The handcuffs were taken off me. While I was pinned to the ground, my right arm was forced out and then bent so my hand was against the side of my face. A gun was shoved into my hand, and my hand held in place with the barrel pushed hard against my temple. Other fingers were on my trigger finger, applying pressure. I had to fight like hell to keep from pulling the trigger.
Dan said, ‘Manny’s still around. You promised me he’d be gone by morning. I’m getting sick of you breaking your promises.’
I was losing the fight. I could feel the trigger being pulled in. I had only seconds left.
‘So long, Joe,’ Dan said. ‘Believe it or not, I am sorry about this.’
My mouth was being pushed into the dirt, but somehow I spat out that Manny was being taken care of.
The pressure on my finger was relaxed. Someone grabbed my hair and yanked my head up. I started gagging, spitting out the dirt I’d been forced to swallow. After I could breathe, I opened my eyes and saw that Dan had moved over to me. He was squatting, sort of sitting on his heels as he considered me.
‘How is Manny being taken care of?’ he asked.
‘He’s going to be overdosed with morphine.’
‘And how is that going to happen?’
‘His nurse—’
‘Joe, you’re lying to me again—’
‘Dan, it’s true. I’ve been seeing her. It’s all set.’
‘And why would a nurse do this for you?’
‘She has no choice.’
‘Why would that be?’
‘Look, can you get them off me? My neck and shoulders are killing me.’
‘Not yet. Answer my question, Joe. Why does this nurse friend of yours have no choice?’
‘She’s done it before where she used to work.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘I played out a hunch and spoke to the Chief of Surgery at her old hospital. He suspects her of killing four of her patients.’
‘Sounds unbelievable, Joe.’
‘It’s true.’
‘How come she’s not in prison?’
‘It’s hard to prove. The patient ends up dying of respiratory failure, and nothing specific to a morphine overdose will show up in the autopsy.’
His eyes shifted, and I could tell he was starting to take me seriously. ‘How come she hasn’t gotten rid of Manny yet?’ he asked.
‘She needs some time,’ I said. I was grunting now because of the pain. It felt like nails were being hammered into my shoulder blades. ‘She has to siphon off enough morphine from other patients to do the job. This way she doesn’t have to tamper with the machines and there’s no evidence of anything.’
‘I don’t get it. How does she overdose him without leaving a needle mark?’
‘She injects the morphine into the IV tubing.’
That brought a smile to his face. ‘What’s her name?’
‘You don’t need to know.’
A shadow fell over his eyes as he nodded to his boys. All at once my trigger finger was being pulled back.
‘Charlotte Boyd,’ I forced out.
I struggled for another few seconds and the pressure stopped.
‘I might be giving you a reprieve, Joe,’ Dan said. ‘I’m not promising anything, but we’ll see.’
He stood up and then my head was forced back into the dirt. I could hear one of his deputies breathing hard as I was held down. Not only was he breathing hard, he was beginning to perspire, his sweat dripping on me. I had no idea which of the three it was, but whoever, I hoped to hell he’d drop dead of a heart attack.
Dan must’ve gotten on his cell phone. He started yelling, ‘Goddam it, Harold, I’m sheriff of this county, I have a right to be at that meeting… Well, I at least have the right to know when it is… Fuck you, after all the favors I’ve done for you over the years?… All right, then.’
I could hear his boots kicking up gravel as he walked back to me. My head was yanked up again, and I saw Dan sitting on his heels, smiling pleasantly.
‘So, Joe, when is dear Charlotte going to do the deed?’
‘Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow morning. It depends how long it takes to siphon off enough morphine to fill up a syringe.’
‘Why should that take any time?’
‘If the other patients have too much morphine taken out of their IV bags, it will raise suspicion.’
Dan sat on his heels for a good minute as he thought it over. Then he nodded at me. ‘Okay, Joe,’ he said. ‘You got your reprieve.’
He stood up and told his boys to let me go.
The gun was taken out of my hand, and they removed their knees from my neck and back. It took me a while before I could push myself up onto my hands and knees. My neck and shoulders still hurt like hell, but I no longer felt as if nails were being driven into my joints. I got myself flipped around so I was sitting on the ground.
‘You have any aspirin?’ I asked.
Dan shook his head, his eyes amused. ‘Sorry, Joe. I don’t carry any around with me.’ He turned to his deputies. ‘You boys have any?’ None of them bothered to move.
Dan turned back to me. ‘Sorry, Joe, doesn’t look like anyone’s got any.’ He let loose a long, disappointed sigh. ‘I had it all worked out for today, Joe. I wrote such a nice suicide note for you. Do you want to hear it?’
I shook my head.
‘Too bad. I’m pretty damn proud of it. I had you sending Frechotte to the Green Valley Motor Lodge hoping he’d kill Coakley. I also had you taking responsibility for Billy Ferguson’s murder and a couple of others. But in the end, you couldn’t live with what you’d done.’
‘Who else was I supposed to have killed?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘So that’s what Manny has on you.’
He ignored that. ‘Let’s get back to the business on hand. You heard me on the cell phone, right? You know who I was talking to?’
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘Grayson’s been putting me off,’ he said, somewhat bitterly. ‘I’ve been calling him all morning. The prick finally let me know that Vassey’s deal is being pushed back to Friday. I guess with the shooting yesterday, our DA friend’s tied up until then.
‘So here’s where we stand,’ he continued. ‘I want to see Manny gone by tomorrow morning. That’s your final deadline. No more reprieves. Understood?’
I nodded. I was rubbing my arms, trying to get some feeling back into them. I asked him how he had planned to explain all my bruises and cuts with a suicide.
‘Look behind you, Joe,’ he said, smiling as pleasantly as ever.
I turned and saw an eighty-foot drop to the bottom of the quarry.
‘We’d toss you over after putting a bullet in your skull. No one would care too much about any bruises or scratches after that. But you know, Joe, even if we didn’t toss you down there, I don’t think anyone would really care.’
‘How about those two cops in Stowe? They were going to go along with a suicide?’
‘You should know me well enough to answer that one. Joe, let’s hope I don’t have to see you tomorrow, okay?’
He hesitated for a second, a glint of humor in his eyes. ‘Just out of curiosity,’ he asked, ‘what happened to your face? One of my boys do that?’
I shook my head. ‘I got sucker-punched.’
‘Anyone I know?’
‘I don’t think so.’
His eyes narrowed as he studied at me. ‘You should see a doctor and have your nose set properly before it’s too late.’
‘Thanks for your concern.’
He laughed at that. All of them turned then and started off towards their cars. I struggled to my feet and hobbled a couple of steps forward.
‘Can you have one of your boys drive me back to my motel?’ I yelled out to Dan.
Without looking back, he answered that I only had a fifteenmile walk and that it would do me some good to have some time alone to reflect on my situation. I watched as they got in their cars and d
rove off.
The first mile was the worst, but after that I started to loosen up. I had a bunch of scrapes and cuts, and my shirt – my last clean one – was ripped and pretty much a mess. No real damage was done, though. Once my muscles had a chance to loosen up I was okay.
I spent almost four hours walking back to the ski lodge. A few dozen cars passed me along the way. I tried thumbing for a ride, but no one bothered to stop. That was okay. It gave me a chance to think. And I have to give Dan credit. He was right, I needed that time alone to reflect on things. During the walk back I came up with a plan. It wasn’t anything new. For the most part it was what I had already come up with to get back at Junior. I wasn’t sure my plan would work, but even if it didn’t, it would let me go out with a bang.
Chapter 18
The desk clerk seemed surprised to see me. They had already cleared out my room, and he had to get my duffel bag out of a storage closet. As he handed it to me, he was eyeing my cuts and bruises with some curiosity. I answered the question that seemed stuck on his lips.
‘Those cops who took me out of here this morning tried to kill me,’ I said.
‘Really?’
‘Damn straight. I’m lucky to be alive.’
‘No shit?’
‘No shit.’
As I said before, I didn’t care anymore. Word would spread about those two cops, and as far as I was concerned, they deserved whatever they ended up getting. I took my duffel bag to my car and headed towards Bradley. Along the way, I stopped off at the Eastfield Mall and bought a shirt and pair of pants. I wore my new clothes out of the store, and cleaned up the best I could in the mall’s rest room.
After that I found a diner and had three cheeseburgers and a milkshake. It was like I had this bottomless hole that I couldn’t fill. I probably could’ve had a couple more cheeseburgers, but I stopped after three. Before leaving I called Craig, apologizing for missing my parole meeting with him the other day, and scheduling another meeting for later in the afternoon. I also called an attorney in Bradley, Jim Pierce, and was able to set up an appointment for within the hour. I still had enough time before the appointment to drive down to the old tannery.
The tannery had been shut down for almost sixty years, and it lay empty until Manny bought it fifteen years ago and moved his bookie operations there. In some ways it made sense – the building is as out of the way in Bradley as you can get – but I often wondered what he wanted all that space for.
The roads leading to the tannery were in rough shape. I guess during the past fifteen years only Manny and his employees ever bothered to drive down them. After twenty minutes of bouncing around, I got to the building.
From the outside the old tannery looked pretty dilapidated. There were half a dozen cars parked alongside it – more than I would’ve expected. I drove around the building until I got to a pair of dumpsters. In no time at all I found what I was looking for – empty boxes and containers of pseudoephedrine, iodine, acetone, methanol, and other ingredients necessary for manufacturing crystal meth. I suspected that that was behind Junior’s push to acquire college clubs. Not only was he manufacturing crystal meth, he was acquiring distribution outlets so he could unload his junk without having to deal with a retailer.
Nobody saw me going through the dumpsters; at least, if they did see me no one bothered doing anything about it. When I was done, I got in my car and headed back towards downtown Bradley.
I arrived at Jim Pierce’s office a few minutes before our scheduled appointment, and his receptionist had me take a seat and wait. Next to Harold Grayson, Jim’s probably the best we’ve got. When I was a cop I saw him plenty of times arguing ridiculous bald-faced lies in court without missing a beat, and more times than not convincing the juries to buy them.
After fifteen minutes Jim came out to greet me, and led me back to his office. His attitude towards me seemed curious, and when he got behind his desk he leaned back and pursed his lips while he studied me.
‘You look like you’ve been run over by a truck,’ he said.
‘It’s nothing. I tripped and fell, that’s all.’
He knew that was a load of crap, but he didn’t care enough to pursue it. ‘It’s been a long time, Joe. What can I help you with?’
‘I need to hire a lawyer.’
‘Why me? Isn’t Harold Grayson your lawyer?’
‘He’s not available.’
He raised his eyebrows at that. ‘The two of you have a falling out?’
‘No, nothing like that.’ I paused, and then said, ‘There’s a conflict of interest.’
‘If you want to hire me my rates are one hundred and fifty an hour.’ He checked his watch. ‘You’re on the clock now. What’s the problem?’
I went straight into it and told him about Manny, the deal he was making with Phil, and what he was going to confess to. During it all, Jim leaned back in his chair bug-eyed as he listened to me.
‘So you’re saying Manny Vassey, to protect his son, will be alleging you murdered Ferguson?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘He told me.’
‘He just came right out and volunteered this to you?’
‘Yeah.’ I smiled weakly. ‘I visited him a couple of days ago at the hospital and he let it leak.’
Jim’s eyes widened as he considered what I was saying.
‘So what do you think?’ I asked. ‘How badly will his confession hurt me?’
He rubbed his chin as he thought it over. Matter-of-factly he said, ‘As you probably know a deathbed confession is an exclusion to the hearsay rule. If he does confess there’s nothing I would be able to do to keep it out of court. Is there any other evidence you know of that could support his allegations?’
‘His son, Junior, paid off a friend of mine, Earl Kelley, to write this.’
I had Earl’s affidavit with me and I handed it to him. As he read through the document, I realized that there was more. If Dan could make a deal and slice a few years off whatever sentence he was going to end up with, he’d do it in a heartbeat. He’d tell about the thirty thousand dollars’ worth of bets a bookie told him I made after Billy Ferguson’s murder. Thinking about that made me sick to my stomach.
Jim finished the affidavit and put it down. His expression didn’t look too hopeful.
‘This Kelley’s a friend of yours?’ he asked.
‘Yeah.’
‘Maybe you need to make yourself some new friends.’
‘Maybe, but Junior made it well worth his while to write that.’
‘If I were to depose Kelley, any chance he’d recant and admit to perjuring himself?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Anything you could say to him to help convince him?’
I shook my head. ‘How bad is this for me?’
‘I could argue that both Vassey’s confession and this affidavit are self-serving, but I think I’d only be wasting my breath. Odds are pretty good you’ll end up being convicted of first-degree murder.’
‘Why would they buy Vassey’s confession? He’s a goddam criminal.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Deathbed confessions carry more weight with a jury than you could imagine. It’s the psychology of it. Why would a dying person lie and risk purgatory? I know it’s silly, but that’s the way juries think.’
‘What about the deal he’s making to protect Junior from prosecution?’
‘I don’t think that would matter much. To be honest, the biggest problem we’ll have is you. Face it, Joe, people here think you got off too easy for what you did to Phil Coakley. Now Phil wouldn’t be trying the case against you, I’m sure one of his assistants would handle it, but he’d be sitting at the prosecutor’s table each day reminding the jury what you did to him. They’ll be looking for any excuse they can to send you back to prison. It’s not fair, but that’s the way it is.’
‘What if you moved the trial to another state?’
He shrugged. ‘I c
ould try for a change of venue, but I don’t think I’d be successful with that.’
‘Why not?’
He gave a half-hearted shrug. ‘I know the judges who’d be hearing this. They’ve all been having to live with Phil’s scars these past years. I don’t think there’s a chance they’d give you any kind of break, let alone a change of venue.’
Of course, I knew it wouldn’t matter where the trial was held. Once Dan told what he thought he knew, I’d be sunk.
Jim showed me an uneasy smile. ‘The one thing you have going for you is life without parole is seldom given in Vermont. I know of only half a dozen defendants who’ve gotten that.’
As I looked at him his smile faded. We both knew that I would be added to that select group.
‘So that’s it, huh?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know what else to tell you, Joe. If charges are brought against you and you want me to represent you, I’d be happy to do it but I’ll need to see eighty thousand dollars in escrow before I can sign on.’
‘I don’t have that type of money.’
He showed another half-hearted shrug. ‘I’m sorry, Joe, I won’t be able to help you, then. But I’m sure the court will appoint you a capable public defender.’
As I got up to leave, he checked his watch.
‘Joe, we’ve been talking for twenty minutes. Usually I charge in fifteen minute intervals, but why don’t we call it even at fifty dollars? You can pay my receptionist on your way out.’
I took fifty bucks out of wallet and tossed the money on his desk.
It was pretty much what I expected. I don’t know why I wasted my time and money with the meeting, but it didn’t matter. The only effect it had on me was making me more resolute to carry out the plan I had settled on.
Small Crimes Page 20