COMBUSTION

     “That case is a slam dunk - they caught the guy coming out of his house with a bloody mattress for godssake - you’d have to be asleep… or retarded to loose.”  “Listen, I even heard the defendant was on the phone from lock-up and admitted he just lost it - on a taped line!”  Yeah it’s one of those cases where there’s so much evidence if you win well so what – how could you loose, but if you loose then good luck finding a new profession.”  “You’re right, you’d never out live that loss.”  “ And now it’s Tamagini’s problem.”  “Ha, ha, ha…” “Ha, ha, ha…”

 “ Hey fellas, what’s my problem?”  I’d paused outside the office law library, my hands balled tight, taking this in.  “Umm, there’s no problem…”   “ - Yeah, no problem – we were just saying how you’ll have no problem putting that bastard from Reading away for the rest of his life.”

     I’d been walking into awkward behind-my-backs like that in the office and courthouses in both Lowell and Cambridge since discovering Elaine’s body.  A missing persons case was one thing, but giving me a high profile murder prosecution didn’t sit well with some who’d been prosecutors much longer than I had.   The truth was they were right; being the underdog carried a lot less pressure.

     In my first homicide the defendant ran over the victim while she crossed Market Street eating cheese curls.  Mark Russell was charged with causing the death of Deborah Jean Sweeny negligently while drunk driving.  It was a strong case that if left alone would have ended in a guilty plea, but I didn’t leave it alone.   While out chatting up servers trying to figure out just how plastered Russell was that night I stumbled upon a bartender who mentioned Russell and Sweeny in the same sentence. “Wait a minute, they were in here together?”  “Well Deborah Jean was at one end of the bar and Mark was at the other snarling...”  “Snarling?”  “Yeah, well maybe sneering, Debbie used to go out with his uncle you know, who over-dosed on heroin a while back, and they blamed her so there was a lot of animosity…” - wait a second; how often do you accidently run someone over who you know?

     More leg-work turned up a witness who’d seen Russell drive pass Sweeny, bang a u-turn up on the sidewalk striking her, sending the cheese curls flying, before driving off and another who saw Russell return and attempt to throw Sweeny’s body in the trunk before the cops arrived.  In the interest of full disclosure I should tell you these witnesses were not without credibility issues; one had recently beat a murder charge for setting a homeless man on fire and the other had a long record but lets face it I’m not going to find civic leaders and parish priests hanging out in front of the Olympia after two in the morning.

     Because of my snooping instead of a simple motor vehicle homicide I now had a complicated second- degree murder case, but next to no pressure.  The facts were clustered, the witness list looked like America’s Most Wanted and more tumble weeds than mourner blew through Debora Jean’s funeral.  No one cared if I won, and the Vega’s odds were ten to one against a win, but when the verdict came back guilty Mark caught life with the possibility for parole in fifteen and I had to catch a ride back to the office after leaving court to find my car smashed up.  I was wrong; someone did care if I won.

     Another low-expectation case was one where a pipe bomb was found under the car of the boyfriend of a local fireman’s daughter.  Rumor had it Daddy was unhappy with his teenager princess’s unplanned pregnancy.  But rumors and an undetonated pipe bomb don’t get prosecutors lining up outside their supervisor’s office for assignment of the case.  I’m uncertain how many older ADAs handled this investigation with little success before it landed on my desk but I do know the last one was O’Malley, Kelly’s best friend and the prosecutor who lost the case against my witness in the Russell homicide who charred the homeless man to a crisp.  Again it took some legwork but armed with a picture of the bomb, which I thrust under the nose of as many of the daughter’s friends as I could find, and a few threats of perjury and each kid independently admitted seeing what we called an “infernal machine” in various phases of construction in the fireman’s basement workshop while they were downstairs visiting his daughter and playing pool.  This was enough to get an indictment but I give credit for the conviction to the defendant himself who took the witness stand and tried blowing so much smoke up the jury’s ass they smelt a four-alarm fire, saddling him with a ten piece in state prison.

     These are but two examples of my cases that went to trial state courts.  Unlike the feds who have the luxury of a 97% conviction rate because they only indict ironclad cases we handled whatever garbage the local and state cops come up with.  Otherwise the scumbags would run rampant on our streets.   The defense only goes to trial when they believe they can win, otherwise they workout a plea deal.  First-degree murder cases are the exception because even a plea gets you life in prison.  Donohue was admitting he murdered his wife but asserting he suffered from a dissociative disorder causing him to lack the substantial capacity to conform his behavior to the requirements of the law. This was a lot of mumbo jumbo that translated to nothing but a boatload of pressure for me.