She hated the thought of talking to him about his father’s murder. She had to do it, though, for his sake if nothing else. If he did kill his father, she knew he’d have to deal with it or he would constantly be at risk for suicide. Her dilemma was what she would do with the information. She had taken an oath to not reveal a client’s confidence and yet she couldn’t let Bob go to prison for murder. It wasn’t only that she would lose her license to practice or that her client would get convicted. She really believed in the system, a system that protected the attorney-client privilege.
When Marcus finished his hamburger, Sabre said, “Marcus, I want you to think back to the day before your father was killed. It would’ve been a Thursday. What did you do that day?” Sabre and JP had agreed earlier that Sabre would ask the questions. She knew Marcus better and thought he’d be more comfortable with her. JP was to chime in if she missed anything.
“I went to school. I had detention that day because I got in trouble in class.”
“What about after school?” Sabre asked.
“My mom came to visit but she didn’t stay very long. She was really mad at my dad.”
“Do you know what she was angry about?”
“I don’t know. She just said he always messed things up and she wasn’t going to let him mess things up anymore.” Marcus fiddled with his french fries and then stuck one in his mouth.
“Do you know what she meant by that?”
Marcus swallowed his food. “She said she was going to get some money and get us back. She said all it took to keep your kids was to have money.”
“Did anyone else hear her say those things?”
“No, we were in my room, just the two of us.”
“Where was everyone else?”
“Frank wasn’t home and Grandma had one of her headaches and was lying down.”
“Where was Riley?” Sabre asked.
“Riley saw her when she first came in, but he told her he didn’t want to see her when she was drunk.”
“Was she drunk?”
He looked a little embarrassed. “I don’t know. I think so.”
“What happened after your mom left?” Sabre asked.
“I played video games in my room until Frank came home and made dinner. After we ate, we cleaned off the table and loaded the dishwasher like we always do.”
“Does Frank usually make dinner?” JP asked.
Marcus nodded. “Most of the time. And he helps clean up. Grandma has a lot of headaches and Frank says he likes to cook. He’s teaching me.”
“What did you do after dinner?” Sabre asked.
Marcus thought for a second. “Same as always. Frank and Grandma watched TV and me and Riley went to our rooms. Riley always has homework. I’m glad I don’t have that much.”
“Did you see anyone before you went to bed?”
“Frank came up and told us to go to bed about nine-thirty. That was it.”
“Marcus, have you ever sneaked out of your grandma’s house at night?”
“No,” he answered without hesitation. “I’ve thought about it a few times, but I don’t know the alarm code and if I set the alarm off Frank would be furious. He says he’ll give it to me when I’m Riley’s age and responsible. Besides, he says I’m too young to be home alone anyway, so why do I need it.”
“I’m going to ask you a tough question,” Sabre said, “but I need you to tell me the truth. Do you think you can do that?”
Marcus nodded. Sabre wanted to give him the “confidentiality speech” assuring him that anything he said would be kept in confidence. But was she going to keep his confidence? She was conflicted in her own mind as to what she would do with the information and she just couldn’t get that speech to come out.
“Do you know who killed your dad?”
Marcus squirmed in his chair. “Was it my mom?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because she was so mad at him.”
Chapter 47
JP and Detective Olen Williams sat at a small table at Winchell’s Donuts on Rosecrans. The table held JP’s coffee and in front of Olen was a large cup of black coffee and a plate with two donuts. JP wondered how Olen stayed so thin.
“I wish we had a Dunkin’ Donuts around here, but Winchell’s is good too,” Olen said. I don’t go for all this fancy coffee and bagels crap. Give me a good old-fashioned glazed or cake donut any day.”
”I’m with you on the coffee. I haven’t joined the Starbucks fan club.” JP smiled. “By the way, thanks for meeting with me this morning.”
Olen wolfed down his first donut. “No problem. Do you really think your friend is innocent?”
“I’m as sure as night follows day.”
“I know that attorney, Ms. Brown, believes in him, too. I followed up on everyone we have questioned so far in this child sex ring, and I’m sorry to say you may need to start looking elsewhere. We just took Jaleel and Sammy out of the lineup. They were both in the police station all night the night of the murder. There was a ruckus downtown at a bar and there were a whole lot of people brought in for questioning. Jaleel and Sammy were two of them. As it turned out, they weren’t involved, but neither of them could have killed Foreman.”
“So that leaves Chris and Tuffy.”
“Chris’s cousin says he was with him all night, which may or may not be true. His cousin is a little older and seems pretty responsible, but he could be covering for him. And as for Tuffy, we still don’t know who he is. We’ve offered Sammy and Jaleel pretty good deals but neither of them are talking.”
“Have you found Chris yet?”
“No, which makes him more suspect. We’ll find him and he’ll pay for his crimes. Do you think he would deal with us?”
“Oh, I think he’d give Tuffy up in a heartbeat to avoid going to prison, but I doubt if he has ever met him or ever heard his real name. Did you get anything from his cell phone?”
“Not really. We know they buy the disposable phones, but we haven’t found any calls that lead us to Tuffy. The text messages come from a computer. We’ve traced the IP address to wireless accounts like Starbucks, McDonalds, and other WiFi connections.”
“And you have no other leads on Tuffy?”
“Nope. We’re hitting walls everywhere we go. He’s like a phantom and as good as he is at eluding us, he could very well be your killer. I really want that scumbag off the streets. He can go to prison and be somebody’s bitch and see how he likes it.”
***
JP was frustrated that they had lost so many of their likely suspects. After the conversation with Marcus yesterday, he was pretty certain he didn’t do it based on the way he responded when asked if he knew who killed his dad. Also, there’s no way he could’ve sneaked out of Frank’s house without setting off the alarm. When JP dropped Marcus off at his house, he confirmed with Frank that Marcus didn’t know the code.
He was glad Marcus was no longer on their list, not only for the kid’s sake but for Sabre’s as well. But the more suspects they eliminated, the more Bob looked guilty. That left Dana, Chris, and Tuffy. He had nowhere to go on Tuffy; he just had to count on Olen to find him. For that matter, he couldn’t think of anything else he could do about Dana. He couldn’t even talk to her, but he could talk to Riley. He called Sabre to get the go-ahead and then drove to see Riley.
Riley was in his art class, which was just about to break. JP approached him before he left the class. “Can you talk a minute?”
“Yes,” he said, picking up his drawing pad.
JP managed a quick glance at a drawing of a tarantula with full detail of his face and body. “Wow, that’s really good. Did you do that?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I see some of the others?” JP asked.
Riley tucked the pad under his arm. “They’re really not that good. That was the best one.”
“No problem,” JP said, as they walked out of the classroom together.
Riley directed him to a bench near the a
rt department. “We can talk here.”
“I need to ask you about the night before your father died. I understand your mother came to see you. Is that correct?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“Just for a minute.”
JP knew Riley wouldn’t be very talkative. He never was, but he was hoping to get a little more than he was getting. “Tell me what happened that night, starting from the time your mom arrived at your house.”
“Not much happened. Mom came in and gave me a hug before she went to see Marcus. She spent most of her time with him. I was in my room doing homework when she left. Then we ate dinner and I went back to my room.”
“Had your mother been drinking?” JP asked.
Riley shrugged but didn’t respond at first. JP waited. Finally, Riley said, “I think I smelled alcohol on her.” Riley stood up, “Can I go now? I need to get to class.”
JP knew it was hard for Riley to talk about either of his parents. He seemed to want to put everything behind him and move forward. JP didn’t really blame him. That’s exactly what he would’ve done if he were in his shoes. Riley was doing well in school, had made a lot of friends, and generally seemed to fit in well at his grandma’s house. It was interesting how the boys had reacted so differently to the same situation, but poor Marcus was so troubled. JP wondered how much this kid had endured when his father was alive. He was pretty certain it was a lot more than they knew about.
***
JP drove back to his house. Louie, JP’s beagle, came running up to him. He reached down and petted him. Louie ran around in circles, jumping up and down against JP’s legs. JP took a few steps into the house and Louie ran off, grabbed his pink flamingo, and brought it back to JP. Louie’s head was flipping from side to side, the pink flamingo dangling from his mouth. When Louie tired of that game, he ran and retrieved another item he had been chewing on and dropped it at JP’s feet.
JP picked up the bedraggled, shredded piece of nylon that was once a leash.
“Louie, what did you do?”
Louie just wagged his tail.
“You silly boy. I can’t take you for walks with that piece of string.” JP playfully batted him around a few times, picked up his file on the Foreman case, and he and Louie went out in the backyard. He threw a Frisbee for Louie, who ran and caught it in the air. After about thirty throws JP laid the Frisbee down and Louie looked up at him with big, sad eyes.
JP took a seat in a lounge chair and opened the file. He started reading from the beginning of the case. He combed through the social study and every report he had written for Sabre, as well as the summaries Sabre had provided. He compared her notes to his, looking for discrepancies in the case.
He reached down to Louie, gently scratched the dog's head, and said, “Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit, Louie. I know how to find out who Tuffy is.”
Chapter 48
Ludwik Bernard Sampulski welcomed JP into his home and offered him tea. JP declined the tea but sat with him at his table while the old man drank his.
“I’m sure you didn’t come by just to visit, young man. Is Sammy out of jail yet?”
“No, he’s still in custody. There’ve been more charges filed on him. Pretty bad charges, I’m afraid.”
“Such a waste of a good mind. He’s brilliant, you know?”
For a minute JP thought Ludwik was talking about someone else. The Sammy he had met didn’t strike him as brilliant. In fact, he found him to be about as bright as a burnt-out light bulb in a dark room with no windows.
“He could have been a doctor if he’d wanted to be. He never had to study and he was an avid reader. There’s not a classic that boy hadn’t read by the time he was in middle school. He would get nearly perfect scores on his state tests at school, but he was so lazy.” He sighed. “And so troubled.”
“He was that smart?”
“He was, but you’d never know it now. And now he sits in jail and not even for something he used his mind for. He called me when he was arrested. Collect, of course. I accepted the call and I talked to him, but I refused to help him. I don’t know if it was the right thing to do or not, but at some point a boy has to become a man and handle his own problems.”
“I think you did the right thing, Ludwik. He’s been doing some pretty bad things. He’s been selling marijuana to young kids.”
“Oh, no! I’ve begged him over and over again to not use drugs. And to sell them to kids! That’s horrible.”
“It’s worse than that. He was running some scams using kids to help him make money. He told me he started doing it with a guy named Tuffy. Have you ever met anyone with that name or did Sammy every mention him?”
He shook his head from side to side. “I don’t believe so.”
“I’m here to ask for your help and I need it desperately. Here’s the problem we’re dealing with: I have a very good friend who has been charged with murder. He’s innocent. I know that, and I can’t bear to see him spend the rest of his life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. He has a wife and young child and he’s a good man who made the mistake of helping the wrong person.”
Ludwik listened. His face filled with compassion as JP made his plea.
“The man who was murdered also ran scams with Sammy. The dead man had been using his own eleven-year-old son to extort money from men who wanted time with little boys.”
“Do you think Sammy murdered someone?”
“No, I don’t,” JP answered quickly. “But there’s a good chance Tuffy did. The problem is that your son is the only person who knows who Tuffy is, and he won’t talk. I’d like to look in Sammy’s room and see if anything helps me figure out who Tuffy really is.”
Ludwik didn’t answer right away. He had a faraway look in his eyes as if he were remembering a better time, perhaps a time when Sammy was an innocent child.
“Ludwik, I’m sure your heart must go out to Sammy, but you are more than a father. You are also a good, compassionate man with a strong sense of justice. I’m certain you don’t want to see an innocent man convicted of murder.”
Ludwik stood up and walked over to the shelf where the Mason jar sat, the jar that contained the dirt he had retrieved when he first set foot on American soil. He sat back down and opened the jar. With his right hand he reached in and took out a little dirt and placed it in his left palm. With his right index finger and thumb he rubbed it around gently and deliberately as if it were flakes of gold.
“From the moment I picked this dirt up I wanted to take it to Poland and place it on my father’s grave so he could have a little piece of the America he so wanted to be a part of. But over the years I think I needed this dirt more than he did. It brought me through many tough times. When I had hard decisions to make or when I wanted to give up or felt sorry for myself, I would hold a little dirt in my hand and think of my father. Every time I look at this dirt I’m reminded how lucky I am to be a free man, to have opportunities so many people don’t have, and to be able to make choices, the very things my father wanted for me. The things I wanted for my son. My father would boast of one day coming to America. He dreamed of the land where there was ‘liberty and justice for all.’ He would say, ‘Son, when we go to America we will embrace its laws and customs and we will become good American citizens.’ He believed as I do that with freedom comes great responsibility. It doesn’t mean we are free to hurt people and my son has hurt so many people. I’m glad my father isn’t here to see what his grandson, his namesake, has become.”
Ludwik poured the dirt back in the jar and carefully brushed the few remaining grains in as well. “I will help you get justice.”
“You need to know that what I find may not be good for Sammy.”
“It will be good for Sammy to take responsibility for his actions.” He stood up. “Come with me. I don’t know if you’ll find anything, but I’ll show you his room.”
They walked down the short hallway and into a small bedroom. The be
d was neatly made but the desk had papers and junk piled next to the computer. Video games were stacked haphazardly on shelves and on the small table next to the bed.
“I apologize for the mess. I fix his bed when he leaves and pick up his clothes but the rest of his stuff I just leave alone.” He pointed to the desk. “There’s his computer.”
“Thanks,” JP said. “Do you know if he has a laptop?”
“He had one, but I don’t know if he still does. The last few times he has been home I don’t think he had it with him. In fact, I think a lot of times he comes home it’s just to use the computer. He wanted to take it with him, but I told him no. I guess I thought he wouldn’t come home at all if the computer wasn’t here. Each time I hope he has grown up, but then things like this happen and I wonder if he’ll ever grow up.” Ludwik stepped toward the door. “Take whatever time you need,” he said and walked out.
JP looked at the items piled on his dresser: game cards, old copies of Fight magazine, super hero comics, a comb, video games, and Zig Zag roll-your-own papers. He opened each drawer and found only clothes. The small closet was jammed with shoes, action toys, and two bongs. From the closet rod hung a long pea coat and a windbreaker, a pair of dress pants, a white dress shirt, a black hoodie, and numerous t-shirts. Several of the t-shirts contained the Tapout logo. The hoodie had “The Ultimate Fighter” logo across the front.
JP moved to the computer. Sammy must have expected to return sooner or he was just careless because his email program was still open. JP rummaged through his emails looking for some sign of Tuffy, but no clue emerged. JP knew his way around the computer but he was no expert and certainly no hacker. All he could do was check what was in plain sight. He looked at Sammy’s history. It listed martial arts and video game websites, particularly The Ultimate Fighter. The only other thing in his recent history was his MySpace account. He clicked it on; Sammy’s username and password had been saved so the program opened right up. His home page was covered with martial arts graphics. The man was obsessed. His list of friends all seemed to be “warrior” related. Sammy bragged on his posts about his prowess as a fighter, telling in great detail about his experiences in the ring. JP chuckled. What a dreamer Sammy was. He was no more a fighter than the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
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