Suffering Fools

by Ed Gaffney

  Babe was back to doodling. Whether that was a sign of comprehension or a complete psychological collapse was anyone’s guess.

  Zack continued. “Meanwhile, Terry and I will do our best just to take notes and not interrupt you. Then, the next time we meet, if we have any questions, we’ll ask you about them. How’s that sound?”

  The doodling continued. Babe had filled up all of the blank space on the top page of his stack and had moved on to the margins of what looked like a copy of a disciplinary report. Maybe he was writing his memoirs. I Named Myself Babe.

  Babe finally set the scarred pencil down, and then he nodded to the table. “Okay,” he said. “I think I can do that.”

  Terry took a deep breath, exhaled very slowly, and picked up his pen again. With any luck, they’d be done by his next birthday. He had plans to go out that night.

  DETECTIVE VERA DEMOPOLOUS WATCHED WITH satisfaction as thirty feet down the sidewalk the small can of baked beans hit the escaping thief right between the shoulder blades. He yelped in pain, reaching awkwardly behind him as if to touch the spot that would later be marked by an ugly bruise, and then stumbled forward, tripping and falling to the ground. Vera was already sprinting toward him and shouting over her shoulder to Dotty to call 911.

  At least she still had her aim.

  It figured, though. Her first real police work since she’d moved to Massachusetts, and it was with a can of vegetables.

  She had just finished her morning run—a little ahead of schedule, because the nightmare woke her up an hour early today—and was cooling down, walking to her neighborhood store for a quick cup of coffee before showering and heading in to the station. As she entered Bo’s Big Grocery, which was neither big nor owned by anyone named Bo—go figure—a scruffy teenager was at the front counter, paying for a newspaper.

  Five seconds later, the owner’s sixty-eight-year-old mother, Dotty, was screaming and falling backward into a rack of magazines, the kid was tearing through the door with a handful of money that the family business could not afford to lose, and Vera was looking around for something about the size and weight of a softball.

  Now, thanks to the baked beans, she was only a few steps behind the creep, and moving in fast. He had no wind, and was wheezing as he staggered ahead. Vera closed the remaining distance between them and tripped him from behind, taking care to land on the small of his back with her knee as he fell onto his face.

  Her dad always told her that size was overrated. That was good, because this kid was over six feet tall, and Vera was about five-five on a good day. But with the wind knocked out of him, and now with his right arm twisted up behind his back, and the crescendoing wail of the cruiser’s siren as it pulled up to the curb next to them, the kid wasn’t going to give her any grief.

  The uniforms jumped out of the black-and-white, cuffed the suspect, threw him into the back of the car, and then chased after Vera as she ran back to make sure that Dotty wasn’t seriously hurt.

  Any grief would come from Vera’s own conscience, later, when she started coming down on herself about how she should have realized that no scruffy-looking teenager would be up at six-thirty in the morning, buying a newspaper.

  Was she ever going to get her instincts back?

  ENOUGH TIME HAD PASSED. HE HAD TO GET RID of the evidence. This was going to be the most important part of the whole mess. Elmo was going to have to be very, very careful if this thing was going to work itself out.

  He was alone in his workshop. Well, to be fair, it wasn’t really a workshop. It was actually a garage.

  And if you were going to be picky, he wasn’t really alone, either. Not if you counted the dead body in the trunk of the car in front of him.

  He lit a cigarette, took a drag, blew out the match and threw it down on the floor.

  It was good that his partner was in on this, because he needed the help—he’d fucked up bad. But that’s what partners were for. They watched out for each other, and helped clean up each other’s mistakes.

  Luckily, Elmo didn’t have anything planned for tomorrow, because this was probably going to take a while. If he rushed the job, or was sloppy, he’d make the situation worse. He had a couple of shovels, lots of extra plastic bags, duct tape, a few bottles of different kinds of cleaners, rubber gloves, rags, a cooler full of beer, and some of the other stuff, which he really shouldn’t be using, but it was nice just knowing it was around if he needed it.

  Like his partner said, the main thing was just to take his time and do the job right. Everything would work out. It had to.

  He finished his cigarette, put the gloves on, put the cooler of beer in the front seat, threw the rest of the stuff into the trunk with the body, started the car, and drove off into the night.

  TWO

  Dear Sharon,

  I just heard about Bernie from my mother, and I tried to call, but I can’t get through. I’ll keep trying until I do, but I just wanted you to know, in case you get this before I reach you, that I’m thinking about you and praying for both of you.

  He’s very strong. He’s going to make it.

  Love, Vera

  (E-mail sent 02/15/02 from Vera Demopolous [vera49@imail.com] to Sharon Washman [sharchar@imail.com], Exhibit 14, Commonwealth v. Morrison)

  April 20, 2004

  “AND THEN I LEARNED THAT THE MINIMUM SENTENCE my son could receive is fifteen years in prison. I couldn’t believe it.”

  Terry watched as Katerina Gardiner paused for a moment and slowly crossed her right leg over her left.

  Damn.

  If this were a movie, the woman sitting across from him would be a tall blond bombshell, wearing high heels and a skirt so short that watching her cross her legs would risk blindness. But in the real world, leggy blondes weren’t frequent visitors to the law offices of Terry’s longtime friend and partner in criminal law, Zack Wilson. And watching Mrs. Gardiner cross her legs risked nothing. Except maybe an onset of depression.

  If you squinted a little, it was possible to imagine that Mrs. Gardiner, a lifetime or two ago, might not have been bad-looking. But twenty or thirty years of handling her son’s crap and, well, it was pretty clear that worrying about how she looked had fallen off her things-to-do list.

  How much longer was her story going to last? Her son got indicted for the armed robbery of a convenience store. The victim had ID’d him. What else was there?

  Terry turned toward Zack. He sure didn’t look like one of the best criminal defense lawyers in the state. As usual, Zack was sporting his I-look-like-I’m-on-vacation look. Linen shirt—sleeves rolled up, of course, probably just to piss Terry off—jeans, and boots.

  But despite his stubborn refusal to look the part, Zack always seemed to be surrounded by this golden aura of professionalism. He walked into a courtroom, smiled like he couldn’t believe how lucky he was just to be alive, and juries instantly fell in love with him. It was like some kind of genetic accident had left him with an overabundance of charm.

  Unfortunately, Zack also had an overabundance of patience. Mrs. Gardiner had already been talking for more than twenty minutes. She was earnest, and obviously intelligent, but Zack had already agreed to take the case—what more was there to do here? A group hug?

  But Zack just sat there, nodding and listening—a mountaintop temple of peace and reassurance. While Terry felt like a downtown firehouse fifteen seconds into the first alarm. If an oversized, curly-haired, five-o’clock-shadowed, loud and impatient criminal lawyer could be a firehouse. Mrs. Gardiner, believe me—we will work our asses off for Babe. We will run down every lead, we will file all the motions, we will sing and dance for that jury until our voices are hoarse and our feet are blistered. But you should assume that your son is already pretty well fried. With his latest boneheaded felony, Rufus will be lucky to get just fifteen years. With the wrong judge, he could easily be looking at twenty or twenty-five.

  At least she hadn’t claimed that Babe was innocent.

  “And I know that yo
u’ve probably heard this a thousand times before, but my son is innocent.”

  Oh well.

  It was almost like the parents of these jerks felt it was their sacred duty to tell the world that regardless of what anyone—especially police officers, judges, and juries—said, their kid was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Terry didn’t have the heart to ask her if Babe was innocent of the crimes he had pleaded guilty to four years ago—breaking and entering a junkyard and stealing a car radio. Jesus Christ. That must have been an arrest for the ages.

  This is the police. Put the cheap-as-shit-stereo-equipment-that-nobody-in-his-right-mind-would-ever-try-to-steal down, step away from the car, and place your hands on top of your head.

  The guy even had a loser criminal history.

  That was one of the reasons ol’ Babe was looking at so much time. Massachusetts had recently enacted a three strikes and you’re out rule—on your third felony conviction, you get fifteen years at a minimum, no matter what the crime. About five years ago, Rufus had been caught with enough marijuana to roll a small joint. Thanks to a genius lawyer, in exchange for a guarantee that he wouldn’t spend any time in jail, Babe had pleaded guilty to a felony—possession with intent to distribute. Strike one.

  Then, a year later, he made his little shopping trip into the junkyard, and suddenly, the count was oh and two.

  Terry turned again toward Mrs. Gardiner. She looked tired around the eyes, like she hadn’t slept much lately, but her gaze was clear and direct. And despite the strained circumstances, she was reasonable and pleasant, without coming off like she was kissing up to anyone. From the look and sound of her, it was hard to believe that Babe had gotten himself into trouble because of something she did or didn’t do as a mother.

  But holy shit. That washed-out, ankle-length dress really uglied up the whole room. And what was with those shoes? Did she actually spend money on them? “Rufus really is a good person,” she confided, smiling somewhat sadly. “And he’s my only son.”

  Thank God Terry didn’t have any kids. He spent a lot of time with Zack and his six-year-old son and saw how tough it was to be a parent. And Justin was an awesome kid with a terrific attitude and a great sense of humor. What in the world would it be like to raise a mean little snot-nosed creep running around in dirty diapers for years, only to see him grow up to star in My Big Fat Felony?

  “I brought something for you,” Mrs. Gardiner continued, “that will prove he didn’t do it.” Terry looked over at Zack, who shrugged. He knew whatever dumb thing the defendant’s mother was going to yank out of that oversized canvas bag she was digging through wasn’t going to be worth diddly.

  And what a bag it was. Lime green, about the size of a suitcase, and for no discernable reason, sporting the days of the week stenciled at odd angles and in several different bright colors and typefaces across its sides. Was it possible to get queasy looking at a canvas bag? The headache was a given.

  After far too long, Mrs. Gardiner pulled out a videotape. “Here,” she said, with a strange mix of grim satisfaction and uncertainty as she handed it to Zack. “It’s going to take some work, but I believe this single piece of evidence will win the case.”

  Sure it would.

  “What is this a tape of?” Zack asked.

  “It’s an exact copy of the videotape the police took from the security camera at the Nite & Day,” she replied. “It proves that Babe didn’t rob that store.”

  “HEY, DETECTIVE. NICE WORK THE OTHER morning.”

  Vera smiled and thanked the sergeant as he left the kitchen. It was amazing how quickly word had spread about how she’d initiated an arrest with a fastball to the middle of a bad guy’s back.

  Not that she minded. More people had talked to her in the past two days than in the two weeks since she’d started as a detective with the Springfield Police Department. If it took throwing a can of baked beans to break the ice around here, then so be it.

  Now she filled her mug from the half-empty pot on the burner in the station kitchen. Cup number three, and it was only ten-thirty. Jeez, she was tired. If she didn’t watch out, by the time she went home she’d have had an even dozen. Her doctor would not approve at all.

  But she had to do what she had to do. She’d been awakened by the nightmare again, and had gotten a total of two hours of sleep.

  Like all of her bad dreams, it started out innocently enough. She was back in Fairbanks, as a rookie uniformed cop. It was late spring, and the Alaskan air was crisp. The lines that the evergreen trees and puffy clouds made against the bright blue sky were sharp as she climbed into the passenger seat of the patrol car.

  But unlike reality, the driver of her patrol car in the dream was Bernie Washman.

  When Vera actually had been a rookie on the Fairbanks force, Bernie was a sergeant, and typically didn’t patrol. He spent most of his time in the station house. But that didn’t stop him from flying out of the squad whenever backup was called for. Bernie’s was almost always the first additional cruiser on the scene, adding not just another body but an experienced officer into whatever potential jackpot was brewing.

  In her dream, Bernie was stopped at a traffic light and in the middle of inviting Vera to dinner with his wife, Sharon, and their twin daughters, when all of a sudden there was a crack, and Bernie stopped talking abruptly. He turned to Vera with a quizzical look on his face and said, “Hey, tell Sharon—” just before he slumped forward, over the steering wheel, revealing a hideous bullet wound in the back of his neck.

  Of course, that’s not what had really happened.

  “Hey, Vera, I left something for you on your desk.”

  Her new boss, Lieutenant Carasquillo, had joined her in the coffee room, and was opening the little refrigerator. He was one of the only cops Vera knew that didn’t drink coffee. Instead, he had these energy shakes. They looked awful.

  “Oh. Okay. Thanks, Lieu.”

  She had to stop daydreaming. It was bad enough to be plagued at night by what had happened. Bernie would be pissed if he knew it was bugging her on the job.

  Vera returned to her desk and couldn’t believe her eyes.

  There, right next to the embarrassingly tall stack of ancient case folders that promised to occupy the next several days—if not weeks—of her life, was a file with a note attached to the front cover. Vera—Here’s a new one for you. Lt. C. Yes. Finally a chance to get up off her rapidly expanding butt.

  When Vera had first transferred into the squad, Lieutenant Carasquillo had assigned her to review some of the older open cases to help her “transition into the atmosphere” of her new job. While it was certainly far from the most glamorous police work, Vera had assumed that the lieutenant was simply biding his time before getting her into the normal routine of a detective.

  But for two straight weeks at Springfield Police Headquarters, Vera had found herself saddled with just about every possible assignment that didn’t involve catching real cases. Reviewing old files. Making phone calls on missing persons cases that were colder than a morgue. Serving as the department’s representative on the citizen review board set up to monitor police misconduct.

  Transitioning herself into the new atmosphere. Oh come on.

  Sure—her arrival made her the only female detective in this squad, and at twenty-eight she might have been a little young to have the rank. But two weeks of desk duty? Please.

  To be fair, it didn’t seem like the other three detectives were overwhelmed with fieldwork right now. Willy Grasso had been around for decades, and although Lieutenant C. was technically responsible for assigning cases to the detectives, every one went to Grasso first. He’d look at the file, decide if he wanted it, and if not, drop it down to the next most senior member of the squad, Ole Pedersen, the man with ears almost as big as Uncle Monty’s. Which was really saying something.

  If Ole wasn’t interested, or was too busy, the file went to the hero of the force, Detective John Morrison.

  Morrison looked just too go
od to be true. Like some movie star had taken a wrong turn and ended up in an actual precinct instead of a Hollywood soundstage. Thick chestnut brown hair, deep blue eyes, dazzling smile, cleft chin, broad shoulders—he was the complete visual package.

  And as if that weren’t enough, according to Willy, three or four years ago Morrison had just about single-handedly broken up a nasty cocaine-distribution network that had been plaguing the city. He also had a reputation for carrying a very heavy caseload and knowing everything that was going on in the Springfield underground.

  And since a case only went to Vera if everybody—including Detective Perfect—passed on it, that just about guaranteed that anything that made it to her desk would be deadly dull.

  Vera opened the thin folder. It was another missing persons case, but unlike the dozens of others she had been wading through over the past two weeks, this one had been opened in the current century. There was actually a chance that she might be able to do something useful here.

  She read the first few lines of the report. David Zwaggert. Age twenty-five. Reported missing by his parole officer on March 24. Vera felt a little excited. This case was going to give her some real detective work to do. She quickly turned the page and found his criminal history.

  Zwaggert had been committing crimes from at least the age of thirteen, when he first got busted for joyriding. Since then, he had spent most of his time getting arrested and convicted of a string of low-level misdemeanors, gradually escalating in severity until he finally managed to get himself eight months in a county lockup for hitting somebody over the head with a beer bottle during a barroom brawl.

  But at nineteen, he’d gone pro. Armed robbery with another guy at a gas station in Springfield. That had gotten him his first state time. Five to ten years. He’d made parole on his second try, and had a decent job on an electronics delivery truck when, all of a sudden, he’d stopped coming to work. His employer had called his parole officer, who had unsuccessfully looked around for him, and gotten a warrant issued.