You Can Run but You Can't Hide (46 page)

they wouldn’t get cut off too. We borrowed money from everyone

we knew, expecting to collect the three hundred grand we were

owed for the capture of Andrew Luster.

Three hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money for one hunt,

but we were legally entitled to 15 percent of the bond, plus ex-

penses. We worked hard and earned every penny. When we got to

court, Judge Brodie was bombarded by people asking for their

share of the bond money. The Ventura County Sheriff was there

with his hand out. Min and Mona had the nerve to hire a lawyer to

try to collect. Everyone expected a slice of the pie. Beth and I were

stunned.

The judge was confused by the number of people standing in

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front of him wanting their cut. He said, “I can read the newspaper.

I don’t know why all of you other people are here asking for money.

I’m well aware of who caught Andrew Luster.” Beth and I looked at

each other with great relief. Finally, someone willing to acknowl-

edge what we did in the name of truth and justice.

The judge looked directly at us. “Mr. Chapman, do you have

your bills to substantiate your expenses and fees?”

Beth had our receipts, but Howard Schultz hadn’t submitted his

expenses to us yet so we could collect the total amount owed. We

didn’t want Howard to take a bath, but he never gave us his re-

ceipts. We tried to protect his investment by including his expenses

with our own, but we didn’t know how much he had actually spent.

Beth answered the judge: “Your Honor. We would need some

time to figure out an exact number. Why don’t we say three hundred

grand and call it even?” The judge asked to see everything we had.

He adjourned the proceeding while he studied the receipts. Beth

and I waited in the corridor until the judge called us back in. I went

outside for a smoke. While I was gone, the judge asked us to re-

assemble. Beth went back to the courtroom by herself. I was two

minutes late, because I got trapped outside by some fans asking for

my autograph. I never heard my name called by the bailiff.

“Where’s the Dog?” the judge asked.

Luster’s attorney was now present. He addressed Brodie, saying,

“You realize Mr. Chapman is wanted in Mexico, right? He proba-

bly ran thinking you were going to arrest him, Your Honor.”

Somehow, the judge wasn’t aware of these “alleged” facts. I

walked into the courtroom just as Brodie asked, “He’s wanted in

Mexico?”

I sat down next to Beth. She had an “Oh, crap” expression plas-

tered across her face.

“Mr. Chapman. I have given this a lot of consideration. In fact, I

have a document here on behalf of twenty-five hundred California

bail agents expressing their displeasure with you and your con-

duct.” Judge Brodie believed the document he was reading was au-

thentic. It was not. An administrative person at the California Bond

Agents Association offered up the letter without consent of the

members, making it look like the entire association was against me.

I had no way of knowing this to be true at the time, but I now know

that is what happened.

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“Are you a wanted man, Mr. Chapman?”

“No sir, I am not.” My attorney was supposed to have paper-

work to substantiate my innocence, but he didn’t have those docu-

ments in court that day.

“Your Honor, of course Mr. Chapman can’t produce documents

proving his innocence. He is guilty. He is a fugitive.” Luster’s attor-

ney was practically mocking my lawyer.

The judge asked me one final time, “Are you a wanted man

or not?”

“No, sir. I am not.”

“Mr. Chapman, I am not awarding you a dime. I will not con-

done your vigilante tactics.” The judge continued to chew me out.

Somewhere in the middle of his holier-than-thou speech, Beth and I

stood up. I grabbed her by the hand as we turned our backs on the

judge and walked out. I didn’t understand his anger toward me. It

made no sense. I was certain the bailiff was going to arrest me on

the spot for contempt of court. Thank the Lord all of the media

cameras were on us as we exited the courtroom, or I might have

landed my ass in jail.

“Dog, why did the judge do that to you?” reporters shouted left

and right.

“Aw, you know. If he’d paid me, it would have opened the door

for a flurry of amateur bounty hunters to start arresting their neigh-

bors for parking on their property or whatever.” I acted humble, but

I was pissed. The Lord told me to watch my mouth as I left the

courtroom. He warned me not to say what was really on my mind.

But what I was really thinking, and I couldn’t be completely wrong,

was that someone had gotten to the judge. Maybe Elizabeth Luster,

maybe someone else. It’s no secret that friendships make every busi-

ness run and let’s face it—people don’t want to believe that people

they know have committed crimes. For her son, Mrs. Luster had

hired a defense attorney whose father presides on the California

Supreme Court. That’s a good connection to have no matter who

you are. Luster’s bail went down nine million dollars, and that’s a re-

ally nice thing to happen if you’re Luster. Then I never got paid for

capturing her son. If Mexico dropped the charges against me, I

would be able to come back to the Ventura County Superior Court

to ask for my money. If not, I would be plain out of luck.

We had lost the battle, but not the war. We had to strategically

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retreat and find another tactic. What bothered me the most about

the judge’s decision was his dismissive attitude about bringing Lus-

ter to justice. He overlooked the importance of my participation to

the outcome: the fact that Luster would serve his sentence. He truly

sucked the air out of me that day. I am not a vigilante. I am a man

of dignity and great pride. I hated someone in law enforcement la-

beling me an outlaw for capturing one of the most wanted fugitives

in the world.

As Beth and I got into the elevator to leave the courthouse that

day, Richard Dunbar, one of the New Hampshire Dog-haters, fol-

lowed us in. “You see that, Dog? We did this to you.” That mother-

fucker smiled as he relished his victory.

In the end, the prosecutor was awarded a small amount, as was

the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office. The worst part of this story

came when I found out Andrew Luster got over $200,000 back.

Thankfully, all of that money got snatched for victims’ compensa-

tion. No money could ever heal the damage done to those four

women—and Lord only knows how many other nameless, faceless

souls Andrew Luster hurt.

On the way to my car, Roger Diamond, Luster’s attorney, ap-

proached me with a twenty-dollar bill in his hand. “Here you go,

Dog. You won the bet.” I had to laugh. It was the only money I col-

lected for the capture of Andrew Luster.

Beth and I flew back to Hawaii. We had borrowed money from

many friends, and I had to get back to work so we could pay every-

one back. Their kindness and generosity will never be rewarded

enough. By the time we got home, our power had been turned back

on, but now our phones were disconnected. We had thirty-one hun-

dred dollars in phone bills from Mexico. I didn’t have time to worry

about Luster anymore. I had a family to care for, a wife who needed

me, bills to pay, and a career I needed to get back on track.

When we got back to Hawaii, life began to get back to normal.

Now that all of the craziness had died down, I realized I had to re-

new my driver’s license. I don’t have really good vision but I refuse

to wear reading glasses. In an effort to prepare for the eye exam I

asked Baby Lyssa to find eye charts on the Internet. They all start

with the same letters: E-P-S-M. I memorized each of the charts so I

knew I would pass.

“Thank you, Lord. I don’t want to be bothering You with some-

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thing like my driver’s license, but I am so grateful for your bless-

ings.” I gave thanks to God as I so often do.

Just then I heard a voice. It said, “You are on My mission. You

are doing My work. If you don’t know this, you will die when your

mission is done. If you are to live, you must know in your heart that

I am with you.”

Now, I have conversations with God all the time. But this was

the first time He spoke to me about the importance of my mission.

I thought about what God said as I walked to the window to pick

up my new driver’s license. As usual, His words came just in time. I

was frustrated and disappointed by the judge’s decision refusing to

pay me for capturing Luster.

The woman behind the glass panel looked confused. “Would

you look at that!” She was staring at my license, 50911007. The

numbers were amazing:

50, five-oh, as in Hawaii Five-O

911, nine-one-one, as in police emergency

007, double-oh-seven, as in Bond, James Bond.

Or Bail Bond.

The Lord showed me He walked beside me that day.

A week later I was in the police station booking a prisoner. The

lieutenant looked at my license. “This is a bunch of bull.” He gave

me the stink-eye, thinking I was trying to pass off a fake ID. “What

are they doing down there at motor vehicles?”

I looked the lieutenant straight in the eye. “It was the luck of

the draw, brotha.” But I knew it was more than that. I’m on God’s

mission.

C h a p t e r F i f t y - t h r e e

MY WEDDING DAY

One day in
early 2006, Gary and Bonnie, my two youngest

children and my only children with Beth, came to me and asked,

“Dad, are you married to Mom?”

I’m not the kind of dad who lies to his children, but when the

kids asked me if Beth and I were married, I said, “Yes.” In my mind,

I thought of us as married.

Then they asked Beth.

To my surprise, she said, “No.” She was always quick to point

out that Hawaii doesn’t honor common-law marriage. Even though

she had told lots of people over the years that we were married, and

this would be a second wedding for her, Beth wanted the real deal.

Uh oh. Here it comes.

“Dad, you lied to us. You’re not married to Mom. All the kids in

school want to know why our mom and dad aren’t married.”

It didn’t take me but a second to realize the kids were at an age

when what other kids said had an impact on them. They’d watched

our television show and could hear that Beth was only referred to

as my “life partner” or “Dog’s sidekick.” I realized that that de-

scription wasn’t fair to anyone. In truth, I had asked Beth to marry

me before, but I had never really meant it. I proposed to her several

times during the course of our relationship, even when I was mar-

ried to someone else. In my heart, though, I’ve always known Beth

would be my forever wife.

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My first real proposal came while we were in Vegas in the fall of

2005. I looked right into her eyes and said, “All right. Let’s do it.

Will you marry me?”

Beth just laughed. “Yeah, right. You’re not going to do it.”

But she was wrong. I wanted to get married right there and

then—sort of.

“Let’s go right now,” I said. We had fifteen minutes to get our li-

cense before the courthouse closed for the night. I knew we didn’t

really stand a chance of making it, but I thought I’d give it the old

college try. If time wasn’t a factor, I would have married her in a

tacky Vegas chapel that night. To this day, Beth still isn’t convinced

I would have gone through with it. But I would have, because our

little Bonnie Jo is the miracle that finally brought us together for-

ever. I was in love with Beth. I loved all of my wives, but I never re-

ally fell
in
love with any of them.

I’d been married so many times, I didn’t want a big wedding.

More important, if things weren’t going to work out, I couldn’t af-

ford another divorce. I genuinely thought Beth was satisfied with

our arrangement. I’d vacillate between calling Beth my girlfriend

and referring to her as my fiancée. She didn’t like either one of

those terms, because in both our minds, we were as good as mar-

ried. After years of on-again off-again dating, we had finally settled

into a real family life together. There were no other women, no dis-

tractions. It was just the kids and us.

I had procrastinated for fifteen years. Now that things were go-

ing really good, I thought the time was right. I could never think of

Beth leaving me or me leaving her. We are so much a part of each

other. If it did happen, I wouldn’t do anything stupid, but I can say

with great certainty that I would never get married again. Beth is

my final hope, my last frontier. Our relationship is different than