The Death and Life of Gabriel Phillips (19 page)

Since moving back to Indiana, I’ve found we get a white Christmas about every third year. Apparently, that year was the third year, because it started snowing early in the day on Christmas Eve and didn’t stop until early the next morning. Andy hated snow. He hated driving in snow. He hated walking in snow. He hated people who got excited about playing in snow. All in all, he hated snow. And it had snowed all day and it was still snowing at night when he fishtailed his patrol car out of the Trask Police Department parking lot and started his appointed rounds through town. He reported for duty earlier than normal to allow the guys with families to spend more time at home.

About half an hour into his shift, Andy was driving up Main Street when he noticed a Chevy Citation headed the opposite direction that appeared to him to be driving erratically. So he flips on his red lights, does a U-turn, and takes off after the guy. The city snowplows had the streets pretty clean, but with the snow still falling, the streets were too slick for this to be a real high-speed chase. I don’t know if whoever was driving the Chevy didn’t see him or what, but they didn’t pull over. Instead, the Chevy kept on going, making turns through the neighborhood until pulling into a driveway. This particular Chevy was one of GM’s first front-wheel-drive cars, which is why it got so far ahead before Andy could catch up. His big old Mercury police cruiser had rear-wheel drive, which meant he spent more time fishtailing and spinning out than pursuing.

By the time Andy pulled up to the house where the car parked, the driver had already climbed out and started trudging through the snow up to the house, his arms full of gifts. Since it was Christmas Eve, you guessed it, the guy was dressed like Santa Claus. Andy pulled up in front of the house, his red and blue lights flashing, and he gave a quick blow of the siren, just to get the guy’s attention. And it worked. It worked so well that half the neighborhood looked out its doors and windows as Andy jumped out of his car, pulled out his sidearm, and yelled at Santa, “On the ground!” Santa tromped around in the snow to where his entire body faced Andy, and he said something like, “What?” and Andy went nuts. He yelled at Santa, “On the ground. NOW!” Since it had snowed most of the day, the ground had about six or seven inches of snow on it, except, of course, next to the sidewalk leading to the front door of the house. So Santa threw the gifts to the side, and you could hear glass breaking, and fell facedown into a snowbank. Andy tried running up to him, but he fell face-first into the snow himself. By this point the people in the house were out on their front porch, along with all the neighbors who’d been watching out their windows. Adding an audience to his frustration set off Andy, and he walked over to Santa and planted his knee in the middle of his back while fumbling for his handcuffs—which he dropped in the snow. Finally Andy dug the cuffs out, but, of course, they are now so cold that skin will nearly freeze to them, but he slaps them on Santa anyway. While Andy pulled the guy up out of the snow by his wrists, Santa’s beard and hat stayed attached to the ground. A little five-year-old girl on the porch let out a scream and said, “That’s not Santa. That’s Daddy.” She started crying. The mother pleaded with Andy to find out what was going on. He just dragged Santa back through the snow to his patrol car, shoved him in the backseat, and told him he was under arrest for driving under the influence. No field sobriety test. Nothing. As ole Rosco P. Coltrane used to say on
The Dukes of Hazzard,
he cuffed him and stuffed him.

If Andy had stopped for just a moment, he might have recognized Santa as the pastor of the local Methodist church, which just happens to be the largest church in town. Every business leader in the community goes there. Andy had met the pastor a couple of weeks earlier when the pastor delivered a huge can of caramel corn to the police department as a way of showing the church’s appreciation for the officers. Now this poor clergyman sat in the back of Andy’s car, cold and wet, with wrists that were slowly freezing to a set of ice-cold handcuffs. To make matters worse, if they could get any worse, he never even bothered to check for ID until he’d hauled the guy all the way over to Adamsburg to book him in the county jail. The pastor, in shock in the backseat, could hardly talk. It wasn’t exactly Andy’s finest hour.

The pastor didn’t get angry, like you would expect, once they cleared up the situation, even though that took nearly twelve hours. I think he was just grateful to get out of jail before Christmas ended. Chief Ed Spence, however, was not nearly as forgiving, and neither were the community leaders who happened to be parishioners of the pastor’s church. Andy ended up suspended without pay for two weeks, and he was lucky he didn’t lose his job. He probably would have been fired if the pastor had pressed a wrongful-arrest lawsuit against the town, but he didn’t. It wasn’t just the wrongful arrest that got Andy in hot water. It was the excessive force he’d used when arresting one of the spiritual leaders of the town dressed as an icon of the Christmas season. I don’t know if the Trask Police Department ever fully recovered from that public relations disaster.

Ted Jackson invited Andy to come over on New Year’s Day to watch Notre Dame play in the Cotton Bowl on television. Andy hadn’t left his house since his suspension, so he was glad to finally have a little company. He didn’t feel he could show his face in Trask, not yet at least. Maybe not ever. Ted’s wife, Janey, had made them a bunch of snacks before leaving the house to go shopping. She hated football. Ted’s son spent the day at his mother’s house, which left Ted and Andy alone. Not long after the second quarter started, Ted finally worked up the nerve to ask Andy, “What’s going on with you? A two-week suspension for excessive force, that’s not like you. Although, I do have to say that collar of Santa was some fine police work. Every force around the world’s been trying to catch that bastard, but you’re the one who finally nailed him. Good work.”

“What can I say? I wasn’t going to let him slip down any chimneys on my watch,” Andy said as he grabbed a handful of potato chips and washed it down with a swig of Pepsi.

“And nabbing a pastor all at the same time. Most people would be fooled by that whole clerical collar and Bible thing. You got him for what? Driving under the influence of the Spirit? Way to go, Baretta.”

“I show favoritism to no man,” Andy said.

“Yeah, but seriously, man. What’s going on? You haven’t been yourself the past couple of weeks,” Ted said.

“Ahh, it’s nothing. Haven’t you ever read how people get depressed during the holidays? That’s all it is,” Andy said.

“I know better. I thought you’d be on cloud nine for at least a month after the Phillips verdict. You got what you wanted. You nailed the guy. We wouldn’t have even had a case if it weren’t for you. Hell, we wouldn’t have even pursued it if you hadn’t dogged us about it. Why are you so down?”

“I don’t know,” Andy said.

Ted didn’t say anything for a while. The two of them sat back and watched the game. During the next Gatorade commercial Ted looked over at Andy and said, “You’re not feeling guilty, are you?”

“Me. Hell no. For what?” Andy said.

Ted looked at him.

“What?” Andy asked.

“You sure had a way of finding the right witnesses at just the right time. And their testimonies were exactly what we needed to put Phillips away. It sure was convenient, the way they just sort of turned up like that,” Ted said.

“You trying to say I coached those witnesses on what to say?” Andy said.

“You tell me. I mean, come on, Andy. I heard that Paul kid’s testimony a thousand times, and he always said the exact same thing in the exact same order using the exact same words. No variation, ever. You know that never happens.”

“Other people backed up what he said,” Andy said.

Ted shook his head. “Don’t play me for a fool. We’ve known each other way too long for that. Sure, other people backed up his story about what he heard. But the kid said he saw John Phillips smash Gabe’s head in. He didn’t just hear something on the other side of his wall. He steps forward as an eyewitness, which was the one thing we had to have to nail this guy for murder one. That’s awfully convenient.”

“Then why did you still use him as a witness? No one put a gun to your head. If you had doubts about whether or not he was telling the truth, why did you take him to the D.A.? Why did you make him your climactic witness to drop the hammer on Phillips?” Andy pressed.

Ted didn’t say anything in return.

“I’ll tell you why. Because you know Phillips did it and you didn’t want to take a chance that he might get off. Am I right?” Andy said.

“Go to hell,” Ted said.

“Sounds like we’re both going to hell if what you say is true. If you think I instructed Brian Paul or any other witness on what to say, go investigate it. Nail my sorry ass to the wall. Hell, I don’t have much of a career left anyway, not after busting Santa Claus in front of the whole freakin’ town. What do I care? If you think I crossed some line, if you think I did something wrong, prove it. But I can tell you why you won’t. You don’t want to let some guy who killed his own kid in cold blood get away with it on a technicality. Am I right?”

“Let’s just watch the game,” Ted replied.

“That proves it. You know I’m right,” Andy said.

“Fine. I know John Phillips killed his son and I didn’t want to take a chance on the case falling apart. You may be correct about that, but that doesn’t make you right. The evidence would have taken us there; it would have given us a conviction. You didn’t have to massage the truth to make it more damning,” Ted said.

“Massage, hell. If you think I crossed the line, why don’t you prove it?” Andy asked. “Go ahead. I don’t care. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“Need a new Pepsi?” Ted changed the subject as he got up and walked off to the kitchen, completely ignoring Andy’s question.

Andy took the hint and didn’t bring up John Phillips again until long after Joe Montana led Notre Dame to a victory in one of the greatest college football games of all time and shortly before USC kicked off to Michigan to start the second half of the Rose Bowl. Then he said, “I need to talk to him face-to-face.”

“Him who?” Ted replied.

“You know him who. Phillips,” Andy said.

“Holy crap, don’t tell me we’re back to that,” Ted said.

“I just need to talk to him. And not over those visiting-room phones. I need to talk to him face-to-face. I have a couple of questions that still haven’t been answered. I need it, Jax,” Andy said.

“Why? What more could you possibly want from this guy? Hell, he’s already been convicted of killing his kid. I wouldn’t be surprised if the judge gives the guy death. In fact, given the circumstances, I would be shocked if the guy doesn’t fry. Isn’t that enough? What more could you need?”

“I need to look him in the eye and ask him straight up why he did it.”

“Okay, John Wayne. Then what? You gonna get your posse and take him outside of town and string him up yourself?” Ted joked.

“You didn’t know Gabriel Phillips, Ted. You never . . .” Andy choked back tears and swallowed hard. “I don’t understand . . .” He could barely get the words out. “I don’t understand how anyone could hurt that little boy. He didn’t deserve . . .” Andy wiped away tears from his face and tried to continue but couldn’t. Finally he said in almost a whisper, “I just need to talk to this guy.”

Ted Jackson let out a long sigh. “Okay. I’ll set it up. But I want to be in the room with you.”

Andy shook his head. “No. I need to talk to him alone.” He looked over at Ted, his eyes and cheeks red.

Jackson growled out, “Dammit, Andy, you just have to make this even harder for me. All right. Fine. You can talk to him alone, but I’m going to be on the other side of the glass listening in. If you even so much as put your pinky toe over the line, if you give me the slightest hint that you are going to do something more than talk, then I will be in there in half a second and I don’t give a damn about how long we have been friends, you will pay the consequences.”

“Understood,” Andy said. He sat silently for nearly a minute. “Thanks. You won’t have to worry about me, Jax. I’m not the Charles Bronson type.” That’s a
Death Wish
reference, just in case you didn’t catch it. Most guys back in the 1970s loved that movie where Charles Bronson goes out and takes out the murdering punks who killed his wife and raped his daughter.

Chapter 15

T
WO DAYS AFTER THAT CONVERSATION
, Andy found himself sitting behind a wooden table in interrogation room three in the Harris County Sheriff’s Department headquarters. The sheriff’s office and the county lockup were all together, and both sat across a parking lot from the county courthouse. Andy was not wearing his uniform. He still had a few days to go on his suspension. Not that it really mattered. Every county officer knew he was a cop and they figured he was on official business, since Ted Jackson had set up this meeting. If they knew about Andy’s suspension, and they probably did, since nothing stays a secret long in small towns, they didn’t seem to care.

Andy did not rise out of his chair when a deputy brought John into the room. He just sat there at the far end of a wooden table, a cup of coffee in front of him. The chains running from John’s handcuffs to his leg irons jingled and jangled as he shuffled in, the sound of which fit the time of year, but not the setting. “Take a seat,” Andy said with the cold, calculating voice of an executioner, and pointed to the chair on the other end of the table.

“Would it be possible to remove these handcuffs and leg irons? I promise I won’t try to get away,” John said with a smile.

“No,” Andy said without expounding. Then, turning to the deputy, he said, “You don’t have to stick around. I’ll be all right in here by myself.”

“You sure, man? I ain’t got nothing else to do.” Andy thought the deputy sounded like he’d just moved off the farm.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Andy said.

After the door closed behind the deputy, John laughed, then said, “I thought all the interrogations ended with the trial.”