Skyjack: The Hunt for D. B. Cooper (44 page)

Out the bathroom window I watch the pickup. It eases down the drive and disappears. A wrong turn.

The next afternoon. Or maybe the one after that. I’m in the kitchen reheating the lunch I made, which started out as breakfast, which was last night’s dinner. The phone rings. I look at the area code.

“845.”

Jo Weber again.

Ugh. I don’t want to pick up. Jo Weber conversations are hour investments, minimum. But I’m lonely up here in the cabin. I wonder, after the thousands of dead-end leads and ideas she has come up with about her ex-husband and the case, at least one has to be true, right?

I pick up.

“I’ve found it!” she says.

She’s panicking. Short of breath.

Found what?

She can barely get the words out.

Found what, Jo? What did you find?

She is sobbing. She isn’t paying attention. Tears now. Her shrieks are hysterical.

I scream at her. Get a hold of yourself, Jo, calm down. What did you find?

“The cookbook,” she says.

The cookbook?

“In Duane’s things,” she says. “I went through his things—and Duane, you know, was not much of a reader—and I found a cookbook. Why would Duane save a cookbook, and why would he save a cookbook like this one?”

Well, what kind of cookbook is it?

“I can’t tell you,” she says.

Goddamn it, Jo. Stop being so paranoid. Tell me the name.

“Well, it’s not really a cookbook,” she says. “It’s just recipes put together.”

Okay, fine. Recipes put together by who?

She won’t say. She is crying again.

Pull yourself together, Jo. Out with it.

“The Dutch Catholic Order of the Amaranth,” she says.

What? Does the cookbook have a name on it? A date on the back?

“The publication date is 1960. The inscription inside the cover is ‘Gertrude E. Holmberg.’ I tried to find her. I think she is still alive.”

Why does she even care?

“Because of the picture.”

What picture?

“Of the little girl.”

The little girl?

“I don’t know if it’s Tina but I think it’s Tina. The girl looks like Tina. I found it in the cookbook. Mucklow, now that sounds Dutch. And she became a nun. Now Order of the Amaranth, I think that might be in Pennsylvania … Tina is from Pennsylvania.”

I’m listening now. The hijacker did develop a bond with Tina Mucklow on the flight.

Jo thinks Tina had the cookbook with her on the flight, and inside the pages was a picture of herself, mementos to remind her of home. And being the thief he was, Duane couldn’t help but steal the cookbook during the hijacking, just like he had stolen the packets of Kool-Aid he never drank from the Piggly Wiggly.

“I need to meet Tina,” Jo says. “Face to face. She needs to see I am real. I need to show her the cookbook.”

Where in the cookbook did Jo find the photo? Where was it placed?

“Next to the recipe for cherry cheesecake.”

Cherry cheesecake?

“The recipe was handwritten.”

Now that’s something, I think. Maybe the handwritten recipe is a code of a kind, like the gobbledygook newsprint I saw in the crevices of Duane’s ostrich-skin wallet. What if Duane secretly confessed to the crime within the recipe? Ingenious! Or perhaps the recipe itself is another clue that Duane has left for Jo. It could be directions to another
safety deposit box—only instead of a
Soldier of Fortune
magazine, this secret chamber contains dozens of stacks of lost Cooper bills! The treasure is mine at last!

Jo won’t stop crying.

I have to get tough with her.

“Jo, listen to me now. Take a breath. Calm yourself down. And read me the goddamn recipe for cherry cheesecake.”

NOTES

T
he material and narrative of this book are culled from a variety of sources, mostly interviews conducted by the author and information gleaned from hundreds of FBI case files. Other sources are newspapers, magazines, White House tapes, books, and music lyrics from the late 1960s and early 1970s. There have been several other books written on the Cooper case, all of them worth reading, and some which I relied on to re-create the lives of Cooper suspects and Cooper hunters, most notably
D.B. Cooper: The Real McCoy
, by Bernie Rhodes, research by Russell Calame (University of Utah Press, 1991). The others are
D.B. Cooper: What Really Happened
, by May Gunther (Contemporary Books, 1985);
NORJAK
, by Ralph Himmelsbach and Thomas K. Worcester (self-published, 1986);
The Legend of D.B. Cooper
, by Ron and Pat Foreman (self-published, 2008);
Into the Blast: The True Story of D.B. Cooper
, by Skipp Porteous and Robert Blevins (Adventure Books, 2010), and
D.B. Cooper: Dead or Alive?
by Richard Tosaw (Tosaw Books, 1984).

THE JUMP

Quote: “Bombproof.” Found on newsprint in the wallet of insurance salesman and D.B. Cooper suspect Duane Weber.

Nixon quote:
whitehousetapes.net
.

JULY 6, 2007. NEW YORK, NEW YORK.

Skipp Porteous, Sherry Hart, and Sherlock Investigations:
Jesus Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
, by Skipp Porteous; interviews with Skipp Porteous and Sherry Hart.

Kenneth, Lyle, and Donna Christiansen: interviews with Lyle Christiansen; entries from
A Cute as a Bug’s Ear
by Donna Christiansen.

The quote from the sociologist (“He comes off as a kind of curious Robin Hood …”) is from Dr. Otto Larson and appeared in the
Seattle Times
, “Hijacker of Jetliner Steals Public Fancy Here,” Ross Anderson, November 28, 1971.

Quotes from sheriff and agent in newsclips following hijacking, FBI file.

Information about D.B. Cooper FBI file: author reporting, FBI agent Larry Carr.

Near death of treasure hunter John Banks,
NORJAK
, by Ralph Himmelsbach.

Journalist’s suicide attempt and electroshock treatments:
Son of the Rough South
by Karl Fleming (Public Affairs, 2005).

Charles Manson quote: transcripts of the Manson trial.

Quote from Richard Nixon (“If I’m assassinated …”):
1973 Nervous Breakdown: Watergate, Warhol, and the Birth of Post-Sixties America
by Andreas Killen (Bloomsbury, 2006).

Statistics on American skyjackings: Federal Aviation Administration newsletter, January 24, 1971.

Passages on psychology of skyjackers:
The Skyjacker: His Flights of Fantasy
by David G. Hubbard, M.D. (Macmillan, 1971).

Kenneth Christiansen: military records, interviews with Lyle Christiansen.

Lyrics: “D.B. Cooper, Where Are You?” by Judy Sword.

NOVEMBER 24, 1971. ABOARD NORTHWEST 305.

The description of the events aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 305, and of the FBI’s response on the ground, is drawn from the FBI files, including interviews with Florence Schaffner, Tina Mucklow, Alice Garley Hancock, Harold E. Anderson, William John Rataczak, William A. Scott, Dennis Eugene Lysne, Hal V. Williams, Robert B. Gregory, George R. Labissoniere, Cord Harms Zrim Spreckel, William W. Mitchell, Nancy House, Earl J. Cossey, and others. Conversations between pilots, air traffic controllers, Northwest officials, and FBI agents are quoted from Teletype reports and transcriptions of various radio communications on the night of the hijacking and found in FBI files and NORJAK. In addition, the author conducted interviews with Schaffner, Hancock, passengers Mitchell, Larry Finegold, Floyd Kloepfer, Patrick Minsch, and others, and interviews with retired agents Himmelsbach, Bob Fuhrman, and John Detler and others; the families of passengers Les Pollart, captain William Scott, and detective Owen McKenna.

Details about Alaska airline jet crash:
aviation-safety.net
; news clips.

Fear of flying: from
The New York
Times—“Pills, Drinks and Will Power Banish Fear of Flying” by Robert Lindsey, March 5, 1970; “Final Exam for First Afraid-to-Fly Graduating Class: Puerto Rican Flight” by Paul J. C. Friedlander, March 1, 1970; “Pacific Backs Ads on Fear of Flying,” May 9, 1967; “Advertising: Stan Freberg Tackles Fear” by Philip H. Dougherty, April 28, 1967; and “Some of the Best People Are Afraid of Flying” by Diane Ouding, August 12, 1973.

Northwest stewardess uniform:
Northwest Orient
(Gallery Books, 1987) by Bill Yenne,
Flight to the Top
(Viking Press, 1986) by Kenneth D. Ruble, and
uniformfreak.com
.

History of stewardesses:
Come Fly With Us!
(Collector’s Press, 2006) by Johanna Omelia and Michael Waldock;
Sex Objects in the Sky
(Follett Publishing, 1974) by Paula Kane with Christopher Chandler.

The United ad (“And someone may get a wife”) appeared in the November 11, 1966, issue of
Life
magazine; National’s “Fly Me” campaign:
Time
magazine, “Fly Me,” November 15, 1971; National’s “I’m going to fly you like you’ve never been flown before” commercials:
Time
magazine, “Fly Me Again,” June 24, 1974.

National boycott:
Working the Skies: The Fast-Paced, Disorienting World of the Flight Attendant
by Drew Whitelegg;
The Other Women’s Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America
by Dorothy Sue Cobble.

Air America:
Air-Britain Digest;
“The CIA’s Airlines: Logistic Air Support for the War in Laos, 1954 to 1975” by Martin Best, date unknown; and
usmcpress.com/heritage/air_america.htm
.

John Little, aviation historian and Museum of Flight Assistant Curator, provided information on the Boeing 727 and the habits of airline pilots in the 1970s.

Playboy
’s Miss October 1971 and Miss November 1971:
freeweb.hu/playmate/html/7110.html
, and
freeweb.hu/playmate/html/7111.html
.

Details on Hump pilots and missions found in
The Hump Express
, published during World War II.

Guidelines for stewardesses: reprinted in
Come Fly With Us!

AUGUST 25, 2007. NEW YORK, NEW YORK.

Kenneth Christiansen: military records, Christiansen’s letters home during the war, and interviews with Lyle Christiansen.

Historic currency calculations made at futureboy.us.

Shemya:
Northwest Airlines: The First 80 Years
by Geoff Jones.

Bikini Island:
bikiniatoll.com/history.html
.

NOVEMBER 24, 1971. ABOARD NORTHWEST 305.

Lewis and Clark: passage appears in
The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery
(2003), edited by Gary Moulton. Dark Divide:
Where Bigfoot Walks: Crossing the Dark Divide
(Mariner Books, 1997) by Robert Michael Pyle.

Vietnam War Facts:
Nixonland
by Rick Perlstein (Scribner, 2008).

Tornadoes:
Time
magazine, “Devastation in the Delta,” March 8, 1971.

Los Angeles earthquake:
California Geology
, “The 1971 San Fernando Earthquake,” April/May 1971.

Animal attacks at the Detroit zoo:
Time
magazine, “Animal Farm,” June 28, 1971.

Police deaths, counterculture protests, the Attica prison riot, and Nixon’s speech:
Nixonland
.

MAY 27, 1969. SEATTLE, WASHINGTON.

Robert (Barbara) Dayton: medical files of Barbara Dayton; letters and postcards of Robert Dayton; interviews with Ron and Pat Foreman, Rena Ruddell, and Sharon Power;
The Legend of D.B. Cooper
by Ron and Pat Foreman.

Himmelsbach: interviews with Himmelsbach;
NORJAK
by Himmelsbach; Paul Cini, recounted in
NORJAK;
news clips.

Nyrop and life at Northwest Orient: interviews with former Northwest employees. “A bit to the left of Genghis Khan,” appeared in “Nyrop, NW and That Aid Pact” by Robert Samuelson,
Washington Post
, September 17, 1972.

Bahamas Charter Jet transcript:
Nashville Scene
, “A Nashville Hijacking 38 Years Ago Set the Standard on How Not to Handle Hostage Negotiations,” August 27, 2009.

Skyjacking history:
The Sky Pirates
(Scribner, 1972) by James A. Arey.;
1973 Nervous Breakdown: Watergate, Warhol, and the Birth of Post-Sixties America
(Bloomsbury, 2006) by Andreas Killen.

Ethiopian Air skyjacking:
Washington Post
, “Birdwatcher, Wife Subdued Hijacker,” December 9, 1972. Sacramento skyjacking:
Newsweek
, “Skyjacked—And Alive to Tell the Tale,” July 17, 1972.

The FAA’s secret psychological profile of hijackers can be found in the Report of Proceedings of the National Conference Seeking Solutions to the International Hijacking Problem, July 17, 1970, compiled by the Airline Passengers Association.

AUGUST 25, 1977. HILTON AIRPORT HOTEL, ATLANTA, GEORGIA.