Chapter 3

Don Hoskins had served with my father since before the Second World War had begun. Both had been in the Navy, but were loaned to the Army for the duration of the war. My father was a combat photographer and also did something in intelligence. Don worked strictly in military intelligence, and had taken part in several covert operations in Europe.

He and my father were drinking buddies, and Don would sometimes fly his own private plane to Trumbull Field and spend a weekend with my parents. All I ever really knew about him, was that he and my father were close friends, and that they had been in the war together.

Don had another friend, Robert Howarth, who was a European refugee that worked with Don in Washington D.C. Both men had some connection with the BNND, but I was never sure how official their connections were.

Don carried a gun in his airplane, and I saw him put it in his coat pocket when I went with my father to pick him up at the airport when I was younger. I went over to see my mother about something a couple of days after I dropped my father off after our little blowup at Billy's farm. When I walked in the door, my father was sitting at the kitchen table with Don Hoskins and Robert Howarth. I recognized Don and said hello to him, and he then introduced me to Mr. Howarth.

The man appeared to be about thirty five years old, and he looked fitter, and somehow more military in bearing, than either my father or Don did. I'm not sure why I thought so, but I remember thinking that Howarth acted deferential towards both my father and Don. He acted like he was Don's subordinate. I finished up my business with my mother and left shortly after that. I didn't think anything in particular about seeing Don again. Like I said, he came up once or twice a year to spend time with my father. It was only later events that caused me to have questions or concerns about the presence of those two men in my parent's kitchen.

It was three or four nights later that my father called me at home and asked me if I'd read that evening's newspaper yet.

"Check inside on page three Yutch, down at the bottom on the right." He sounded like he'd been drinking more than usual, and appeared to be in an extremely good mood. The first thing I noticed was an ad for a sewing machine sale, but I knew that couldn't be what he was calling me about. Searching around some more, I noticed a three inch column right above the ad, which was a news report saying that while acting on information supplied to them by Federal authorities, New London city police and the Connecticut State Troopers, had made three drug arrests, accompanied by the seizure of more than eighty pounds of marijuana, from a residence in New London. The three people arrested were the Crocker brothers. I had just finished reading the story when my father spoke again. "So, do you think that might keep them busy for awhile? Long enough I'll bet you."

"Pop, did you have something to do with this?" I could hear him chortling in the background, to the point where he started choking and coughing.

"What could I possibly have to do with that? You think I'm in the drug running business Yutch? It isn't that unusual for fishermen to smuggle things. I guess they were trying to make some money to get themselves another fishing boat. They just happened to get caught is all." I had a bad feeling about the timing on this. First he tells Billy and I that he'll take care of things, and then the drug arrests. Too pat for my tastes.

"Did you call Billy?"

"I thought I'd leave that for you to do. I'm sure Billy will be as happy to see that bit of news as I was. Well, good night Yutch, let me know what Billy says when you tell him." He hung up the phone before I could tell him that I would. I took the newspaper out into the kitchen and showed the article to Ellen.

"Is that good for us Jackie?" A very good question. I didn't see any way that the two events could be connected in order to help my father out. His perjury was a separate issue as far as I could see. Maybe if none of the Crocker brothers were available to testify, but it wasn't something where their testimony would necessarily be needed.

"It can't hurt, but I don't see where it helps us either." I called Billy. He listened to me read him the article, and then his first question was whether I thought that my dad had something to do with it. I told him what my father had said about not being in the drug running business. Billy said that he thought it was a good thing, because getting arrested would cause the Crocker's to have something more important to worry about than suing the three of us. I went to bed that night troubled. I hoped that it was just a coincidence, but that wasn't my gut feeling about it. I felt like my father might have had some hand in that business, but I couldn't figure out how he could have managed it.

Three days after the initial arrests, acting on a search warrant, the authorities recovered three additional forty kilo bales of marijuana from Sam's father's tool shed behind his house. Sam's father was also arrested after that find. The newspaper was declaring this arrest to be the cracking of a major drug ring. They were listing various kingpins in organized crime, and speculating that the Crocker's might have ties to either the Boston or Providence crime families. The story was even being carried on the nightly television news from New York City. This time my father didn't call me. I guess he figured that I couldn't miss hearing about it this time. This new development was even more scary to me. I was wondering how long it would be before the police raided the law offices of the Crocker's attorneys and found five or six more bales of marijuana there.

While all of this was going on, the lawsuit was close to a time for being heard. We were waiting for news that a court had an opening for the case to be called to trial. That day finally arrived, and my father, Billy and I found ourselves in Superior court defending against the Crocker's lawsuit. The whole case took three days in court. The Crocker's were all out on bail and Sam and his father were seated at the plaintiff's table with their two attorneys. Our attorney was able to get Billy and I both dismissed from the lawsuit, with prejudice to prevent a refiling, after he presented the bill of sale from my father to the judge and told him that he could call three witnesses who would testify that they had heard from my father that he had sold out his interests many years before.

When asked to comment, the Crocker's attorneys admitted that they had no one who could refute our contention and the paper supporting it. Once we were released from the case, they made Billy and I sit back in the spectator seats. My father sat through the whole presentation by the plaintiffs. They had a witness who identified my father as the man who had punched Sam on the dock. Sam also testified that my father had been the one who hit him. They called Butch to the stand, and he admitted that he hadn't been the assailant, but claimed that he said he was because he had wished that he had been the one who'd done it. The attorneys made a pretty fair case for the Crocker boat not being in port to be burned down by Jean if Sam hadn't been recovering from his beating at the time.

After the plaintiff's rested their case, the lawyer put my father up on the stand. Once my father had identified himself and taken the oath, his lawyer asked two questions. Did he assault Sam Crocker? Did he know who did? My father answered no to both questions in a firm and unwavering voice. Our attorney then said he had no further questions for his client and sat down. For the next thirty minutes or so, the plaintiff's attorneys would ask my father questions and our attorney would object, on the grounds that it wasn't covered in his direct questioning or something like that. My father had to answer about ten questions in all. The plaintiff's were able to introduce some of my father's previous history of violence in front of the jury, and it was quite an extensive list.

When the plaintiff's were through with my father, our attorney stood up and said that he believed that if the jury had a right to learn of previous allegations of violence concerning my father, then they should also be allowed to learn of some of his other accomplishments, especially his military accomplishments.

The other attorneys objected claiming it was irrelevent, but the judge conditionally allowed it. The attorney called a Chief Petty Officer from the Submarine base, a man who handled the military records for retired Navy personnel living in the area. The next fifteen minutes was taken up with reading only from the written information that accompanies military citations and awards.

My father had received three purple hearts, a silver star and a bronze star with an oak leaf cluster. He had once single handedly captured a German machine gun nest and had taken seven Germans into custody as prisoners of war. When the man read the citation that my father had received at Anzio Beach, after he'd had almost all of one of his heels blown off by German shrapnel, and then had managed to hold out for three more days before finally being captured, our attorney had stopped him and then asked if he would characterize my father's service as being ordinary or above ordinary. The man had looked at my father and said:

"I'd be very honored to have the privilege of shaking the Chief's hand."

The jury had five men on it who had prior military combat service, and three women who had lost loved ones in the war. Once all the summations were completed and the judge had given the jury their final instructions, I could see by their facial expressions that my father had nothing to worry about from that jury. It may be hard to believe now, but in the past, military service in wartime meant a great deal to others.

People understood and appreciated the sacrifices that the veterans had made. That isn't to say that they overlooked his past violent history when they deliberated, just that they attached a lot of weight to his military service as well. At no point had the Crocker's attorney presented enough evidence that it was my father on that dock, at least that is what the juror's all said after they had decided in favor of my father. They were in deliberations for thirty minutes, and it was unanimous that he was not liable for any damages arising out of that incident. I believe he would have gotten that same result without any of the rest of it.

Sam Crocker and both of his brothers were convicted on drug charges, and were sentenced to the state prison. Sam got an eight year sentence, and each of his brothers got four years. I guess the judge figured Sam was the ringleader of the three of them. Sam's father got off on a paperwork technicality, having something to do with the date on the search warrant. The lawyers were able to get all the drug evidence taken from his shed suppressed, and the senior Mr. Crocker had the charges against him dismissed.

After my cousin Jean was released from the women's prison and had gotten back home to Groton, my father helped her get her beautician's license reinstated, and then he took her all around town trying to get her hired on at a beauty parlor. She was on parole so she had to disclose that information as well as what she was on parole for. Arson is a scary offense with some people, and it was difficult to find a place for Jean. He finally found a woman who was willing to overlook Jean's past and give her a fresh start.

Jean repaid her kindness by getting drunk and stealing all of the money in the salon's cash register and going on a three day bender. My father next got her work in the cafeteria at Electric Boat, but she was fired after two months for excessive absenteeism. He finally got her a job at the Sub base, working in the out processing department as a filing clerk, but Jean wasn't too sure of her alphabet, and never put any real effort into improving. Even with my father's good offices, she lasted less than one month. My mother told her she could have a job over at the old folks poor house changing bed pans for the elderly people, but Jean turned that opportunity down.