols put Todd in touch with a Tucson realtor, who rented him a posh desert hideaway. Because the DEA referred him, Skinner didn’t even require a credit check. He got away with renting under Emily Ragan’s name.
In her 2014 memoir Lysergic, Krystle Cole recalled their new digs:
So, with the DEA’s help, we rented a luxurious house in the foothills of the Catalina Mountains. We overlooked the entire city. There was a huge heated pool and Jacuzzi in our backyard. The house was amazing. There were five bedrooms and two bathrooms. Todd and I got the master bedroom and bathroom, complete with our own hot tub. Lupe got a room next to some friends visiting from California. Gunnar took a room off the garage. And our other friends visiting from Kansas took the room at the opposite end of the house.
Leonard’s new home was the Shawnee County Jail, where transcontinental trains whistled in the distance all night long and winter crept past central heating and settled like death into every cell. Pickard shivered in prison blues, sandals and socks, his silver shoulder-length mane contrasting sharply with the close-cropped gang-sta cut of the typical tatted jailbird.
He had ample solitude to contemplate his dilemma. The Buddhist in him experienced satori: everything changed while nothing changed. He identified as Tim Leary’s heir: martyr to a greater cause.
Years later, in The Rose of Paracelsus, he imagined a conversation about the pitfalls of leading a dual existence. He spoke with Crimson, first of the Six mystery chemists he would meet during his lysergic travelogue:
Crimson: “The occult life . . . is an exercise in cultivating two or more parallel worlds, and moving easily among them.”
Pickard: “What are the rules of conduct?”
Crimson: “Let’s call them ‘Washington Rules,’ as in DC, followed so one’s demise is met with dignity, rather than walking abused in forlorn circles around a prison track.”
In those early days, Leonard was not yet ready to accept Washington Rules. He kept faith. He needed only one reasonable soul with a passion for justice to hear him out. What he needed was a good lawyer.
Topeka attorney
