[35]
35 In spite of his recent success, or perhaps partially because of it, the El Paso sheriff was powerless to prevent the Frome murder investigation from slipping out of his control. His treatment by fellow Texas officers over the suspect Trotsky and the apparent political pressure from Austin to back off Weston Frome were early warning signs. Fox turned to old law enforcement friends, in an unusually candid moment of frustration, to predict that the murders would never be solved, due to petty jurisdictional feuds. He complained to M. L. Britt, a longtime friend at the National Automobile Theft Bureau, in a long personal letter, dated July 30, 1938: You know Bill, you and Jim can probably realize it better than other people, but I have had a terrific amount of headaches on the case, because several agencies involved in the investigation . . . don’t seem to have the earnest desire to get in there and pitch, and dig up the dope like it is. They take too much for granted and are not willing to follow through. I know in the bottom of my heart that they have not worked the oil field district, and it should have been worked.206 But by golly there is just so much a fellow can do, and then he breaks down and has to admit he is worn out. I still suggest there is something down there in that part of the country that could throw this case back in our laps, but we are not magicians and notabletoreadfortunesfromthefishbowl.Ifthey[theRangers]couldjust stop worrying so damn much about who is going to get credit or discredit, do something,checkthingsinstead of running around the country wanting to talk to suspects, we could get along a lot better, and in a hurry, at that.207 Fox complained again about Ranger Frank Mills, this time for chasing off to Phoenix to get a list of seventy-five cars mistaken for the Frome Packard, and then taking off to Albuquerque and Los Angeles to check on each one of them. spies on the border 201 “Ranger Mills could have just as easily turned the list over to you boys at the Auto Theft Bureau and had the answers right away,” he wrote.208 Fox also sent a letter complaining about the “great car chase” and “false leads,” directly to Ranger Mills, who was still lodging at the Hotel Cortez. Every day or two some person comes to the department and states they have talked to you about some matter in the Frome case that I am not in a position to discuss because I have never had the pleasure of knowing what you are doing. It would indeed be a shame, a rank shame, if either you or I as individuals were to be in possession of some information and threw it aside only to find sometime later, that if we had coordinated our effort, it would have been an important lead. I have been told that you are the lone wolf sort of investigator and believe in keeping everything to yourself in the form of a secret, and it is unbecoming of me to be critical of this peculiarity. But I think that in a case of this kind, when this department has been carrying its fair share of the load, that you should discuss these matters with us so we won’t make suckers out of ourselves. Why not cut all the deep-secret stuff and super-sleuth business, and come in here and lay your cards on the table, and tell us what you want, and what you have, and what you think about it?209 Since the feud with Ranger Mills had been running for months, Sheriff Fox did not sign this letter with his usual “Your amigo.” And, in a measure sure to keep the pot boiling, he forwarded a copy to Colonel H. H. Carmichael , chief of Rangers, at the Austin headquarters. A week later, he turned his ire toward another agency, in a tersely written letter to a Lieutenant Lyons, Coast Guard Air Patrol, U.S. Customs, El Paso: “Dear Lieutenant, during the past several days it has come to me that you have been hauling investigators around in your airplane. I understand that at any time if it would be of benefit to the investigation I would not hesitate to call upon you. But just for the sake of riding around the country in an airplane to satisfy curiosity...
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