7. Shotgun shells all over the yard, a loaded .45 under his pillow
If this were a true crime movie (and I don’t see why not) you’d probably want to start with the phone conversation Kevin Francke had with his brother Michael about three weeks before the murder.
It’s around Christmas time and Michael’s just calling to catch up with his younger brother. In the course of things, he mentions that he’s discovered an “organized criminal element” in his department and he’s going to be “cleaning house.” Also something about the problems he’s having with this guy who does legal work for Corrections.
“Well, why don’t you just fire him?” asks Kevin.
“Because he doesn’t work for me,” says Michael. “He’s assigned to us by the AG’s office.” Nothing Michael can’t handle, of course – and that’s it. On to how mom and pop are doing back in Kansas City.
This would be followed by shots, over credits of course, of the spacious grounds around the neo-classical Dome Building where Michael works in Salem. Michael parking his car in front, saying hello to members of the staff as he arrives for work. Shots of the staff meeting that evening to prepare for his testimony the next day before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Through the windows we can see it's already dark outside when the meeting breaks up. As the staffers leave, one of them looks in on Michael, still working at his desk, to say he’s taking off. That would be Dave Caulley, whom Francke has already told he’s getting demoted.
About fifteen minutes later, two women who’ve been working late gather their things and leave together by the front door. Outside they see Francke’s official car in the parking lot with its driver’s door open and the dome light blazing in the night.
When they can’t find Francke anywhere, they call out his name. When he doesn’t respond they go back inside and try to call their superiors to come look for him. Whatever it is, they know it can’t be good. You can see it on their faces.
It’s the next morning, January 18, 1989: Kevin Francke, who’s 35, is at work at his construction business in Port Charlotte, Florida, talking to a couple about making some changes in their house plans when Merle, his sales manager comes in, followed by Sandy, the secretary.
“I’ll take this from here,” says Merle, and ushers the couple out of the room. Sandy hands Kevin a note that says there’s a phone call for him. She has a stricken look on her face. She already knows. Kevin picks up the phone.
“Hello,” says the caller, “I’m Dick Peterson, Mike’s deputy director. I got your number out of Mike’s address book. I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you this but your brother’s been killed.”
“Are you sure?” says Kevin. Of course he can’t believe it.
“He was at the office and I think he was shot,” says Peterson. “I searched everywhere in the building. It was a meticulous search. I couldn’t find a trace of him.” A security guard discovered Mike’s body early that morning, on the porch outside his office, he says.
Kevin won’t know until his plane lands in Portland, where he meets up with his other brother Pat, a printing press salesman from Kansas City, and they learn from the Corrections officer who’s been assigned to drive them to state capital Salem, that Michael was actually stabbed to death – not shot. What an odd mistake for someone in law enforcement to make – and certainly nothing to lessen the dark suspicions Kevin already has.
At their motel that night, Kevin talks with Michael’s widow Bingta, who also suspects that Michael was killed over something in Corrections. There’s a “good old boys system,” she says.
The next morning, Kevin, Pat and Bingta are chauffeured to the Dome Building. Almost two days after the murder now, it’s a taped-off crime scene with police technicians combing the grounds and news crews buzzing around the perimeter.
The press is reporting that investigators believe Francke was accosted outside the Dome Building, not far from where his official car was parked. There’s a trail of blood leading to the patio and the back door to his office where his body was found. A broken pane of glass in the door which he had apparently tried to break with his fist in a last desperate effort to get back inside. The Oregonian reports his body was found in a pool of blood, “clad in a coat and tie and his trademark, well-worn cowboy boots.”
The Marion County district attorney Dale Penn is quoted as saying it’s a “tough case ... not something that will be solved tonight or tomorrow.” The most likely motives, he says, are robbery or revenge.
As they are about to leave the Dome Building, Kevin is taken aside by Loren Glover, a grizzled State Police officer who says he wants to ask him a few questions. Kevin doesn’t know it yet but Glover, who will be one of the two lead detectives on the case, has been assigned to Corrections for more than a decade now, which makes him one of the good old boys.
Glover’s only questions for Kevin concern whether his brother had a drugs or gambling problem, which pisses Kevin off even more.
“No,” says Kevin, “my brother didn’t do drugs and he didn’t have a gambling problem. But he did make a lot of enemies out here.”
Glover writes it down in his little brown notebook. And one more thing, says Glover. “Don’t talk to the press. It’ll only interfere with the investigation.”
Later that day, Kevin, Pat and Bingta are ushered into the governor’s office to meet with the governor, Neil Goldschmidt, and the Marion County district attorney Dale Penn. Penn does most of the talking, adding few details to what has already been in the news: The two women finding the open car door. The “meticulous” search by Peterson and Caulley. The security guard finding Francke’s body shortly after midnight, on the north portico of the Dome Building, adjacent to Francke’s office.
When it comes to the staff meeting on the night of the murder, to prepare for the legislative committee the following day, Penn says the subject of Michael’s testimony was to be prison over-crowding and new construction. It’s unclear whether he knows yet that this is at best a partial truth.
“And although investigators haven’t released it yet to the public,” Penn says, “we have someone who we think saw Michael leave the Dome Building that night just after seven. Someone on the janitorial staff at the Dome Building who saw a confrontation between two men in front of the building as he was leaving work.”
Still trying to be polite, Kevin asks Penn if investigators think his brother’s murder might possibly be job related. Penn replies that the police are of course considering every possibility, but right now they feel the most likely scenario is that Michael Francke was killed in the course of a bungled car burglary.
“That doesn’t make sense,” says Kevin.
“Why sure it does,” says Penn “Just the other day a member of the state legislature was stabbed downtown by someone trying to steal his bike. Things like that happen here, Kevin. This is Salem, after all.”
“That’s apples and oranges,” says Kevin. “The state legislator didn’t have a sign on him saying he was a state legislator. It was random. Mike’s car was parked in a clearly marked parking spot in front of a state building. It says Director of Corrections.”
Before the argument goes too far the governor intervenes, saying he knows how difficult it must be. He will personally make sure that the family is kept up to date on the progress of the investigation. Kevin, who’s already got his back up, thinks the governor is smarmy.
From the governor’s office the brothers go to Mike’s house in the country outside Salem, where they find the back yard littered with shotgun shells. That weekend, the Corrections officer driver tells them, Francke had checked out a riot gun from the Corrections armory, and he’d obviously been target practicing. From the looks of things, he knew trouble was on the way.
Under the pillow on Mike’s bed, Kevin discovers a loaded .45 automatic. But if Michael was worried about his safety, as he clearly was, why would he have left his gun at home?
Always before, when Kevin had been with him, Mike had carried a gun in his briefcase. What good would it do at home under his pillow?
That doesn’t make sense either – and won’t until some years later when he discovers a lost and disregarded document from the investigation which makes it all fall into place.
The funeral is two days later in Sante Fe, New Mexico, where Michael had served as a judge and state corrections director before coming to Oregon two years ago. A number of Oregon public officials, including Michael’s friend state representative Mike Burton and Governor Goldschmidt are in attendance.
The night before the funeral Kevin calls Dean Renfrow, who’s already been introduced to him as head of the state police investigation, and tells them about the “organized criminal element” phone call with Mike. Renfrow patches in a man he introduces as his boss – that would have been Superintendent Emil Brandow – and Kevin tells the story again. Then they get Penn on the line and Kevin repeats the story one more time. One of them, Kevin couldn’t tell which, says “Got that, Dale?” and Dale Penn says yes.
If Penn didn’t know before, he does now. And just a few days later he’ll hear it again when Mike Burton tells him Michael had discovered rampant corruption in the Corrections department and was about to “blow the top off everything” with his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Yet to the very end, Penn will maintain not only that Francke was not investigating corruption in his department but that as far as he could determine, there was none to investigate.
At the funeral, Goldschmidt, who’s already been told by the family that he won’t be included on the list of speakers, edges his way onto the platform and breaks down in tears as he talks about how deeply he cared for Michael. Kevin is seething.
Seems strange to leave the .45 home........makes me wonder if he had another, perhaps smaller gun that he carried with him?? Nothing has ever turned up, of course.........but it is a possibility.