A Fever in the Heart: And Other True Cases (21 page)

As it turned out, I worked for years after Morris was killed. If I hadn't had my work, I don't know what I would have done because when I wasn't busy, I sat around and thought about Morris. I went back to work as a court reporter in federal court cases. They brought a lot of them down from Spokane, and I was kept busy." Olive was completely unaware that Jerilee had begun to date again.

Had she known, she would have been shocked, even though she expected that one day, in the future, Jerilee would remarry since she was only thirty. Olive certainly did not consider that her ex-daughter-in-law would even think of another marriage anytime soon. While the Yakima Herald-Republic was barely mentioning the Blankenbaker-Moore murders anymore, there had been a great deal going on below the surface.

District Attorney Jeff Sullivan, Sergeant Bob Brimmer, and Detective Vern Henderson had been working feverishly to build the strongest case possible against the man they now believed to be the shooter in at least one of the murders. And that was the man who had borrowed the death gun shortly before each of the killings: Angelo "Turfy" Pleasant. Brimmer, Henderson, and Jeff Sullivan were about to make a move.

With the visit from Loretta Scott and her linking of the. 22 to her cousin, Sullivan agreed that they had probable cause now to arrest Turfy Pleasant. On February 27, 1976, Sullivan issued a warrant charging Turfy with aiding and abetting first-degree murder, and for commiting second-degree murder. The warrant was sent up to the Ellensburg Police Department with a request to arrest Turfy Pleasant and to inform Yakima County detectives when he was in custody. It didn't take long. Turfy wasn't hiding. He was going to class during the week, and he was coming home to be with his friends on weekends. It was that same Friday, in the late afternoon, when word came that Turfy Pleasant had been arrested and was being held in the Kittitas County Jail in Ellensburg. The weather was bitter. Snoqualmie Pass, the main route through the Cascade Mountains between Seattle and Yakima, had already been closed down twice and motorists who were finally allowed to risk going through were warned to watch for avalanches and rolling rocks. There were twelve inches of snow on the ground in Yakima and more coming down. Bob Brimmer and Vern Henderson checked out a city car and headed north in the roaring blizzard to pick up their prisoner. When Turfy saw Vern and Brimmer, he half shrugged. Whatever the game was, it was over or it had entered another phase.

Brimmer advised Turfy of his rights under Miranda. This time, Angelo "Turfy" Pleasant was a suspect. He got in the backseat of the patrol unit with Vern Henderson while Brimmer drove. The snow was so thick as it pointed icy darts at the headlights that it was hard to see the road.

But all of them were used to this kind of weather. It was a typical February in eastern Washington Just to be doubly sure that his prisoner understood his rights, Vern pulled the little Miranda card from his pocket and read the warnings again. Turfy nodded that he understood he didn't have to talk to them, but he was willing to do so. As a cop, Vern Henderson was elated, they had hooked a big fish.

As an athlete, a black man, a human being, he pondered how sad this all was. Andrew Pleasant had been so proud to see his son get a hero's welcome when he came back from Japan in 1972. Turfy Pleasant was never going to make "State" now, and he was never going to the Olympics. He wasn't going to get a college degree in education and become head wrestling coach at Davis High School. He had had the whole world almost in his grasp. That was all gone now.

"I didn't shoot anyone," Turfy told Vern. "The only thing I did was furnish the gun."

"Who did you give the gun to?"

"To Gabby. I picked it up from him a week after Morris was shot."

"What about Christmas Eve?"

"I. .. I went and picked the gun up again and gave it to Gabby." Vern Henderson asked him how he got the gun back after Gabby was shot, and Turfy said that the "shooter" and he had agreed on a "rendezvous spot"

where he would retrieve the gun on Christmas morning. "And where was this rendezvous spot supposed to be at?"

"Over by Eisenhower High School by the golf course."

Vern said nothing, but none of it made any sense. All that nonsense about Turfy running around borrowing a gun and picking it up and borrowing it again. And why was Gabby Moore sending out for a gun to have himself shot, and then arranging to have Turfy pick it up? Why would he care what happened to the gun after he was dead? Had he so wanted to convince Jerilee that he too was the victim of an unknown stalker that he was willing to literally die to do it? The winter wind howled around their patrol car and it felt as though they were being lifted off the road and set down again. They barely noticed, the questions on their minds preoccupied them. But Vern Henderson and Bob Brimmer were going to have to wait to find out the rest of the story if they ever did. Turfy didn't want to talk about the murders anymore.

Ordinarily, they could have made the drive back to Yakima in about half an hour, and it took them only a little longer in the snowstorm. Turfy stared out the window at the white on white on white. Vern wondered what he was thinking about. Time, probably. That's what his cousin Loretta said he was afraid of, doing time. And he had good reason to be afraid.

As they drove into Yakima, Vern realized that it was too late for Turfy to get anything to eat at the Yakima County Jail. He asked his prisoner if he was hungry. "Yeah. .."

"Well, the best you might get in the jail this time of night is a cold sandwich," Vern said. "You got any money on you?"

Turfy shook his head.

"The only people I treat to free meals are pretty women, and that's not you," Vern kidded him. "I'll loan you the money for a hamburger and a Coke." They stopped at a drive-in and Vern bought the food for Turfy. It was dark and late when they booked him into the Yakima County Jail. It was too late to start an interrogation into what they knew were two very complicated murder cases. Turfy was placed in a single cell. Brimmer and Henderson had waited three months to find out why Morris Blankenbaker had been murdered, and two months to solve the riddle of Gabby Moore's death. They felt they were right on the brink of knowing, but one more night wouldn't make any difference. "You want to call anyone, Turfy?"

Vern asked.

Turfy shook his head.

The two detectives left him there and walked away from the jail smells of stale cigarette smoke, sweat, urine, and Pine-Sol disinfectant out into the blessedly cold, clean air. Their feet crunched on the snow.

They didn't talk. Both Brimmer and Henderson felt as if they were in a state of suspended animation. Tomorrow would tomorrow might bring the explanations that had eluded them. They both felt they had the right man at least on Morris's murder. They still didn't believe that Turfy could have killed his hero, Gabby Moore, but they figured he knew who had. on Saturday morning, February 28, Bob Brimmer and Vern Henderson took Turfy Pleasant from the Yakima County Jail back to their offices. Again, Brimmer read him his rights and explained that Turfy could waive his rights to have an attorney present during questioning. The detective sergeant was careful to assure himself that his prisoner understood what "waive" meant. Turfy did and said he wanted to talk with Brimmer and Henderson. But if they had expected that he would tell them what they had waited so long to hear right away, they were disappointed. Since January 3, they had both been convinced that Turfy knew the motivation for the two murders, and now they knew from talking to his cousin, Loretta Scott, that he had arranged not once, but twice, to furnish the death weapon. What they wanted to know was the entire story, and the name of the actual shooter. Turfy talked around the subject for an hour or more. It was obvious that he wanted to tell them the real truth after all the false starts and half truths he had told before. It was also obvious that he knew that once he told them what was fighting to get out, there would be no going back. Half an hour past noon, Turfy Pleasant agreed to dictate a statement about the death of Gabby Moore.

The long descent of what had once been the finest example of a coach-athlete relationship into a sinister manipulation would be caught on the slowly turning tape recorder. Turfy gave his birthday, January 28, 1954, and his address, 1501

Glen Drive, Ellensburg, Washington, Apartment 12, Executive House.

He listened quietly, poised to speak, as Vern Henderson once more read him his Miranda rights. As the last clause echoed in the room, and after Turfy had indicated that he understood every one of his legal options under Miranda, he declined to have his attorney present. He looked at Vern Henderson and he began to talk. "Christmas Eve night," Turfy said, "after I did a little visiting, I decided, you know, to go up and see Mr. Moore.... Okay, so apparently he had just gotten home. He just got home so we just started talking and I asked him if he would like to go out you know, get a drink, go visit, whatever. And he said, Yeah' we'd go check it out after he got cleaned up. But then the phone rings. I think it was Kenny Marino on it and he said I was there.... Okay, then he hangs up and we start talking. .. about everyday things, mainly about wrestling. About half an hour later, there is a second phone call.

And then I notice something pretty strange about it."

Turfy explained that Mr. Moore usually told him who was on the phone, but on this night, he hadn't explained anything about the second call, and the call had seemed to upset Moore. "Then," Turfy continued, "he started acting strange and then he broke out his bottle. He started drinking drinking everything straight. Then he started to talking crazy.

He started saying, Tonight's the night." He asked me if I could go get the gun.... I told him no. Then he said, Look, if you don't go get that gun, I'll see to it that your neck is on the chopping block for Morris Blankenbaker's death." And I says, It don't make no difference because I didn't do it."

"... Then he ran it down to me. He said, It's not that you did it or not, it's just that you did have a part in it because you committed [sic] this gun to me the first time." And unaware, myself unaware the gun was going to be used." Turfy said he had resisted Gabby's plan. "So then I says, Well, look that gun is a long ways from here." And he says, Well, can you get it tonight?" and I says, No." He says, Well, we can gas up my car and we can go get it wherever it's at because I want to have it tonight."" Turfy Pleasant's face glistened with sweat as he relived that last ghastly Christmas Eve in Gabby Moore's apartment. "And then I told him I wasn't going to do it. But then he threatened me again, and he showed me the police department's number on the phone book, and he dialed all four numbers four, five, and then four number sand he said, You sure you don't want me to dial this last number? Think about it." And then he went on and dialed that last number."

There was remembered desperation in Turfy's voice as he stared at Vern Henderson. He sighed. "Then I told him I could get the gun. That was the end of the phone call to the police department, so he said, Well, you go get that gun." He gave me fifteen minutes to get that gun." His coach, whose word had always been law to him, had ordered him to do something he dreaded doing. But Turfy had finally said "All right." Gabby told him to get the gun and come back with it. "I was supposed to come back and honk twice to let him know I had the gun." Vern Henderson thought he knew what was coming next, Loretta Scott had told them about Christmas Eve, but he wanted to see if Turfy's version of the evening meshed with her recall. Just at that instant, the tape recorder ground to a halt, and tensely Henderson and Brimmer checked it out, while Turfy waited, wanting and not wanting to continue his statement. "We got everything going again, now," Vern told him.

"Okay," Turfy continued. "So I went and got the gun. I went to my cousin's house. She was having a little party, so I had a drink or two and then I asked her if I could get the gun and she didn't ask me for what or nothing. You know, my cousin is unaware of what is going on. "So I got the gun from her and I went back by Mr. Moore's place and I honked twice. He was supposed to be ready, see, and he was supposed to come to the door, drunk, you know trying to get drunk so he wouldn't feel too much pain." Henderson was hesitant to slow down this outpouring of confession, but he wanted to be sure that he understood what Turfy was talking about. Why would Gabby have wanted Turfy to shoot him in the first place? He had to have known it was going to hurt like hell. Turfy Pleasant had known about Gabby's plan to make Jerilee believe that someone was after him, trying to kill him just as they had killed Morris. Gabby had seen that she suspected him of being behind Morris's murder, and he believed he had to convince her otherwise or she would never marry him again. Turfy knew that Gabby had told Jerilee about mysterious phone calls and broken windows. He knew she hadn't believed a word of it, and that she had hung up on Gabby, making him more despondent. On Christmas Eve, in his obsessive, desperate fool-for love state, Gabby had demanded that Turfy help him carry out a wild, ill-conceived, tragic plan. Gabby had had it all figured out. If he were to be shot not actually killed but just injured by a bullet fired from the gun that had killed Morris, then he was sure Jerilee would relent.

He would become a victim himself, and no longer a suspect. He didn't care how much it hurt, nothing could hurt him more than being without Jerilee. Besides Gabby planned to drink enough while Turfy was picking up the gun so that the pain wouldn't get to him. Jerilee. Jerilee was why Gabby had threatened Turfy and sent him out into that icy Christmas Eve to find the. 22 that had killed Morris. If Loretta hadn't moved from Walla Walla back to Yakima the month before, it would have been impossible to carry out Gabby's plan. Walla Walla was at least a four-hour round trip. Turfy could never had retrieved the gun and come back to Yakima before Derek Moore got home from his date. But Loretta was only blocks away, and Gabby had convinced Turfy that he would turn him into the Yakima police and say he had shot Morris unless Turfy did exactly what he ordered. Vern Henderson could sense that Turfy Pleasant must have been driven by two tremendously compelling and powerful emotions that night. He loved Gabby Moore his coach, his alternate father, the man who had told him he could do anything and be anything he wanted to be, the man whose guidance had already taken him to heights of glory he could never have imagined. He must have wanted to bring back the old Gabby again, the happy, joking, confident Gabby. He had seen the man's heart break over the loss of Jerilee, and he wanted Gabby to have her. After months of listening to his coach talk about Jerilee and break down in tears, Turfy had finally believed that nothing else was going to make him happy. Turfy couldn't see it, he'd said, but Gabby Moore was a one-woman man. Turfy's second emotion was probably even stronger the instinct to survive that bubbles to the surface of any human being in danger. Gabby had scared him when he picked up the phone and dialed the police. If Gabby turned him in and said he had shot Morris, Turfy knew they would come and arrest him, and he would do heavy hard time. When Gabby was drunk, there was no telling what he would do. And he was drinking heavily on Christmas Eve. And so, Turfy had gone to get the. 22