Love, Lies, and Murder

by Gary C. King

  “Really?” Farris asked. He wanted to know which administrator was Perry’s “friend.”

  “The long-haired fellow,” Perry replied. “He’s a case administrator of the jail. You didn’t know this?”

  “Uh-uh!” Farris responded.

  “When I first got here, he came up and introduced himself,” Perry said. “You know what he told me? He said, ‘You know my wife, Cheri?’ And I said, ‘I do,’ ” Perry explained that she had worked for him when he was at Vanderbilt and on the Law Review. “You know what that is?” he asked Nate.

  “Who?”

  “Law Review?”

  “No.”

  “Law Review is the top, top students in the . . . school.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” Perry responded. “I was smart, and we’d write magazines. The Vanderbilt Law Review, it’s a magazine and publisher, and we have a staff and everything, it’s published. Anyway, his wife was my secretary.”

  “For real?”

  “When I was [a] third-year law student, I was the editor of [it]. I was number one in the Law Review. . . . Anyway, so I was really nice to her and I did all kinds of great things for her. Anyway, he remembered me. So, he’s gonna help me get the contact visits and everything. . . . Be [a] real quickie. Anyway, he said, ‘Thank you, Perry, we’re gonna get him out of there now.’ Fifteen minutes later . . . a captain, a black captain, came up here, opened the door, and cleared Duffer’s shit out. . . . They ambushed him.”

  “Well, good.”

  “Okay, we’ve got to talk about our situation,” Perry said, now whispering and obviously changing the subject. Because of their whispering, some of what they said was inaudible. “. . . I’m one hundred and ten percent on board with everything we’ve talked about. I can’t tell you how excited I am. Okay?”

  “Yeah,” Farris said.

  “But I wanted to give you time to talk with me about hard facts. Okay?”

  “I know, I know but, but . . . it’s just, man, Perry, you know this is all I’ve been thinking about,” Farris said as he deceived Perry. “You know, and especially now that I’m fixing to get out . . . it’s just, it’s, it’s real heavy on my mind. . . .”

  “Well, that’s it,” Perry said. “I’m set(ting) some rules . . . some perimeters [sic] now, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Here’s what I wanted to explain. Your witnesses may not show up in your cases, right?”

  “Well, that’s just one case,” Farris said. “Even if my major cases get dismissed, Perry, I’m still looking at twenty, twenty-five years, and it’s at eighty-five percent.”

  “Talk low,” Perry said. “You’re talking too loud.”

  “I didn’t mean to do that,” Farris said, his voice again at a whisper.

  “I’ve got about a forty percent chance of walking,” Perry said. “Forty.”

  “That’s not good enough,” Farris said.

  “I agree . . . hear me all out,” Perry said. “I’m not telling you anything different. . . . It won’t be easy. . . . I’m just trying to explain to you what we have to deal with.”

  Farris continued to talk about his percentages of going back to prison, and he expressed to Perry how much he hated being in prison and he did not want to go back. Perry explained to Farris how he did not want Farris to get into any more trouble, particularly for him.

  “So that is what I was trying to say,” Perry said. “I mean it, okay?”

  “I believe you, too, Perry,” Farris replied. “I’ve never had no big brother, Perry. I’ve never had anybody outside of my family that I just really felt, you know, any real compassion for, man. And, Perry, just talkin’ to you . . . I was kind of at ease with myself because I knew I could talk to you.”

  “We’re gonna win,” Perry said.

  “I know we’re gonna win, Perry. Look, like at first, I kinda doubted everything, but then just somethin’ inside me was, like, you know, this is gonna come through, and, look, it’s starting to happen. And, and, Perry, look, I’ll tell you something, too. I’ve, I’ve done somethin’ like this before.”

  Perry cut in and stopped Farris from talking.

  “Hold on,” Perry said. “Now, what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna get real smart right now.”

  Perry explained that he was going to step back and talk to someone else for a moment, and that he would return in a few minutes. Farris acknowledged his comments, and then could be heard speaking to someone else about an X-Men movie that was being viewed nearby.

  “I feel like an X-Man,” Farris said.

  Moments later, Perry knocked on the wall again.

  “All right, now listen,” Perry said. “We got to make sure that we don’t (inaudible) make it worse for yourself.”

  “Well, man, look, Perry. The only thing that can be worse for me is me going back to prison.”

  “Well, I know there’s a couple of things that could be worse,” Perry said. He reiterated how they had to play it smart so that none of what they were planning could come back on them. “I’d rather take a shot at forty percent . . . you know what I’m saying? Okay, even if I get convicted, I’ll get fifteen years. I don’t wanna die and neither do you. . . . Hey, trust me. Do you think I’d be talking to you if I had any doubt?”

  “Oh, I know,” Farris responded. “I’m gonna be takin’ a great big step and you know . . . right now . . . I’m trusting you with my life.”

  Farris explained that he wasn’t concerned about getting the job done, and reiterated that he could do it and said, again, that he had already done things like what they were planning. He wanted some assurances that “the colonel, your dad” would know who he was when he called him and that he would not deny knowing him and refuse to assist him after he finished the job that Perry wanted him to do.

  “They don’t know you right now, but they will,” Perry said, referring to his father and anyone else who he planned to involve. “First of all, my dad is the totally coolest guy in the world. . . . If you showed up at my dad’s door right now . . . my dad would . . . feed you like a king and take care of you the rest of your life.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want to go into it blind, Perry,” Farris said.

  “Well, you’re not,” Perry assured him.

  “I’m serious about what I’m gonna do,” Farris said. “I’ve . . . done it before, Perry. And you know, there’s not a doubt in my mind that I’m gonna do this. . . . I’ve just got to know that, that once I do, that I’ve got a safe haven. That I’ve got somebody who’s gonna know. . . . the money problem . . .”

  “You’re safe,” Perry said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Hundred percent.”

  Perry explained that he would talk to his dad, presumably about their plan, but for the moment the most important thing for Farris to do was to follow the ground rules that Perry had set up. Perry also said that once the deed had been done, that is, after the police had learned that the Levines had been killed, the police would be at Farris’s door asking where he was at the time.

  “We’ll have to put together an alibi,” Perry told him. “You have to stick to the plan and get it done. . . Safety and security are more important, you have to be very careful. . . .”

  Perry advised Farris to remain low-key for a while following his release on bail, to go about life as he normally would, for approximately thirty to sixty days, before carrying out the plan. He kept driving home the point that Farris needed to be ready when the cops showed up at his door and began asking questions. When it came time to establish contact with Perry’s dad, Arthur, Perry cautioned him that he had to be careful where he called from. He suggested that Farris use a cellular phone.

  Perry explained that he would be contacting his father to fill him in on what was going to happen. He also said that Farris needed an alias, a code name that he could easily remember and use when speaking to Perry’s father. They came up with the name “Bobby Givings,” which had been the surname of a friend
of Farris’s from his childhood. Perry said that he would call his father within a day or two from an unmonitored telephone, which he claimed he could use, and would tell his dad that a “buddy,” Bobby Givings, would be calling him. He said that he would instruct his father to take good care of Bobby.

  “Well, look . . . let me ask you something,” Farris said. “When this happens, when I get rid of these motherfuckers and I call your dad, he’s gonna know . . . what happened. He’s not gonna flip out, is he?”

  “My dad has killed about three hundred people in his life,” Perry said. “My dad was a Green Beret colonel.”

  Farris said that he wanted to speak to Perry’s father before carrying out their plan, and suggested that perhaps they meet in Texas.

  “My dad is a soldier, okay . . . ,” Perry said. “He’s at the end of his days. You know he’s seventy-six. He wants nothing. He would give himself up for me in a blink of an eye. . . . That’s where he is in his life. Okay, so here’s the thing. If you want, you could even go down there first. He can’t be leavin’ Carmen to come up to Texas . . . because he’s helpin’ with the restaurant and the kids. . . . What you can do is just go down to Mexico first and meet him . . . if that doesn’t violate your parole.”

  “Well, I’m not worried about that, you know,” Farris replied. “Perry, look, what I’m worried about is . . . catching both of the Levines together, you know, ’cause I want to—”

  “Without my kids around . . . ,” Perry cut in.

  “Exactly! Look, here’s what I thought. I thought maybe, you know, go to that school. . . . Do they take the kids to school?”

  “One of them does,” Perry replied.

  “Just one of them does?” Farris asked. “Is it her or him that takes them to school?”

  “That I don’t know,” Perry said. After a moment he said: “Both of them do. . . .”

  “Well, you know . . . I could just get her, you know, catch her going back into her house and I would wait there for him to get there.”

  “My kids would probably be there.”

  “Let me ask you one other thing . . . if I got to him and not her, would that still help you? Or would she still, you know, be a big—”

  “Do it, you have to do it when they’re both together for it to help me,” Perry said.

  “I’ve set [sic] on the side of houses and waited for people, okay?” Farris said. “It don’t take but a second, Perry. . . . I want to do it in a way to get where I can get rid of ’em, you know, period . . . like they’re just gone.”

  “There you go,” Perry said.

  “I’m gonna have to buy two cars, you know,” Farris said. “I’ve got the money to get two cars, because one car’s just gonna be for that sole purpose right there, you feel me? How am I gonna know where the hell they’re at, you know?”

  “Their house,” Perry said. “I’m gonna give you their street address, okay?”

  Perry proceeded to provide Farris with the Levines’ home address. If giving him their house number and street name weren’t enough, Perry provided detailed instructions on how to find the Levines’ home, right down to the fact that it was a corner house off Highway 100, near a church called St. Henry’s. He even included the fact that their house did not have a fence around it.

  Because the Levines were getting their house renovated, according to Perry, they had moved temporarily into an apartment.

  “They will go to their house every day,” Perry said. “One of them will go to the house every single day for lunch to see . . . how the house renovations are going.”

  Perry described the location of Larry Levine’s office in Nashville, and explained that it was easy to find.

  “I think he doesn’t go to work a lot,” Perry said. “I think he stays home with her during the daylight . . . which is perfect.”

  “Look here, Perry, if they’re both in that house, if they answer that door, it’s over,” Farris said.

  Perry cautioned Farris about leaving any form of evidence behind, and told Farris that he was leaving it up to him, the “pro.”

  “I might look like I’m . . . just some rugged bull or something . . . that’ll kill somebody . . . but, Perry, like I’ve said, I’ve done this before.”

  “We don’t need to be talkin’ like that, let’s just get back at it,” Perry said.

  “I’m just lettin’ you know I am dead serious,” Farris said. “Perry . . . here’s what I want to happen. After these son of a bitches are gone, after I take care of them, they’re gone, you get out, I want . . . within a year for us to have some kinda business down in Mexico.”

  “Within three months, I hope,” Perry said. “Let me tell you something, deal with them. And when that happens, they’re not gonna let me out immediately. . . . It’s gonna be two months before . . . their case falls apart. . . . They might even try to go to trial on my case. . . . It goes from forty percent chance for me (walking), I go to ninety percent. . . . My lawyers think I’ve got a sixty, seventy percent chance of walkin’ right now.”

  Chapter 23

  “Perry, I don’t give a fuck about no murder wrap,” Farris said as he and Perry continued their jailhouse discussion about planning the murders of the Levines. “This is like my ultimate project. . . . The things you’ve told me, you know, like those express kidnappings we talked about . . . that’s right up my alley. . . . I can do the footwork, Perry.”

  “You won’t have to, I’ll be with you,” Perry said. “Here’s the thing—I’m not a pussy, right?”

  “I know you’re not a pussy.”

  “Umm, I’m not . . . as tired, sick as I look, the way I look, right. . . . Trust me. I can whip someone’s ass that easy. . . .”

  Perhaps as an incentive to further whet Farris’s appetite to carry out the mission of killing the Levines, and then later going to Mexico to live the high life and engage in “business” with Perry, Perry turned the conversation toward a wealthy family that supposedly resided in Puerto Vallarta. Philip Rolfe, he said, was a British citizen who, according to Perry, was a billionaire, and there were those in his household who, if kidnapped, would bring forth a hefty ransom from Rolfe.

  “How much money do you think he’s got in his house?” Farris asked.

  “Not too much, but you don’t need that,” Perry said. “That’s not the right way to do it. His daughter is a wacko, who he loves more than anything.”

  “How old is she?”

  “About, I’d say, forty, and she has a daughter. [Rolfe’s] grandkid. And Rolfe hired me to protect the daughter, and get the kids out of trouble. . . . He said, ‘I don’t care what it takes.’ I’m just tellin’ ya . . . givin’ you an idea. . . . We could possibly do a Rolfe thing.”

  “Uh-huh,” Farris grunted, feigning interest in Perry’s kidnapping scheme.

  “Three hundred thousand dollars without a blink of an eye.”

  “That would be great, Perry.”

  “In a day . . . easy . . . maybe more. . . .”

  Perry gave Rolfe’s daughter’s name to Farris, as well as his granddaughter’s, and said that he had been in the daughter’s house a dozen times or more.

  “I know . . . every entrance. I know exactly how to do everything, how they keep everything.”

  “Do they have a safe?” Farris asked.

  “You don’t need a safe,” Perry responded. “Philip Rolfe is a safe. . . . Let me just tell you this. If I got a hold of [the daughter] . . . in that day he’d have your three hundred thousand in your hand.”

  Perry and Farris spoke of being partners, and Perry suggested that Farris not “do anything” until he had some “chillin’ off ” time once he made bail.

  “Leave me here riding for thirty days or whatever,” Perry said. “That gives you plenty of time to get what you need. . . . You take your time at it, you don’t make any mistakes, you go carefully, you figure your reconnaissance.. . . Then thirty days, forty-five days later, you do what you need to do . . . you have to be ready to welcome Metro
at your door ’cause they’re gonna put it together.”

  “Well . . . they’re not gonna think that I’m actually capable of, you know, probably doin’ somethin’ like this,” Farris said.

  “They’re still gonna come and question you,” Perry cautioned.

  Perry advised that Farris live in such a manner that he would not raise suspicion that he was going to Mexico. He also advised against Farris leaving the country right away after the killings because, he said, it would cause the police to focus on Farris, and then himself. He said that the police would soon think of looking in Mexico for Farris if he was suddenly unavailable for questioning regarding the Levines’ deaths.

  The two conspirators talked at length about passwords that Farris could use to convince Perry’s father that he was who he claimed to be, once he got to Mexico. They discussed using his dad’s maid’s name, a dog that his father had been fond of in his youth, and an uncle’s name from East Chicago, among others. Farris continued to feign interest in the scheme, and played his deception to the hilt. Perry insisted that his father could be trusted.

  “I trust my dad with my life,” Perry said. “A hundred percent. Any day of the week. . . . Can I say something? If I’d call my dad, if I had a clear line, I’d say, ‘Dad, come up here and shoot the Levines.’ My dad would be up here and shoot the Levines.”

  “He’d shoot ’em hisself ?” Farris asked.

  “Yeah, my dad, when they kidnapped my kids . . . in 2001 . . . my dad got on the phone . . . four mercenaries . . . fuckin’ mercenaries. They were gonna come in, kill the fuckin’ Levines, grab my kids, and take ’em back to Mexico. . . . My dad would take care of you like a son.”

  Farris spoke of being able to get a gun, and Perry cautioned him again about not leaving any evidence behind. He also cautioned him about not doing anything that could connect Farris and Perry to the Levines’ deaths.

  Farris expressed concern about crossing the border into Mexico because, he said, he had never done that before. Perry explained to him how easy it was, that people walk back and forth between the United States and Mexico all day long. All he would need, Perry said, was the proper identification. Farris acknowledged that he knew how to obtain fake identification.