A Fever In The Heart

by Rule, Ann

  Gabby had gotten angry, Tuffy testified, and he had tried to calm him by giving him the name of someone who might do it, just to stall.

  “I felt I was trying to talk him out of it.”

  In this new recanted version of events, Tuffy said that Gabby had said he would try to get in touch with this man— another former wrestler of his, but a few years older than Tuffy. Then he had suggested that Joey Watkins might do the shooting.

  “He was talking about having a professional hit man come in and do the job, and I says, ‘No, you are really getting carried away with this.”’

  Tuffy testified he left, only to return a week later to find Gabby more obsessed with his plan to kill Morris. “I said ‘No— and don’t ask me again,’ and he didn’t ask me again.”

  “Okay. Up until which time?”

  “Up until the night Morris got shot.”

  On that Friday night, Tuffy’s revisionist version was that he had come home from college, met Joey Watkins and agreed to a blind date with Joey’s girlfriend’s friend. He then went back to his fiancée’s house. (Tuffy apparently saw nothing wrong with having a pregnant fiancée, and a daughter— and a blind date with another woman.)

  While he was at Rene’s house, he had received a call from Gabby who was in the hospital. “He wouldn’t tell me what was wrong with him. I asked him three or four different times. He said, ‘I’m in the hospital and tonight would be a good night to shoot Morris-if you know what I mean.’”

  “I says, ‘Well, I have got other things planned for tonight. I’m going out tonight for myself and you are just going to have to take care of yourself, and I’ll see you later.’ And I hung up on him.”

  Tuffy testified that he had asked his fiancée to find out which hospital Gabby was in so he could go up and visit him. Then he had kissed his fiancée and left for his blind date. But even though he had met Joey Watkins, he said they had only spent ten minutes talking to the two women. Later, after several trips to Watkins’s house, the Red Lion, the Lion’s Share, and around Yakima in general, Tuffy testified he had met the trio from Pasco and joined their party.

  Joey Watkins had said, “Well, man, things are pretty slow tonight so you might have you a catch over there-so why don’t you just go on. I can take care of myself.”

  There were refinements to Tuffy’s recall of Friday, November 21. Now, he testified that when he had gone home sometime in the evening to borrow some money from his mother, he had met up with his brother Anthony for the second time that night. He said that he told Anthony about Gabby’s phone call instructing him to shoot Morris, and Anthony had agreed with him that it was “odd.”

  Back with the Pasco group now, Tuffy testified they had all gone to the Thunderbird to dance. “We were dancing and I met some people— schoolteachers. Mr. Pryse and another schoolteacher— Mrs. Pryse. She used to be Mrs. Moore.”

  “Anything significant between you and Gay Pryse at this time?” Adam Moore asked, trying to keep this peripatetic story in some kind of order. “Just some small talk, wasn’t it?”

  “Small talk, yes.”

  “You didn’t communicate to her how her husband was acting— or ex-husband, I mean?”

  “No.”

  The quartet had returned to the Red Lion, Tuffy said, and he had finally parted from them after looking for an after-hours place. He had then gone back to Joey Watkins’s house. He was packing his clothes to return to Ellensburg when his brother Anthony came to Joey’s.

  “I saw he had about four cans of beer, and he asked me what I was doing and I told him I was figuring to leave and go up to Ellensburg to a party. And, well, he asked me, ‘Why don’t you-Let’s go riding for a bit and let’s go have a drink.’ … I said. ‘Okay. I will go riding; I will drink a beer with you.’”

  Adam Moore suddenly backed up. He had not asked Tuffy Pleasant about the gun! Now, he did. Tuffy nodded and agreed that he had gotten a gun from his cousin Loretta. But his version of that transaction was vastly different from her statement and from his taped confession. Tuffy testified that he had gone to see Loretta, bought her some groceries, spent the night, and been awakened by— ironically—“ firecrackers going off in the back.”

  “I went to the backyard and she was there looking at the garage door. I saw a couple of holes she was looking at. I don’t know if they came from the gun or not. I saw some potato peelings on the ground and I saw some smashed on her face. Then I asked her whatever she was doing, and she said she was just shooting the gun … I looked at the gun, and says, ‘Well, I will buy it from you’ because earlier in the night she told me she was in debt … She needed money pretty bad to pay some of her debts.”

  “Did you buy it?” Moore asked.

  “No, I didn’t. I just took it from her and I told her I would pay her later. I thought I would make some money in Yakima, you know, make a few extra dollars.”

  “Sell it?”

  “Yes.”

  Tuffy said that he had slipped the gun under the front seat of his car. Under the driver’s side.

  “Did your brother know that?”

  “Well, he knew I had the gun. Earlier when I was down at my girlfriend’s house, I had showed it to him and asked him if he knew anybody that was interested and he said yes, he did.”

  Tuffy specified that Anthony had seen the Colt .22 under the bucket seat of his car a week earlier.

  Adam Moore had brought it all together. The gun. The car. The two brothers. And now, Tuffy explained how he had suddenly become aware that they were “apparently” driving up to Morris Blankenbaker’s house.

  “Why do you say ‘apparently’?”

  “Because my brother asked me to slow down. Eventually, as time went on, I found out it was his house.”

  “He asked me to slow down. He says he wanted to see if Morris was home. I says, ‘This time of the morning, you know, nobody is going to be up. You don’t go visiting at this time in the morning.’”

  But Tuffy said Anthony said he and Morris were “pretty tight” and that he would get up.

  “He saw that the car was missing, and that ‘Morris isn’t home, so apparently he’s at work.’”

  “What happened next?” Adam Moore asked.

  Tuffy gave a long answer about his younger brother’s concern with Gabby and Jerilee— saying that Anthony wanted to talk to Morris about it. He had just assumed that Anthony knew Morris better than he himself did. They had driven by the Lion’s Share and saw Morris come out to his car. And then, at Anthony’s insistence, they had returned to North Sixth Street.

  “We went down the alley and … I saw Morris going through the gate. We were walking a little bit faster, a lighter trot. We were coming around the back of his garage and I had seen Morris just about up to the front of his house and I had called him. I called him, and apparently-”

  Adam Moore cut in quickly. Tuffy Pleasant had unconsciously slipped into the first person.

  “Okay. You called Morris then—or you had called him?”

  “I called him then.”

  Tuffy’s attorney let it go; it was better than drawing attention to the slip. “What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘Morris-’”

  “And what happened next?”

  “Apparently I took it he didn’t hear me, and my brother hollered at him. He said, ‘Morris! Morris!’ … Morris turned around and he saw us and he came back. He said, ‘How are you guys doing?’ And I said, ‘I’m doing all right. How are you doing?’ He said, ‘I’m doing pretty good.’ And I didn’t hear my brother say anything, and then he asked Anthony, ‘How are you doing, Anthony?’ He said, ‘I’m doing all right.’”

  The courtroom was very quiet. Everyone listening knew what was going to come next, and no one wanted to hear it. Whoever had been there, whoever had pulled the trigger, the ending was going to be the same.

  “And then,” Tuffy went on testifying, “there was just a little light conversation. Morris had kind of relaxed himself on the gate and Anthony s
aid, ‘Well, it’s about Jerilee.’ And then Morris kind of stiffened up and told him, ‘Well, I don’t want to hear nothing from you or nobody else about Jerilee, and if I hear anything from you or anybody else about Jerilee, I will see to it they don’t say nothing else.’ And then he kind of stiffened up and took a step toward us.”

  “Did he have anything in his hand?”

  “He had a beer bottle in his hand.”

  “And then what happened, Angelo?”

  “Well, when he took the step, next thing I know it, I heard the shot. I saw some fire, and I saw him turn, I saw his head turn.”

  “Who was holding the gun?”

  “My brother Anthony…”

  “I don’t know if I saw the second shot or not, but I saw some fire and I took off running … down the alley headed north toward my car.”

  “Where was your brother?”

  “He was right behind me. Well, probably not right behind me but I heard his footsteps.”

  Tuffy’s voice was full of emotion as he described how shaken he had been. “I didn’t turn on my car lights … I was scared and I just took off from there and went on down First Street. And I was telling my brother, I said, ‘Look, I don’t know what happened back there. Just don’t tell me nothing,’ and I took the gun from him and I told him, ‘Just don’t tell me nothing, but I’m not going to be able to vouch for you tonight. If you say anything to anybody that I saw you tonight about this time I’m not going to be able to tell them nothing.’”

  “Did you say anything to him about taking the blame?”

  “Yes, I did, I told him if it came down to it, and if my name came up first that I would take it.”

  “Take what?”

  “The blame.”

  Jeff Sullivan had written steadily on the long yellow legal pad in front of him as Tuffy testified. He had seen slight flaws and then widening tears and finally huge gaps in Tuffy’s latest version of the death of Morris Blankenbaker. If Tuffy had been so anxious to protect his younger brother and his best friend, why was he telling it all now placing the blame squarely on their shoulders?

  Sullivan was anxious for the time to come for cross-examination.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Before Jeff Sullivan could cross-examine Tuffy Pleasant about this new scenario on the death of Morris Blankenbaker, he had to sit through a new script about the shooting of Gabby Moore on Christmas Eve.

  Tuffy said he had still visited Gabby and heard the same obsessive discussion about how Gabby would win back Jerilee, the conversation becoming increasingly maudlin as his coach drank bourbon mixed with Pepsi or Kool-Aid— or straight, if he had nothing else. The more he drank, Tuffy testified, the more hostile Gabby became. Interestingly, Tuffy himself seemed to have become hostile too— hounded as he was by Gabby.

  “Angelo, how would you characterize Gabby Moore’s demeanor when he would discuss with you his situation with Jerilee?”

  “I would say it wasn’t working out too good … You couldn’t say nothing to him. He would just get upset or holler at you.”

  “Did he cry?”

  “I saw him cry one time-one time earlier. And then the night that he was shot.”

  “Okay, let’s talk about Christmas Eve. Let’s start in the morning.”

  Tuffy moved through his day, going into agonizing detail about all of his visits with Rene, his family, his cousins. He finally arrived at the evening hours when he was at a party at Stoney Morton’s house.

  “Who was there?”

  “Stoney, his lady friend, my brother Anthony, Stoney’s younger brother … I was there … We were sitting down and looking at a game on TV and drinking a little bit. There was this knock at the door … and it was Kenny Marino.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “He came in. He didn’t say ‘Hi’ or nothing. He just said, ‘Angelo, Mr. Moore would like to see you up at his house as soon as possible.’ And I told him, I says, ‘Look, now don’t be ordering me like that. I’m out here trying to visit people and I’m just not going to up and run and go visit somebody else just because they ask somebody to come see where I’m at.’ And he said, ‘Mr. Moore would like to see you as soon as possible.’ And I said, ‘Well, I see him when I get around to seeing him … I’m not going to rush for nobody.’ “

  He testified that Kenny had left after “cussing him out.” Tuffy said that Mr. Moore had called him at Rene’s house, saying, ‘Tonight’s the night if you know what I mean.’

  “I said I didn’t know, and he says, ‘Why don’t you come up and find out?’ I was getting ready to take my lady friend out but it was eating away at me, so I talked with my lady and then I left and went on up to Mr. Moore’s house.”

  “What time did you get there, Angelo?”

  “Between eight-thirty and nine.”

  Gabby had been dressed nicely, Tuffy testified, and he had kicked off his shoes and told Tuffy to pour himself a drink. Tuffy testified that Moore had said that he couldn’t wait any longer, that this was the night he wanted himself shot.

  “He asked me if I would do it … I told him, no, I’m not going to do it. And he says, ‘Yes, you are. You’re going to do it.’ “

  “How did he want himself shot?”

  “High in the shoulder, left shoulder. He wanted an attempt to be made on his life. He figured that was the only thing— if it was made on his life like it was made on Morris, he figured he could get Jerilee back in a couple of weeks or even before the first of January.”

  Although Tuffy had insisted he would not shoot Gabby, he testified that Gabby said, ‘Well, I’ll see to it that you get the blame for Morris Blankenbaker’s shooting.’ And I didn’t tell him I didn’t do it. I didn’t want nobody else to know [about Anthony] not even him— nobody … And he says, ‘Well, I will see to it that your neck is on the chopping block for Morris’s death.’ And I says-well, I don’t know what I really said. I was kind of quiet. He asked me if I knew where the gun was-was it close, and I said it was nowhere around here. And he said I was lying … I said. ‘I don’t know where the gun is-it’s gone. It’s a long ways from here … ’”

  Gabby had said he would gas up his car, Tuffy testified. “I said, ‘It’s a long way from here and it’s buried.’” That, he said, didn’t stop Gabby, who said they could take a shovel. When Tuffy still refused, he said Gabby had picked up the phone book and showed him the police number.

  “He dialed the digits down to the last one. He asked me if I was going to do it … I said, ‘I’m not going to do it,’ and he dialed the last digit and so I says, ‘Okay. I will do it.’”

  Tuffy said he still thought he could talk Gabby out of it until he dialed that last digit, and then he realized his old coach “wasn’t playing.”

  Vern Henderson had heard this before. He wondered what spin Tuffy was going to put on it this time. So far, it was almost verbatim with that was on the tapes. Yes, Gabby was going to “put down” a lot of whiskey while Tuffy went for the gun— just as it had been in the first confession.

  “I told him,” Tuffy was saying, ‘You can’t take the shot, because I don’t think even I could’ and I felt I was a little bit stronger than he— just on street strength-wise. But he was a bigger man than I was and I told him, ‘I don’t think you could take the shot.’ I was trying my best to talk him out of it. And he said, ‘No, this is what I want and this is the only way to get Jerilee back.”’

  Gabby had accused Tuffy of stalling for time. Gabby had ordered him, “Go get the gun.”

  “Did you go get the gun?”

  “Yes, but I told him that he was talking crazy, completely crazy.”

  Now, as Jeff Sullivan and Vern Henderson listened for the slightest straying from the tapes, they heard Tuffy veer off.

  “What happened then?”

  “I had parked in front of another car, and I was waiting, talking to myself. I says, ‘Well, I’m not going to do it no matter what, but I will take the gun in and show it to him anyway, just
to see if it would calm him down— and see if I can talk to him a little bit more.’”

  But while he was waiting, Tuffy said he honked twice, and he had seen his brother Anthony and a friend drive by. Then they went in Moore’s house.

  “Did you go in the house?”

  “Yes.”

  In this version, Tuffy said that he had tried to get his brother and his friend to help him get Gabby out of the house, to go visiting or to a tavern. But it didn’t work. Gabby was “as drunk as I’ve ever seen him. He was swaying back and forth. He could hardly stand.”

  After the others had left, Gabby took off his shirt, his shoes, and started talking about Jerilee. He broke out his photo albums. He was single-minded about what he wanted done.

  Emotions washed across Tuffy Pleasant’s face as he testified. There was little question that he was remembering a desperate night. There was a question about whether he was confabulating— taking a real event and rewriting it so that it emerged in a manner favorable to him. He could not have been making this monologue up; he didn’t seem that sophisticated. But it was quite possible he was weaving self-serving “memories” into what had really happened at Gabby Moore’s apartment on Christmas Eve.

  The phone rang twice, but Gabby wouldn’t say who it was. Tuffy said that Kenny Marino had appeared a short time later. But Kenny had stayed in the house while Tuffy was walking Gabby around the backyard. Tuffy testified that he’d managed to get his coach out in the backyard for air only to have Gabby order him to shoot him there. Tuffy said he refused and Gabby stumbled back into the house.

  “Where was the gun?” Adam Moore asked.

  “In the house— on the right side of the daveno on the floor. I was kind of upset because he [Gabby] saw where I put the gun because he was looking right at me when I put it down there. I don’t know if he was in a daze or looking past me.”