Reversible Errors

by Scott Turow

  “He’s a nice man. I think he’d be fair.”

  Erno asked Arthur’s name, hoping he might know him. He remembered hearing of Raven in the P.A.’s Office, but they never had any business.

  “Obviously,” said Gillian, “if you have information that would tend to show Gandolph shouldn’t be executed, Arthur should hear it.”

  “Yeah, I got information.” Erno laughed. “He didn’t do it.”

  “Gandolph?”

  “He’s innocent,” Erdai said flatly, and watched her at length. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

  This was, she knew, the most consequential question he’d asked her, but she did not wait long to respond.

  “No,” Gillian said. When she was inside, at least half the inmates claimed they were innocent, and over time, she’d given credence to a few. In a state facility like this, where the justice that brought the cons here was sometimes done on a wholesale basis, the numbers were probably higher. But she had paid close attention many years ago when Rommy Gandolph was in her courtroom. Heroin was still a pastime then, and she had understood the gravity of a capital case. Even in Erno’s presence, she could not accept that she, that all of them—Molto and Muriel and the detective, Starczek, even Ed Murkowski, the defense lawyer, who’d privately acknowledged believing Gandolph was guilty—could be so thoroughly misled.

  “No,” said Erno, and his light eyes, trapped in their weathered sockets, again stayed on her quite some time. “I wouldn’t either.” He descended into another spasm of coughing. Gillian watched him rock back and forth, waiting to ask what he meant. But when he was finished, he took a couple of good breaths, then addressed her peremptorily. “All right,” he said, “go tell the lawyer I’ll see him. They’re coming to take me down for a test. Bring him back up here in an hour or so.” With that Erno again raised his book. The conversation was done. He never bothered looking at her again as she said goodbye.

  10

  OCTOBER 8, 1991

  The Confession

  ON TV, murderers were usually evil geniuses with a lust for death. A couple of times in his career, Larry had run across a lawyer or executive who’d hatched a brainy plan to get rid of his wife or his partner. But gang members aside, most of the guys Larry cracked fell into two groups: bad seeds who’d started torturing cats by the age of six, or, more often, mutts who’d been kicked around long enough to learn to do it to somebody else, the type who pulled the trigger just to prove for once they didn’t have to take everybody’s shit. That was Squirrel.

  In a small locker room within Area Six, which doubled for interviews, they sat at adjoining corners of a square steel table, almost as if Gandolph were a dinner guest. Larry knew better than to talk to Squirrel without a witness, but Woznicki and Lenahan had a call, break-in in progress. Larry figured he’d clear away the brush with this guy, then bring in a prover when he started to get something good.

  “You ever seen that?” Larry asked. The locket sat on the gray table between the two men. The profile of a woman in a lace collar was finely etched against the brown backing. Beautiful as it was, even Squirrel was smart enough not to touch it. The sound of an answer or two strangled somewhere in his throat.

  “I don’t recall directly, man,” he said finally. “Tha’s a nice piece. I might ’member if I seen that piece.”

  “Are you fucking with me, Squirrel?”

  “I ain fuckin with you, man. I don’t hardly wanna fuck with no police.”

  “Well, you’re fucking with me. I just got that from the officer who took it off you. Are you calling him a liar?”

  “I ain sayin liar. You the one sayin liar.”

  “Well, is he a liar?”

  “Don’t know ’bout that.” Squirrel slid his brown thumbs along the lines of a gang graffito engraved in the table by some youth unimpressed with his surroundings. “Crook more like,” said Squirrel. “Some crooks is liars, too. Ain that right?”

  “Is this philosophy class, Squirrel? I missed the sign on the door. Lemme ask you again. Is this yours?”

  “Nnn-uhh, I wasn’t supposed to be havin that.”

  Larry smiled. The guy was so simple you had to like him.

  “I know you weren’t supposed to have it. But you had it, right?”

  A wild flash of uncertainty lit up again behind Squirrel’s eyes. This kid had been raised way too close to the power lines.

  “Hey, you know,” he said. “I’d kinda like to go. You know.”

  “Go?”

  “Yeah, the Boys.” Gandolph smiled as if he’d said something clever. On the left side of his mouth, he was missing several teeth. Larry also noticed Squirrel had begun tapping his foot.

  “Well, sit here and keep me company for a minute. I want to hear a little more about that cameo.”

  “Po-lice stole it off me.”

  “No, they didn’t. I’m a police officer. Here. I’m giving it back. Right? Here.”

  Squirrel still resisted any temptation to reach out.

  “How’d you get your hands on that in the first place?” Larry asked.

  “Mmm,” said Rommy, and spent a long time rubbing his mouth.

  “I think you better say something, Squirrel. That piece is about to get you in a peck of trouble. It’s stolen, Squirrel. You been down that road before. PSP?” Possession of stolen property. “And I think you’re the one who stole it.”

  “Nnn-uhh,” said Squirrel.

  “You know a woman named Luisa Remardi?”

  “Who?” He leaned forward, but did not do a good job of faking it. At Luisa’s name, his eyes had grown tight as coffee beans.

  “Well, help me, Squirrel. That cameo is Luisa’s. And if you don’t know Luisa, where’d this cameo come from?”

  Gandolph’s narrow face worked around as he pondered his problem.

  “Got it off another lady,” he said at last.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, she kind of give it me to hold, you know, cause she owed me for somethin.”

  “And what might that be? That she owed you for?”

  “Just some little thing I done give her. Can’t even recollect too clear.”

  “And what was this lady’s name?”

  “Man, I knowed you was gone aks that. What was her name?” said Squirrel.

  “Yeah, right. Her name was What. ‘What’ was her name.” Larry grinned, but there was no point being mean to Squirrel. He wouldn’t get it. “How about this, Squirrel? I’ll make a call and we can ride over to the Hall and you can take the box and tell the examiner all about Ms. What. Think you’ll pass, Squirrel? I don’t. But let’s find out, okay?”

  “Don’t know ’bout any lie box,” said Squirrel. He simpered in the hope he might be amusing. “Hey, man, lemme up for just a shake. I’m like to bust somethin if I keep waitin.”

  “You know how that cameo was stolen, Squirrel?”

  “Come on, man. Lemme go. I’m ’bout to shit my pants.”

  Larry grabbed Squirrel’s wrist and looked him square in the eye.

  “You shit your pants on me, Squirrel, I’ll make you eat it.” He gave Gandolph a second to take that in. “Now tell me, Squirrel. You ever meet Gus Leonidis? Good Gus? Did you know him at all?”

  Gandolph’s gooey eyes jitterbugged around again.

  “I don’t think I ’member no one by that name. Leo what?”

  Larry mentioned Paul Judson. Squirrel denied knowing him, too.

  “From the way I hear this, Squirrel, if I peel off your trousers, I’m gonna see the dent Gus’s boots left in your butt, cause he kicked it so often.”

  Squirrel couldn’t keep himself from laughing. “Yeah, tha’s good. Dent there.” But his amusement faded quickly, and he began muling around again. “Man, I laugh one more time, I’m gonna have a doody right on your floor.”

  “You know who Good Gus is now?”

  “Yeah, okay, I know.”

  “And this cameo was stolen from a lady at Gus’s restaurant.”

  S
quirrel took way too long.

  “How you like that,” said Squirrel. “Stole at Gus’s. How you like that?”

  Larry squeezed Squirrel’s wrist again, harder this time.

  “I told you, don’t fuck with me, Squirrel.” Squirrel turned his head away and tapped his foot madly. “Squirrel, where did you get the cameo?”

  “Lady,” said Squirrel.

  Off his belt, Larry unsnapped his handcuffs and threw one bracelet around the wrist of Squirrel’s he was still holding.

  “Oh, man, don’t run me in. Man, those guys in the jail, man, they bad to me. They really are. I’m a neutron, man. They bad to me.” He meant he was neutral, not hooked up with any gang, and as a result, meat for anyone. “Come on, man. At least lemme go first. Okay?”

  Larry fastened the other cuff through the bolthole in one of the lockers behind Gandolph.

  “I gotta go to the head,” Larry said.

  He took his time, returning in about twenty minutes. Squirrel was writhing, bucking back and forth in the chair.

  “Whose cameo?”

  “Whoever you say, man.”

  “And how’d you end up with a dead woman’s jewelry, Squirrel?”

  “Lemme go, man. Please lemme go. This ain right a-tall, man.”

  “You killed Gus, Squirrel.”

  Squirrel began to whine and moan, much as he had in the cruiser, pretending to be on the verge of tears.

  “Okay, I kill’t him. Lemme go. I’m beggin here, man.”

  “Who else?”

  “Huh?”

  “Who else did you kill?”

  “I didn’t kill no one. Come on, man.”

  Larry left him alone for another hour. When he came back, the stink was phenomenal.

  “God almighty,” he said. “Jesus.” He threw open a window. The weather had turned in the last few days and winter was more than an idea. The air was dry and cool, about forty-five degrees. Squirrel had begun crying again as soon as Larry was through the door.

  Larry returned with a garbage bag and a newpaper. He had Gandolph, who wore no underwear, peel off his trousers and toss them in the bag.

  “Don’t I get a lawyer or nothin?”

  “I’ll get whoever you want, Squirrel. But what do you need a lawyer for? How do you think that looks?”

  “Looks like he gone sue your ass, man. Makin me shit my pants. That ain right. That ain legal or nothin.”

  “What kind of stuff is that, every creep can crap all over himself and call the cops bad guys? I don’t think that works.”

  Squirrel cried harder. “Man, that wasn’t how it was a-tall.”

  There was a little smear of shit on one of his shoes and Larry told him to throw it in the bag, too. Squirrel sobbed as he dropped it inside.

  “You cold, man. You the coldest po-lice I ever met. Where’m I gone get shoes, man? These here, they the onlyest shoes I got.”

  Larry replied that it might be a little while before Squirrel left. He covered Gandolph’s chair with newspaper and told the man, who remained naked below the waist, to sit again. Mumbling to himself, Squirrel appeared too distraught to listen. Larry slammed his hand on the table to shut him up.

  “Squirrel, what happened to Gus? Good Gus? What happened to him?”

  “Dunno, man.” He lied like a child, his face cast down.

  “You don’t know? He’s dead, Squirrel.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “I think I done heard that.”

  “Bet that broke your heart. Guy who wumped you the way he did.”

  Dumb as he was, Squirrel saw where that would go. He used his fingers to wipe his nose.

  “I dunno, man. All kinda folk wump me. Seem like. Po-lice wump me.

  “I haven’t wumped you, Squirrel. Not yet.”

  “Man, why you doin me like this? Shittin my pants and makin me sit in it like I’m some baby, man. Strippin me naked.”

  “Now listen, Squirrel. You’re runnin around with the jewelry of a dead woman. Who was killed at the same time as a man who beat down on you whenever he saw your spotty little face. Now are you telling me that’s just a funny fucking coincidence? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Man, it’s cold in here. I ain got no clothes on. Look here. I got goof bumps and everythin.”

  Larry slammed the desk again. “You killed them, Squirrel! You shot Gus. You shot him and you shot Luisa and you shot Paul. You rifled that register you were so hot to get your mitts on. That’s what happened. Then you dragged those poor people into the freezer, and you cornholed Luisa Remardi. That’s what happened.”

  Squirrel shook his head no. Larry figured it was time for something else.

  “We have your fingerprints, Squirrel. At the scene. Did you know that? All over the register.”

  Gandolph stilled. If he hadn’t been inside, or near the register, then he’d have known Larry was lying. But there was no chance Squirrel was going to cash him in on this.

  “I ain said I wasn’t never there. I been in there. Lots of folk tell you that. Kinda liked to play with Gus and all.”

  “Play? Is that what you call killing him?”

  “Man, bein in there, sayin howdy and all, that ain the same as killin.”

  “Keep saying no, Squirrel. We have plenty of time. I got nothing better to do than have you lie to me.”

  Larry turned off the radiator before leaving the room. Forty minutes later, he re-entered with Wilma Amos, his Task Force partner, who had finally arrived. Squirrel was hunched down by the lockers, perhaps hoping to work the cuff off, or just to withstand the cold, and he screamed out.

  “Don’t you bring no lady in here when I don’t got no pants on.”

  Larry introduced Wilma, who straightened her stout form to cast an appraising look in Squirrel’s direction. Squirrel had turned as far from her as he could, covering himself with his one free hand.

  “Just wanted to ask in Detective Amos’s presence, Squirrel. You want food? You want a cold drink?”

  He told Larry he was a mean po-lice, no question about that.

  “I guess the answer’s no,” Larry told Wilma. They’d agreed in advance that she’d leave, but stand outside the door to make notes.

  “I want some pants, man. Tha’s what I want. I’m gone die or somethin from the cold.”

  “You have pants, Squirrel. You can put them back on any time you like.”

  Squirrel began crying again. With gusto. He was beat now.

  “Man, what’d I do, you gotta do me like this?”

  “You murdered three people. You shot Gus and Luisa and Paul. You robbed them all. And you screwed that lady up the poop chute.”

  “You keep sayin that, man.”

  “Because it’s true.”

  “Is it?” Squirrel asked.

  Larry nodded.

  “If I done somethin like that, kill three people and all, how come I don’t ’member nothin about it.”

  “Well, I’m helping you remember. I want you to think, Squirrel.”

  They always said they couldn’t remember. Like a drunken husband coming home. Larry frequently said he couldn’t remember. And he couldn’t. If he didn’t want to. But sooner or later as you talked to the perps, it came back. There was always something critical, details the cops themselves hadn’t tumbled to yet, which emerged.

  “When all this happen?” Gandolph asked listlessly.

  “July Fourth weekend.”

  “July Fourth,” Squirrel repeated. “Seem like I wasn’t even around July Fourth.”

  “What do you mean not around? Were you on a cruise?”

  Squirrel wiped his nose again against the back of his hand. Larry took his wrist once more.

  “Rommy, look at me. Look at me.” Awestruck and overcome, Gandolph raised his soupy brown eyes. And Larry felt some of the thrillhe couldn’t resist. He had Squirrel now. He owned him. “You killed these people. I know you killed these people. Now tell me. You tell me if I’m wrong. I say you did. I say you killed them and had a good ti
me with that lady.”

  “I never done nothin like that to no lady.”

  “Well if you didn’t, who did? Was there somebody with you?”

  “Nnn-uhh,” Rommy said. Then he seemed to recollect himself. “Shit, man, I don’t even ’member none of this. How I gone know if somebody with me? All I’m sayin is I wudn’t do nothin like that to no lady, no matter how bad I hate her.”

  Larry scratched his ear, a gesture of studied casualness. But he’d heard something new.

  “Did you hate Luisa?” he asked.

  “Well, hate, you know, man. ‘Hate no man.’ Ain that what Jesus said?”

  “Well,” said Larry, flicking his ear the same way, “what did you have against Luisa?”

  Squirrel moved his hands around ineptly. “She just one of them bitchy-type bitches. You know? Promise you one thing and doin the next. You know how that go.”

  “Sure,” said Larry. “And I forget now. How did you know her?”

  For the first time, Gandolph seemed to be grappling with memory.

  “You know, she just some cutie pie I’d be rappin to at the airport.”

  The airport, Larry thought. Some flipping detective he was. Maybe somebody should have just beat him over the head with a brick a couple of times. So Squirrel knew Luisa from the airport. It was falling in place now.

  “You and she ever get together?”

  “Naw.” Rommy laughed bashfully, both shamed and flattered by the idea. “Wasn’t never nothin like that. I don’t aks out many them ladies.”

  “Well then, why’d you say she was a bitchy bitch? She play you? She do you wrong?”

  “Man, you got some funny ideas about this.”

  “Do I? I don’t think so. I’ll tell you what’s funny, Squirrel. You said you didn’t know any of these people. But you did. You knew Gus. You knew Luisa.”

  “No way, man. I didn’t say that a-tall. All I’m sayin is I didn’t murder none of them.”

  “Just like you didn’t know any of them, either.”

  False in one thing, false in all: the logic of the law. Squirrel understood that, judging from his sudden motionlessness.

  “Look, Rommy. Honestly, I’m trying to help you here. I want to understand the way it looked to you. I mean, you pass Gus’s window, you notice this bim who’s been trickin on you. You come in. You’re a little hot with her. And Gus is trying to run you out. I can see how maybe this got out of control. I mean, you don’t look like a killer to me. You’re not a killer, are you?”