pit; then he was removed, locked in the trunk of the kidnappers’ Ford coupe, and driven 280 miles east to Spokane. There he was chained inside a closet in an apartment. After the $200,000 ransom was delivered, George was driven back across the state and released. Waley and his wife went to Salt Lake City, where they were arrested after Margaret tried to buy a pair of stockings with a bill whose number had been recorded. The Swede got away. He was traced to Butte, Montana, but slipped through a police dragnet. As of September, he and his $100,000 share of the kidnapping loot were still missing.
Black-market butter would not make Logan, Burch, and Ralstin rich on the scale that the Swede had pulled off, but it brought in plenty of money—enough, at least, to fuel the next dream.
Just after 9:30 p.m., the car backed into an alley entrance to the Newport Creamery. It was dark, and nobody was there. Piece of cake, just like Burch had predicted. The lock popped, the door opened, and there it was—hundreds of pounds of fresh butter, cartons of cottage cheese, and containers of cream. They stacked enough to load up the trunk and part of the floor in the back. Spokane was an hour south, giving them enough time to get the dairy products into storage before they would spoil.
Just as the door was closing, the squeak of hinges and the sound of footsteps on gravel attracted Marshal Conniff. He moved closer to the creamery, a single-story, cinder-block building, and shined his flashlight. “Who’s there?”
The burglars were in the dark; the marshal was under a light.
As Conniff edged forward, he saw the car, the stacks of butter, cream, and cottage cheese. When he reached for his pistol, a gun was pulled on him. The night air, full of smoke and heat, now had gunfire—at least four shots from the butter thieves.
One bullet passed through the marshal’s left wrist.
Another shot hit his right arm and lodged against a bone in the shoulder.
A third bullet ripped through his groin and shattered his hip, knocking him down.
As he lay bleeding on the gravel floor of the alley, a final shot pierced his heart, tearing open an inch-and-a-half-long gash, then penetrated his right lung.
The gunmen entered the car and sped away. Across the street, two boys who heard the shooting ran toward the creamery. The mayor of Newport, who lived nearby, also rushed to the crime scene. One bullet had entered his house. They found the marshal in shock, still clutching his flashlight, gagging on blood, his gun beside him. There was no blood near the creamery door. The butter thieves had escaped unscathed.
G EORGE C ONNIFF lived for another ten hours, awake for most of it, conscious that his life was draining away. He never got a good look at the people who shot him—just two men with guns, he said. One of them was a big guy, well over six feet tall. The other man was smaller. Never saw a face. As his wife and three children gathered around him, he told his boy, George junior, to look after his mother.
Throughout the night and into the dawn of Sunday morning he lay on a bed in Newport, pain overwhelming his body. Just after sunrise, when the whistle of the Diamond Match sawmill summoned the morning shift to work across the Pend Oreille, Conniff was loaded into an ambulance to be taken to a bigger hospital in Spokane. He cried out as they carried him into the car; his body was on fire, the wounds open flames. The ride to Spokane was torture, a jangling, jarring route, Conniff’s body leaking pus and blood; the fever pushed ever higher. Alma stayed with him, but he couldn’t force any words out to his wife. By the time the car arrived at Saint Luke’s Hospital in Spokane, George Conniff was dead.
The creamery had lost several hundred pounds of grade-A butter, and the slender book of local history, a record of the white man’sbrief attachment to the Pend Oreille country, was given a new chapter. During the second week of the driest September in
Black-market butter would not make Logan, Burch, and Ralstin rich on the scale that the Swede had pulled off, but it brought in plenty of money—enough, at least, to fuel the next dream.
Just after 9:30 p.m., the car backed into an alley entrance to the Newport Creamery. It was dark, and nobody was there. Piece of cake, just like Burch had predicted. The lock popped, the door opened, and there it was—hundreds of pounds of fresh butter, cartons of cottage cheese, and containers of cream. They stacked enough to load up the trunk and part of the floor in the back. Spokane was an hour south, giving them enough time to get the dairy products into storage before they would spoil.
Just as the door was closing, the squeak of hinges and the sound of footsteps on gravel attracted Marshal Conniff. He moved closer to the creamery, a single-story, cinder-block building, and shined his flashlight. “Who’s there?”
The burglars were in the dark; the marshal was under a light.
As Conniff edged forward, he saw the car, the stacks of butter, cream, and cottage cheese. When he reached for his pistol, a gun was pulled on him. The night air, full of smoke and heat, now had gunfire—at least four shots from the butter thieves.
One bullet passed through the marshal’s left wrist.
Another shot hit his right arm and lodged against a bone in the shoulder.
A third bullet ripped through his groin and shattered his hip, knocking him down.
As he lay bleeding on the gravel floor of the alley, a final shot pierced his heart, tearing open an inch-and-a-half-long gash, then penetrated his right lung.
The gunmen entered the car and sped away. Across the street, two boys who heard the shooting ran toward the creamery. The mayor of Newport, who lived nearby, also rushed to the crime scene. One bullet had entered his house. They found the marshal in shock, still clutching his flashlight, gagging on blood, his gun beside him. There was no blood near the creamery door. The butter thieves had escaped unscathed.
G EORGE C ONNIFF lived for another ten hours, awake for most of it, conscious that his life was draining away. He never got a good look at the people who shot him—just two men with guns, he said. One of them was a big guy, well over six feet tall. The other man was smaller. Never saw a face. As his wife and three children gathered around him, he told his boy, George junior, to look after his mother.
Throughout the night and into the dawn of Sunday morning he lay on a bed in Newport, pain overwhelming his body. Just after sunrise, when the whistle of the Diamond Match sawmill summoned the morning shift to work across the Pend Oreille, Conniff was loaded into an ambulance to be taken to a bigger hospital in Spokane. He cried out as they carried him into the car; his body was on fire, the wounds open flames. The ride to Spokane was torture, a jangling, jarring route, Conniff’s body leaking pus and blood; the fever pushed ever higher. Alma stayed with him, but he couldn’t force any words out to his wife. By the time the car arrived at Saint Luke’s Hospital in Spokane, George Conniff was dead.
The creamery had lost several hundred pounds of grade-A butter, and the slender book of local history, a record of the white man’sbrief attachment to the Pend Oreille country, was given a new chapter. During the second week of the driest September in
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