Suffering Fools

by Ed Gaffney

  Vera swallowed, and then checked her notepad. “March nineteenth. We think if he came here, it was probably that night.”

  The waitress nodded. “Okay. That was Friday, right? It gets kind of busy here Friday nights, so Irene would have been working with me then, too. Maybe she’ll be able to help you. She’s been working here for years.” She handed Vera a slip of paper. “I wrote her number down for you, in case you needed it.”

  Vera thanked the waitress, wiped her hands, took out her cell phone, and dialed the number.

  A minute later, she was speaking to Irene Quarrels.

  Who knew Davy Zwaggert real well, and had seen him about a month or so ago. Yes, it could have been on the nineteenth.

  But before Vera even had a chance to put her cell phone away, it rang again.

  Suddenly, she had another case. Detective Morrison had been accused of assault.

  FOUR

  THE COURT: All right, Mr. Tippett. I understand that you’ve talked to your attorney and want to change your plea to guilty.

  THE DEFENDANT: That’s right.

  THE COURT: Fine. I will accept your plea after the prosecutor reads the facts into the record. Mr. Prosecutor.

  ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY JONES: The facts of this case are quite simple, Your Honor. On February 7, police officers responded to a report of shots fired near Clark’s Corner in Springfield, a neighborhood they knew to be a high-drug neighborhood. At that time they proceeded to 50 Eagle Terrace.

  Upon arrival—

  THE COURT: I’m sorry. Was that Eagle Terrace?

  MR. JONES: Yes, Your Honor.

  THE COURT: Thank you. I’m sorry. Go ahead.

  MR. JONES: Upon arrival, the officers executed a search of the premises, and in a closet discovered seventeen and one quarter kilograms—that’s a little over thirty-eight pounds—of a powdery white substance, which was later determined to be ninety percent pure cocaine. They then arrested the defendant.

  THE COURT: Is that correct, Mr. Tippett?

  THE DEFENDANT: Yeah.

  THE COURT: Fine. The court accepts the defendant’s plea of guilty and will now hear the Commonwealth on sentencing…

  (Commonwealth v. Warren Tippett, Plea Hearing, July 18, 2003, Pages 14–15)

  June 2, 2004

  “MR. LOVELL? CAN THE COMMONWEALTH LIVE with the defendant’s suggestion? Straight possession, eighteen months in the house of corrections?”

  Assistant District Attorney Louis Lovell liked to think of himself as an ethical man. And so Judge Park’s question—no, this entire conference with the defendant’s attorney in the judge’s chambers—was driving him crazy.

  If he accepted Warren Tippett’s offer to plead guilty, Louis would ring up another conviction for the office, which his boss would really love.

  And an eighteen-month sentence was appropriate for the typical drug-possession case.

  But in Warren Tippett’s case, the sentence was far too lenient. It was simply wrong.

  And the whole reason Louis had decided to work as an assistant district attorney was because he wanted to do what was right.

  The entire case was like a nightmare. A terrible criminal—the man distributed untold pounds of cocaine to a city already overwhelmed with poverty and despair. A terrible job of police work—and an overintrusive search which was very likely to have been unconstitutional. And thanks to an inexperienced prosecutor and a burned-out judge—both of whom had moved on to other careers, thank God—a terrible and now somewhat infamous guilty plea.

  Before Tippett’s case had become news, the rule in Massachusetts was that if you wanted to plead guilty to a crime, you had to follow certain procedures at a public hearing. The Massachusetts procedures were stricter than those of many other states, and so Massachusetts plea hearings took a little longer than normal. But that was okay. In some places, guilty plea hearings were nothing more than a few routine yes-or-no questions and answers asked and answered by a judge and a defendant who were obviously just going through the motions. Louis had personally seen at least three such hearings in other states where he was sure that the defendant had no idea what was going on, except that he was going to jail without a trial.

  And that made no sense. Nobody wanted people to plead guilty without understanding their actions. And the Massachusetts rules actually made it harder for a defendant if he later attempted to withdraw his guilty plea—and it was amazing how many tried—because he’d get nowhere unless he could show that the appropriate procedures weren’t followed. If the guilty plea hearing went as it was supposed to, the record of the hearing—the actual words said at the time, transcribed by the court reporter—would conclusively establish that the defendant fully understood and accepted his decision to plead guilty. And the record of the hearing was critical, because it was the only thing that all parties officially agreed to. Police reports, conversations out of court, plea negotiations—none of those things mattered.

  But the judge and the prosecutor in Tippett’s case had bungled everything. They might have been distracted, or maybe it all seemed so obvious to them as a result of the negotiations that took place in order to arrive at the plea bargain, but for whatever reason, the record of the hearing on Tippett’s plea was a joke.

  For one thing, in order for the guilty plea to be constitutionally acceptable, the record had to establish that the defendant committed a crime.

  In Tippett’s case, it wasn’t even close.

  The prosecutor never bothered to mention that the cocaine the officers had seized was owned by Tippett. He didn’t even manage to explain that the address where the cocaine was found was where Tippett lived. If you read the record of Tippett’s guilty plea hearing carefully, you’d see that all the defendant admitted to was that the police came to an address that apparently had no connection to Tippett, grabbed some cocaine, and then arrested him.

  In the eyes of the Constitution, you couldn’t plead guilty to the crime of possession of drugs when the Commonwealth didn’t even allege that you possessed drugs.

  So when Tippett challenged his guilty plea, despite the fact that everybody in the world believed that he was actually guilty—the courts were forced to allow him to withdraw the plea and grant him a trial.

  The media had a field day. Louis’s boss, Francis “F.X.” O’Neill, the state’s most blatantly politically motivated district attorney—which was saying something—spent about a week in an apoplectic rage, waving around a newspaper with the banner headline: “Confessed Drug Dealer Gets New Trial on Technicality.”

  Worse still, the appeals court was so embarrassed by how thoroughly the judge in Tippett’s case had messed everything up that they swung the pendulum way over in the other direction. They decided that for any future guilty pleas, Massachusetts would require only a few, very simple, very general questions to be asked and answered at every guilty plea hearing. If the answer to all of the questions was yes, the defendant’s guilty plea was assumed to be “knowing and voluntary.”

  Regardless of whether the defendant was a Rhodes scholar or a hapless dolt.

  Add to that F. X. O’Neill’s and the local police department’s shared philosophy on conservation of prosecutorial and police resources—a guilty defendant closed a case forever—and the chances of a guilty plea perverting the justice system were getting bigger by the second.

  And so now here they were. Tippett had successfully withdrawn his guilty plea and had been awarded a new trial. His new lawyer properly recognized that the Commonwealth’s case against him rested on some very shaky evidence. So she telephoned Louis and gave him two options. He could accept a new plea bargain where Tippett would admit that he only possessed a fraction of the pounds and pounds of cocaine the police had found in his apartment. That would result in a conviction, but a much shorter prison term than Tippett’s original one, which would mean he’d be back on the street in merely a few months.

  Or Louis could reject the new deal and actually try the case. The problem with th
at was there was a real chance that all the charges against Tippett would get thrown out, because the cops probably violated his constitutional rights when they rushed into his apartment and broke into locked containers in a closed closet where the cocaine was hidden.

  The judge cleared his throat. “Mr. Lovell? What is the Commonwealth’s response?”

  MARIA CHECKED HERSELF IN THE MIRROR. SHE did not look good.

  Anthony had sent her home early with three crisp one-hundred-dollar bills and instructions to stop at the mall, where she was to get some casual clothes from Banana Republic, wash them so they didn’t look brand-new, and wear them tonight. They were going to do fieldwork, and she was to be his preppie girlfriend. What a trip.

  Now, four and a half hours later, she stood there with her hair pulled back in a straight, lame ponytail, wearing a pink-and-white-striped oxford button-down shirt open only at the collar, khaki pants, and boat shoes.

  God hadn’t given her much of a shape to start with. Other women with this body might look slender and sleek, but Maria managed only to look sexless. And this outfit made things worse. She put a small, plain gold stud in each ear and a thin gold chain around her neck.

  And as Anthony had requested, she wore no makeup.

  If there was an award for dullest look of the year, she’d need an acceptance speech.

  She left her bedroom and found her ten-year-old brother, Felix, alone at the kitchen table, doing his homework. The apartment was small, so she spoke quietly. “Is Mommy asleep already?”

  Felix looked up from the worksheet he was filling in. “She started to watch television, but then she felt bad again so she went to bed.” He filled in another blank on the page and couldn’t keep from smiling. “She said to have fun on your date.”

  The doorbell rang. It was seven-thirty. Anthony was right on time. “It’s work, not a date,” Maria said as she used the intercom to tell Anthony she’d be right down. “Do I look like I’m going out on a date?” Felix did not answer. “You know I don’t.” She fished her keys out of her purse. “I’ll be home late. No TV until your homework is finished, and—”

  “And bedtime is nine-thirty. I know,” Felix said with a heavy, calculated sigh as he laid his head down on the table.

  “If you or Mommy need anything, I’ve got my cell phone with me,” she said, picking up the ugly blue sweater that completed her outfit and opening the door. “Be good.”

  Maria turned the key in the lock behind her and headed down the stairs of the two-family house.

  Things had really changed fast since the three of them had moved into this apartment last year. They had been so optimistic when they finally found a way to get out of their old place. Their new home was a little small—Felix had to sleep in the living room—but it was in a decent neighborhood, and Felix’s school was good. The problem was that Mommy just kept getting worse and worse. It had been weeks since she’d been able to go to work, and Maria’s salary just barely covered the rent, utilities, and food. Forget about anything else. Felix was already growing out of his clothes, but they couldn’t afford new ones. And if anything unexpected came up, they were going to be in real trouble.

  Anthony stood waiting for her in the little entryway at the bottom of the stairs. It was amazing, but he looked even worse than she did. He was wearing a dark blue polo shirt tucked into bright green shorts, and loafers with no socks. His calves looked stronger than Maria would have guessed. The rest of him looked like a complete dork.

  “Good job shopping,” he remarked as they left the building and walked toward the—what was that thing, a Volvo?—parked out front. “Did you remember to get something to eat?”

  “I had a sandwich at the mall. Which reminds me.” She took an envelope out of her purse and handed it to him. “Here are the receipts and the change. I was able to get most of this stuff on sale. The whole outfit, including the shoes, cost less than two hundred.” She got in the rented car and closed the door. Leather interior. Not bad.

  Anthony climbed into the driver’s seat, started the car, and handed the envelope back to her. “When we do overtime fieldwork, you get additional compensation. You can start by keeping this. We’ll figure everything else out later.”

  He would never have any idea how welcome that extra money would be. “Thanks,” Maria said, returning the envelope to her purse. “But don’t you need the receipts? You know. To show the client for reimbursement?”

  “We’re on this one for free,” Anthony explained as he turned down Main Street and headed for Route 2.

  And just like that, Maria’s good feeling about the extra money vanished. She wanted to reach over and just smack her boss on his stupid bald head.

  Maria had been working for Anthony for six months. In that time, they had taken on about ten cases. In at least three of them, Anthony didn’t charge the client anything. Anything. And many of the others were such small jobs—one day of surveillance, research into a scary boyfriend’s past, that kind of thing—that they hardly paid more than a few hundred dollars. A thousand at the most.

  In fact, the only job that was really a good one was the Upton case, which was the one Anthony was working on when he hired Maria. He was gone for weeks at a time doing a lot of sophisticated surveillance. The client was a big corporation, and they paid every invoice on time, with a nice, big check and no complaints.

  But the Upton job was finished, and since then, Anthony had been spending much more money than he had been taking in. If this kept up, he wouldn’t be able to stay in business. And Maria would be on the street again, with little or no chance of finding a job good enough to pay her family’s bills.

  She’d really been encouraged when Anthony took the Gardiner case, because it was clearly going to be more than just a quick phone call or two. Anthony had already gone to The Burger Barn to try to find someone who’d seen Babe Gardiner on the night of the robbery, but he’d struck out. So he decided to talk to the store clerk who had been robbed.

  But when Anthony checked with the owner of the convenience store, he learned that the clerk—his name was Steve Hirsch—had stopped showing up to work. The owner actually suspected that Hirsch might have been in on the robbery. So Anthony thought it would be best to go looking for him undercover.

  Maria had done some asking around, and learned that Hirsch liked to go drinking at this place called Yellow Belly’s. She did a little more research, got hold of a copy of his high school yearbook, and Anthony decided that he and Maria would head for Yellow Belly’s and try to get in touch with Cousin Steve about their impending wedding.

  But now that Maria knew that all this work was just more and more charity, suddenly the case seemed a lot less desirable. Being nice was one thing, but going broke was just plain stupid. She was going to have to take care of this problem, but carefully. If she came off too pushy or bossy, Anthony would probably fire her. But if she didn’t do something soon, it wouldn’t matter.

  After what seemed like a reasonable time had passed, she said, “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  She hoped she could strike just the right tone—curious, yet respectful. “Have you ever thought about doing work for insurance companies?”

  Anthony smiled. “That’s funny. I was sure you were going to ask why I told you to get something to eat before we went out to dinner.”

  “I just figured if we weren’t hungry, we wouldn’t run up such a big bill at the restaurant,” she responded. Mommy had taught her that trick years ago.

  Anthony laughed. “That’s not it. You can order as much as you want. I’m just not sure that you’re going to want to eat a lot there. From what I’ve heard…”

  “It’s a dump?” Maria suggested.

  Anthony exited onto a smaller road. “Well, dump-like, anyway. Let’s just say that I don’t expect to discover great cuisine here.” He pulled into a parking lot across the street from a dark building with an old, painted sign that read Yellow Belly’s—Eating, Drinking, and Ev
erything in Between.

  For a place out in the middle of nowhere, Yellow Belly’s had a surprising number of cars in the lot. Anthony pulled into one of the few open spaces, and they got out and started to walk toward the restaurant.

  Before they made it out of the lot, though, a group of four or five guys ran across the street toward them. All were obviously coming from the restaurant, pretty loud and real drunk.

  The momentum of one pair propelled them toward Maria, and she backed up against one of the parked cars, but not quite far enough to avoid contact. It was nothing, but the one who had bumped into her, a skinny kid who was wearing a very ugly pink-and-green shirt, started to make a big deal out of it. “I’m really sorry,” he said, regaining his balance by reaching out and grabbing on to the car with his right hand. His buddy, a big, tough-looking kid with really pale blond hair, immediately appeared on his left, directly in front of her, effectively blocking her path.

  “It’s fine. Excuse me,” she said, trying to step around the blond one. But he grabbed her arm and pushed her back against the car, holding her there, saying, “Whoa, cutie. What’s your hurry? My friend here just apologized.”

  Then ugly-shirt guy started to giggle and said, “Yeah, cutie, how ’bout a little kiss,” as he stepped even closer to her. But before Maria even had a chance to react, the blond guy suddenly flew backward and landed on his ass in the dirt. And then there was Anthony, spinning the other one around and throwing him on top of blondie, like that was the part of the parking lot where you were supposed to pile up the drunken fools. “What the fuck?” the blond one sputtered, trying to push ugly-shirt guy off of him.

  In two strides, Anthony was next to her. “Are you okay, Maria?”

  She barely had a chance to say “I’m fine” before the two idiots had scrambled to their feet. Anthony turned to face them. Their three friends were standing near a car on the other side of the lot, watching. They were either smart, or chicken. Maybe both.

  Blondie sneered, “What’s your problem, dude?” and then stepped toward Anthony, pulling back his right fist. He was taller and heavier than Anthony, and he had murder in his eyes. Almost faster than Maria could see, Anthony shot a left jab at the kid, hitting him square in the nose and stopping his advance cold. “Ow. Fuck!” he yowled, grabbing his bloody face and staggering away. “Motherfucker!”