Suffering Fools

Chapter One ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY LOVELL: Detective, were you working on the evening of March 19? DETECTIVE JOHN MORRISON: Actually, I was off duty that night. Q:I see. Do you have a specific memory of that night? A: Yes, I do. Q: And why is that? A: Because that was the night that I walked into the Nite & Day Convenience Store and the clerk told me he'd just been robbed by a guy with a knife. Q: Can you describe the condition of the victim when he told you this? A: Yes. He was obviously very upset. He was nervous. His hands were shaking, and he kept looking around, like he was expecting-- ATTORNEY WILSON: Objection. DETECTIVE MORRISON: --some surprise or something. ATTORNEY WILSON: Objection. Move to strike. THE COURT: The answer is "He was upset and nervous. His hands were shaking, and he kept looking around." The rest of the answer is stricken. ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY LOVELL: Did you have any further conversation? DETECTIVE JOHN MORRISON: I asked him if he knew who had robbed him, and he said that he recognized him as a regular customer, but that he couldn't remember his name. Q: What happened next? A:I suggested that he come down to the station with me to look at mug shots, but then the clerk remembered that the robber had been in the store a few days earlier at the same time as me. Q: Did you remember this incident? A: Not at first. But then the clerk started to describe the guy to me--long, stringy hair, kind of slouched all the time, looked down a lot--and then suddenly he shouted, "I remember! His name is Babe! Babe something." And then I knew exactly who he was talking about. Babe, uh, Rufus Gardiner. (Commonwealth v. Gardiner, Volume IV, September 10, 2004, Pages 61-63) April 5, 2004 Five months earlier Attorney Terry Tallach knew that it was the obligation of every lawyer to take certain cases for free. The bar association called it taking a case pro bono, which translated from the Latin as "for the good." God, lawyers couldn't even be nice without being pompous. From one perspective, it made sense for Terry's partner and best friend, Zack Wilson, to decide to take the Gardiner case without charging. Rufus himself had no money--he was living hand to mouth when he got arrested. And his mother, who had called to ask them to look into the case in the first place, was barely making ends meet as it was. But when Terry saw their new client present himself to the MCI-Wakefield prison guard for a final search before their first meeting, he couldn't help but turn to his partner and say softly, "I'll buy you a pizza if you change your mind about this one." Zack said nothing as Rufus entered the attorney/client visiting room. As he turned to close the door behind him, he fumbled with the file folder he had been carrying. Somehow, the papers in the folder managed to fly all over the place. He bent down to pick them up. "Make it two," Terry whispered. Rufus Gardiner was technically an adult--he had turned thirty early last month--but he still managed to project the image of a recent high school dropout. His waxy skin and watery eyes were unhealthy looking, his shoulder-length greasy hair was a mess, he breathed through his mouth, and he carried himself in a perpetual slouch. He looked fundamentally stupid, but worse than that, he looked spectacularly guilty. Of everything. He didn't make eye contact, he mumbled, and he shook hands like he was afraid that such intimate contact might allow you to read the dirty thoughts that kept running through his tiny mind. He was the walking, talking embodiment of the worst defendant in the world. If he was on the witness stand and testified that the sky was blue, half the jury would think he was guessing. The other half wouldGaffney, Ed is the author of 'Suffering Fools', published 2006 under ISBN 9780440242833 and ISBN 0440242835.