You Can Run but You Can't Hide (20 page)

I had finally begun to connect with the kids, when I almost blew

us back to square one. Leland came to show me a loose tooth.

When I was a boy, Grandpa Mike used to tie one end of a string

around a doorknob and the other to my tooth. When the tooth was

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good and loose, he’d yank it out by slamming the door! I thought

that was how teeth got pulled, so when Leland came to me, I did

what Grandpa Mike did. The problem was, Leland’s tooth wasn’t

quite ready to come out. He went flying off the stool I had him sit-

ting on and tumbled onto the floor. Duane Lee cracked up watching

this debacle unfold as his brother lay on the floor crying more from

fear than pain. I tried to console the poor boy, rubbing his head and

holding him in my arms. I felt awful, but I have to admit, I thought

it was pretty funny too. Years later, we all still laugh about that

night. It was a breakthrough moment for us, one I’ll never forget.

Eventually, the boys moved in with me. I was married to Lyssa,

and we were living in a pretty tough neighborhood just outside of

Denver. Grandpa Mike left me that house when he died. We were

living there free and clear. It wasn’t a bad area when Grandpa first

moved in, but now it was infested with gangs. I had six children liv-

ing in the house, Duane Lee, Leland, Lyssa’s son Jason, Barbara

Katie, Tucker, and Baby Lyssa. Everybody knew that Duane “Dog”

Chapman lived in the house with the green paint sprayed around

the perimeter and the words No Colors! on the sidewalk. I had

six kids who played outside and rode their bicycles in the streets. If

anyone tried to mess with them, they messed with me. I didn’t want

any criminal stuff going down in front of my house. Those days

were over.

C h a p t e r Tw e n t y - t w o

MEETING MY

SOUL MATE

I first met
Beth Smith in 1988, when she was just nineteen years

old. I was thirty-five. I’ve always had a thing for smart women—

especially smart women with big tits. The moment I met her, I knew

there was a hell of a brain behind those breasts.

I met Beth at the county lockup, when her father called me to

post her bail. He said she was arrested for shoplifting a lemon.

I thought,
Huh?

I explained to her dad that I never did bail for less than five thou-

sand dollars. Her bond was only twenty-five hundred. I took my

time going to the jail that day. The $250 fee was hardly worth my

time.

It turned out Beth was actually wanted for more than stealing a

lemon. She was standing on line at the grocery store waiting to pay

for the lemon when she received a page on her beeper from her

boss, a Colorado state senator. Whenever he paged her, she had to

respond right away. This was before cell phones, so she got out of

line to use the pay phone, still holding the lemon. Store security

nabbed her on the spot for shoplifting. That alone would not have

been enough to arrest Beth, but she also had a gun in her pocket.

She had taken it away from her dumbass boyfriend before going to

the store. He was drunk and shooting at birds. She didn’t want him

to get into trouble, so she put the unlicensed, unregistered gun in

her pocket. Before the cops came to get her, she told the security

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guards she had the gun. They had no way of knowing if Beth was

dangerous. They sure knew she had a concealed weapon and was

allegedly “stealing.” When the police arrived, they ran a routine

check and discovered there was an arrest warrant on her for unpaid

parking tickets. So they took her in.

I called Beth to come down to my office to fill out her paperwork

like all clients I bail out. It’s standard procedure. I need to know who

these people are and where they live. I need family contact informa-

tion and stuff like that. I ask all sorts of questions other bondsman

would never consider, like shoe size or whether they have a twin. It

might seem trivial, but it makes all the difference if they try to run

and hide. That information will help me hunt and find anyone.

I called and called, but Beth flat-out refused to come in. That’s

Beth. You can’t tell her what to do. Never could. Still can’t. I finally

threatened to put her back in jail if she didn’t show up.

Blam. In she comes. I knew she was young—too young for me. I

was never one of those older guys who went for the young girls. But

damn. Those breasts. I know what you’re thinking. I’m an idiot,

right?

Beth loves to tell people that the minute she laid eyes on me in

the office that day, she knew I would be her man. “Oh yes, he will be

mine.” That’s what she said. But I was still married to Lyssa, wife

number three, so Beth wasn’t an option. Not then, anyway.

Beth grew up in Denver the youngest of five kids, two boys and

three girls. Her dad, Garry L. Smith, played first base for the minor-

league team the Kansas City Athletics in the late fifties. He was one

of the most relentless competitors in the minor leagues. Her mom,

Bonnie, was a tough, abusive, abrasive woman who never took no

for an answer.

Beth lived a pretty good life in Harvey Park, suburban Denver, un-

til her father left home when she was eight. Bonnie was left to raise

five kids as a single working mom. Beth grew up pretty fast. She left

home at eighteen to work for Don Sandoval, a Colorado state sena-

tor. It was a really good job for a young girl right out of high school.

She did his bookkeeping and later became his executive assistant

when the legislature was in session. Beth soaked up information like

a sponge, learning the judicial and legislative process from the inside.

Her years of experience would later help us combat the system in

ways she could never have imagined as a young girl just starting out.

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I tried to dodge Beth, avoiding her like a bad cold. I’d be driving

around Denver, and out of nowhere, there she was, right behind me.

She was literally stalking me. She had a friend at Leo Payne Auto-

motive, and one time she took a car from the lot on a test drive so

I wouldn’t recognize the vehicle following me. She shadowed me all

over Denver. Sometimes I knew she was behind me, but this time I

didn’t. She decided her friend’s car was a great way to keep an eye on

me, so she took her time returning it. The car dealership reported it

stolen, and Beth was busted for car theft, though the charges were

later reduced to a misdemeanor, joyriding. I had to post a $25,000

bond to get her out. I couldn’t believe it! Judge Palmieri sentenced

her to six months probation and a fifty-dollar fine.

Much like her attitude in coming to see me after her first arrest,

Beth didn’t much like being forced to check in with her probation

officer. She is the kind of hard-headed woman who needs to make

all decisions herself. At the end of her probation, her officer recom-

mended she do a little time. He didn’t feel she had learned her les-

son. When Beth went before Judge Francis Jackson to plead her

case, the judge listened with deaf ears. He wasn’t much interested

in her point of view. He ordered her to be incarcerated for six

months in the Jefferson County jail. Case closed.

Even behind bars, Beth was an uncontrollable force. She spent

her entire stay threatening to expose the county for corruption and

the inhumane conditions of the facility. Judge Jackson even called

me for advice on how to handle her. I had to laugh. I barely knew

the girl, but I understood her well enough to say, “How do you han-

dle Beth? That’s easy. You don’t! My suggestion is you run for cover

and wait for the storm to pass. You gotta let her out if you want her

to stop harassing you.” The best part of Beth’s being in jail was she

made me more money inside during those six months than I could

have dreamed of. She sent me all the criminals so I could write their

bonds.

In spite of her protests, Beth emerged from the Jefferson County

jail a changed woman. She realized that life was too short to waste

behind bars. She didn’t want to end up like the people she met

there. She decided to turn her life around. The judge did her the

greatest favor of her life. Had she not done time, who knows where

she would be today. Also, by the time she got out, Lyssa and I were

separated, and I had started dating my new secretary, Tawny.

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I first met Tawny in 1988 after arresting her on a possession-of-

narcotics warrant. Three years later, in 1991, she walked into my of-

fice and said, “You owe me a job, Dog Chapman.” I had no idea who

she was. She had gained a lot of weight and looked pretty good.

Tawny told me she had been working at Beneficial Finance, so she

had the kind of bookkeeping experience I needed. I was looking for

a secretary, so I offered her the job. She was great.

I was raising all of my children on my own. I was depressed and

lonely. One night, I had a few too many and did the wild thing with

Tawny. The next day, I felt terrible about sleeping with my secretary.

I didn’t want to mess up our working relationship. I just got horny.

When I tried to explain to Tawny that I just wanted to be friends,

she pretended to hear what I was saying, but she had her own ideas.

Later that night, I went to Tawny’s house to take her out to dinner.

She had all of her bags packed.

“Where are you going, honey?” I thought she was headed on a

vacation.

“I’m moving in with you. The kids need a mom.” All of my chil-

dren liked Tawny and didn’t have a problem with her moving in.

Reluctantly, I let her live in a guest room. We screwed every now and

again. That lasted a few months, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy her.

Not long after, Tawny came to me and said she would go to the

media if I didn’t marry her. She said she was going to tell all of Den-

ver I was doing my secretary. The day wasn’t starting out the way I

had planned. It went from bad to worse when I got word of a new

Colorado statute saying a convicted felon can’t be a bondsman for

ten years after discharge of parole. Sixteen Denver bondsmen ended

up losing their licenses. I was off parole in 1981. They had me by one

year. This meant that I would either be unemployed for a year or

somehow had to convince the Colorado lawmakers the new law

shouldn’t be retroactive. Until we could prove this, I lost my license.

Lucky for me, I had Gary Lozow on my team. He’s the same

Denver attorney who’s been handling all of my legal work since I

was a fifteen-year-old hood throwing rocks through windows.

We presented my case to the honorable Judge Hiatt, the same

judge who took great pride to see me get my bond license four years

earlier. I felt he was a fair and decent man who would listen to the

facts and decide the merit of my case based on all that I had done for

the community. Lozow asked Judge Hiatt for more time so he could

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effectively argue my case. He also wanted to get my records from

the Texas Department of Corrections. He promised he’d move as

quickly as possible, so he wouldn’t hold up the courts. Hiatt agreed

to give Lozow the time. We and the court moved so slowly that we

burned off the entire year and the law didn’t impact me. The statute

became null and void as it pertained to me. I kept working.

Since Beth lost her job working for Senator Sandoval when she

went to jail, she also needed work. She decided to get into the bail

bonds business—she was determined to make me her man. Any-

time I called, she came running.

One night I called Beth from a Denver biker bar where I was

trying to get some information for a case I was working on. I had

gone to the bar with Tawny, but she left me to run an errand. I

wasn’t sure where she went or if she was coming back. I was get-

ting pretty drunk trying to keep up with the bikers, so I called Beth

to come get me. I didn’t think I’d turn up any leads, and I wanted

to go home.

At the very last second, I came up with a pretty solid lead. I had

to check it out.

“Beth, honey. Drive me to this house. I think the girl I’m looking

for is there.”

“No way!” Beth has a way of making things harder than they

need to be.

“Drive me to the house, damn it!” I was getting pissed and was

too drunk to care that I was yelling.

Beth agreed to go by the address once. The car slowly crept up.

We were just passing by when I spotted the woman I was looking for.

I leaped out of the still-moving car and started chasing her. She ran

into the house and out the back door. She finally locked herself in a

corner apartment down the block. I had her. When I kicked the door

open it accidentally hit a friend of hers in the head. The woman ran