by Ed Gaffney
“And then I learned that Stacy Ruben had to go out on emergency maternity leave or some kind of nonsense, Blaine and Jesse already have way too much on their plates, and you’re the only one with enough experience left to do it.”
Of course F.X. wouldn’t get his own hands dirty on a case like this. There was nothing to gain. The last case he actually tried was a high-profile death penalty case, and the only reason he did that one was to get in front of the television cameras.
“So I’ve got no choice but to leave this file with you. But I’m warning you. If you have any doubt—and I mean any doubt at all—that you’re not going to get a conviction, you’d better get a plea bargain out of this thing, or I swear to God, I will fire you so fast, Louis, your head will spin.”
IT DIDN’T MATTER HOW MANY TIMES HE WENT into one of these places—Elmo still hated them.
MCI–Wakefield was a medium-security prison, and that meant that you had to go through the whole damned search process every time you went for a visit. Elmo signed in at the outer control room desk, and then sat down in the waiting room with all the pathetic wives and girlfriends and mothers and fathers who were waiting to get in.
Elmo hated all of it, and would never have been here if he could have used the mail. But they read everything that comes into the prison, and there was no way he could risk having this information getting into the wrong hands.
A gigantic colored woman—damn, there were a lot of female guards here—came out from behind a desk and shouted, “Numbers one through five line up over by the lockers on the left side of the table. Take off your shoes and belts and make sure you have everything out of your pockets.”
Elmo hated taking off his shoes and his belt and walking through the X-ray machine. He hated standing there with his arms outstretched while they waved that electronic wand around. It made him feel like the prison guards thought he was some kind of loser.
The truth was, anyone who worked inside a prison was a loser. The clowns that signed up as correction officers couldn’t carry the jockstrap of a real cop. Most of them were alcoholic high-school dropouts that beat their wives. Or husbands. Jesus, that colored woman was huge.
He’d timed his visit to begin in the middle of the afternoon, just after the shift change, so he didn’t have to share the visiting room with a huge crowd. Most of the regulars had come right after lunch and were already heading home. That was best—he could say what he had to say without other people sitting so close that they could hear him.
MCI–Wakefield’s visiting room, like all Massachusetts prison visiting rooms, was full of security cameras. The cameras were supposed to prevent visitors from trying to slip things into the hands of inmates, or vice versa. And that was a good thing, because these assholes would try anything. He’d heard one time that a woman smuggled drugs into the prison in a condom shoved up into her sex. Then, after she passed through security, she went into the bathroom, took the condom out, washed it off, stuck it in her mouth, and then passed it to her boyfriend when she kissed him in the visiting room.
But as far as Elmo knew, they hadn’t started bugging rooms. Guards walked around a little, but they were mostly lazy, and as long as you didn’t raise your voice, they didn’t know and really didn’t care what you were saying.
That was good, because what he had to say today was very important.
THIRTEEN
ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY LOVELL: Can you describe DNA?
MS. WARDLAW: DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. It’s a very long molecule found in the nucleus of cells, which are the building blocks of living things.
Q: And how is DNA used in the tests that your company was asked to perform in this case?
A: DNA is basically a chain made up of links, and each link is one of four different amino acids—adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine. Every person’s DNA has a unique sequence of these four amino acids, making their DNA different from everyone else’s in the world.
In this case, our company examined and compared DNA samples we were provided, to determine whether the samples came from the same individual.
Q: Can you describe the techniques used to perform your tests?
A: There are a variety of techniques available for DNA testing, such as Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism, and Polymerase Chain Reaction….
Q: At the end of the testing, were you able to come to any conclusions?
A: Yes. We were able to determine that there was a 99.9969 percent probability that the two hair samples provided to us came from the same individual.
(Commonwealth v. Gardiner, Trial Volume V, Pages 111–183)
August 10, 2004
BEFORE DETECTIVE VERA DEMOPOLOUS EVEN said a word, Terry knew that her interview with Babe was going to be a disaster. An irritating disaster.
First of all, the woman was too damn good-looking. The moment she walked into the room where he, Zack, and Sean were waiting for Babe to arrive, it was like somebody turned up the lights. And then, when she smiled and introduced herself, Jesus Christ.
She was in her late twenties or early thirties, and probably a little shorter than normal. Maybe not. She had shiny, wavy dark brown hair that didn’t quite reach her shoulders, dark eyes, a surprisingly fair complexion, and a slightly exotic look to her.
The woman didn’t belong in a police department. She belonged on a billboard for Hooters.
Actually, that wasn’t fair to Detective Demopolous. She was dressed in a totally professional manner that made it impossible to tell much about her body—black pants and a black and gray shirt thing with a gray jacket. She looked all business, but somehow, she seemed to radiate something…extra.
The thing was, whether Vera Demopolous was hot or just good-looking, or whatever the heck she was, it was a pain in the ass that Terry found her so attractive. First of all, he was a defense attorney. Falling for a cop made about as much sense as taking mambo lessons in a minefield. And second, Terry had plenty of other things to worry about, like his dumb-ass client, who just at that moment chose to join them by opening the door and showcasing his spill-every-legal-paper-he-had-all-over-the-place routine.
It wasn’t clear whether it was Babe’s nervousness at the idea of speaking to the police, his refusal to leave that moronic file folder in his cell, or the dark cloud of dimwittedness that perpetually enveloped him, but something about Babe’s stupidity today was really pissing Terry off.
He really shouldn’t have been expecting anything good from this meeting. The detective had given them written confirmation that the only people she was going to ask Babe about were his coworker, Roger Tedesco, and the fugitive she was looking for, a guy named Davy Zwaggert. But even so, Babe Gardiner was such a guilty-looking shit-for-brains that it would be a miracle if they got out of this interview without him racking up another five or six felony charges.
Right now, Babe seemed desperately committed to misunderstanding every single thing that anyone said to him. He had just answered a perfectly obvious question like the utter idiot he was.
Zack was looking at their client in a weird way. Probably forgot about Babe’s superhuman powers of incomprehension. The Astounding Mr. Rockhead.
“I’m sorry, I should have been more clear,” the cop was saying. “When I said how did you meet him, I meant to ask, when you started working at Ibis Industries, was Roger—did Roger Tedesco already have a job there at that time? At the time you started working there?”
Terry had to give this detective credit. No matter what foolish thing Babe said, she managed to work with him until they all understood what he meant. No lunging across the table to murder him, no collapsing into a sobbing, suicidal heap on the floor.
Babe turned to a blank sheet in the middle of the morass of his invaluable research and was now penciling away at some geometric mess on the side of the page. “Um, no. Roger didn’t start working there until later.”
“Do you remember the first time you realized that he was missing?”
&nbs
p; As Babe went on about how much he didn’t know, Detective Vera’s voice seemed to relax him, at least a little. Babe was now able to answer about every other question without donning his trademark mask of concentration—a disturbing facial contortion achieved by shutting his eyes so tightly that he looked like he was either taking a crap in his pants or trying to keep his brain from blasting through his skull.
But whatever was going on in Babe’s head, enough of him had grown comfortable with Detective Demopolous that although he still was ridiculously unable to make eye contact with her, at least it looked like he wanted to.
Maybe the fact that Vera’s voice was sexy was somehow getting through to him. Or wait. Sexy and something else. Reassuring? Whatever it was, it was starting to look like the man without a brain was crushing on the detective.
And wasn’t that just dandy. All they needed was for this guy to start drooling over some female cop. As if Babe didn’t have enough to worry about.
“I never worked the same shift as Roger except one night,” Babe explained. “The regular night janitor was named Pedro. He was Roger’s partner, but he got sick or something, and my boss asked me to stay for the night shift. So I did.”
Detective Vera shifted a little in her seat, which was nice to look at. How did women do that? “When did you work together?”
Babe stopped doodling and licked his lips. His Neanderthal brow furrowed. “The night shift. Six to two in the morning.”
Could this guy be any dumber?
“Not what time of day, Babe,” Zack said. “When you worked together with Roger, was it close to the time he disappeared? Was it months before? What time of year was it? Do you remember?”
Vera smiled at Zack’s futile attempt to un-confuse Babe. She was one of those women that looked better when she smiled. She probably knew it, too.
Terry began to feel uncomfortable. He felt stupid enough letting a cop interrogate their client. Getting attracted to the cop while she was doing it was making him feel extra stupid.
And what if she knew what kind of an effect she was having on him? Jesus Christ. What if she was some kind of manipulative—
“I think that’s all I have, Babe, unless you can think of something else that might help us find Roger.”
Good luck with that.
Babe kept doodling. “I don’t think so.”
Vera stood up. “Well, thank you very much, Babe, and Sean, Zack, Terry. It was nice meeting you.”
She shook hands with all of them. Her grip was firm and dry. Her hand was smooth. He regretted when she broke contact with him and signaled to the guard. Swell. Now he was crushing on her.
Babe was escorted out, and then Vera followed. Damn. She looked good leaving a room. He was so fucked.
And then Zack’s voice broke the silence. “So,” he said. “Now we’ve got something to work with.”
“WAIT A MINUTE,” MARIA SAID. “HOW DO YOU already know the name of the guy that Mr. French told us about?”
She and Anthony were driving out to Laurelton to check into a lead. They were hoping to find the creepy man with the goatee that Mr. French had said was hanging around with Babe at The Burger Barn. She watched as Anthony passed a slow-moving tractor-trailer. Then he moved into the lane in front of the truck, shifted into high gear, and answered, “I got a call from Babe’s lawyers last night. They wanted me to look into some guy on parole named Roger Tedesco. I guess the cops were questioning Babe about him because he was on parole and now he’s missing.”
Uh oh.
Maria did not believe in coincidences. Where there was smoke, there was fire.
And right now, Babe Gardiner seemed like he was fully ablaze.
First he gets ID’d by a clerk as the guy who robbed him. Then the clerk ends up dead, with Babe’s DNA on the corpse in the trunk of some car.
And now the cops were looking for a missing fugitive who just happened to have worked at the same place as Babe.
Uh oh for sure. This Babe was starting to sound like a pretty dangerous guy.
“Anyway,” Anthony continued, “they sent over a picture of Tedesco, and guess what? He’s got a goatee.”
Another coincidence. As if this case wasn’t already freaky enough, with the threatening phone call and the disappearing people and the dangerous-sounding client.
“So I thought I’d take a chance, and earlier this morning, I faxed a picture of Tedesco over to Mr. French. Sure enough, he confirmed that Tedesco was the guy he saw with Babe that night at The Burger Barn.” He reached over and adjusted the air conditioner. The little car already felt great just as it was. Anthony was always tinkering with things to make them a little bit better.
“So I figured we could head out to the place they worked—Ibis Industries. I want to talk to their boss, see if I can pick up a lead on this Tedesco guy.”
Anthony turned into the parking lot of the facility and drove toward the entrance. It was impossible to know what anyone did at Ibis Industries from the outside. It was just a big, flat brick building on a road with a lot of other big, flat brick buildings.
“But what difference does it make about Roger Tedesco?” she asked as they walked through the parking lot toward the front door. “Babe said that he was alone the night he went to The Burger Barn. The night that clerk got robbed. Or killed.”
“The coroner’s office is saying it’s possible that he died on the same day as the robbery.”
“So if Babe was alone that night, why do we care about Roger Tedesco?”
Anthony opened the entrance door for her as they stepped into the lobby. The ugly waiting room was empty, and the receptionist’s desk had a little sign on it that read Back in 5 Minutes. Anthony and Maria sat and waited in the uncomfortable plastic chairs.
“Zack said that they’re getting kind of desperate,” Anthony said. “Trial’s supposed to start in a couple of weeks. If we don’t turn up something soon, Babe’s hardly going to have any defense.”
Maria looked up at her boss and said, “I’m sorry, but from what everybody’s telling me, it’s starting to look like there might not be any defense.”
RIGHT AFTER THE MEETING IN THE PRISON, Zack and Terry dropped Sean off and headed for dinner at The Sun Spot. As soon as Sean closed the door and they drove off, Zack asked, “So, what do you make of Detective Demopolous?”
Terry made a face and passed a minivan. “I think we might have a problem.”
Zack was instantly transported back six years into the past.
He was sure that Terry didn’t remember, but those were the exact words he had used when he came to tell Zack that Justin’s mother had gone into labor almost six weeks early.
Zack hadn’t been nearly ready. And obviously, neither was the mother. But suddenly, regardless of anyone else’s timetables, the baby was coming. And there were complications.
Every time Zack recalled the experience it played back in his mind more like a dream than a memory—probably because he didn’t sleep for two straight days during the worst of the ordeal. But in the swirl of images of doctors and nurses and occasional glimpses of a tiny, angry-looking baby surrounded by people with masks, the only clear memory Zack had was of Terry sitting in the waiting room, saying that everything was going to be okay.
And occasionally standing up and saying, to no one in particular, “Goddammit, everything had better be okay.”
Now Zack said to his friend, “Don’t worry. I’m an expert in criminal law. She can’t bust you for checking out her ass.”
“Yeah, well, here’s what I don’t need. I don’t need a good-looking cop distracting me right in the middle of…” His voice drifted off. He had clearly lost his train of thought. “Fuck,” he said absently.
What this situation needed was a shift in focus. Zack popped open the glove compartment and pulled out the car’s owner’s manual.
“Hey, careful with that,” Terry said as Zack began to flip through it. Terry was extremely overprotective of his stuff.
“So ho
w come you bought this car?” Zack asked. “I thought you hated BMWs.” Terry loved BMWs. Nothing made him happier than to get mad about it.
“That was you that hated BMWs, for no good reason, I might add.”
“Yeah. I just don’t like the way they look, I guess.”
“What?” Terry was incredulous. “They look great. Especially this M5. Are you telling me that you don’t like the way this car looks? Are you blind?”
The car really wasn’t anything special, but whatever. “I like the color.” The car was an unusual shade of blue. Terry had gone on and on about it for weeks.
“Damn right you like the color. It’s very rare. They only offer it with this particular extra package. You’re probably driving in one of a very few models like it in all of western Massachusetts.”
The conversation about why anyone in their right mind would give a shit about that would have to wait for another day. They had more important things to talk about.
“So, I saw something in that meeting that I wanted to run past you.”
Terry was instantly alert. “What?”
“Babe was hiding something—well, maybe not exactly hiding something, but there was something a little unusual when that detective asked him about Tedesco.”
“Babe? ‘Something a little unusual’? Why, I’m shocked and appalled that you would say such a thing about our client.”
“Yeah, but this was different. That cop was pretty good at picking up when he needed a little coaxing, but I think something might have gotten past her.”
“You mean when they were talking about when Tedesco started work?” Terry asked.
“Right around then. I think Babe was worried that she was going to bring up something else. That’s when he really started to hunker down over that little paper he was working on. Remember how she asked him whether Tedesco started work before he did?”