Marital Privilege

by Greg Sisk

  “I don’t know—”

  “Yes, yes, I get it. You don’t know ’nuthin.’ But just hear me out. You’ve gone and killed a young boy—by accident—and my guess is your drug gang employers are the ones who screwed up, not you. But the feds aren’t going to care about that. They’ll still be embarrassed because none of this would have happened if they’d just caught you years ago. And now they’ll be even more humiliated because the feds have sent someone else to prison for the crime you committed.

  “Now maybe they won’t be able to pin the car bombing on you, at least not right away. But you know they’re going to shake down every gangbanger in the Twin Cities. Don’t you expect one of them is going to talk? So if the story does come out, it will come out in dribs and drabs. And you can be darn sure it isn’t going to come out in a way that makes you look like anything other than an idiot.

  “So here’s what I can offer you, Boreo. I don’t answer to the feds. They can’t tell me what to do. In fact, I don’t much like the feds, because they’ve burned me too in the past. I can’t stop them from taking you. But I can make sure they don’t take you before you’ve had your say. So if you tell me the real story right now, I promise you this. I’ll give your story to the press. Your story, in your words, will be at the top of the TV news reports tonight and on the front page of the paper tomorrow.”

  Boreo looked intrigued. “Really? You’d do that? On your honor?”

  Geez, thought Burton. On your honor? Come on. Oh, well, he had to play along with this misanthrope. “Yes, on my honor.” Burton couldn’t resist embellishing, “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  Boreo laughed agreeably. “Hmm. Well, you know, I’ll just have to think about it.”

  “You’ll have to think fast,” pressed Burton. “We don’t have much time. This offer only stays open until the feds get here and take you away. Then you’ll never get your story out. And, I can sweeten the pot.”

  “Oh, really,” responded Boreo skeptically. “What else could you possibly offer?”

  “I’m guessing you’re the kind of guy who would get a real kick out of throwing a monkey wrench into the feds’ game-plan. If you tell me all about the car bombing and how it all went wrong, I can practically guarantee you that when the public learns about it, heads will roll at the FBI. When people learn that the FBI dropped the ball with you, and then a boy got killed all these years later, they’ll be outraged. The talk shows will highlight how the feds screwed it all up. In fact, the first guy to lose his job will probably be the United States Attorney here in Minnesota, once it becomes clear he wrongly convicted a grieving father of killing of his own child.

  Burton waited a beat, then added, “So, Boreo, you’ll be famous. You’ll be the man on the top of the news for days, as first the United States Attorney and then those FBI officials who failed to catch you all these years are roasted alive by the press.”

  Boreo grinned broadly, showing all his teeth and looking like a shark ready to swallow a most satisfying meal.

  • • •

  True to his moniker, once the Rocket blasted off with his mouth, the sky apparently was the limit. With very little further prompting, Boreo began to tell his story.

  He knows he’ll never be out of prison again, realized Burton, so now he’ll want to settle scores and point the finger for his mistakes at someone else.

  “So,” asked Burton. “How exactly did you end up here? In Minnesota, I mean?”

  “Bad judgment. Worse luck, I guess,” said Boreo. “Retirement for a wiseguy like me didn’t prove as easy or as permanent as I had hoped. I suppose everyone thinks us old Mafia types had hidden away huge stacks of cash from the good old days when the families ran everything. When it all changed a couple of decades ago as the new ethnic gangs took control of the street life and when the feds started cracking down even harder on the rackets, I actually did have a pretty good nest egg. I hoped I could just slip away somewhere and keep my head down. But money runs out. Old habits die hard.”

  As Boreo told the story, an old contact of his from back in the day in New Jersey had kept his hand in some things, mostly drugs, and still did some supplying to the new groups, including some out in the Midwest. He somehow heard that one Asian gang in Minneapolis wanted to eliminate the leader of some other Asian gang. These sad characters just couldn’t seem to get close enough to their enemy to take him out. Instead he gathered they did stupid things, like shooting up his house. So they were looking for someone a little more . . . professional.

  “Seemed like a simple job and easy money. So I was pretty sure I’d get away with it real easy. It sure didn’t turn out that way.”

  “What do you mean,” asked Burton.

  “Well, I don’t pretend that all of us in the old days were geniuses or something. But these gangbangers really aren’t going to win any awards for intelligence. To begin with, they gave me the wrong address for this M.P. character. The wrong address! Can you believe it? How hard is it to write down the correct street address?”

  Boreo became still and looked down. When he continued, his voice was softer. “You got to understand, I’d never blow up some little kid. Not on purpose. The gang that hired me said this M.P. guy lived out in the suburbs but only with other gangbangers. There weren’t supposed to be any children around. How could I have dreamed they’d send me to the wrong house, for crying out loud?

  “But that’s what happened. When the group that hired me found out this M.P. guy was still alive and the bomb had gone off somewhere else, they refused to pay me. Come on, it wasn’t my fault. They were the ones who screwed up. At first, I thought it was best to just get far clear of it all. So I went back home to . . . well, wherever I was living then. I should have stayed there.

  “But I still needed the dough. And I guess my ego was bruised, since I’d screwed it up the first time, even if it wasn’t really my fault.

  “So I decided to come back and finish the job. Surely I wouldn’t be unlucky twice. I figured I’d use a good old, simple rifle this time, so that I could stay far clear of the house and could eyeball the target through the scope—make good and sure it was the right guy this time.

  “I guess this M.P. guy and his buddies were wise that something was up, because as I soon as I picked him off with the rifle, all of these other guys came running out of the house and looking around. And, would you believe it, these goons start shooting everywhere. It was crazy. I was this close to getting away, but then I took one in the leg.”

  “What about the car?” asked Burton. “How did you pick the wrong car? You know, on the first attempt.”

  Boreo grimaced. “The rival Laotian gang in St. Paul that hired me for the job said that M.P. was notorious for riding around all high-and-mighty in his red sports car. When I suggested that taking him out in his own car would be the perfect hit, they loved the idea.”

  “But what about putting the bomb on the wrong car?” persisted Burton.

  “I’m not an idiot,” protested Boreo. “I know the difference between a Honda and a Jag. But I guess I did think these gangbangers were idiots. Of course, I knew right away that the Honda I found at the house they sent me to wasn’t a real sports car. I just figured these dummies didn’t know any better. It was a red car after all. And it sorta looked like a sports car, as much as a Honda could. I assumed it was the car they meant.”

  Boreo paused again. “I assumed wrong.”

  “Mr. Boreo, ever since I started to put two and two together after this morning’s events, I’ve been wondering how in the world it happened that you stole TNT from Bill Klein’s construction site and then ended up attaching the bomb to Klein’s car. That just seems fantastic to me.”

  Boreo gave Burton a condescending look. “What makes you think that’s what happened? Come on, do you really think this Klein guy’s luck was so bad that, in addition to everything else
, the TNT used in the car bomb belonged to his own construction company? I don’t know where you got that idea. I certainly didn’t steal any TNT from that Klein fellow.”

  “Surely you didn’t bring the explosives with you from New Jersey.”

  “I never said I came from Jersey,” replied Boreo. Then he smiled again and continued, “With all the security and inspections of things and records at the airport, I couldn’t fly here. So I drove.”

  “So that you could carry the explosives in your car?”

  “Oh, hell no. The chances that a cop will pull me over on the highway are pretty small. And the risk is even smaller that he’ll search the car. Still, the risk of having explosives in the car is just too great. Some bomb-sniffing dog could find me out. Or explosives could even go off. I want my bombs snuffing out someone else, not me.

  “Besides, whether it’s guns or TNT, I know how to find what I need at the job site, if you know what I mean.”

  “I’m not sure that I do. Enlighten me.”

  “Well, once I got here to Minnesota and my ‘employers’ had endorsed the plan of a car bomb, I checked out information on the Internet about local construction companies and what jobs they were working on and so forth.

  “So, yes, I stole the TNT. And, yes, I stole it from a construction site. But I didn’t steal it from Klein’s construction site up north somewhere. I certainly didn’t need to spend hours traveling out of town to find some TNT that wasn’t adequately secured. I stole it right here in Minneapolis.”

  Of course, thought Burton, now feeling foolish. Things had been happening so quickly since that morning, and he was feeling so rushed knowing that the FBI was on the way, that he hadn’t thought it all the way through. He had gotten carried away, assuming a more complex set of connections between Boreo’s crime and Klein’s misfortune than comported with a simpler reality.

  He now appreciated that the chances that Boreo would have stolen the TNT from the Insignia construction site and then turned around and accidentally attached Klein’s own TNT to Klein’s car would be astronomical.

  With an ironic shake of his head, Burton realized this also meant that Klein had been right from the very beginning in thinking that the TNT he had not logged had indeed been detonated at the construction site. There never had been any TNT missing from Insignia Construction.

  And that also meant that the third unidentified person on the restaurant drive-through security video truly was nothing more than an innocent bystander. That figure probably had been another of the workers on the site. In any event, whoever it was had nothing to do with the car bombing.

  Recognizing that he was being served a huge helping of humble pie today, Burton suddenly apprehended that his finding of the security video, which he’d been so proud of as great police work, actually had led everyone in the wrong direction. At the trial, the prosecutor had used the video as additional evidence to tie Klein to the explosives. And the defense had focused on the unidentified third person, suggesting he was the real culprit. And both had been wrong.

  Not only had there been nothing nefarious about that third person’s presence, likewise no meaningful connection to the case had been shown by the presence of both Olin Pirkle and Bill Klein alone in the vicinity of the explosives van. In finding the video tape, it now dawned on Burton, he had brought a classic red herring into the investigation.

  “Yeah,” allowed Burton, sheepishly, “now that I think about it, I guess it was a big leap to go from Klein using explosives at that construction site near St. Cloud to the assumption that was where you’d found the TNT.”

  “Ya think?” said Boreo in a snide voice.

  “But there’s still one thing that I don’t understand. We did find Klein’s fingerprint—or at least what we thought was Klein’s fingerprint—on a piece of the duct tape used to attach the bomb to the car.”

  “Oh, that,” acknowledged Boreo. “Now that is something I suppose I am responsible for. When I arrived at the house where I thought I was supposed to be, I waited until all the lights in the house had gone out. I’d brought with me some equipment to rewire the keypad outside the garage and then open up the electric garage door. But when I scouted it out, I found there was a side door to the garage. And it wasn’t locked.

  “Once inside the garage, I had planned to attach my bomb to the undercarriage of the car using a magnet. Well, either the metal and plastic on the Honda Accord didn’t take well to a magnet or the magnet I had brought wasn’t strong enough for the weight of the bomb or something else was wrong. I just couldn’t get the bomb to attach securely with the magnet.

  “Then I spied a roll of duct tape hanging on a nail right there in the garage. I pulled off several pieces of it and improvised with that to attach the bomb. I was wearing gloves, so I guess the fingerprint belonged to whoever had last used that duct tape roll.”

  “And undoubtedly that person who was last to use the tape was Bill Klein,” completed Burton, “since you found the tape roll in his garage.”

  Boreo nodded. “I guess a powerful string of bad luck did attach to Klein after all. The TNT may not have come from his construction site, but the fact that he had any connection at all to explosives in his job sure made him look suspicious. And then the fact that his fingerprint was on the duct tape I used to attach the bomb made him look pretty damn guilty.”

  Boreo looked up at the ceiling and said, “I’d say that was more than enough bad luck for one guy. You just gotta hate coincidences like that.”

  “Yes, you do,” agreed Burton. “Yes, you do.

  Chapter 18

  [ONE YEAR AFTER THE TRAGEDY]

  Carrying a small suitcase holding his meager belongings, Bill Klein walked out of the front gate of the federal prison camp in Duluth, Minnesota. He ambled toward the public bus stop nearby, clutching in his hand a bus token given to him by the prison administration upon his release.

  As Bill’s innocence had become more than merely apparent, the Bureau of Prisons had moved him from a maximum security correctional facility in Indiana to the minimum security prison camp in Duluth, anticipating his imminent release in his home state.

  Bill had asked the Bureau of Prisons not to give the media his release date or the information that he had been moved to Duluth. He further asked that his family be notified, but only a few hours in advance. In that way, he was assured his elderly mother in Florida wouldn’t learn of the “where” and “when” of his release in time to make the trip. He didn’t want his mother to see him at the gates of a prison. There’d be plenty of time for a reunion later. But not here.

  Candace was only a couple of hours away from Duluth, of course. So even with a last minute notice, she could get here . . . but Bill could not indulge any sentimental expectations that such a meeting would happen.

  The Bureau of Prisons accommodated each of his requests, a surprising generosity for an agency not known for transparency with prisoners or their families.

  After only a few steps toward the bus stop, Bill heard a voice call out his name. His heart leaped . . . until he realized that it was a man’s voice he had heard.

  He turned to see Lieutenant Ed Burton walking toward him.

  “So, feeling a little guilty today, are we?” Bill asked with some bitterness. “Quite a turn-about, huh?”

  “To be honest, yes,” said Burton, “I do feel guilty, and more than a little. I’m sure I’m the last person you wanted to see today. But I had to be here anyway. It was only right that I would be willing to face you. I owe you that much.”

  Bill sighed. “Well, I must confess yours is not the face I had hoped to see. But I’m still glad to see a familiar face. And, to be fair, you were only doing your job. I do know that, while you helped put me in prison, you’re also more responsible than anyone else for getting me out. I never had the sense that you had it in for me—not like that damn
Sherburne.”

  Burton nodded and said, “Well, this whole matter turned on him in the end, didn’t it?”

  “I hate to take satisfaction in seeing someone else go down,” replied Bill. “But I couldn’t help but smile when I saw on the prison television that he had resigned as United States Attorney.

  “So, Burton, I suppose I should not be too resentful. You did right by me in the end. Besides, if even my own wife turned away from me, I can hardly hold a grudge against you.”

  “So, how are you?” Burton asked.

  “Fine.”

  Bill was willing to be fair to Burton, but that didn’t mean he was about to confide all of his feelings to him.

  “Did they treat you all right inside?”

  “It was tolerable.”

  That wasn’t a lie, but hardly the complete truth. The bruises on his face and ribs from the beating Bill received during his second week in prison had long since healed. Even in the unsavory company of the drug dealers and weapons traffickers who populated a ­maximum security federal prison, child murderers occupied the lowest rung on the ladder.

  Bill had quickly developed a sixth sense about when violence was likely to break out. By being ever so cautious, and when necessary acting out in front of a prison guard so that he earned a trip to the segregation ward, he’d never again gotten more than the occasional push or punch.

  Adding up all the days, he must have spent the equivalent of two full months in the segregation ward during the six months he had spent in prison. It was lonely there, which wasn’t all bad, given his mood.

  Still, there was the smell in segregation. You never got used to the smell.

  Days in segregation did give him time to renew a habit of daily prayer, which like so many people he had lost in the years since Catholic high school. To be sure, he hadn’t felt much like praying in the first month or so behind bars. If anything, he harbored a real grudge against God. But slowly and eventually with genuine commitment, he had turned back to prayer. And he had achieved a more powerful communion with God than ever before in his life. He knew he wasn’t the first person who found a stronger relationship with God in prison.