15. Next time this could get real ugly

It’s the fall of 1990. Gable’s trial is coming up, and as we all know some thirty years later, it’ll be a railroad job. But Kevin doesn’t know that yet, at least not for sure.

Of course, he has plenty of doubts about the investigation. And it’s already quite clear from that “Officers Advisory,” which could have got him killed, that the cops don’t want him nosing around.

In the meantime, though, he’ll keep doing what he’s doing. And now that he’s aware of the Tim Natividad connection, he and his newfound friend and guide into the Salem underworld, an ex-con by the name of John Bray, are headed downtown to check out one of Natividad’s favorite hangouts – a heavy metal bar called The Ranch.

It’s eight p.m. or so, and at least before the band sets up it’s not too noisy yet. The bar itself is square-shaped. Like a baseball diamond, as it’s later described to them by a friendly member of the Gypsy Jokers.

If you want to buy marijuana, you take a seat at first base. Coke at second. Speed at third. Kevin and Bray are just looking for information, though. They leave before the band sets up and they have to pay a cover charge.

Kevin is driving the heavy Chevy, the same one he drove all the way from Florida, as they head down Center Street. At about 24^th, he notices two Salem city cop cars idling in an empty parking lot, headlights on. As Kevin passes through the intersection they pull out and move in behind him. A few blocks later at Lancaster two more marked cars fall in behind them.

Kevin is headed for Cordon Street where he and Liz are now living in a trailer which Bray has rented to them dirt cheap. If something is going to happen, which it looks like it might, he at least wants there to be witnesses.

As he passes Lancaster, he notices an unmarked white sedan pull in behind the other four cars. After Lancaster, you’re pretty much out of town.

“They’re going to light us up,” says Bray, who after all these years has become a sort of expert on these matters.

They turn on the flashing lights at the stop sign just before he gets to Cordon Road. A block and a half more before he’s home. Kevin goes through the stop sign and pulls over half a block from the trailer.

“Make sure you keep your hands where they can see them,” says Bray. “Roll down the windows so they can see us. Do everything very slow.”

The cops are out of their cars now, pointing guns from behind car doors. A pudgy man in a blue cardigan sweater appears as the passenger side of the Chevy and pokes a riot gun through the window.

“Don’t give me an excuse,” he says.

“Oh shit,” says Bray, “it’s Hart. Hart, what are you doing here?”

It’s state police officer Merle Hart. Bray knows him from Oregon State Prison where Hart, along with Loren Glover, has been assigned for years. One of the good old boys. Yes, come to think of it, what is Hart  doing here?

Over the loudspeaker a voice tells Kevin to put his hands out of vehicle. “With your left hand, unlock door. Exit the vehicle with your hands up.”

The corporal in charge tells Kevin to turn around and get on his knees – and Kevin, who’s been complying all along, just refuses.

“You can see I’m not a threat,” he says. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m not getting on my knees.”

They turn Kevin around, handcuff him, and throw him in the back of a cruiser.

“Do we have permission to search your car?” the corporal asks. Kevin says go ahead. All he can figure is they’re hoping to find drugs, which they must assume he bought at The Ranch.

By now Bray’s elderly father-in-law has come out to see what all the commotion is about. So has another tenant, Butch, riding on a tractor. And so has Liz, carrying their new baby and yelling at the cops, demanding to know what they’re doing.  

Once the cops realize that they’re not going to find anything in Kevin’s car and that they’re now surrounded by witnesses, all of them except for the corporal, get in their squad cars and disappear. Hart’s white unmarked car is the first to depart.

The corporal opens the car door where Kevin is still handcuffed.

“What the fuck is going on?” says Kevin.

“We got an anonymous call from a pay phone that you had threatened someone with a gun,” says the corporal.

“Really?” says Kevin. “An anonymous call from a pay phone?”

“Let’s look at it this way,” says the corporal. “It could have been a lot worse with your behavior. Next time you might have someone not as well trained.”

Kevin doesn’t even bother to ask him if that’s a threat.

Two months later, it’s five o’clock in the morning and the baby is crying. Liz is up in the living room to feed him when Kevin passes by on his way to the kitchen to make coffee.

Liz, who’s still groggy, says something about seeing the meter reader in the back yard, and it takes Kevin a couple of beats to realize they don’t have a meter because they’re on a well.

When he looks out then bathroom window, he can see several heavily armed men in black uniforms, duck-walking into position. Over the radio someone is saying they’re not cleared to go in because the search warrant hasn’t been signed yet.

Kevin opens the door and says to the one who appears to be in charge, “Hey, you don’t have to wait for the search warrant. If you want to come in, you can come in now.”

The guy in charge comes in, and after he pats Kevin down for weapons, tells him what it’s all about. They’re from SAINT, the Salem Interagency Narcotics Task Force, he says, and they have a report that Kevin has a meth lab in his back bathroom.

“That’s just nuts,” Kevin tells him. He doesn’t cook meth and they don’t even have a second bathroom. “Please, check it out.”

After the leader of the SWAT team, who turns out to be a fairly decent guy from the Salem police force named Dom, has finished his inspection, he and Kevin sit down for a cup of coffee.

“You know,” says Kevin, “this could have turned into something pretty ugly. Some of those guys out there could’ve gotten hurt. And some of the people in here too. Like my wife and kids.”

“Yeah, I know,” says Dom, looking like someone who knows he’s been used by higher-ups. “We were just doing what the warrant said. Thanks for the coffee.”

More proof, if it was needed, that someone really doesn’t want Kevin poking his nose into his brother’s murder. It’s already getting light when the guys in the black uniforms pile into their SUV’s and drive off.

NOTE TO READERS: I didn’t expect to have to do this but Frank Gable could use a little help. He’s been dealing with a heart problem since he got out of prison, but lately he suffered a back injury which means he can no longer work at the cement laying job he’s had for the past two years. As you may have read, he’s going to be suing the state and Marion County for wrongful imprisonment, but that money, which he so obviously deserves, is going to be a while coming. In the meantime, he and his wife have to eat and pay the rent.

This is Frank Gable today. As two federal appeals courts have determined, the Oregon state police and Marion County DA’s office fabricated every bit of the evidence against him and he served thirty years in prison for a crime he had absolutely nothing to do with.

If you’d like to help, please go the GoFundMe Frank Gable Freedom Fund site which was set up by Kevin Francke when Frank was first released from prison. Once Frank got the cement laying job we thought it wouldn’t be needed any more – but the back injury changes everything.