“Doubt you could’ve done much,” Badger said. “Kid that age, impulsive, headstrong: not much you can do. Why do you think they draft kids? Just because of that. ‘Charge machineguns’; ‘Fall on grenades’; ‘Go attack a tank’: no sane adult would do those things, or order someone else. And just the same way, if you’d told him, ‘Stay away from Sam because he’s nuts, the way he acts,’ he would not have listened, Florence. He would not have heard.”
“You’re probably right,” she said. “It’s just that all these things that we did, with the very best intentions? Suddenly it seems as though we did the devil’s work. When Claire and Neville came last spring, when they were in New York, one night after dinner Clayton took him to the club to see Carl, after he finished work. More old war-buddy talk. And Claire and I sat there and talked …, and I’m just so afraid. You know what I fear, Larry? Do you know what’s in my mind? That one of these days, or some night, it’s all going to explode on me, and that finally I’ll have to do a thing I really dread to do.”
“I know that,” Badger said.
“I blinded myself,” she said. “I saw the capacity for evil in that young man. I saw the effect that he had on James, and I ignored it, and when Christina became involved with him, I foolishly told myself it was for the good, because he had talent, because he had brains, because he had magnetism.” She sighed. “And now it’s harvest time,” she said, “now it’s time to reap.”
“Not just yet,” he said.
OCTOBER 24, 1974
5
Richards entered the office of Dist. Atty. David J. Osgood of Norfolk County at 4:20 in the afternoon. The District Attorney at forty-four had the gaunt and harried look of a man so distracted by unmentionable, secret, insoluble dilemmas that he slightly neglected his personal appearance, did not eat properly, did not sleep restfully and shaved hastily, missing small patches of stubble on his neck. He was slumped in his chair when Richards came in, and he did not get up. “John,” he said wearily, “how the fuck’re you?” He lounged forward and extended his right arm across the desk.
Richards shook the DA’s hand and sat down in front of the desk. “Moderately pissed off,” he said. “Since you ask. Not seriously pissed off and not monumentally pissed off, but moderately pissed off. And I’ve got a right to be. At least I think I do, and that’s good enough for me.”
The District Attorney rested his chin on the heel of his left hand. “Join the majority,” he said. “So is everyone. Any particular reason for your personal complaint? Or is it the same as everybody else’s — just general dissatisfaction. ‘Life sucks, and then you die.’ ”
“It’s a little more specific’n that,” Richards said. “I try to be a cheerful person. Keep myself occupied. I was growing up, I was about fifteen, I got this mad passion on me that I hadda have a self-winding watch. The only thing I had to have. And I asked for one for Christmas. Only thing I asked. And I didn’t get it. And I asked my father: ‘Why?’ And he said: ‘Fellow your age needs something to do, keep himself occupied.’ And he said: ‘Secret of life, son, no matter what else you may hear: always be a cheerful person, and to do that, stay occupied.’ So I took his advice and joined the Marines, and that’s the way it’s been.
“Now,” Richards said, “now what I’m occupied with’s mostly this gang of galoots that’s been running around all over the countryside generally raising hell and robbing armored cars when they get the urge. I believe you have heard about them.”
The District Attorney nodded. “I think something crossed my desk,” he said. “Someone may have said something, ’fore I went out of town.”
“That they did,” Richards said, “and quite a lot more when you stayed out of town, while all the rest of us’re jumping through hoops and waving bandannas and throwing our sweaty nightcaps in the air, trying to stem the fucking stampede that followed the latest commotion.”
The District Attorney made a feeble waving motion with his right hand. “Uh uh, John, won’t work,” he said. “You got me confused with someone else. I don’t feel guilty. That’s a different guy. Those’re different guys, and what we do is bring them in, and we make them feel guilty. Me, all I do is what I do, and every six years or so I go out in front the public and say ‘This is what I’ve done,’ and if they like it, they re-elect me, and that’s all there is to that.”
“You all right, Dave?” Richards said. “You pardon me for saying so, but you don’t look so good.”
The District Attorney sat up and clasped his hands on his desk and shook his head, blinking his eyes. “No, John,” he said, “I’m not all right. I’m not all right at all. Joan’s got pancreatic cancer and about eight months to live. Woman’s thirty-nine years old. She’ll be dead by forty. And before she gets to be dead, there’ll be several weeks, the very least, of perfect agony.” He stared at Richards. His eyes were dull. “You know what she wants me to do, John?” he said. “You know what she’s asking me to do?”
Richards winced. “Well,” he said, “I don’t know her. I’ve only met her once. Didn’t spend much time with her, so I can’t say I know her well.”
“Well,” Osgood said, “if I were to tell you that she thinks a lot like you, that even though the two of you don’t know each other at all, I like being married to Joan for the same reason I used to like working with you, with the few guys like you, would that help you to guess what she’s asking me to do?”
“I think it would,” Richards said.
Osgood spread his hands, palms up. “So, what do I do, John?” he said. “Tell me what to do. What would you do, in my place, if she were asking you?”
“I don’t know,” Richards said. “My head, I would agree with her. I would think she was right. And if I were in her position, that’s what I would want. But in my guts? A different matter. Don’t know if I could. And you, you know, another thing you got to keep in mind: guys like us, we’re not supposed, let people break the laws they think they got a right to break. Or help them do it, either. Even if they are convinced that they’ve got a good reason. That’s not in our contract, to excuse people like that. You think because you’re the DA, that does not apply to you? Does Joan think that, far as that goes? Does she honestly think that?”
“I don’t know,” Osgood said. “She says she does. To me. Does she believe it? I don’t know. We’re both of us, we’re just frantic. Totally panicked. Like a couple little kids confronted with the biggest monster from the worst nightmare we had, but this time the monster’s real and Dad and Mom can’t help us.” He sighed. “John,” he said, “in Korea I was scared. I was really, truly scared. When we got up near the Yalu and found ourselves, all of a sudden, with a hundred million Chinamen coming at us with bayonets, there weren’t enough bullets in the world to shoot them all, and I knew I was going to die.
“Well,” he said, “I didn’t. Either I was lucky or God didn’t have my room ready, but that day I was lucky, and I didn’t die. And I thought when I got out of that, I’d been through the worst. That nothing life could throw at me would frighten me again.
“I was wrong,” he said. “Oh, boy, was I, wrong.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Richards said.
Osgood sighed again. “I don’t know what to tell me, either,” he said. “I don’t know how to tell the kids, and Joan does not know, either. No one knows what to tell us. No one in the world.” He shook his head again. He coughed and cleared his throat. “Fuck it,” he said, “fuck it all. Fuck it to goddamned hell. What’s on your mind, bucko? Get mine off of this.”
Richards rearranged himself in the chair. He crossed his legs. He frowned. “Jesus, Dave,” he said, “I feel a little silly now — that’s the only word for it. Coming at you like I did, I really didn’t know.…”
“No,” Osgood said, “you didn’t. I just laid it on you now. So forget about it, all right? Give me the reaming you came in to do, maybe clear my head.”
“That body they found on Sunday,” Richards said. “The gir
l in the reservation up on Chickatawbut Road? Identified as Emma Handley? You had time to get up, see the reports on that case?”
Osgood nodded. “Briefly,” he said, “very briefly, John. What I saw, there wasn’t much. Didn’t look like much. Dead three days, shot in the head, probably while kneeling. Twenty-four or -five years old. Female. White. No record. Family lives in Randolph but had not seen her in years. College drop-out — U Chicago, Sixty-six? That’s about all I know. I assumed: some drug thing, you know? That’s what I assumed. Coroner found needle marks, so that’s what I assumed.”
“That’s what most people would,” Richards said. “And most people would because that’s the easiest explanation and the simplest, easiest explanation’s always the one that that stupid, lazy bastard picks. So he can wrap the case up quick and get back home to sleep. Just like the fucking dormouse — only time he’s happy is when he’s in his teapot, fast asleep. And that’s the only time he isn’t dangerous — when he is asleep.”
“John, John,” Osgood said. “I know what you think of Howard by now. Everybody I know does, and most agree with you. But nobody had any choice. The MDC cops called this office because it’s in my jurisdiction and they thought I’d want to know. Howard’s the lieutenant here. His brain may be the same size as my cat’s, and he does sleep about as much, but he’s also got the same authority you have, the same authority, and the same right to exercise it and take charge, at the scene a homicide. I maybe don’t have my mind on things like I should, right now, but if I didn’t have a care in the world, I couldn’t’ve kept Howard from being the ranking officer at the scene where a murder victim’s found in Norfolk County.”
“I could’ve, in any county,” Richards said. “I’ve got time in rank on Howard.”
“And he’s afraid of you,” Osgood said. “That I also know. That’s why he badmouths you so much. He’s intimidated by you, and he thinks by running you down that way, he protects himself. But fact the matter is, John, you know, you weren’t at the scene. So Howard didn’t have to step off to the side. He was the man in charge.”
“And therefore,” Richards said, “all I can tell you now for sure is that I can’t be sure, but I suspect that girl was killed for giving information. Or for looking to her killers like she might be getting ready, getting ready to come in. And if she was, if that was the reason they had, they might’ve left something or she might’ve had something in her clothes or around her, that’d tell me where she’d been recently, and suggest who she was with.” He paused. “You want to estimate my chances of finding something like that now, after Howard’s been through the scene like a swarm of fertile turtles?”
“Oh,” Osgood said, “I’d say: ‘Small,’ I guess.”
“Mine’s: ‘None,’ ” Richards said. “And that’s really too bad. Because somebody was getting ready to come in. And that someone was a female. Called three times in three days, the beginning of last week. Wouldn’t identify herself. Wouldn’t say why the hell else she’d be calling the informer number, if it wasn’t to inform. And gave us absolutely nothing. But wanted to know if we’d protect her completely, never let on how we’d found out. And I said ‘No,’ naturally, because I’m not going to lie to her — ‘We don’t capture you and prosecute you along with the rest,’ I said, ‘which I doubt you want us to do, they’re going to know who it was. And if they can’t figure it out, we may need you to testify at trial. So I can’t promise you total and utter and complete protection. All I can promise you is that we can guard you and hide you until you testify at trial, and afterwards we’ll relocate you, and we’ll change your name. You’ll have the fifty large to tide you over, help you to get settled down, and you won’t be in prison. Where you will be for a long time,’ I told her, ‘if somebody else turns first.’
“Now,” Richards said, “was this the broad? The one that talked to me? Well, I don’t know, but the last call I got was the day before the doc says she died, and I haven’t had one since, so all I can do is guess. Because I wasn’t called. When I should’ve been.”
Osgood shrugged. “Well, if you should’ve been,” he said, “I apologize. But nothing, nothing gave me any reason, think that you should be. You really think this kid’s the one, with the armored cars?”
“I don’t know,” Richards said. “I don’t know, and I should know, and I won’t know, because once Howard gets through trampling through a crime scene like a herd of fucking elephants, nobody ever knows. I swear, Howard’s the only man I know that I think probably reduces the net supply of human knowledge just by entering a case.”
“Well,” Osgood said, “be that as it may, he did it and it’s done. What can I do now, help you make it right? Anything? I’ll do anything you say.”
“Yeah,” Richards said, “there is. There’s something you can do. I want you to get together with Ward and Peter, and the three of you guys make a public statement the effect that you’ve asked Reese to designate a man in his office, in his Criminal Division, to do nothing but oversee this case. With me.”
“But we haven’t,” Osgood said. “You think Reese’ll fall for that? He’s awful cute, you know. If he hasn’t figured out what a mare’s nest this thing is, cagey Paul Green’ll tell him ’fore that leaky balloon’s half in the air, and he’ll shy away from it.”
“No, he won’t,” Richards said. “When he grabbed the handle on the big reward story, he didn’t notice it had sticky stuff on it. He seized it with both paws, and he can’t let go of it now. You guys present a united front and go in there and say: ‘Look, Your Eminence, or whatever you got people calling you today, we need another shot, publicity, remind the general public we’re all working on this case and that there’s a big reward. Like you told them two months ago. And this is a good gimmick which’ll make them think we’re hard at work, making progress here. Besides, who knows? Might work. Can’t do any damage and might actually work.’ And he will go for that. You can bet your ranch he will.”
“You got anyone in mind for this prosecutor type?” Osgood said, looking wistful.
Richards laughed. “You’d love to do it, wouldn’t you?” he said. “I can just see the nostrils flaring on the old warhorse, smells the gunpowder.”
Osgood grinned. “Well,” he said, “I did. I did like that stuff. Trouble with running the show’s that you have to give up playing with the tigers when you become ringmaster.”
“Well,” Richards said, “there’s nobody I’d rather have, Dave. But we both know you can’t. Too much else on your mind. And even if there wasn’t, you have to run this office and you haven’t got the time. And neither does Peter Mahoney, and neither does Ward, and that’s why all of you need somebody, somebody with the time.”
“Anybody special?” Osgood said.
“Yeah,” Richards said. “I think, there’s a kid named Terry Gleason in the Suffolk DA’s office that I think can do the job. He’s got about seven years in, getting itchy. Wants; to start his own practice. But even though he’s been trying homicides and major felonies the past four, five years, nobody’s heard of him. Judges think he’s good. DA loves him like a son. Thirty-two or -three, and hungry. Hungry as a wolf. So I got to thinking. If Andy Boyd was one of Reese’s actual gunners, not bogged down in the office all the time with a bunch of paperwork, I’d never get this by him. He’d want it himself, and I’d be happy with him. Andy Boyd is good. Hard as fuckin’ goddamned nails, he gets on a case. But Andy knows, just like I do, that what he’s got under him in that stable’s pretty soggy stuff. Brown and wet and smells like horseshit, all politicos. Spend all their time in the SJC arguing habes and logging all their Superior Court time prosecuting Walpole inmates for hurling their turds at the guards. Put them in a trial situation against some mean bastard on the other side, they would soil their knickers. Andy and I get along good. If I ask Andy to get Gleason appointed a Special Assistant, Andy can sell it to Green, and he will, and Colin’ll do what Green says.”
“Sign me up,” Osgood said. “I’ll
get in touch with Ward and Pete. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Richards stood up. “Beautiful,” he said. He and Osgood shook hands. Richards frowned. “The other thing,” he said. “I’m really sorry, Dave.”
“I know you are, John,” Osgood said. “That’s the trouble with this work, the kind of work we do. We get to thinking evil is just something people do, and if we catch enough of them, there won’t be any more. And then real evil hits us, plain damned random sadness that we can’t cure or prevent, and there’s no one we can punish. No one to hold responsible and no one we can kill.”
SEPTEMBER 10, 1975
6
Terry Gleason was in a bad mood. He warned Richards when Richards picked him up at the corner of Ashburton and Bowdoin Streets in Boston at 9:20. He slouched into the passenger seat of the ivory Ford sedan and shut the door hard. As Richards headed the car down the hill toward Cambridge Street, Gleason said: “I really like having a good fight with my wife, mornings when I have to go to work. You think about it and it’s absolutely perfect, you know? The two of you have a good yelling match, and the only thing it accomplishes is to get you all upset — does not resolve a thing. Then you go out the door because you’ve got to go to work, saying the nastiest thing you can think of when you slam it shut behind you, and you stew about it all day. And while you’re doing that, making your dramatic exit, she’s screaming the most hateful thing she can think of at you, so’s to get herself all worked up to the point where she spends the whole day steaming about you. So by the time you get home at night, worn out, the pair of you’re feeling like two tubs of rancid butter, and neither one of you’ll speak, and what started out like a simple disagreement turns into a full week of the damned sulks.
“I tell you,” he said, “I hate it. The only thing I can think of that’d make it worse’n it is anyway’d be spending the day going to Providence. Why’re we going to Providence, John? Do we really know? When we find the frozen carcass of a leopard up on top the mountain, do we ever stop to figure out what the leopard was doing there? Have we actually sat down, separately or together, or in groups of up to five, and worked out the metaphysics of this excursion? Determined the eschatological and scatological implications of our actions? Considered the moral consequences of our conduct, and weighed the ethical choices that it necessarily demands? Do we know what we’re doing, John? Do we really know? Or: Do we merely imagine that we know? Tell me the meaning of life.”
Outlaws (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard) Page 5
