Suffering Fools - Softcover

Gaffney, Ed

 
9780440242833: Suffering Fools
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0440242835 ISBN 13: 9780440242833
Verlag: Dell Pub Co, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

Defense attorneys Zack Wilson and Terry Tallach--friends, partners, and complete opposites--find themselves in a no-win situation with a client who is a complete fool, has no alibi, and cannot even testify to his real name, not to mention a determined police detective and a couple of private investigators who are all convinced of his guilt. Original.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Ed Gaffney took ten years of work as a criminal lawyer, added an overactive imagination, and came up with a new career as a novelist. This has led to an unexpected number of requests from his softball teammates to appear with Terry and Zack in future books. Ed lives west of Boston with his wife, New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Brockmann, their two children, and their anxious, but ever-loyal dogs, Sugar and Spice. He is the author ofPremeditated Murder and Suffering Fools, both featuring Zack Walker and Terry Tallach, and is currently at work on his next legal thriller.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

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 would think he was lying.

Zack, of course, acted as if Rufus was just like every other defendant he'd ever met for the first time. Innocent until proven guilty. Entitled to Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. Encouraged to help in his own defense. Relied upon for honesty in communications. Protected by the attorney-client privilege.

Rufus just stared at the table as Zack went through his new-client spiel. He might as well have been speaking Swahili with a Chinese accent. At the end, Zack said, "I know this is a lot to take in all at once, Rufus, so if there's anything you don't understand--"

"Can you call me Babe?" Rufus asked, looking up and establishing eye contact for a full half second before lowering his gaze back to the table. "Instead of Rufus. Nobody calls me that anymore."

Except your mother. And the court system. Oh--and the prison administration, too.

"Uh, sure," Zack said. "Sorry."

Terry couldn't wait any longer. He clicked his pen and pulled his legal pad in front of him. "So, Babe, let's talk about how all this happened."

"I picked it myself," Babe replied, with a shy smile as he shuffled the papers he'd brought to the meeting.

There was a prolonged silence as everyone tried to figure out what the hell had just happened. Babe certainly didn't look crazy. "What?" Terry asked.

"My name," Babe explained, looking up for a second. "I picked it myself. That's how it happened."

Terry ground his teeth and tried to speak slowly and calmly. "Not your name." Numbnuts. "The charges against you. How did all that happen? What were you doing that night? Why did you get busted for robbing the convenience store?"

"Oh, yeah. That night." Welcome to the conversation, Babe. "Did my mother show you that tape from the store? I didn't do it."

Well, that certainly cleared things up.

"We haven't met with your mother yet," Zack replied.

"She has health issues," Babe offered into the silence.

Who was this guy? Rain Man?

"Let's put aside the tape for a second," Zack said. "I think what Terry is asking is if you can tell us what you were doing that night. Starting from after work. Your mom said you work at a factory or a warehouse, right?"

"Yeah," Babe said. "I got through with work around five, and then I drove to this restaurant called The Burger Barn to have dinner."

Terry was familiar with most of the restaurants around Springfield, but he hadn't heard of that one. "Where's The Burger Barn?" he asked.

"It's like a little place off of Route 22," Babe said. "Up past Norton."

That's why he hadn't heard of it. Up past Norton was code for "indoor plumbing optional."

"Okay," Zack said. "Walk us through the evening. You left work around five and went to The Burger Barn. When did you get there? Do you remember?"

Babe was now using a well-chewed pencil to make doodles in the margin of a piece of paper on the table in front of him. "Uh, I dunno. I guess it was about six. Maybe quarter of. I dunno. It's kinda hard to remember."

"Well, it's kinda important for you to try to remember, Babe," Terry said, wondering if the sudden sharp pain in his head meant that it was going to explode right off his neck, or that he was just going to have a stroke. "We're trying to establish whether you had an alibi for this crime."

Babe stopped doodling. Probably to concentrate extra hard. It didn't work. He returned to the doodling. He seemed completely befuddled.

Zack jumped in. "We want to know exactly where you were and when that night, so that we can figure out if it was...

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Verlag
Dell Pub Co
Erscheinungsdatum
2006
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0440242835
ISBN 13 
9780440242833
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
290
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Dell GmbH
6997927350
DE.CustomerSupport@dell.com

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