Suffering Fools

by Ed Gaffney

  It was understandable. It was ridiculous how many defendants would make a deal with the prosecutor, plead guilty, go to jail, and, within six months, charge right back into court with a motion to withdraw their guilty plea.

  Most of them were guys who’d agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence that was shorter than they might expect if they lost at trial. And usually these defendants would enter the prison system honestly figuring they’d just do their time and get on with their lives. But sooner or later—and it was amazing how it was almost always sooner—they’d meet an inmate who’d gain their confidence and tell them about a lifer they should really talk to, because he knew everything there was to know about flipping guilty pleas and getting people out of jail.

  It never seemed to matter that this knowledge came about not from any formal training, but as a result of spending a lifetime behind bars for some horrible felony, reading law books in a prison library.

  The jailhouse lawyer was always an expert salesman. He’d go on and on about how the inmate had gotten screwed by his lawyer and the system. You pleaded to unarmed robbery and Judge So-and-so gave you five to seven? Outrageous. There was a guy in the next cell block who was doing a three to five for rape. Tell me how that’s fair. You got a transcript of your guilty plea hearing? Let me take a look at it. Judge So-and-so is a terrible judge. I bet I can flip the plea.

  The huckster would promise the new inmate whatever he needed to promise—it would all be reinterpreted or flat-out denied later—and then, despite the prison system’s strict prohibition, the inmate would pay for the jailhouse lawyer to draft a motion to withdraw the guilty plea. Payment methods were infinitely diverse and ingenious. Cigarettes—formerly the currency of choice for guests of the governor—were no longer available, as smoking had been prohibited in prisons.

  But there was still the canteen. A motion to withdraw a guilty plea could buy months of snacks, coffee, and soda. And if the new inmate happened to be that golden combination of unusually stupid and rich, arrangements would be made between the inmate’s family and someone outside the prison who would take a ludicrous sum—sometimes in the thousands of dollars—and hold the money for the lifer.

  Because, of course, the lifer was saving up to hire a real lawyer to try to get his own conviction overturned. There was no way he’d ever handle his own case.

  Louis finished making a note sheet summarizing the holding of Wilkerson, so that at his next guilty plea hearing he would make sure that the necessary steps were followed. Then he put his copy of the court’s opinion into the correct file drawer and opened up the Rufus Gardiner case file.

  He certainly wasn’t going to have to worry about a guilty plea on this one.

  There was a surveillance tape from the convenience store, which was far too fuzzy to identify anyone, but which clearly showed that on the night in question, a man armed with a knife came into the Nite & Day Convenience Store and robbed it. That same night, the clerk who had been on duty at the store when it was robbed identified the defendant as the perpetrator. The clerk vanished soon thereafter, and was never seen alive again.

  Months later, he was found dead in an abandoned car, with the defendant’s hair on his clothes.

  Gardiner hadn’t made any statements to the police, so Louis would get no help there, and it was obvious that the defense attorneys—Zack Wilson and Terry Tallach, a pair that Louis had never faced before—would make some headway because skin cells found underneath the victim’s fingernails did not match Gardiner’s DNA. But if Gardiner testified—and it was hard to believe he wouldn’t—the jury would also get to hear about his two previous felony convictions for larceny and possession with intent to distribute marijuana.

  And if Louis got lucky, he’d be able to get into the trial the fact that ever since he’d been arrested, Mr. Gardiner had been racking up quite a prison disciplinary record.

  In the five months since he first went into the system, Gardiner had already managed to be ticketed eight times, all for fighting. Twice with an inmate named Rolle, until they finally figured out to keep those two away from each other, and then twice more with another inmate whose name was Mestone, or possibly Mistoni. It was hard to read the shift commander’s handwriting.

  Anyway, when the trial began next week, it was going to be pretty straightforward. Louis would call the cop who had spoken to the clerk on the night of the robbery, an excellent detective named John Morrison who always made a good impression on juries, and establish the defendant as the bad guy. Then he’d just follow the timeline—first the girl who found the car, then the cop who recovered the car and the body, the medical examiner, the DNA expert—and that would probably be that.

  The defense had indicated that they intended to raise an alibi, consisting of the defendant and his mother. Apparently, Babe intended to claim that he was home at the time of the robbery.

  That was going to be interesting, because Detective Morrison had gone off to arrest Gardiner as soon as the identification was made, but didn’t find him at home until hours later. In a credibility contest between the defendant and Detective Morrison, it was not going to be close.

  Although you could never be sure with trials, it really did look like this one was going to be a smooth ride to an easy conviction.

  His very strained relationship with his boss could use it.

  MARIA WAS JUST PUTTING HER JACKET ON WHEN the window behind her exploded, and then Anthony was tackling her, and they were rolling around in the broken glass.

  Before she could even breathe he was talking. “Are you all right? Were you hit?”

  “What are you doing? Of course I’m all right. Get off of me. What happened?” The words were out of her mouth before Anthony’s questions fully sank in.

  “What?” she demanded, feeling stupid. She was still getting over the shock of the window breaking and being wrestled to the floor. She just needed a second. What was Anthony talking about? Was she hit? Hit with what? The only thing that had hit her was her crazy, flying-across-the-room boss who was a little too heavy to be squashing her like this.

  And then the realization went through her like an electric shock.

  Sweet Saint Jude and the Apostles. Someone had just fired a gun at them.

  “Yes, this is Anthony LoPresti,” Maria heard Anthony say. He had already called someone on his cell phone. Probably 911. “I’m in my office at 220 Fifth Street near Lakeland, and someone just fired a bullet through my window from the street.” He listened, then said, “I don’t think so, but I’ll check.” He looked at Maria and asked, “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes, I’m sure that I’m fine,” Maria answered. If fine meant angry, and scared.

  And her elbow hurt a little. She had banged it when she fell.

  This wasn’t supposed to be the way it was. She was supposed to be able to have a real job, and make real money, and take care of her mother and her brother, and not have anybody shooting at her. That just wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.

  Maria had lost her cousin Ricky to street violence nearly ten years ago. He had been hanging around with those gangbanger fools, and they got him started doing drugs. Next thing you know, his mother, Aunt Rose, throws him out of the house, and he moves in with his stupid friends. Then he buys himself a gun, and all of a sudden he’s a big shot, doing robberies, getting high, getting girls pregnant.

  One night he was messing around in a club, drunk, stoned, whatever, when all of a sudden a fight broke out.

  Like an idiot, Ricky pulled his gun. Well, tried to pull his gun. Instead, he was so wasted that what happened was he shot the gun while he was trying to pull it out of his jacket, and hit himself in an artery in his leg.

  He bled to death before they even got him to the hospital.

  And that was it. Little Ricky, with the funny-colored eyes, and the lisp, and the terrible weakness for Hershey’s Kisses, who Maria used to play with on the swings when they were kids, was gone.

  Maria
was sixteen when Ricky died, and by that time she had already pretty much made up her mind that she wanted nothing to do with the kind of life Ricky had chosen. But if there was any doubt about her decision, it was firmly and completely eliminated when she saw Aunt Rose at the funeral.

  Maria’s mother was a crier. When she was happy, when she was sad, when she was angry—anytime her emotions got going, the waterfall would start.

  But when Aunt Rose lost her Ricky, she wept for days. She couldn’t stop sobbing. For the whole funeral, she just kept saying “no” over and over and over, quietly. Like she couldn’t believe it.

  And then, at the cemetery, she started screaming “No!” Like she wouldn’t accept it.

  And yet her only son—her baby boy—was in that coffin. And no amount of crying or screaming was ever going to bring him back.

  Maria was a little surprised at how mad she was at Ricky. Oh, she was sad, too. She cried at the wake, and at the funeral, and again at the burial.

  But she left the cemetery that day absolutely determined that whatever it took, she was going to get her mother and Felix out of that neighborhood before anything could happen to him.

  And after all her hard work, and saving money, and sacrificing, here she was, on the floor of an office, with her boss lying on top of her, because some fool took a potshot at her through a window.

  She couldn’t quit. She needed this job. She needed the money.

  But something was definitely going to have to change.

  Fast.

  SIXTEEN

  THE COURT: The record will reflect that the defendant, Mr. Gardiner, has taken the witness stand, and has been sworn. Mr. Gardiner’s attorneys are present, as is Assistant District Attorney Lovell. The jury is not present.

  Now, Mr. Gardiner, as you know, as I’m sure your very capable attorneys have advised you, you have the right to testify in your own defense. And you have the right not to testify. As I’m sure you remember, we went over that decision before you took the stand yesterday.

  However, after you began to testify, it became clear that some of your testimony was, well, I think it’s fair to say that some of us in the courtroom were surprised by your testimony.

  THE DEFENDANT: Yes, sir.

  THE COURT: Yes. So what I’ve decided to do is to interrupt your testimony to hold what we call a competency hearing, just to make sure that you have a sufficient understanding of the proceedings here today, and to make sure that you are fully able to participate and assist your attorneys in your defense. All right?

  THE DEFENDANT: I guess so.

  THE COURT: Fine.

  (Commonwealth v. Gardiner, Volume VI, Pages 10–11)

  Hostage

  IF SHE WAS EVER GOING TO ESCAPE, IT WAS GOING to have to be now. Her kidnapper was virtually unconscious in the other room. His snoring was loud, and constant. He was obviously in a very deep sleep.

  And he was going to have to stay in one, if she was going to get away with this.

  She had to stay focused.

  Forget about focused. She’d be happy if she stayed awake.

  Ironically, the throbbing in her head and the stabbing pains in her stomach—and shoot, her sore shoulders and wrists, too—were helping her fight the fatigue that seemed to be draping itself all over her like a smothering, leaded blanket. It was hard to doze off when you hurt as bad as she did.

  You play the hand you’re dealt. Sooner or later you’ll get new cards.

  She really wished the voices in her head would take a break.

  Happy freakin’ birthday.

  It wouldn’t be so bad if she could remember anything from before the time that crowbar was swinging at her. It was like her identity was hidden behind a thick haze, and all she could hear were these annoying messages and floating words of wisdom.

  A pain ripped through her stomach, jolting her back to the business at hand. She was going to have to get some insulin soon, or her identity wasn’t going to matter.

  The last time she tried to move while tied to the chair, she almost fell right on her face, which would have been the end of her. With her hands tied behind her back, she wouldn’t have been able to protect herself. The way she was feeling, a serious blow like that might have put her out cold.

  And in her condition, if she lost consciousness, she might never regain it.

  She was going to have to be very careful. She looked over her right shoulder at her target and, slowly, tipped forward so that the legs of the chair rose up from the floor. Then she shifted her weight onto the toes of her right foot, swung her left shoulder and hip slightly to the left, and then dropped her weight back down onto her left foot. The impact hurt her head, but she couldn’t let that matter now.

  One step down. Fifteen, maybe twenty, more to go.

  She shifted forward again, and took another step. And then another. Each step was a little easier than the last, and soon she found herself in a kind of a clunky rhythm, shifting left and right, bent over at the waist, chair on her back, shuffling forward agonizingly slowly.

  It was a big risk using up all this energy, when her body was now burning fat at a dangerous rate just to keep her breathing. But she really had no choice. If she didn’t get out of here, she was going to die.

  She could feel a buzzing in her body—maybe it was adrenaline—but so far, she was successfully fighting the fatigue. The headache was there, the stomach cramps were getting more frequent, but, at least for now, she was able to ignore them. Well, most of them. What else could she do? Sit there and cry?

  What really scared her was that she had no idea how much time she had until whatever reserve of energy she was tapping ran out, and she just collapsed from exhaustion. She had to keep moving. Only a few more steps before she was ready to stop.

  And then she was there, finally, sitting directly in front of the long floor lamp that stood so completely uselessly beside the sofa.

  Now came tricky part number one. Two, actually, since walking while tied to a chair had to count as tricky.

  First, she listened for the sound of snoring, which came steady and strong from the next room.

  And then she shifted the chair around so that the lamp was directly behind her.

  This was going to be it. If she could grab hold of the lamp, and then move with it back to where she had fallen against the table, she was going to be able to do this.

  But sometimes these kinds of lamps were so heavy at the base that it wasn’t easy to pick them up even if you weren’t tied to a chair while on the verge of going into diabetic shock.

  She opened her hands and wrapped her fingers tightly around the slim shaft of the lamp. Then she tipped forward, rising once again onto her toes, clasping the lamp as firmly as she could. She could feel the weight of the lamp tug against her hands, but it was so cheap that the base wasn’t as heavy as she thought, and thanks to the laws of physics, and the terror of knowing that within hours she might be dead, she lifted the lamp off the ground. As she leaned forward, preparing to walk again across her prison, it slowly fell forward, so that it was resting on her back.

  But now that she was in position, and ready to move, she realized that her legs were feeling even more heavy than usual. She took a deep breath. She had to make it across the room again. One more time.

  She was so tired. It was entirely possible that she didn’t have it in her to get all the way across. She really needed to rest. Find some more energy.

  But she was afraid to close her eyes, fearing vertigo. If she lost her balance and fell, that would be it. There was no way she’d have enough strength to get herself back up. And now that she was up on her toes, she was also afraid to tip back down again with the lamp in her hands.

  She was just going to have to fight this nearly overwhelming feeling of exhaustion.

  When you can’t do it all, just do a piece of it. Then the next piece. After a while, who knows?

  Good idea, voices. Just a piece. Just a step. One step at a time. Just take one step. Then worry
about the next one.

  She inhaled fully and, for what seemed like the thousandth time, shifted her weight onto her right leg and swung her left shoulder and hip forward.

  And then back to the right.

  One step at a time.

  As she moved forward, at the top of her field of vision, barely in sight through her eyebrows, she could make out the top of the lamp, about three or four feet ahead of her as she lumbered forward. What must she look like? A hunchbacked knight making the slowest charge in the world. On a chair instead of a horse. With a floor lamp for a lance.

  The vision thing was going to be a problem, because the next maneuver was going to require aim.

  One piece at a time. Just reach the table. Then worry about aiming.

  With each step, she saw the distance between her and the table shrinking. A few more lurches forward, and she would be there. Three more. Two.

  One more step.

  Finally, she had returned to the position she had been in minutes ago, essentially pinned up against the table, which itself was pinned up against the wall.

  By now, the headache and the shooting pains in her stomach were old hat. It was the muscles in her hands, fingers, and shoulders that were demanding her attention.

  And oh yeah. She was feeling sicker by the minute. She had to get this tape off her mouth for tons of reasons, but vomiting was high on the list.

  And yet, there were other things to worry about before that. That tape wasn’t going anywhere unless she could finish this job.

  It was the moment of truth. Or the first of many moments.

  One moment at a time.

  She checked the rhythm of the snoring, which stayed steady as ever. If he was still in a deep sleep, this might work. If he wasn’t…

  Thinking like that wasn’t going to do her any good. She paused to catch her breath, looked up at the wall above the table, and sighted her target. The cheap glass wall sconce just hung there, ugly as ever.