Suffering Fools Read online

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  IF YOU ENJOYED ED GAFFNEYS SUFFERING FOOLS,...

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  This book is dedicated to my son, Jason.

  In a world where truth and honesty

  seem to be in sharp decline, I am proud

  that he is a champion of both.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks again to my editor, Kate Miciak, for her terrific suggestions and enthusiastic support.

  Thanks also to my agent, Steve Axelrod, for his excellent instincts and guidance.

  Thanks to the entire Bantam team for all of their talents.

  To Tina Trevaskis and Kathy Lague, the research staff—again with my gratitude.

  To fellow author Virginia Kantra—thanks so much for the duct tape story. You saved me an interesting conversation with my son.

  Thanks to the first-draft reading Dream Team: Suz Brockmann, Fred and Lee Brockmann, Deede Bergeron, Scott Lutz, and Patricia McMahon.

  As always, special thanks to Eric Ruben, whose passion and humor are the inspiration for Terry.

  Thanks to everyone in the Tribe for their friendship, and their endless and boundless support.

  And to Suz, thank you for everything. I love you.

  PROLOGUE

  September 13, 2004

  11:12 P.M.

  AT THE PRECISE MOMENT THAT HE FELT HIS trusty crowbar connect with her head, Elmo knew he owned her.

  And then, everything turned to shit.

  She reeled away a few feet from the force of the blow, and then she crumpled to the ground like a sack of crap, just like she was supposed to. She was obviously out like a light, so Wally went over to help pick her up and throw her into the back of the car. But the minute he got down to where her feet were, she shot her leg up viciously and kicked him square in the balls.

  Now all of a sudden it was fucking complicated. Wally was doubled over, clutching his crotch with one hand and pulling up his ski mask with the other, puking on some poor sap’s front lawn. Meanwhile, the stupid woman was lying there, holding her head and groaning. Good thing the only light at this end of the street was coming from the moon. The longer this took, the better the chance that somebody would see them. This wasn’t exactly supposed to be a public event.

  Elmo needed the woman alive, at least for a little while, so he hadn’t brought his gun. Besides, shooting her in the middle of the street would have been too noisy anyway. So he raised the crowbar again, approaching her carefully. He sure didn’t need a kick in his balls.

  She was on her back, with her hands over her face. Blood was pouring from a huge gash the crowbar had left, and she sounded like she might have been crying, or whimpering, or something. Whatever she was doing, she sure didn’t look like she was going to be kicking anyone in the balls anytime soon. But Elmo wasn’t taking any chances. He lined himself up so that he was close to her head—well out of range of her legs—and started to swing. When he hit her this time, he was really going to clean her clock.

  But son of a bitch, she twisted out of the way at the last second, and as the crowbar thunked harmlessly into the ground about three inches from her left ear, Elmo’s momentum threw him off balance, and he stumbled forward just enough to give her the opportunity to grab his ankle as he staggered by. Before he knew it, he was on his face in the dirt.

  Excruciating pain tore through Elmo’s bad right leg as he fell, and he grabbed it with both hands. It felt like somebody had just stabbed him with a knife.

  To make matters worse, that stupid little bitch was still trying to get away. She had managed to roll over, get onto her hands and knees, and was now up and running—actually more like stumbling—away from him. With his shitty knee, Elmo was no good in a footrace. If she got away, he was really fucked.

  Thank goodness for Wally. He had stopped throwing up long enough to see what was going on, and just as she started to make her way past him, he nailed her in the mouth with a clean right cross. Wally was about twice her size, and the bitch went down like a ton of bricks. No way she was getting up after that shot.

  Wally was standing over her, and was so pissed off that he tried to kick her in the ribs for good measure, but all he ended up doing was hurting himself again. He grabbed his groin and staggered over to lean against the car. Poor bastard.

  But Wally wasn’t the only one who was pissed. This thing should have been over a long time ago. Instead, Wally looked like he was ready to start heaving again, and Elmo was flat on his ass in some stranger’s yard. His hands were scraped, his knee was on fire, and his hostage was nowhere near tied up and in the back of his car. Damn it all to hell and back again.

  He rose slowly and limped over to the unconscious woman. Her left arm was trapped beneath her, and her right was stretched out straight. She was lying on one side of her face. Her eyes were shut, but her mouth was open. She was bleeding now, not only from her head wound but from the split lip that Wally had given her.

  The danger was over, thank God.

  Elmo closed in once again, this time taking out the roll of duct tape he was carrying so he could get her bound and gagged and into the fucking car already. He worked enough of the tape free so that he could get started with her hands, but just as he bent over to start taping her up, she flipped onto her back, whipped her left hand across her body, and hit him right in the face with—what the hell was that? A rock? Shit! Was she holding a rock in her hand when she hit him like that?

  Elmo staggered back and put his hand up to his cheek. It stung, and it was wet. He pulled his hand away, and sure enough: The bitch had drawn blood with that one. And it felt like she might have chipped one of his teeth in the bargain. Goddamn her.

  “Get over here, Wally, and hold her down,” he said, spitting blood and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the bottle of liquid he had brought, and twisted off the top. Fuck this shit. She was done now.

  Wally came over, grabbed her by the front of her shirt, and son of a bitch if she didn’t try to knee him in the balls again. But this time he was ready, and turned, deflecting the blow. She didn’t have much left, anyway. “Cut it out, goddammit,” he said, slapping her in the head. Then he flipped her onto her stomach and yanked her hands behind her.

  Elmo limped over and quickly taped her wrists together. She was still struggling, and tried to say something that he couldn’t make out. Then Wally rolled her over onto her back, tore off a piece of tape, and started to gag her.

  But before he could finish, Elmo stopped him, jammed the bottle into her mouth, and started to pour the liquid down her throat. She twisted her head away, spitting and trying to choke out God knows what—I’m dying, or some bullshit—until Wally smacked her again, a good one, and she fina
lly stopped struggling. Her eyes started rolling around in her head, and there was no more resistance when Elmo poured the rest of the drink into her. She coughed a lot, and about half of it ended up spilling down the front of her shirt, but she swallowed plenty before the bottle was empty. That was fine. The guy who gave it to him said that it wouldn’t take much.

  While Elmo retrieved the crowbar, Wally finished taping her feet together. Then he tried to hoist her up over his shoulder, but that only hurt him again, and he cried out in pain and dropped her. It didn’t matter. Bitch was out cold and didn’t feel a thing.

  Elmo limped over as Wally dragged her to the car, opened the back door, and shoved her in headfirst. Then they got in the front, and just as Elmo started the car, she started groaning again.

  “I shoulda finished gagging her outside,” Wally said, tearing off another piece of tape and turning around to lean into the backseat.

  “Please, I’m dy—” the bitch moaned, just before Wally finally taped her mouth shut.

  “Yeah. Fuck you, you crazy little shit,” Wally said. “You ain’t dying. Not yet.”

  ONE

  ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY LOVELL: Detective, were you working on the evening of March 19?

  DETECTIVE JOHN MORRISON: Actually, I was off duty that night.

  Q: I see. Do you have a specific memory of that night?

  A: Yes, I do.

  Q: And why is that?

  A: Because that was the night that I walked into the Nite & Day Convenience Store and the clerk told me he’d just been robbed by a guy with a knife.

  Q: Can you describe the condition of the victim when he told you this?

  A: Yes. He was obviously very upset. He was nervous. His hands were shaking, and he kept looking around, like he was expecting—

  ATTORNEY WILSON: Objection.

  DETECTIVE MORRISON: —some surprise or something.

  ATTORNEY WILSON: Objection. Move to strike.

  THE COURT: The answer is “He was upset and nervous. His hands were shaking, and he kept looking around.” The rest of the answer is stricken.

  ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY LOVELL: Did you have any further conversation?

  DETECTIVE JOHN MORRISON: I asked him if he knew who had robbed him, and he said that he recognized him as a regular customer, but that he couldn’t remember his name.

  Q: What happened next?

  A: I suggested that he come down to the station with me to look at mug shots, but then the clerk remembered that the robber had been in the store a few days earlier at the same time as me.

  Q: Did you remember this incident?

  A: Not at first. But then the clerk started to describe the guy to me—long, stringy hair, kind of slouched all the time, looked down a lot—and then suddenly he shouted, “I remember! His name is Babe! Babe something.” And then I knew exactly who he was talking about. Babe—uh, Rufus—Gardiner.

  (Commonwealth v. Gardiner, Volume IV, September 10, 2004, Pages 61–63)

  April 5, 2004

  Five months earlier

  ATTORNEY TERRY TALLACH KNEW THAT IT WAS the obligation of every lawyer to take certain cases for free. The bar association called it taking a case pro bono, which translated from the Latin as “for the good.” God, lawyers couldn’t even be nice without being pompous.

  From one perspective, it made sense for Terry’s partner and best friend, Zack Wilson, to decide to take the Gardiner case without charging. Rufus himself had no money—he was living hand to mouth when he got arrested. And his mother, who had called to ask them to look into the case in the first place, was barely making ends meet as it was.

  But when Terry saw their new client present himself to the MCI–Wakefield prison guard for a final search before their first meeting, he couldn’t help but turn to his partner and say softly, “I’ll buy you a pizza if you change your mind about this one.”

  Zack said nothing as Rufus entered the attorney/client visiting room. As he turned to close the door behind him, he fumbled with the file folder he had been carrying. Somehow, the papers in the folder managed to fly all over the place. He bent down to pick them up. “Make it two,” Terry whispered.

  Rufus Gardiner was technically an adult—he had turned thirty early last month—but he still managed to project the image of a recent high school dropout. His waxy skin and watery eyes were unhealthy looking, his shoulder-length greasy hair was a mess, he breathed through his mouth, and he carried himself in a perpetual slouch. He looked fundamentally stupid, but worse than that, he looked spectacularly guilty. Of everything. He didn’t make eye contact, he mumbled, and he shook hands like he was afraid that such intimate contact might allow you to read the dirty thoughts that kept running through his tiny mind.

  He was the walking, talking embodiment of the worst defendant in the world. If he was on the witness stand and testified that the sky was blue, half the jury would think he was guessing.

  The other half would think he was lying.

  Zack, of course, acted as if Rufus was just like every other defendant he’d ever met for the first time. Innocent until proven guilty. Entitled to Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. Encouraged to help in his own defense. Relied upon for honesty in communications. Protected by the attorney-client privilege.

  Rufus just stared at the table as Zack went through his new-client spiel. He might as well have been speaking Swahili with a Chinese accent. At the end, Zack said, “I know this is a lot to take in all at once, Rufus, so if there’s anything you don’t understand—”

  “Can you call me Babe?” Rufus asked, looking up and establishing eye contact for a full half second before lowering his gaze back to the table. “Instead of Rufus. Nobody calls me that anymore.”

  Except your mother. And the court system. Oh—and the prison administration, too.

  “Uh, sure,” Zack said. “Sorry.”

  Terry couldn’t wait any longer. He clicked his pen and pulled his legal pad in front of him. “So, Babe, let’s talk about how all this happened.”

  “I picked it myself,” Babe replied, with a shy smile as he shuffled the papers he’d brought to the meeting.

  There was a prolonged silence as everyone tried to figure out what the hell had just happened. Babe certainly didn’t look crazy. “What?” Terry asked.

  “My name,” Babe explained, looking up for a second. “I picked it myself. That’s how it happened.”

  Terry ground his teeth and tried to speak slowly and calmly. “Not your name.” Numbnuts. “The charges against you. How did all that happen? What were you doing that night? Why did you get busted for robbing the convenience store?”

  “Oh, yeah. That night.” Welcome to the conversation, Babe. “Did my mother show you that tape from the store? I didn’t do it.”

  Well, that certainly cleared things up.

  “We haven’t met with your mother yet,” Zack replied.

  “She has health issues,” Babe offered into the silence.

  Who was this guy? Rain Man?

  “Let’s put aside the tape for a second,” Zack said. “I think what Terry is asking is if you can tell us what you were doing that night. Starting from after work. Your mom said you work at a factory or a warehouse, right?”

  “Yeah,” Babe said. “I got through with work around five, and then I drove to this restaurant called The Burger Barn to have dinner.”

  Terry was familiar with most of the restaurants around Springfield, but he hadn’t heard of that one. “Where’s The Burger Barn?” he asked.

  “It’s like a little place off of Route 22,” Babe said. “Up past Norton.”

  That’s why he hadn’t heard of it. Up past Norton was code for “indoor plumbing optional.”

  “Okay,” Zack said. “Walk us through the evening. You left work around five and went to The Burger Barn. When did you get there? Do you remember?”

  Babe was now using a well-chewed pencil to make doodles in the margin of a piece of paper on the table in front of him
. “Uh, I dunno. I guess it was about six. Maybe quarter of. I dunno. It’s kinda hard to remember.”

  “Well, it’s kinda important for you to try to remember, Babe,” Terry said, wondering if the sudden sharp pain in his head meant that it was going to explode right off his neck, or that he was just going to have a stroke. “We’re trying to establish whether you have an alibi for this crime.”

  Babe stopped doodling. Probably to concentrate extra hard. It didn’t work. He returned to the doodling. He seemed completely befuddled.

  Zack jumped in. “We want to know exactly where you were, and when, that night, so that we can figure out if it was even possible that you committed this crime.”

  Babe struggled with that one for a minute and then explained, “But I didn’t commit this crime.”

  At least he was consistent.

  “Right,” Terry said. “We know that. But what we also want to know is what you were doing while you weren’t committing this crime.”

  There was a moment of processing, and then new understanding washed over Babe’s incredibly unappealing yet remarkably expressive face. Dawn breaks on a vacant building.

  “I was home,” he said.

  “Great,” Zack said. “When did you get home? Did you go home right from The Burger Barn?”

  “I’m not sure,” Babe answered. His eyes shifted away, and suddenly his body language proclaimed “I am not only the biggest liar in the world, but the worst one, too.” How could he not be sure whether he went straight home? Was he confusing this night with the several other nights he was accused of armed robbery?

  Terry put his pen down. At the rate this was going, they’d all die of old age before the trial even began. Would the local gun-shop owner waive the waiting period for buying a pistol if Terry promised to shoot himself before he left the store?

  “Why don’t we do this,” Zack suggested. “Babe, you just tell us the story, as best as you can remember, of what you did that night. From when you left work until you got home and went to sleep. Try to tell us details, but it’s okay if you don’t remember everything. Just do your best. Whatever you recall.”