Readers, I have just finished an extraordinary biography, Boots in the Ashes, Busting Bombers, Arsonists and Outlaws as a Trailblazing Female ATF Agent authored by Cynthia Beebe who after twenty-seven years retired from the ATF as a Senior Special Agent in 2014. As a writer myself, who loves research, I feel as though I’ve just completed a comprehensive course on arson, bombs, guns, criminology, psychology, workplace drama, and more. This is a book I plan to add to my Keeper Shelf and refer to often. Please welcome Cynthia Beebe to Help from My Friends Friday.
DONNELL: Cynthia, welcome. Although Boots in the Ashes contains dates, facts and figures, and a multitude of technical jargon and acronyms, it also reads very much like a thriller. You have a journalism degree. I just gotta ask: Did you keep a Dear Diary by your bedside, pour through numerous case files to write this book? How many drafts?
CYNTHIA: Yes, I scribbled ideas on little notepads that I left all over the house. I’d gather up my notes every day or two and write them in my computer.
For the four main cases in my book, I studied more than seven thousand pages of trial transcripts, judicial rulings and news articles. There was a treasure trove of public information available and it allowed me to write about my cases in depth and with precision.
I worked on the book for two years and wrote at least a dozen drafts. My early writing had to be extensively rewritten to bring it to life. I was fortunate to have really smart friends edit my manuscript, and their comments and insights made me a much better writer.
DONNELL: You dealt with some seriously bad dudes! You assisted the Secret Service in protecting politicians. I think people of your ilk come with a fearless gene. Do you ever remember a time when you were seriously afraid for your personal safety?
CYNTHIA: I wouldn’t say I was seriously afraid, but there was one time when another agent asked me to interview a secondary witness for one of her cases. I was under the impression that this would be a brief, routine interview of a civilian and I went alone, which I normally never did. It turned out that the witness was a bad guy, and while I was armed and he was not, I was still uncomfortable.
I never wanted to be in a position where my only option to defend myself was to shoot someone. That’s bad for the subject and bad for me. There was a large table in the room and I kept it between him and me at all times. I completed the interview without incident, but the other agent and I had a discussion when I got back to the office.
DONNELL: I like how you established upfront that you were a tomboy as a child and a team player as well. You talk about Title IX, and how it opened doors to you that were closed to women before you. What advice would you give a woman considering applying and working in federal law enforcement?
CYNTHIA: My advice is to be aware that it is not an easy job for anyone, but it is particularly difficult for women. You have to work hard to be a good agent. You have to believe in yourself. In the office, I never let disparaging people stand in my way and brushed off all but the most egregious incidents. On the streets, you have to be mentally prepared to handle dangerous criminals, gruesome crime scenes and stressful circumstances. The federal training academies will teach you the basics, and experience will teach you the rest. It’s a stressful, demanding, but great career.
DONNELL: I often read about lone wolf federal agent scenarios in fiction. How would a lone wolf have survived in your agency?
CYNTHIA: Not well. It’s highly unprofessional in a collaborative field like law enforcement. They wouldn’t be able to accomplish anything significant. The better supervisors never stood for it and required agents to cooperate with the group whether they wanted to or not.
That doesn’t mean we were all friends. It means you pulled your weight and backed up other agents whether you liked them or not. The handful of agents I saw who might have been described that way were shunted from one group to another or transferred to headquarters.
DONNELL: Do you read? And if so, is Nonfiction or Fiction your preference?
CYNTHIA: I read all the time. When I was younger I read mostly fiction, but now I enjoy both genres equally. The main thing I look for is the quality of the writing. A great writer can make corn flakes fascinating.
DONNELL: ATF originally fell under the US Treasury Department. In 2002, after 9/11, it, as well as other newly created agencies such as ICE and TSA, were moved to the Justice Department. You were still employed during this period. Was this a difficult transition or was it seamless?
CYNTHIA: It was seamless to your average street agent. It didn’t affect our day-to-day life, but I’m sure there were people at headquarters who had to deal with a lot of paperwork. At the highest levels it would have changed who people worked with, but not on the street level.
DONNELL: You’ve traveled through the United States and abroad, but when it comes to Chicago, you’re like a homing pigeon. You write other state offices were better run and had better close rates. So, why Chicago?
CYNTHIA: In my completely unbiased opinion, Chicago is the best city in the United States. It’s a gorgeous, vibrant city that takes full advantage of Lake Michigan’s beauty. There are about six million people in the metro area, but it’s still (relatively) easy to live and get around. People tend to be friendly. We have world-class museums, music, universities, restaurants, and sports—including, of course, the Chicago Cubs. Our lakefront and beaches are stunning.
I love the change of seasons. Winters are cold, but I love the snow and some winter days are spectacular. Chicago rocks! I could go on but I’ll stop now 🙂
DONNELL: And a segue to this interview. I have very dear friends from Chicago who drive like they’re part of the racing circuit. Is that required of a Chicago native? Are you a fast driver?
CYNTHIA: Yes, I’m a fast driver. Chicago is a huge city and it can be a long way from here to there, so you can spend forever on the roads if you don’t move along. In rush hour though, there’s only one speed—pokey.
DONNELL: What comes next? Has the writing bug afflicted you? Do you have any speaking engagements you’d like readers to know about?
CYNTHIA: Yes, I’m excited about my second book proposal and it’s almost ready to submit to publishers. I’ll be appearing at Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville, Il, on March 23, then at The Book Stall in Winnetka, Il, on April 2. And I’m in St. Louis on April 7 and 8 at the St. Charles Public Library and Left Bank Books. More engagements are coming soon.
And thank you for your great blog Donnell!
DONNELL: You’re welcome. I’d like to send a special shout out to Sarah Andre for recommending Cynthia Beebe’s biography. You were so right, Sarah! You can also follow Cynthia on Twitter @Cynthiabeebe4 and on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/CynthiaBeebe4/
Readers, Cynthia has included an excerpt of Boots in the Ashes. You’re in for a treat.
Prologue
Ron Petkus was as bad a man as I ever investigated as an ATF agent. He was an enforcer for the Hell’s Henchmen Outlaw Motorcycle Club, now a part of the Hells Angels. He told me on his deathbed in prison that he had murdered forty-six people. Bloodshed and violence were his profession, and he was good at it.
Petkus had two nicknames. He was tagged with “Stupid” when he shot himself in the butt with a shotgun as a young man. He always denied it to me, but that was the story. His other nickname, the one I saw provoke not fear but terror, was “Big Ron.” And Big Ron was laughing uncontrollably in the backseat of my car.
In the spring of 1994, I worked with a team of ATF agents to arrest Ron Petkus on charges of attempted murder in the first degree, arson, and possession of an incendiary device. Petkus and another Hell’s Henchman, Melon, had blown up a car, intending to murder the wife of a prominent Chicago criminal defense attorney, Richard Kagan. Kagan had hired Petkus to kill his wife, Margaret, because she was contesting their divorce and delaying his marriage to his younger girlfriend.
Petkus and Melon had followed Margaret Kagan for weeks trying to shoot her with a silenced .25 caliber pistol, but couldn’t get a clear shot. So Petkus decided to blow up her car instead. He built a powerful bomb out of sweating, degraded dynamite, which has a yellowish, waxy look to it and makes the weapon highly unstable. A booby-trap triggering mechanism would detonate the explosive device when the car moved.
When the fateful day came, the two men, who knew where Margaret would be, saw her park her car in a train station parking lot. After they watched her depart on her train, they attached the deadly device underneath her sedan, unobserved. When she returned to her vehicle later that day, Margaret put the car in reverse and touched the accelerator. The resulting explosion was massive, destroying her heavy automobile and shooting shrapnel, flames, and choking smoke through the sedan. Remarkably, Margaret Kagan survived the devastating blast almost unscathed.
As the lead investigator, I worked for months with an excellent team to build the case against Richard Kagan, Ronald Petkus, and Melon. While I had no doubt Richard Kagan was ultimately responsible for the attempted murder of his wife, I had to prove it. And I needed Petkus’s cooperation to make the case against Kagan airtight. After several months of hard work, we obtained enough evidence to get an arrest warrant for Ron Petkus.
We arrested Petkus on a beautiful April afternoon, just a few minutes after he drove away from the Hell’s Henchman clubhouse in Chicago. He was in the passenger seat of a compact white pickup truck that was driving through a neighborhood of brick houses and small businesses on the near southwest side of Chicago. I was in the passenger seat of the car following right behind him, with at least a dozen additional units right behind us. I couldn’t help laughing as we tailed Petkus because he was so huge that the little white truck leaned heavily to his side as they sped along—truly a Big Ron.
We came to a four-way stop at a quiet intersection. I decided to arrest him there rather than risk them getting to a busy street and radioed to my team that we were taking him down now. We peeled out into the intersection and pulled in front of the truck, boxing him in with cop cars in front and back. I jumped out of my car, sprinted to Petkus, and stuck my black .40 caliber pistol in his face through the lowered front window of his pickup. I grabbed him by his T-shirt and yelled, “Police!! Get out of the car!!” He opened the door without hesitation and I dragged him facedown onto the ground. Agents swarmed around us. I told Petkus he was under arrest for attempted murder in the first degree while I worked to cuff him. True to his name, he was so big I needed three sets of handcuffs to fasten his hands behind his massive back. I searched him and pulled a loaded six-shot .38 caliber revolver from the back right-hand pocket of his jeans.
Together with several other agents, I was able to bring Petkus to his feet, walk him over to my government sedan, and secure him in the backseat. I got into the front seat and turned to look at him. I told him who I was and asked him about the revolver in his back pocket. He calmly told me if he’d known I was a cop, he would have shot me.
“No you wouldn’t,” I told him, “because I would have shot you first.”
To my surprise, Petkus burst out laughing. I knew he meant what he said, and he knew I meant what I said. And based on our mutual willingness to shoot each other, we built a highly productive professional relationship.
In my twenty-seven years as a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, I investigated many sinister bad guys. Ron Petkus and Richard Kagan are just one story out of many that shaped my unusual career.
In 1987, I was one of the first women hired as an ATF special agent. Soon after, and unexpectedly, I became the first woman to win the coveted “Top Gun” award for being the best shot in my class at the ATF Academy. I fought to find my way as a new agent in an office that had coldly driven out the first female agent shortly before I arrived. Not long after, I had to come to terms with my mother’s terminal brain cancer. As a young agent I worked with behavioral profilers at Quantico’s National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, who convinced me to stick to my guns and changed my career.
I investigated a number of high-profile bombings and arsons, several of which resulted in lengthy trials. I extracted confessions from deadly serial bombers and hunted suspects on the National Church Arson Task Force. In addition, I worked Secret Service details, protecting Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, and spent weeks protecting foreign diplomats at the United Nations in New York City.
I arrested Vice Lords and Gangster Disciples in the heart of Chicago’s most desperate neighborhoods. And at a time when rivalries and turf wars could cripple major investigations, I willingly worked with outside agencies. Many years later, I came out on top in a bureaucratic power struggle. And despite my dedication to a demanding career, I went on to adopt a little boy from Russia as a forty-four-year-old single mother.
I thrived in a violent world of murderers, gangsters, and bombers. I learned why people shoot, burn, and blow up each other. I’ve seen terrible things—a father’s body torn open by shrapnel from a pipe bomb, a mother’s terror for the life of her young teenage son, and the bleakness of our inner cities. I know how and why people buy and sell guns and drugs. I know they commit crimes for money, power, sex, and revenge. I can find them, arrest them, and help prosecute them.
As a girl and young woman, I didn’t aspire to this career. It wasn’t even an option when I was growing up. But beginning in the 1970s, new federal laws created opportunities for girls and women that we never thought would be possible. Doors were opened for the first time, and I didn’t walk through—I ran through them full speed ahead. I never could have foreseen what awaited me on the other side.
About the Author:
Cynthia Beebe is a retired Senior Special Agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). She spent 27 years investigating bombings, arson, murder, illegal firearms, gangs and other crimes. She was the first woman to be “Top Gun” at the ATF Academy, where she later taught as an instructor. Her cases were chronicled in the New York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and Ladies Home Journal, and were covered on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, 48 Hours and the Phil Donahue Show.
Beebe is a member of the International Association of Bomb Technicians and Investigators, the International Association of Arson Investigators and Women in Federal Law Enforcement. She has a B.A. in English Literature and a Master’s Degree in Journalism, both from Northwestern University. Since her retirement she has appeared as an expert commentator on law enforcement issues for WGN radio and television. She lives with her son in a suburb of Chicago.
Great interview questions and subject. Not a non- fiction reader usually, I am intrigued to read this book. We should invite Cynthia to join SinC.
Beth Schmelzer
I had the honor of reading an Advanced Reader Copy of this memoir, which is like gripping crime fiction, and I highly recommend it.
Good morning, Cynthia, great to “see” you here! What would you consider the worst part of your career- the part you dreaded most- the gruesome corpse? Combing through a scene for hours is brutal weather? The tedious paperwork?
Hope you’re enjoying your book tour!
This was a great read ! So glad I got to experience some of your writing Donnell! What an interesting person Beebe is !
Thank you, Toni!
Thanks, Beth. Cindy recently joined Mystery Writers of America. I think that’s a great idea to join Sisters in Crime. We’ll let her know about it;)
Donnell, Thanks for this helpful interview. I have just ordered the book.
It’s a good one, L.A.
Oh my, this excerpt is totally captivating. Thanks!
Interesting and wonderful interview. Can’t wait to read your book.
What a fabulous interview, Donnell! This book is going on my TBR list right now!
Hi everyone, thank you for your nice comments and I’d love to join Sisters in Crime – thank you! I’ll go on their website this weekend. And Sarah, right off the top of my head I’d have to say the worst part of my job was the office in-fighting. At times that could get pretty unpleasant. I always brushed it off in the end, but a lot of it was an annoying waste of time and energy. That’s just a quick answer for a very good question. Thanks again everyone and I hope you all have a great weekend!
Thank you for that terrific interview. Can’t wait to read her work!