Suffering Fools

by Ed Gaffney

  Vera had already checked with Irene Quarrels, and sure enough, the man that Irene had seen with Davy Zwaggert on the night that he’d disappeared was Roger Tedesco. Irene’s description had been remarkably accurate. Right down to the barbed-wire tattoo on Tedesco’s left arm.

  So Vera had made an appointment to meet with Oscar Welansky, Tedesco’s parole officer, hoping to find out what she could about the man who might have been the last person to see Davy Zwaggert before he disappeared.

  Now she sat in a little waiting room outside Welansky’s office. The phone must have rung two dozen times in the past twenty minutes. Nobody was at the receptionist’s desk, so Welansky was frantically juggling calls and taking messages.

  The sound of a phone being hung up was followed by a pause. Silence. Amazing. A short man in his fifties poked his head out of his door and said, “Detective Demopolous? I’m Oscar Welansky. Sorry about that. Our administrative assistant is out sick. C’mon in.”

  Vera sat down across from Welansky’s desk as he opened a file drawer. “I set the phone to take messages for the next few minutes,” he said, sifting through tons of folders, some several inches thick, and pulling out a modest-sized one. He put it on top of two stacks of file folders that sat side by side in front of him, like a little makeshift lectern.

  “Tedesco, right? Let’s see. He’s only been out for a little while, so I don’t have a heck of a lot on him.” He opened the folder and began to scan through it. “Okay. Here we go. Living in a studio at Cedar Crest Apartments down on Fifth Street.” He flipped over more pages. “Got two part-time jobs. Night janitor at a place called Ibis Industries on Saturday and Sunday nights, and medical supply runner—mostly blood, that kind of thing—for St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.”

  He shuffled further through the file. “So far, no problems at work, AA meetings all okay, weekly drug and alcohol scans, so far so good. In fact, he’s due—wait a sec.” He flipped over another page, scanned it, and then turned it over and read a chart that had been made on the opposite side. A look of concern crossed his face. Then he put the paper down, flipped back through the folder, and removed a single sheet of paper. He picked up the phone and began to dial a number from the sheet.

  “Excuse me, Detective,” he said to Vera as he held the phone up to his ear, waiting for a connection. “It looks like we might have a little problem.”

  ELEVEN

  ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY LOVELL: And what observations did you make with respect to the victim’s clothing?

  DR. TRAHN: As I mentioned, the upper portion of the victim’s shirt was discolored and encrusted with dried blood. The shirt itself was a green and black T-shirt….

  Q: Did you make any observations with respect to the pants that the victim was wearing?

  A: Yes. The victim was wearing blue jeans and a black belt. I observed two light brown strands of hair, which appeared to be human, in the area of the victim’s belt buckle.

  Q: Did you perform any tests on the hairs?

  A: Yes. I first made microscopic examination of the hairs and confirmed that they were, in fact, human head hairs. I then compared them to the victim’s head hair, to determine if they were from him.

  Q: And what did you find?

  A: The victim’s head hair was relatively short—about one inch in length, wiry, curly, and very dark brown. The hair found on the victim’s body was longer—approximately four inches long—and as I mentioned, it was light brown. It was clearly not the victim’s head hair.

  Q: Were you able to make any other determinations regarding the hair?

  A: Yes. At my supervisor’s request, I submitted the hair for DNA analysis, along with a hair sample taken from the defendant.

  (Commonwealth v. Gardiner, Trial Volume V, Pages 100–102)

  Hostage

  AS SOON AS SHE HEARD THE TELEVISION GET turned off, she froze. And then, as quickly as she could, she began to work her way backward across the floor. She had to get her chair back to its original position, or he’d figure out what she was up to and take away the knife.

  “Pain in the fucking balls. Don’t tell me.”

  The man’s voice came through from the other room loud and clear. Then there was movement, a rustling of some kind.

  “Fuck! Where are you?”

  He was walking around in there, looking for something. If he didn’t find it, it was only a matter of time before he came through the door.

  She was sweating freely now, trying hard to maintain her balance as she shifted her weight from foot to foot, moving backward slowly. She had to get back to the place in the room where he’d left her tied up. But slowly. If she moved too quickly, she’d drop the chair to the floor. And if it made too much noise when it fell, the kidnapper would come in to see what was going on, figure out what she was doing, and that would be the end of her escape plans.

  Her head was killing her, and she was getting dizzy. And then a sharp pain shot through her stomach, like a quick cramp. It didn’t matter. She just had to keep moving.

  She took another step back with her left foot. And then one with her right. She was going to make it. Another minute, maybe two—

  “Goddammit!” And then there was the sound of a bottle breaking. “Fuck!”

  And then another bottle shattered. “Where are you?”

  The sudden violence startled her, and she accidentally dropped the chair back down to the floor. Luckily, the sound of the chair hitting the floor was masked by another oath from the kidnapper. Pain tore through her skull and neck like she’d just been hit in the head with a sledgehammer.

  There was a crowbar. Oh my God. The ski mask man had hit her in the head with a crowbar.

  As the realization flashed into her mind, a new level of fear surged through her, and for a moment, tears welled in her eyes. And then the voice of an older man came into her mind.

  Fear is like an alarm clock. Once it wakes you up, turn it off or it’ll drive you crazy.

  Easy for you to say, whoever you were. You weren’t tied up to a chair, with some raging maniac smashing bottles in the other room with a crowbar.

  She leaned forward in the chair, rose up on her toes, and started to move backward again. But then the voice from the other room resumed his crazy talking. “I know you’re in here, goddammit. Where the fuck are you?”

  But this time his voice was louder. He was very close. And then there was the sound of the doorknob turning.

  She hadn’t gotten back to where she had started, but she was out of time. She had to hope that he didn’t realize that she had moved her chair since he had first taped her up. If he figured out what she had been doing, everything would be lost.

  She froze as the door squeaked open, and gingerly lowered herself back down so that the legs of the chair were again resting on the floor. She closed her eyes and tried to make every muscle in her body relax, as if she were still unconscious.

  The doorway he was entering was behind her, so she had no idea whether the man with the ski mask had seen her as she was trying to make her way back from the table. She realized that she was holding her breath, and slowly exhaled, desperately trying to imitate how a person would breathe if they didn’t know that their angry kidnapper who had lost something had just walked into the room.

  When the door stopped squeaking there was a moment of silence, followed by “Ha!”

  And then he was walking toward her.

  Had he seen her trying to move around? Would he realize that the chair was a few feet from where it had been when he first tied her up? Was he going to hit her in the head again with the crowbar? She fought the tears that threatened to leak out of her closed eyes.

  In three steps he had reached her, and in his fourth step, he walked right past her. Yuk. He smelled like he’d just taken a bath in beer. And then splashed on a little body odor cologne.

  She stayed absolutely still, but dared to open her eyes a slit.

  Through her eyelashes and unshed t
ears she could just make out that he was at the table. Then he was leaning across it, reaching for something. A beer can fell to the floor.

  “Fuck,” he said absently. Then he said, “Here we are. Yeah. This’ll work.” He moved a little to his left, leaning on the table to steady himself. He looked totally drunk. And something else was wrong, but before she could figure it out, he turned back around, and she closed her eyes again, terrified that somehow he’d know she was looking at him.

  Her head throbbed so badly it felt like her skull was vibrating. Would this headache ever go away? And then there was another stab of pain in her stomach. God. Stomach cramps. Could anything else go wrong?

  There was the sound of a paper bag rattling, and then the sound of the top being twisted off a glass bottle. Then he was drinking something.

  Of course. He had been looking for alcohol. And that little brown bag on the table must have been holding a small bottle of whiskey or something.

  “Yeah,” he said in what sounded like relief, exhaling loudly. And then he was walking past her again, and the door squeaked, and then it closed.

  She just sat there. She had to remember to keep breathing. In and out. In and out. Slowly. Listen. Was he still there?

  The man seemed so drunk she couldn’t believe that he had the presence of mind to try to catch her in some kind of trap, but she didn’t want to take any chances.

  And then, from the other side of the door, she heard the television come on again. Hallelujah. He was gone from the room.

  She opened her eyes fully and took a deep breath. She had to get over to that table as soon as possible. With him as drunk as he was, there was no predicting what might happen. He could barely stand up straight. God help her if he decided to move her, or anything else.

  She steadied herself, preparing to tip forward and make her way over to the table. And then she saw what he had done.

  He hadn’t just taken the bottle with the alcohol in it.

  He had also taken the Swiss Army knife.

  July 20, 2004

  ZACK PUSHED HIS CHAIR BACK FROM HIS DESK and looked over at Terry as the burly lawyer paced back and forth in the office. Sean was sitting on the couch, reading through a book on criminal procedure. He had been immersing himself in the Gardiner case, reading old files, the transcripts of Babe’s old guilty pleas, and running to the law library every time he came upon a subject he didn’t understand. He learned at a terrific pace, but lately, he looked a little nervous. Or maybe that’s just the way he always looked.

  “‘Maybe they’ll be right’?” Terry spat out, pausing for a minute to sit down. Then he got right up again and headed back across the room. “I tell him that the jury is going to think he’s a liar, and he says, ‘Maybe they’ll be right’?” Terry had reached the far wall, and turned back. “Who does he think he is? Fucking Confucius? This guy used to piss me off because he was so goddamn stupid. Now he’s just pissing me off.” He made his voice sound like Babe’s. “‘I’m lying; I’m not lying. I was at the restaurant, I wasn’t at the restaurant. I did it, I didn’t do it.’” He threw his hands up in exasperation. “You know what? Fuck it. I say screw pretrial preparation. Screw cross-examination. Screw everything. Let’s show up at the trial, sit there, let the prosecution witnesses say whatever they want, and then just stick Babe up there on the stand and see what happens.”

  Whenever Terry and Zack had a criminal client like Babe Gardiner, there came a time in the case when Terry’s peanut-sized reserve of patience just disappeared.

  Usually it arrived fairly late in the game. Sometimes he would blow up when a client resisted a particular trial strategy they suggested. Other times he just exploded when the ever-present realization that they were probably going to lose reasserted itself.

  It was funny how criminal defense work sometimes appealed to very competitive people. Talk about a death wish. You’re the kind of person who loves winning, and you get into a field where if you win a few cases, you’re a big hero. Win close to as many as you lose and you’re a force of nature.

  But in Babe’s case, Zack understood Terry’s frustration. For whatever reason, Babe seemed unusually committed to his plan of self-destruction. Step One: Withhold from his attorneys any useful information about his actions on the night of the robbery. Step Two: Repeat Step One.

  Terry’s instincts were right on—it was obvious that Babe was hiding something from them. What was so frustrating, though, was that Zack’s instincts were screaming that whatever Babe did that night, it wasn’t rob and murder that store clerk.

  Sean watched as his very large uncle finally came in for a landing on the chair across from the couch. “Okay,” Terry said, closing his eyes and squeezing his forehead with one hand. “I’ve got three quick questions. What? The? Fuck?” He opened his eyes and looked over at Zack. “I mean really. He admits that he’s hiding something, you ask him to explain himself, and he says to forget it—it doesn’t mean anything. I swear to God, I was about five seconds away from dumping the case. Or beating the shit out of him. That would have worked for me.” He turned to Sean. “’Course, then I’d have been stuck explaining to your mother how I managed to put you in the middle of a prison riot.”

  Terry’s nephew forced a smile. The poor kid looked like he could use about a week of relaxation therapy. Sean seemed to be one of those people who adopted the stress levels of whoever was around him. Which meant that since he was planning on spending the next few months working with his uncle Terry, he was going to have a pretty exhausting summer.

  Especially since they were going to be involved with the Babe Gardiner case, which promised to drive Terry crazier than normal.

  Thankfully, the big man had settled back in the chair and had started to read the newspaper. Although these days, even that was a mixed blessing. It would distract him from how angry he was at Babe, but it was only a matter of time before some political thing would set him off.

  Babe’s behavior was weird, to put it mildly, but when you worked with people who got accused of crimes, you ran into weird a lot. And Babe’s unwillingness to trust them was also something that Zack and Terry had experienced plenty of times before. In fact, it had become a kind of running joke.

  Despite the fact that it was a complete falsehood, more than half of Zack’s criminal clients had at one time or another told him that they feared he would “sell them out” because, among other things, he ate lunch all the time with the prosecutors and judges.

  Terry made a sound of disgust and then said, “Goddamned Nazis,” as he dropped one section of the paper onto the floor and picked up another. Sean glanced over at his uncle, then looked at Zack, before he returned his attention to his book.

  By this time in the case, usually Zack and Terry had managed to convince their clients that they were, in fact, actually fighting for them, and not against them. Clearly, they had not yet managed to get that message through to Babe.

  But Zack wasn’t ready to give up on the case. There was something driving their client to be so ridiculously closemouthed. It was up to them to find out what was going on, because the last thing they needed was for there to be a surprise at the trial.

  And thanks to the new indictment charging Babe with the murder of the store clerk, there was absolutely no chance that they could plead this case out. It had been bad enough when Babe had just been facing the robbery charge—the best they could have done with a plea to his third felony was agreeing to the minimum sentence, fifteen years.

  But pleading out this murder charge was going to be next to impossible. First of all, murder carried with it an automatic life sentence. Their only hope was to talk the D.A. into reducing the charge to manslaughter, which had a twenty-year maximum. And given what Zack knew of the evidence so far, there wasn’t a chance in hell that they were going to be able to talk the D.A. into anything. If Zack were the D.A., he wouldn’t touch a plea bargain with a ten-foot pole.

  And then Zack got an idea. Oh boy, was Terry going to hate thi
s.

  “Hey. Remember that cop that sent the letter asking if she could talk to Babe about the murder charge?”

  Babe’s case had already established itself as a pretty strange one by the time that Zack and Terry had received that bizarre letter from the female detective—Vera something—asking if they would permit her to ask their client some questions about the murder.

  “No,” Terry said absently. He had put the paper down and was flipping through the latest issue of Sports Illustrated. He’d probably found the ads in there for the special reissue of the swimsuit edition. It looked like it was going to be a good one. “Didn’t we ignore her, or tell her to go away or something?”

  The detective’s request itself wasn’t that bizarre—cops were always happy to talk to defendants whenever they could. Zack had once lost a case because a client he had been defending at a trial went to the bathroom during a recess and got into a conversation with the guy standing next to him at the sink.

  Who just happened to be an out-of-uniform state trooper taking a break from testifying in another trial, and who was only too happy to listen to the defendant say some smug and foolishly incriminating things about himself, and then report them to the prosecutor. Next thing you know, the state trooper is a witness in Zack’s case.

  “Trooper Browning, can you tell the jury what the defendant said to you as you were in the bathroom this afternoon?”

  “He said, ‘I’m not saying I did it, but I’m not saying I didn’t do it, either. All I’m saying is that there’s no way this jury’s gonna convict me. My lawyer is way too good, and the cops have no idea what happened. They got it all wrong.’”

  About an hour and a half later, the defendant got the guilty verdict he so richly deserved.