Blind Faith

by Joe McGinniss

  “You’ll go on and get your degree in architecture and you’ll be one of the best around, buddy. I know you will. Tell Jennifer how much I love her. If you two end up together, and I hope you do, but if you do, you’re going to have beautiful kids. Just raise them with the kind of love that Mom and I have raised you with.

  “’Specially Mom. She was the one that poured everything she had into you guys. Every ounce of energy she had. She loved you so. We both believed that you will make the ’88 Olympics. I want you to try for that, ’cause I know you can do it.

  “Chris, I’m so sorry for breaking the promise I made to you, but everything seems to point to me, and although I never hurt your mother there’s so much circumstantial evidence that I know I’m going to get dragged through the courts and I’m so afraid that they’ll find me guilty. I couldn’t bear that. Not for me—not for you boys, either. I want to maintain some dignity if I can. Please try to understand. Forgive me. I love you so much.

  “I told Uncle Gene to make arrangements to purchase the car, the Jeep, so even though the lease is not finished, that will be taken care of for you. Be careful. Please stay close to your family. They need you as much as you need them. I hope and pray that all of this will work out for you guys.

  “I’ve also told Uncle Gene to be sure that you have plenty of spending money in your account at Lehigh so that you can come home when you want to and maybe even go see Jennifer from time to time, because I know that you’re going to need her now and I want you to do that. So I’ll be sure to tell him to let you go. God, I love you, Chris. Please love me.”

  The second tape ended.

  “Yeah,” said O’Brien, “I’m really starting to see it. It was either Mom or the Jeep.”

  “It takes a big man to make the tough choices, Dan,” Gladstone said, as he began to play the tape to John.

  This was similar in style and content to the first two, except Rob told John that when he turned seventeen, Gene Leahy would buy him a Porsche. But “not a brand-new one,” he warned. “Nothing too outrageous.”

  “Yeah, shit,” O’Brien said, “you wouldn’t want the kid to get his hopes up.”

  Then Gladstone played the tape that had been removed from the envelope addressed to Gene Leahy. If their theory were correct, the entire suicide attempt had been staged because Rob wanted to document a version of events that would coincide with the story L’Heureux would give when they eventually arrested him. A perfectly innocent explanation for everything that looked so suspicious. An explanation that, according to Felice, Gary Hamilton had gone to Louisiana to help L’Heureux concoct and that someone then—in all probability—had relayed to Rob before he went to the Best Western to make this tape.

  “As I lie here,” Rob began, “wondering where to start, I think back fourteen months ago, when I went out with a lady who—for years we just winked, across the pool or across the room—was nothing but a friend. A good friend, a friend that Maria didn’t care for too much, but a friend of mine who was a lot like me. I began a relationship that developed into a torrid love affair that was going to tear my marriage apart, and—if it were not for Maria’s death—that would have happened within a month.

  “I guess my problem began long before that, though, really. Because, for some reason—and I’m to blame—whatever we wanted, to do or to buy, we just went ahead and did it. If it meant borrowing to do it, we did it anyway. And I always assured Maria that it was okay, that there was enough—even if there wasn’t.

  “I think she knew, but she knew that I wanted it and I know that she wanted it, whatever it was, and we did it, and that created a spiral—a spiral that accelerated to almost a two-hundred-thousand-dollar debt, not including the mortgage on the house. A debt that I was determined to try to pay off, but just couldn’t seem to—climb out.

  “We were starting to work on it together, and I had emphasized the importance of spending less. I knew, of course, that within a month I was going to be leaving, and I would make the necessary changes to eliminate the debt—by putting Maria on an allowance and taking whatever cash was left and applying it towards debt reduction. However, that never happened. Never had the chance, because some bastards followed us home—from what I can gather—perhaps after tampering with one of the tires on my car, knowing that I would have to pull off somewhere, or pull over, and—were either going to rob us, or—do what had to be done to take the money we had on us.”

  “Smart bastards,” O’Brien whispered, “to tamper with it so he’d have to pull off at Oyster Creek and not four miles further at Roy Rogers.”

  Rob’s voice continued. “The circumstances that surround the entire evening are bizarre,” he said.

  He went on to explain that because casino money was mysteriously missing—“five or six thousand dollars had disappeared without explanation,” from their joint checking account—he’d felt “compelled to hire somebody who I thought was—had a good reputation, was out of town, didn’t mind coming the distance,” to determine what had happened to the money.

  Then he bemoaned the fact that none of the people who apparently knew that Maria had hired her own investigator had bothered to tell him. “And if they had, this entire thing would not have happened because we wouldn’t have been in Atlantic City that night.”

  That, apparently, got him thinking about Maria. “She wanted to start over. It didn’t matter. She loved me. She would forget anything. And when I think about that now, how incredible she was, how much she loved me, and how foolish I was to walk away from her…I miss her so. And as each day goes by, it gets worse and worse.”

  He then said to Gene Leahy, “You must communicate to everybody my love for Maria, in spite of our problems, and that I wouldn’t hurt her, in spite of what seems apparent. You must also let the authorities know that Felice was not involved in any way.”

  He went on for a long time about financial details—outstanding loans, insurance policies, premiums due, and he stressed that Gene was to see to it that Roby, Chris and John each wound up with a fully paid-up car of his own.

  Then he shifted back to a more personal mode. “As I lay here,” he said, “I’m really tormented. In spite of my innocence, I feel I’ll be found guilty because of all the circumstantial evidence that points in that direction, and I can’t bear the thought of that. I’m convinced that the inevitable will happen and a jury of men and women who do not know me will be compelled to find me guilty and I’ll be sentenced to death. Not only can I not bear going through that, but the embarrassment for the family would be far worse than anything else I could think of. I want a little dignity to remain, if possible.

  “So I believe what I will do, at twelve forty-five tonight, which is approximately the time we pulled off the parkway three weeks ago to look at a flat tire, is I will join Maria. I hope that God forgives me, and I’ll be praying right until the end that He does.

  “I’m sorry for letting everyone down. I’m especially sorry for the boys. As I sit here, I’m looking at their beautiful faces with their wonderful smiles, and Maria, her beautiful…everything. The love shining through. Gene, you’ve got to help the boys. Somehow, the love has to continue.”

  And then, scarcely pausing for breath, he said, “When you get a chance, call Felice. She can be reached at school or at her apartment, and tell her that I loved her. That I’m sorry for disappointing her. Tell her that as I speak to you, I’m in room sixteen at the Best Western, where I was my happiest—and now where I’m the saddest.

  “Tell her that I knew that she was going to go back to David, and that I understand, in spite of the feeling that I think it all would have worked out for us if I had stuck around to see it through. With her gone, her not there, I’m alone, really…and…I can’t go on alone. Tell her I love her. Tell her I wish her the best. Tell her to…stay straight. Tell her I said, ‘Stop smoking.’

  “And, this is silly, but I ordered some draperies recut from the drapes we took down in the family room that I was going to give to he
r for the apartment. They’ll probably be delivered sometime next week. Give them to Felice, if she wants them. Ask her if she wants them.

  “Give Sal Coccaro a call, too. He’s been absolutely super. Tell him I love him, both him and Paula, and that I appreciate him standing behind me. Tell him I’m sorry for not having the courage to see this through. I think he might understand. And tell him that I said I was still thinking of business, even tonight—and remind him that Paula’s premium is still overdue.”

  “Make a note, Dan,” Gladstone said. “Tell Paula she’s overdue.”

  There was a long pause on the tape, and then, finally, Rob got to what appeared to be the point. “I think,” he said, “it’s probably best that I fill you in with what I know up to this point. As I mentioned the other day—I said I had wired money to a fellow in Louisiana to pay off a bet. In fact, that money was, uh, being sent out to the investigator that I mentioned earlier in this tape.

  “This was a guy who was recommended by this fellow Andrew Myers. Supposed to be a very good investigator. He made two trips, uh, to New Jersey. One in June after I wired him twenty-five hundred dollars. He said he was going to be busy for a little while, but if I wired him some additional money he would come back and check things out. The objective was to do this quietly, without anybody in the area knowing. People in the area are not reliable, from what I know of the people that work in Ocean County, and that was the logic behind getting somebody out of town.

  “Uhhh, this guy would apparently work as cheap as somebody in the next state, uh…and he was supposed to have a good reputation. I saw him the second time at Harrah’s the evening Maria was killed. I gave him an additional sum of money, approximately eight hundred dollars, which was all I had, which he took, and he said that he would, uh, stay around to do a little checking. I found out later that he left, and that his only purpose was to rip me off.

  “So I sent him two installments, one for twenty-five hundred, one for three thousand. Waiting for him to come back, I called Andy Myers, several times, inquiring as to the whereabouts of the person that I knew as Ernie Grandshaw, and, uh, at the same time tried to do, uh, some business with Andy Myers on the telephone, some investment business.

  “The police, as I understand it, have indicted both Myers and this fellow Ernie Grandshaw, whose name is Ferlin something, as, uh, conspirators, and I’m convinced that the third sealed indictment that’s in Toms River is for me.

  “Those are the details that I haven’t told anybody, except my lawyer, Seely, and his investigator who is down there getting a confirmation statement from, uh, Andrew Myers. I did meet Myers, by the way, at the Riccios’ son’s birthday party, back in May.

  “Uhh, I’d like you to sit down and explain to Roby and Chris as much of those details as you feel comfortable explaining to them. Try to make them understand the kind of pressure that I felt. I just feel that that, plus the life insurance, the debt and Felice, that, uh, it just looks so bleak. I can’t stand the thought of what’s going to happen—or what could happen.

  “And so, my friend, my dear friend Gene, I hope you understand and I hope you won’t stop loving me because I lacked the courage to face it all.

  “I hate doing what I’m going to do because of the boys. I know how it’s gonna hurt them. So please help them. They’re good boys. They don’t deserve this. Just like Maria didn’t deserve what happened either. But, Gene, I want to be with her, and I pray God will allow me to be…’cause I can’t go on like this. I love you all, especially Roby, Chris and John.”

  The tape ended.

  “What do you think?” Gladstone asked.

  “I think he should’ve swallowed the fucking potion,” O’Brien said.

  17

  Joking aside, Gladstone, O’Brien and Mancuso agreed that the making of the tape had been, on Rob’s part, a mistake. If nothing else, it now gave them what they had not had before: a sufficient factual basis for returning to Louisiana to arrest Ferlin L’Heureux.

  The chain had started with Myers identifying the “investigator” as L’Heureux. The next link had been provided by Grandshaw, who said L’Heureux had used his name as an alias and had in fact used him to pick up money wired by Marshall. Then there had been the documented series of phone calls from the L’Heureux home to Atlantic City between June 17 and 19.

  Now, on tape, Marshall had acknowledged that “Grandshaw” was really a man named “Ferlin something” and that he’d met with Ferlin in Atlantic City in both June and September.

  Samples of L’Heureux’s handwriting obtained from Shreveport Police Department records matched the “Ernie Grandshaw” writing on the registration cards at both Harrah’s Marina in June and the Airport Motor Inn in September.

  And now, providing the most vital link of all, Marshall had admitted, on tape, to meeting L’Heureux, and to paying him money, at Harrah’s Marina, only hours before the murder. On the same date, Gladstone emphasized, that “Ernie Grandshaw” had registered at the Airport Motor Inn and that someone using the Airport Motor Inn phone booth had called Marshall’s office and, eight minutes later, had received a call back from a pay phone outside a 7-Eleven store just down the street from the office.

  There still was no one remotely ready to admit that investigation had been a code word for murder, but the three detectives knew they had enough facts to return to Louisiana, armed this time with arrest warrants for both Grandshaw and L’Heureux.

  They wanted Grandshaw for two reasons: because the polygraph examination had indicated he was withholding significant information, and because the testimony he would have to give at trial to clear himself would, of necessity, link L’Heureux directly to Marshall, who had sent the two Western Union payments.

  They flew down on October 11 and arrested both L’Heureux and Grandshaw the next day without incident. With L’Heureux behind bars, Gladstone, an assiduous reader of the works of Herman Melville, felt a bit as he imagined Captain Ahab would have had he succeeded in conquering Moby-Dick.

  But the truth was, Ferlin L’Heureux wasn’t Moby-Dick, physical resemblances notwithstanding. In this case, Rob Marshall was the Great White Whale, and success would be earned only by seeing him convicted for the heartless, malicious, greed-soaked, lust-soaked, fear-soaked murder of his wife.

  Bob Gladstone, truly, earned less money in a year from doing a difficult, distasteful and occasionally dangerous job well than Rob Marshall borrowed in a week while lying on sheets covered with rose petals (a kinky detail that Vandermeer had learned while on his Best Western detail), his limbs intertwined with those of the wife of a man who lived down the street.

  Yes, it was Rob Marshall who was Moby-Dick. Ferlin L’Heureux, however crucial to the case, was no more than an overfed pilot fish who could lead Gladstone to the main prey.

  Six weeks passed as L’Heureux, Grandshaw and Myers resisted extradition to New Jersey. These were weeks during which Bob Gladstone continued to fret.

  He liked to think in terms of links in a chain, but he knew that a good defense lawyer could make the prosecution’s theory—that Marshall had imported a hit man from Louisiana to murder Maria for her insurance money so he could pay off his debts and continue his affair with Felice—seem a hodgepodge of supposition and coincidence, pasted together with a handful of phone bills.

  More, he knew, would be needed to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But he didn’t know how he could get more, when Myers and Grandshaw both insisted that “investigation” meant no more than that, and when Ferlin L’Heureux simply flat out refused to talk.

  “We’ve got to get them up here,” Gladstone kept saying. Once the suspects were brought to New Jersey, they could be kept isolated from one another and Gladstone could practice a bit of psychological warfare. If Ferlin didn’t know what Andy might be saying, and Ernie didn’t know what Ferlin might be saying, and Andy didn’t know but what maybe even Marshall himself had started to talk—that sort of thing could put a lot of pressure on a man. Especially when th
e man was fifteen hundred miles from home and facing trial in a state that had recently reinstituted the death penalty.

  “Once we get them up here,” Gladstone kept saying, “one of them will flip.”

  They arrived in Toms River on December 3, their fight against extradition having been lost. Each was placed in solitary confinement, with no knowledge of the whereabouts of the others. Through their attorneys, however, each of the three knew that the prosecutor’s office was interested in talking about a deal: drastically reduced charges in return for the right kind of information.

  The one to whom this proposition seemed most tantalizing was L’Heureux. He was, after all, the one most directly implicated in the murder itself. He was the one against whom they had compiled the most damning evidence. That made him the one most likely to be convicted of murder, and therefore the most likely to face death. Ferlin had been a cop himself for more than ten years. He knew how the game was played. And he knew who usually won.

  Ferlin L’Heureux had two lawyers. Moss Garner, the son of Lawton Garner, had flown up from Shreveport, and, in addition, L’Heureux had been given a New Jersey state public defender.

  Bob Gladstone talked to these lawyers. He and the county prosecutor explained that the deal was still out there, dangling, but time was short. The deal would not dangle much longer.

  It was, without question, a good deal. L’Heureux, as long as he could demonstrate to their satisfaction that he had not been the actual killer, would serve a very brief sentence in a minimum-security state prison, after which he and his family would be relocated through the Federal Witness Protection Program (for which he was eligible as a result of bank robbery information he’d given the FBI in Shreveport).

  No one disputed that this sounded much better than death.

  They showed L’Heureux’s lawyers little bits and pieces of their evidence. The phone records. The motel registrations. And something new: a statement from a young woman who said she’d driven past the Oyster Creek picnic area at the time of the murder and had seen a white Cadillac with a dented right side (just like L’Heureux’s) roaring down the southbound exit ramp at high speed. They talked about what Myers had said, and what Grandshaw had said. Then they mentioned that Rob Marshall had made a tape. A tape that, whatever its original purpose, served to implicate Ferlin deeply.