Kindle County: Reversible Errors Part 7

There were entire chains of a.s.sociation she'd had to abandon. Thinking of herself as a judge. As a respectable citizen. The law, which had been her life in many senses, was all but erased. As far as she could tell now, she had gone through the first year or so in prison with the equivalent of screen fuzz in her brain. The set was on; no signal was receiving. Rarely, very late at night, she cried, usually when she had been aroused by a dream and endured that moment when she realized that she was not in bed, alone, awaiting the trials of another day, but was instead here"in prison, a felon, a junkie. She had gone down and down like something tossed into a channel that ran to the center of the earth. The feeling of those moments, which she'd have been glad to leave behind her forever, returned for an instant and she straightened up to subdue it.

"So you want to hear my story?" Erdai asked.

Gillian explained about Arthur. She'd come because it seemed important to Erno, but it was the defense lawyer who was better suited to listen to whatever he had to say.

"So that's what the lawyer's about," said Erno. "I thought he was coming to give you advice. Well, he'll just twist it around to suit what's best for him. That's how they do it, isn't it? Whatever to get his name in the papers?"

"Well, he certainly won't be looking out for you. You know that. If you're worried""

"I'm not worried about anything," he said. "What's he gonna do? Get me the death penalty?" Erdai looked toward his feet, shrouded by the bedcovers, as if they were somehow the emblem of his mortality, which he might comprehend in a few vacant instants. "You know, it always bothered me that he was here"Gandolph? We never see the Yellow Men, but I knew he was across the way. It was on my conscience. But I thought I was getting out, so why screw with it? Now, it'll be the other way. He's done the time for everything they didn't catch him on anyway." He used his tongue to move the stick to the other side of his mouth and smiled at the notion. Gillian, confused by this soliloquy, considered asking a question, but thought better of it.

"Well, that's how we used to look at it, right?" Erno asked. "They all did something."

She doubted she had been that cold. She didn't believe many defendants were innocent, but she drew the line at locking them up because they were probably guilty of something else. She did not, however, want to quarrel with Erdai. The man was brusque. Undoubtedly, that had always been the case, but Gillian sensed there was now something settled in his anger. It was deep inside, either coped with or controlling him, she couldn't tell which.

"I have to admit," he said, "I never figured on seeing your face. I just wanted to find out if anybody else had the gumption to do it"you know, to go out of their way on this to set it straight. I've always hated being the only fool. I give you a lot of credit for coming."

She told him she wasn't sure she had much to lose, except the day.

"Oh, sure you do," said Erno. "Once they start trying to figure out what went wrong in that case, the papers'll drag all of it up again. About you? You know they will."

She had not thought of that, not once, mostly because she had no clear idea what Erdai might be saying. Nonetheless, with his warning, she felt an icy constriction at her center. Obscurity was the only refuge she had now. But in a second, her anxiousness eased. If somehow she again became a cause celebre, she would go. She had returned to the Tri-Cities, knowing that if she did not look all of it over again through sober eyes, she'd never come to terms with what had happened. And she was not prepared to leave yet. But she would be someday. Departure remained part of her plan.

Erdai was studying her without apology.

"You think I should talk to this lawyer?"

"He's a nice man. I think he'd be fair."

Erno asked Arthur's name, hoping he might know him. He remembered hearing of Raven in the P.A.'s Office, but they never had any business.

"Obviously," said Gillian, "if you have information that would tend to show Gandolph shouldn't be executed, Arthur should hear it."

"Yeah, I got information." Erno laughed. "He didn't do it."

"Gandolph?"

"He's innocent," Erdai said flatly, and watched her at length. "You don't believe that, do you?"

This was, she knew, the most consequential question he'd asked her, but she did not wait long to respond.

"No," Gillian said. When she was inside, at least half the inmates claimed they were innocent, and over time, she'd given credence to a few. In a state facility like this, where the justice that brought the cons here was sometimes done on a wholesale basis, the numbers were probably higher. But she had paid close attention many years ago when Rommy Gandolph was in her courtroom. Heroin was still a pastime then, and she had understood the gravity of a capital case. Even in Erno's presence, she could not accept that she, that all of them"Molto and Muriel and the detective, Starczek, even Ed Murkowski, the defense lawyer, who'd privately acknowledged believing Gandolph was guilty"could be so thoroughly misled.

"No," said Erno, and his light eyes, trapped in their weathered sockets, again stayed on her quite some time. "I wouldn't either." He descended into another spasm of coughing. Gillian watched him rock back and forth, waiting to ask what he meant. But when he was finished, he took a couple of good breaths, then addressed her peremptorily. "All right," he said, "go tell the lawyer I'll see him. They're coming to take me down for a test. Bring him back up here in an hour or so." With that Erno again raised his book. The conversation was done. He never bothered looking at her again as she said goodbye.

Chapter 10.

October 8, 1991 The Confession ON TV, murderers were usually evil geniuses with a l.u.s.t for death. A couple of times in his career, Larry had run across a lawyer or executive who'd hatched a brainy plan to get rid of his wife or his partner. But gang members aside, most of the guys Larry cracked fell into two groups: bad seeds who'd started torturing cats by the age of six, or, more often, mutts who'd been kicked around long enough to learn to do it to somebody else, the type who pulled the trigger just to prove for once they didn't have to take everybody's s.h.i.t. That was Squirrel.

In a small locker room within Area Six, which doubled for interviews, they sat at adjoining corners of a square steel table, almost as if Gandolph were a dinner guest. Larry knew better than to talk to Squirrel without a witness, but Woznicki and Lenahan had a call, break-in in progress. Larry figured he'd clear away the brush with this guy, then bring in a prover when he started to get something good.

"You ever seen that?" Larry asked. The locket sat on the gray table between the two men. The profile of a woman in a lace collar was finely etched against the brown backing. Beautiful as it was, even Squirrel was smart enough not to touch it. The sound of an answer or two strangled somewhere in his throat.

"I don't recall directly, man," he said finally. "Tha's a nice piece. I might 'member if I seen that piece."

"Are you f.u.c.king with me, Squirrel?"

"I ain f.u.c.kin with you, man. I don't hardly wanna f.u.c.k with no po-lice."

"Well, you're f.u.c.king with me. I just got that from the officer who took it off you. Are you calling him a liar?"

"I ain sayin liar. You the one sayin liar."

"Well, is he a liar?"

"Don't know 'bout that." Squirrel slid his brown thumbs along the lines of a gang graffito engraved in the table by some youth unimpressed with his surroundings. "Crook more like," said Squirrel. "Some crooks is liars, too. Ain that right?"

"Is this philosophy cla.s.s, Squirrel? I missed the sign on the door. Lemme ask you again. Is this yours?"

"Nnn-uhh, I wasn't supposed to be havin that."

Larry smiled. The guy was so simple you had to like him.

"I know you weren't supposed to have it. But you had it, right?"

A wild flash of uncertainty lit up again behind Squirrel's eyes. This kid had been raised way too close to the power lines.

"Hey, you know," he said. "I'd kinda like to go. You know."

"Go?"

"Yeah, the Boys." Gandolph smiled as if he'd said something clever. On the left side of his mouth, he was missing several teeth. Larry also noticed Squirrel had begun tapping his foot.

"Well, sit here and keep me company for a minute. I want to hear a little more about that cameo."

"Po-lice stole it off me."

"No, they didn't. I'm a police officer. Here. I'm giving it back. Right? Here."

Squirrel still resisted any temptation to reach out.

"How'd you get your hands on that in the first place?" Larry asked.

"Mmm," said Rommy, and spent a long time rubbing his mouth.

"I think you better say something, Squirrel. That piece is about to get you in a peck of trouble. It's stolen, Squirrel. You been down that road before. PSP?" Possession of stolen property. "And I think you're the one who stole it."

"Nnn-uhh," said Squirrel.

"You know a woman named Luisa Remardi?"

"Who?" He leaned forward, but did not do a good job of faking it. At Luisa's name, his eyes had grown tight as coffee beans.

"Well, help me, Squirrel. That cameo is Luisa's. And if you don't know Luisa, where'd this cameo come from?"

Gandolph's narrow face worked around as he pondered his problem.

"Got it off another lady," he said at last.

"Really?"

"Yeah, she kind of give it me to hold, you know, cause she owed me for somethin."

"And what might that be? That she owed you for?"

"Just some little thing I done give her. Can't even recollect too clear."

"And what was this lady's name?"

"Man, I knowed you was gone aks that. What was her name?" said Squirrel.

"Yeah, right. Her name was What. 'What' was her name." Larry grinned, but there was no point being mean to Squirrel. He wouldn't get it. "How about this, Squirrel? I'll make a call and we can ride over to the Hall and you can take the box and tell the examiner all about Ms. What. Think you'll pa.s.s, Squirrel? I don't. But let's find out, okay?"

"Don't know 'bout any lie box," said Squirrel. He simpered in the hope he might be amusing. "Hey, man, lemme up for just a shake. I'm like to bust somethin if I keep waitin."

"You know how that cameo was stolen, Squirrel?"

"Come on, man. Lemme go. I'm 'bout to s.h.i.t my pants."

Larry grabbed Squirrel's wrist and looked him square in the eye.

"You s.h.i.t your pants on me, Squirrel, I'll make you eat it." He gave Gandolph a second to take that in. "Now tell me, Squirrel. You ever meet Gus Leonidis? Good Gus? Did you know him at all?"

Gandolph's gooey eyes jitterbugged around again.

"I don't think I 'member no one by that name. Leo what?"

Larry mentioned Paul Judson. Squirrel denied knowing him, too.

"From the way I hear this, Squirrel, if I peel off your trousers, I'm gonna see the dent Gus's boots left in your b.u.t.t, cause he kicked it so often."

Squirrel couldn't keep himself from laughing. "Yeah, tha's good. Dent there." But his amus.e.m.e.nt faded quickly, and he began muling around again. "Man, I laugh one more time, I'm gonna have a doody right on your floor."

"You know who Good Gus is now?"

"Yeah, okay, I know."

"And this cameo was stolen from a lady at Gus's restaurant."

Squirrel took way too long.

"How you like that," said Squirrel. "Stole at Gus's. How you like that?"

Larry squeezed Squirrel's wrist again, harder this time.

"I told you, don't f.u.c.k with me, Squirrel." Squirrel turned his head away and tapped his foot madly. "Squirrel, where did you get the cameo?"

"Lady," said Squirrel.

Off his belt, Larry unsnapped his handcuffs and threw one bracelet around the wrist of Squirrel's he was still holding.

"Oh, man, don't run me in. Man, those guys in the jail, man, they bad to me. They really are. I'm a neutron, man. They bad to me." He meant he was neutral, not hooked up with any gang, and as a result, meat for anyone. "Come on, man. At least lemme go first. Okay?"

Larry fastened the other cuff through the bolthole in one of the lockers behind Gandolph.

"I gotta go to the head," Larry said.

He took his time, returning in about twenty minutes. Squirrel was writhing, bucking back and forth in the chair.

"Whose cameo?"

"Whoever you say, man."

"And how'd you end up with a dead woman's jewelry, Squirrel?"

"Lemme go, man. Please lemme go. This ain right a-tall, man."

"You killed Gus, Squirrel."

Squirrel began to whine and moan, much as he had in the cruiser, pretending to be on the verge of tears.

"Okay, I kill't him. Lemme go. I'm beggin here, man."

"Who else?"

"Huh?"

"Who else did you kill?"

"I didn't kill no one. Come on, man."

Larry left him alone for another hour. When he came back, the stink was phenomenal.