Memoirs of a Gigolo

by Margaret Buffano

  They told me, I was entitled to one phone call; but I couldn’t think of whom to call.

  My parents…that would be a waste…what could they do? I obviously couldn’t call Justine. Anyone else I could think of calling either didn’t care or they were dead. There was nothing to do but sit on the edge of my cot, unable to sleep, alone in my cell, and await my fate.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “The Gift Horse spits me out”

  More than a thousand years ago, during the Southern Song Dynasty, there was a female demon named Bai SuZhen who lived in the outer-world. She was a snake demon, large and white.

  Bai dreamed of one day becoming a goddess, but to achieve such a goal she had to first take on a human form. She took on the outward appearance of a beautiful woman, and descended to earth.

  In her travels among the mortals, she met a handsome young student named Xu Xian.

  He was taken in by Bai’s magnificent beauty, the moment he laid eyes on her. She too was infatuated by the young student, and the two married.

  Years rolled by gently for the two…the immortal and the mortal. Till, a Taoist Monk, by the name of FaHai, through his holy eyes saw the true state of the two’s predicament.

  He informed Xu Xian that his wife…his truelove…was really a white snake demon.

  He told him how their union was forbidden by the laws of heaven. Xu Xian moved into the Jinshan Temple, where the abbot FaHai resided, and vowed to turn his back on his love…Bai SuZhen.

  But giving up his love for Bai was not as easy to do as he thought it would be. He held onto the memory of her, as if it were the source of life.

  Until, during the Dragon Boat Festival, when the true identity of all demons and angels are revealed, then he found release from her spell, when he saw her true self…a large white snake demon.

  To assure his freedom from the beauty of Bai, Xu Xian remained behind the walls of the Jinshan Temple where he spent the rest of his days alone.

  ***

  Sadberry…Edward Sadberry, that was the name of my court-appointed lawyer; court-appointed because my bank account was tied up as collateral against the loan I had taken out.

  With a name like Sadberry, is it really necessary to go into a lengthy description of the man? He was a middle-aged, short, stout, baldheaded little man with beady eyes and the personality of a fencepost.

  Any other aspects of his physical or mental attributes could be summed up in one word…Sadberry.

  Everyone called him Sadberry…not Edward, Ed, or Mr. Sadberry…it was always just Sadberry. I had suspicions even his wife called him by the one name…Sadberry.

  First week of my incarceration, I met with Sadberry three or four times.

  My most important priority at the time was to have bail set, but this seemed somehow to be too impossible a request. Whether it was due to my lawyer’s inaptness, or, perhaps, the late great Jack Hutchinson was too well-known and well-liked in judicial circles; for whatever reason, bail was never set. They say the wheels of justice grind slowly, which doesn’t mean a hill of beans unless you happen to be the one caught in the wheels.

  During my second week, they ushered me out of my cell, down a hall and into a small windowless room. There was a large metal table in the center of the room with metal chairs around it. Seated were what I suspected to be three detectives, and off in the far end sat Sadberry. There was one vacant chair at the center of the table. One of the detectives stood up and greeted me coldly.

  “My name is Captain Freeman, these are Detectives Youngblood and Lynch…you know Sadberry. Please, sit down.” He gestured to the one empty seat.

  Sitting down, I took notice of a tape recorder in the middle of the table; it was not turned on.

  “Alex…you don’t mind if I call you Alex?” asked Captain Freeman; I gave no response; he continued. “Alex, I’m going to lay all the cards on the table. I’m going to tell you a story…everything we know about you and your friend, Chi…I want you to just listen…then, you fill in the blanks.”

  “If we cooperate, what’s in it for us?” Sadberry interrupted.

  Captain Freeman turned to him and smiled, “Sadberry, you have no negotiating power here. Who or what are you going to give us? His partner is dead! We have all the information we need to put your client away till he’s old and gray. You have nothing we want!” Freeman turned his attention back to me, “But time is money, and if you can save the State both, we might be able to see that your sentence gets reduced.”

  “How can I do that?” I asked.

  “Simple,” said Freeman, “I’m going to turn this tape recorder on. And I’m going to tell you the story…everything we know…and when I’m done, you correct or add anything to it you feel I didn’t touch on.

  “Then, we’ll have a confession typed up from what’s said on the tape, you sign it, we get you into court as soon as possible, and try to have your sentence reduced.”

  I hashed over in my mind what he just said before responding.

  “And…what if I don’t cooperate?”

  Freeman smiled at me, “Son, let me tell you how deep you’re in. Both you and your buddy made more mistakes than you can count…real amateurs…you left a trail behind you a mile long.

  “We’ve got you tied into more than the Hutchinson killing. We’ve got you tied in with a least four other murders. You two were so sloppy; only a question of time before we caught up with you.

  “Now we have all the pieces to the puzzle. You have no choice but to play ball with us.”

  I looked across the table at Sadberry; it was clear my own counsel had nothing to offer me. I was on my own.

  Finally, I pointed to the tape recorder, “Go ahead, turn it on.”

  Now, at this point, I could read to you my confession, which I did finally sign, or I can relate the full story as told by Captain Freeman, but that version lacks too much.

  Allow me to recite all the juicy details leading up to my arrest and beyond. I’m the only one who can do it justice (forgive the pun); and besides, we’ve gone so far together, you and I, why stop now?

  ***

  It seems the traitor in our midst was none other than my beloved, Justine. She played me like a fiddle from the start; all along, allowing me to continue believing her to be more innocent than an angel and more pure than freshly driven snow. She planned it from the beginning with a masterful criminal mind that could have rivaled Moriarty himself!

  But the worst part of all was she made me love her; I could forgiver her all the rest of it, but never that!

  The night of the murder, sweet and innocent Justine called the police from the airport. She was in a panic, beside herself, as she related her plight to the police. She told them that while going through the mail delivered to the Hutchinson home that day, she came across a letter with a familiar return address. It was from yours truly, so she said.

  She described me to the police as an ex-lover whom she had an illicit affair with, but, because of strong feelings of guilt, she called it off weeks ago. When she saw the letter with my return address on it, she was afraid her husband might see it, so she hid it in her purse.

  She intended to read it later, when she was alone, which was not until she was at the airport. The letter was a confession of my undying love for her and my vow to murder her husband.

  Of course, it was the letter I wrote to Justine the morning while she was sleeping in my bed, put inside an envelope and placed it into her purse.

  When I questioned Freeman about it, he told me the letter was in my handwriting and had my fingerprints on it. The envelope also had my fingerprints all over it; the address and return address on the front was in type.

  Later, they compared the typeset to my personal typewriter; it matched, of course.

  The post mark on the envelope showed someone mailed it from a post office two blocks from my home. Only explanation I could think of was that Justine used my typewriter, addressed the letter to herself.

  Taking Just
ine’s phone call from the airport very seriously, the police tried to call her husband at home. When there was no answer, they got suspicious and sent a squad car over to investigate. On finding a bloody murder scene, they called another squad car to my home and told them to place me into immediate custody.

  Further investigation of my apartment yielded more evidence against me. Such as: matching paper and envelopes to the letter – matching pen and typewriter – blood soaked clothing matching the blood of the victims at the Hutchison home – and surgical gloves also covered with the same blood.

  I might add, as a side-note, the police received a phone call from a taxi driver, a Duncan Malone, who found the back of his cab drenched in blood. It was the same blood found on my clothing and at the crime scene. The taxi driver confirmed the address where he picked me up and where he dropped me off.

  I hold no hard feeling toward Duncan; the tip I gave him wasn’t large enough to be a silent partner to murder. Long trips…big tips…now, he has even more of a reason to remember me.

  As for the next piece of evidence found at my studio, I have to take my hat off to Justine.

  Upstairs, on the second floor of the Hutchinson home, in the main bedrooms, his and hers, they found drawers pulled out of the dressers and dumped onto the floor.

  Articles of jewelry were discovered missing; the missing articles they found in my closet. A gold watch…a gold money clip…a ruby ring…gold cuff links…all the gifts I received from Justine, actually belonged to Jack! She had been setting me up for months! There were even a few choice pieces of Justine’s jewelry thrown into the mix, unknown to me.

  I could only assume she dumped the drawers onto the floor before leaving for the airport, knowing Jack would never again enter his bedroom.

  Besides the blood trail from the murder scene to my home, as for the evidence against me they found, there were shoe prints leading out of the puddle of blood on the floor of the living room. The prints matched my shoes. Under the television, they found a gun; it had my prints on it. There was a stack of eight by ten, black and white photos of Justine and I holding hands and making lovey-dovey at various restaurants about town they found in Jack’s office desk. Obviously, these photos were the ones bought by Jack from Macintosh who was investigating his wife for him – that explained how Jack recognized me and knew my name.

  As for the discovery of Chi’s dead body, and as well the two guns belonging to him that the police found at the crime scene, this opened a whole new can of worms for the police.

  This was the missing link they had been searching for, the evidence they needed to connect Chi and me to all the other murders.

  Surprisingly, even though Chi always lived on the edge of the laws of society, he had never been arrested. Meaning, he had never been fingerprinted. In fact, the police had little information on Mr. Chi Jackson. Now, with his fingerprints, all the pieces fell into place.

  An extensive investigation matched Chi’s prints with various crime scenes, starting with the Edgar Kingston/Tina Douglas killings in their hotel suite in Los Angeles.

  Though Chi took the precaution of wiping his fingerprints from off every article in the room he touched, including the doorknob, the fool brought the champagne bottle home and kept it as a souvenir…the murder weapon!

  Chi’s prints were all over the champagne bottle he used to bludgeon the two lovers to death, as well as traces of blood from both victims.

  Now there was no question who murdered Edgar and Tina; it was Chi.

  Thankfully, though they had their suspicions, the police could not connect me with the L.A. murders.

  One other stroke of good luck, never was the murder of Doctor Albert Kenyon mentioned. I only suppose it was our one flawless murder.

  What we had done right was beyond me. Other than the photos Harold took of us at the crime scene, the photos we eventually destroyed, the police had no idea of our involvement in that one. And I without a doubt wasn’t going to volunteer any information that might incriminate me.

  Next, there were the killings of Monica and Tom Evans at the Crestview Arms. Of course, I was out of the country at the time, and the only connection I had with the deceased couple was that I was the artist who painted the mural adorning one wall of their living room.

  The police knew better, but legally, again, they had no way of connecting me with the murders.

  There are two important facts I need to bring out at this point.

  First, they finally knew it was Chi who committed the murders of Monica and Tom, because of the fingerprints he left. Fingerprints…you may ask…but didn’t Chi wear gloves the night of the killings? Your memory is good! Yes he did…surgical rubber gloves, he discarded after the crime, by throwing them into a corner sewer just outside the Crestview Arms. But the gloves never made it down into the sewer; the police found them caught on some trash at the sewer’s opening. Tests run on the blood found on the pair of gloves, which of course tested positive.

  Now, here’s a little tidbit of forensic hocus-pocus you may not know; I know I didn’t. When you turn the gloves inside out, you’ll find clear prints of the killer imprinted onto the rubber…who would have thought?

  Now, they had the same set of prints at two different murder scenes…on the champagne bottle from L.A., and from the bloody rubber gloves outside the Crestview Arms. They knew they were the same killer. But wait, there’s more.

  Second important item was Tom Evan’s gun, which became the possession of Chi; this is where I come in; where my neck gets placed on the chopping block.

  Police now had that gun, and Chi’s and my fingerprints were on it…the gun that was responsible for two deaths, the murder of Doug Anderson in Canada, and Harold Macintosh in his own office. I would have an awful lot of explaining to do.

  Not only did police have prints from those two crime scenes, they also had identical prints on a gasoline can found in Wilson Park, a.k.a. Needle Park near the bodies of the two hoodlums Chi set on fire. They also had a description of the man who bought the can from the gas station attendant who sold it to him. Captain Freeman was right; we were amateurs.

  Chi took the precaution of using false identification when renting the Volkswagen bus for our trip to Canada; but that didn’t stop the attendant at the rental office from recognizing Chi from an ID photo.

  As well, the Border Patrol officer, the one Chi gave such a hard time, identified us both from police photos. Also, the clerks at both the motels we stayed at, a couple of gas station attendants, and of course, Delores, the waitress Chi insulted.

  At the top of the hill, overlooking Doug Anderson’s cabin, there were tire tracks left in the snow by the VW bus, which led the police to the car rental company.

  With closer inspection, they found traces of Doug Anderson’s blood in the rented bus, as well as many sets of Chi and my fingerprints.

  Also, the footprints we left in the snow when we dragged the body out to the open field matched a pair of my boots found in my closet and a pair of boots found at Chi’s apartment. There were small traces of Doug’s blood found on both pairs of boots.

  For me, the incident in Harold’s office was a two-edged sword.

  On one hand, the photos of Justine and I in Jack’s possession, which were clearly supplied by Harold, suggested, perhaps, Chi and I killed Harold to stop his investigations. Or that maybe he was trying to shake us down, so we retaliated. Whatever scenario you believe, it showed good cause why we would want Harold dead.

  These notions were fortified by the fact I could never get anyone to understand the true nature of our association with Harold.

  Seducing rich older women for money sounded more like a young man’s fantasy than reality. Neither the police, nor the judge, or the jury, or the prosecutor, not even my own defense, Sadberry, could comprehend it. It was like trying to explain to them a world other than their own…they couldn’t see it.

  The other edge of the sword was in my favor. An autopsy of Harold’s body showed signs
of trauma suggesting he’d been set on fire before being shot to death. This would back my story that I shot him out of mercy, if I had given it. Instead, I insisted Chi shot him after I begged him to do so. This way, I hoped it portrayed me to the jury as a person of compassion and sensitivity.

  Though my fingerprints were on the gun, there was never a time when the prosecution could make the case that I ever shot the gun, or anyone for that matter. They suggested it, but they couldn’t prove it.

  As I suspected, the man Chi killed outside the Club Zanzibar was his father.

  The bullet lodged in the man’s skull was proven to come from Chi’s gun.

  After tracking down the rented black BMW we used that night, as with the VW, the police found our fingerprints all over the car. Multiples of my prints on the steering wheel suggested I was the driver.

  Again, evidence proved I was at the scene of the crime, and clearly I was involved, but nothing could prove I actually killed anyone.

  One other side-note, which I do not want to linger on for long, is during this first period of my imprisonment I received only one visitor…my mother. Her visit was short, bittersweet, and drenched in tears.

  She sat across from me, weeping, and reciting all my former holy attributes from my childhood. Then she tried to shoulder the full blame onto herself, crying out to heaven to tell her what it was she did wrong to deserve the worthiness of the blame.

  Then, she relayed the true purpose of her visit.

  It seemed my father read of my exploits in the morning newspaper. Sorely disappointed he was, to say the least. In fact, he pushed himself from the breakfast table and stood up. Holding his hand over his heart – as if a mere inch away from a heart attack – to emphasis the pain, I’m sure. He always had a flare for the theatrical. And casting his eyes up to Mount Olympus, he swore on Zeus’s beard he no longer had a son.

  She then informed me, we will never meet again. My father granted her this one visit only, so she could deliver the decree of divorce and place the thorn in my side personally.