The Death and Life of Gabriel Phillips

by Stephen Baldwin

  Andy laughed nervously. “No, I guess not,” he said.

  Now here’s the thing you need to understand about Andy and the way he’d built his case. The D.A. was focused on the jury, but Andy was obsessed with John. He didn’t give two winds to Monday about the jury. He had hardly even given the jury much thought. In his mind everything was about forcing John to admit to what Andy knew he had done. Yes. Andy expected a confession. He wanted an admission of guilt. Again, Andy approached this whole thing like a television cop show. His plan all along had been to overwhelm John with the evidence, to make it crystal clear to him he could not carry out this charade any longer, and then watch him crack. But John hadn’t taken the bait. He hadn’t broken under the pressure. Not yet, at least.

  The D.A.? Well, the D.A. was absolutely giddy. He’d never had the opportunity to actually send someone to death row. The Supreme Court effectively banned the death penalty for much of the 1970s. Indiana was a little slow getting back into the execution business after it was reinstated in 1977. Only a handful of death penalty cases had gone to trial, and all of them stirred up a storm of media attention. Throw in the fact that the victim was an eight-year-old boy, and the murderer was his father, and you have just what the doctor ordered for Reginald Chambliss, Esquire. I think he would have keeled over with disappointment if John had entered a guilty plea. He was going to be in heaven for the next two months.

  Not Andy. He had already started thinking of what he would do, now that finding justice for Gabe was behind him. He had to put those plans on hold. In fact, when it came to John Phillips, Andy was just getting started.

  ANDY PLANNED ON ignoring everything that had to do with John Phillips until the trial began. Sure, he wanted a confession, but there wasn’t a lot he could do about that now. Periodically, which in this case meant at least two times a week, he double-checked to see if anyone had posted John’s bail. No one ever did, which meant John remained locked up in the Harris County Jail until his trial. As a favor to Andy, the D.A. had recommended John be kept in isolation, ostensibly for his own protection. The general jail population doesn’t always look too kindly on a child killer. Andy’s real reason was to force John to be alone with his guilty conscience, with nothing else to distract him for days and weeks at a time. He stuck to this plan for the first five weeks between the preliminary hearing and the trial. Eventually, however, his obsession with getting a confession out of John pushed him to go talk with John face-to-face.

  The county jail didn’t exactly roll out the welcome mat for everyone who wanted to stop by and visit with a capital murder suspect under security lockdown. All visitation requests had to be submitted at least twenty-four hours in advance for the sheriff’s approval. It was his call who got in or didn’t, since the sheriff’s department ran the jail. Of course, the sheriff himself didn’t handle this personally. One of his flunkies did. And that flunky had to report every name to Ted Jackson. As lead detective on the case, he wanted to keep an eye on everyone who showed even the slightest interest in John Phillips.

  Ted showed up at Trask police headquarters at eleven at night, just as Andy was walking out to his patrol car to start his rotation on the graveyard shift. “Jax? What brings you out to this neck of the woods in the middle of the night. Janey kick you out and you can’t afford a hotel room, so you want to stay in one of our cells for a while?” Andy joked.

  “Yeah, right, smart-ass,” Jackson said. “One ex-wife is enough. I don’t plan on having another. No, it’s been a while since my patrolman days. I was wondering if you would mind if I rode along with you tonight for a while.”

  “Knock yourself out,” Andy said, “and you must think I’m a complete idiot if you think I am buying that explanation. Climb in.”

  Andy pulled out of the police parking lot and started on his usual patrol loop. He and Ted talked about the Yankees winning the World Series and about how the Bears might do during the upcoming season and about why the old ABA was so much better than the NBA. They talked high school football and high school basketball and about a whole lot of nothing for over an hour and a half. During that time Andy had to respond to exactly zero calls. He did help a guy stuck out on Highway 8 in a broken-down car. The timing chain had snapped in the poor guy’s motor, which would be bad enough even if the man and his wife hadn’t been traveling from Wheeling, West Virginia, to Springfield, Illinois. Andy called a tow truck for them and arranged for them to stay in the local negative-four-star motel.

  After the broken-down car was off the highway, and the motorist and his wife were safely deposited at the Pelican Motel, Andy asked Jackson, “You ever going to tell me why you are out here tonight?”

  “I saw your name on the John Phillips visitation request list,” Jackson said.

  “So?”

  “So why do you need to see him? What is it with this guy and this case that’s turned you into such a psycho spaz?” Jackson asked.

  “No reason,” Andy said.

  “Yeah, right,” Jackson said.

  Neither said anything for several minutes. Andy turned off Highway 318 onto Main Street. He drove through four flashing traffic lights (they turn off the traffic lights in Trask at ten every night, and they flash yellow until six the next morning). He pulled into the First National Bank parking lot. Driving slowly around the back of the building, he shone his spotlight on each of the doors, checking for signs of forced entry. If Ted hadn’t been with him, Andy probably would have gone back to the station and shot the breeze with the dispatcher for a couple of hours. It beat driving the streets late at night alone.

  “You ever going to tell me?” Jackson asked.

  “Tell you what?” Andy replied.

  “What made you grab onto this case like a pit bull. What haven’t you told me? Because you care too damn much for this to be nothing more than finding a dead kid in an apartment and getting a hunch something wasn’t right?” Jackson said.

  “Not a thing,” Andy said.

  “Cut the crap,” Jackson said. “What is your connection to this case?”

  “The mother,” Andy finally admitted.

  “What about the mother?”

  “I’ve been seeing her for quite a while. Or at least I was, up until Gabe died,” Andy said.

  “Don’t tell me you’re the ‘real man’ she went out looking for,” Jackson said.

  Andy looked at him and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Holy crap. I cannot believe you, man. You know you should have told me this from the very beginning,” Jackson said. “So how well did you know the boy? I mean, come on, I know you. I know how you hate kids.” Andy just looked at him again. “I should have known. So that’s what this whole thing has been, your own personal campaign for vengeance.”

  “Justice, Jax, not vengeance. He did it; you know he did it,” Andy said.

  “Oh, and I’m sure you aren’t biased at all.” Jackson let out a long sigh. “So tell me about the evidence you found; all these witnesses no one else knew anything about.”

  “What about them?” Andy asked.

  “You know what about them. Are they legit?”

  “What do you think?”

  “You don’t want to know what I think,” Jackson said. “You realize if I go to the D.A. with this now, it’s my ass.”

  “Just let the evidence speak,” Andy said. “Let it play out in court. That’s all you have to do. Come on, Jax. I didn’t do anything I shouldn’t have done.”

  “Yeah, and I really believe you.” Jackson shook his head in disgust. “Okay, here’s what we are going to do. I’m going to keep working the case and try to verify your witnesses’ stories. And you,” he said, shooting a look at Andy, “you stay the hell away from John Phillips and everything else associated with this case. I don’t want to see you at the jail. I don’t want you talking to any of these witnesses. Hell, I don’t want you to even read a story in the newspaper pertaining to this trial. You got it?”

  Andy nodded his head.

  �
��I’ll get out here,” Jackson said, and reached down for the door handle.

  “Come on, Jax, let me drive you back to the station. You don’t want to be out walking the mean streets of Trask at this hour.”

  “I’m willing to take my chances,” Jackson said. Andy stopped the car in the bank parking lot and Ted climbed out. “I’m serious,” he said to Andy as he got out. “Butt out. You are officially off this case. I may even recommend to the D.A. that you not testify. If Phillips’s attorney gets you up on that stand under oath, he could have a field day with our case.”

  “I don’t think it will have to go that far,” Andy said.

  “Like hell it won’t,” Jackson said as he slammed the door shut.

  “Fine,” Andy said. “Whatever you say.”

  Chapter 13

  DECEMBER 4 ROLLED around, and the trial started. But Andy didn’t get to sit in on it like he had hoped. If it were up to him, he would have taken time off from work, found a front-row seat, and enjoyed the show. He wanted a seat with a good view of John Phillips, just to watch him sweat. Unfortunately for Andy, as a key witness to the prosecution’s case, he would only be allowed in the courtroom while he was on the witness stand. There’s a law about the separation of witnesses that basically says one witness cannot listen to the testimony of another. The court needs each witness to give his or her account of what he or she saw and heard, without having a witness’s memories contaminated by the memories of someone else. Once a witness is off the stand, he could stay in the courtroom for the rest of that session, but only if both sides waived their right to recall the witness later. That never happens with someone as vital to the case as Andy. Ole Reginald Chambliss wasn’t about to jeopardize his case just so Andy could watch John Phillips’s reaction to all the testimony against him.

  Because he was the first officer to arrive on the scene the night of Gabe’s death, Andy was the prosecution’s first witness. However, he didn’t testify until the second day of the trial. The first day, which ended up not starting until one in the afternoon, was filled with all sorts of procedural matters and opening statements. Reginald Chambliss had turned opening statements in front of the jury into his own Shakespearean moment, and he refused to rush through them. He was so long-winded it pushed any actual testimony into the next day.

  Andy arrived at the courthouse about a half hour before the trial was set to resume. One of the assistant D.A.’s, a twenty-three-year-old, fresh-out-of-law-school whiz kid named Rachel Maris, met Andy in the foyer to ask him if he had any questions regarding what would take place in the trial that day. They didn’t discuss his testimony, although she did give him a general range of the types of questions Chambliss would ask. “You will get no surprises from us,” she said. “We’ve gone over the transcripts of your taped statements about a million times and highlighted the parts most vital to this case. All of Mr. Chambliss’s questions will try to bring out the best of what you’ve already told us.”

  Andy nodded. “That shouldn’t be too painful, then.”

  Maris laughed. “Don’t worry. You’ll do fine,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve done this many, many times in your tenure on the force. There’s absolutely nothing to worry about. You couldn’t be in better hands.”

  “I hope so,” Andy said. He and Rachel Maris exchanged more small talk before going to their assigned places. Maris walked into the courtroom, where, Andy assumed, she took her seat at the prosecutor’s table. Andy went into one of the side rooms designated for those called to testify. No other witnesses were in the room, which, again, is by design.

  After what seemed like an eternity, a bailiff walked into the holding area and said, “Officer Myers, they’re ready for you now.” Andy walked into the courtroom and walked down the center aisle up to the witness stand. The room was a lot smaller than its televison counterparts looked, and outside of reporters from all the local TV stations and newspapers, there weren’t many people in attendance. Andy couldn’t scope out the whole room while he was walking in (this wasn’t like walking into a bar), but he did notice John had turned around in his seat to make eye contact with him as he walked by. That made Andy feel a little uneasy, but he passed it off as the same kind of butterflies he always felt when called to testify in court.

  “Do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God,” the bailiff said.

  “I do,” Andy replied.

  “Please be seated,” the bailiff said.

  Reginald Chambliss rose from behind the prosecutor’s table, buttoned his suit jacket, and moved into the open area in the front of the courtroom. Andy noticed that he’d ditched his off-the-rack suit for one that looked far more expensive than anything that would ever hang in Andy’s closet. Of course, the suit was dark blue, with a white shirt and a red tie. He looked like he’d been shopping at the power politicians’ clothing outlet. “Officer, for the record, would you please state your full name,” he said.

  “Andrew Eugene Myers.” Yeah, Eugene. I always thought that was a funny middle name.

  “And, Officer, what is your official position?”

  “I am a senior patrolman for the City of Trask Police Department.”

  “How long have you been a Trask police officer?” Cham-bliss asked with a relaxed, very informal tone.

  “Six years, ten months,” Andy replied.

  “Now, Officer Myers, can you tell us what took place on the morning of Tuesday, July seventh?”

  “I was working the graveyard shift, and I received a call from the Trask dispatcher with a report of a 10-16, that is, a domestic disturbance, from the Madison Park Apartments. The call came in a little after two in the morning—two-oh-six to be precise.”

  “Was this unusual, getting a call like that in the middle of the night?” Chambliss asked, lobbing another softball of a question toward Andy.

  “Not at all. I probably go out to that apartment complex two or three times a week for some sort of disturbance or another when I work the overnight. Usually, the calls turn out to be nothing, at least nothing major. I didn’t think much about getting a call on that night. I figured it would be more of the same, either a television cranked up too loud with someone asleep on the couch in front of it, or some couple arguing with one another. That’s all,” Andy said. He’d rehearsed this little speech in his head a few thousand times over the past two months. He knew exactly what he wanted to say.

  “What did you discover when you arrived?” Chambliss asked.

  “Several residents were waiting for me in the parking lot. They seemed pretty agitated about something. Another resident greeted me at the top of the stairs of building three as I made my way up to apartment 323, the apartment about which three separate calls had been made to the police department. Still, I didn’t think too much of any of this. The people out there tend to be easily excitable. Sometimes I think calling the cops is their favorite form of entertainment.”

  “Objection,” John’s attorney, Donald Edmonds, said. “The witness is making a judgment that has little bearing on this case.” Andy figured the guy just wanted to remind the court that he was there and he was paying attention.

  “Sustained,” Judge Houk said. “The entertainment habits of the residents of the Madison Park Apartments has little bearing on the events of the night in question.”

  “I apologize, Your Honor,” Andy said.

  “What did you find when you went to the Phillips apartment?” Chambliss asked.

  “I had to knock several times before anyone opened the door. When the door finally did open, I found John Phillips talking on the telephone. He waved me into the apartment, and kept on talking on the telephone,” Andy said.

  “Is there anything unusual about that?” Chambliss asked, again, setting up Andy to make a point.

  “Absolutely. When accidents occur, those who come upon the accident usually drop everything to try to help the accident victim or they call for outside help.
This is especially true when a child is injured. In my experience, parents don’t let anything come between them and their child in need. Sometimes we almost have to pry the child out of the parent’s arms. Mr. Phillips, however, appeared very nonchalant, as if I had arrived at the wrong apartment. I have never before observed a parent react to the injury or death of a child as I saw Mr. Phillips act. I had to insist that he get off the phone before he would hang up,” Andy said. He thought he noticed a visible reaction from the jury as he said this. Good, Andy thought. He wanted the jury to feel the same apprehension about John as he felt from the first time he met the guy.

  “Then what happened?” Chambliss asked.

  “Then Mr. Phillips said, ‘He’s back here,’ in a way that sounded like a waiter showing me to a table. He also said something about how he was just about to call the police. I followed him down the apartment hallway, to where he motioned into a room and said, ‘He’s in there.’ ”

  “What did you discover in the room into which Mr. Phillips led you?” Chambliss asked. His tone had become very serious.

  “The room was very small, but the floor looked like it had been painted in blood. And on the bottom bunk lay a small boy. There was blood smeared on the side of the mattress as well. I rushed over to the boy to try to start CPR, and the linoleum floor was pretty slick from all the blood, which, as it turned out, was not all blood but also water from a broken goldfish bowl. I moved the boy from the bunk bed to the floor to start doing mouth-to-mouth, but he was unresponsive,” Andy said.

  “What was Mr. Phillips doing while you were working on his son?” Chambliss asked.

  “Nothing. He stood in the doorway and watched. I asked him what had happened and he told me his son fell out of the top bunk and hit his head on the bottom drawer of the dresser that was right next to the boy’s bed,” Andy said.