Favorite Sons (19 page)

How high up were you?”

“High enough that it was his last landing. As soon as we did that, the rest of them settled down real quick. The next time it happened, we didn't wait for it to get out of control. As soon as one of them started giving us trouble, out he went. After a while, I couldn't wait for one of them to act up so I could pitch his ass out of the chopper. In fact, I liked it; I wanted one of them to act up. You know what we used to say about them?” I shook my head. “Charlie flies real good, but he can't land for shit.”

“Sounds like the war was getting to you.”

“That's the point. Things had gotten real personal for me. You drop off some buddies and go to pick them up a few hours later and find their mutilated bodies in a fox hole with their testicles sewn in their mouths, it gets personal.”

I leaned back in my chair, crossed my arms, and asked, “How does this pertain to Mr. Mull and his trial?”

“This has all gotten too personal for you, Mr. Van Buren. You've been around the bad guys a long time, maybe seen too many of them get away with murder, and now it's gotten inside your head. You're going to disregard the wishes of the victim's family in order to extract your pound of flesh.”

“I'm not sure I concur with that assessment.”

Esposito slowly nodded. “Then why are you seeking the death penalty when no one else wants it? If you accept the plea, Jimbo Mull will spend the rest of his life in a state penitentiary, but that's not good enough for you. You want to throw Mr. Mull out of the helicopter. You want the pleasure of sending him to his death. You
need to back off. A long time ago I refused to back off, and after I got back to the states it took a lot of years looking at the bottoms of whiskey tumblers to get my life back in order.”

I relented and accepted Mull's plea offer. Of course, Esposito was right. His revelations weren't a surprise to me. The job was no longer about justice. It hadn't been for a while. It was about winning. Or rather, it was about never losing. I was driven more by a fear of failure than a need for victory. The victories in my life had never been as sweet as the defeats were bitter.

In many respects, I was not happy with the man I had become. I had insulated myself and protected my feelings like they were an exposed nerve. I had few close friends and I had been unable to sustain a relationship with a woman for more than a few months. I was considered one of the most eligible bachelors in Summit County and I had plenty of relationships, but most of the women left saying they didn't feel needed, or that I would never love them as much as I loved my job. I'm not sure I was in total agreement, but I was smart enough not to live in denial.

When a constant parade of women roll in and out of your life, changing with the seasons, and all tell you the same thing, any rational person would have to believe there's some truth to the matter. I'm not happy that I've fumbled relationships with some terrific women, but I haven't made any real attempts to change, either.

Could I ever discount the potential psychological damage that had occurred while covering up Petey's death and trying to smother it in my psyche? Of course not, but I never blamed the events that occurred on Chestnut Ridge for the man that I had become—a loner consumed with his job. It was a self-imposed exile.

*    *    *

At times, it seemed nearly unfathomable to me that a man with little or no political aspirations could stumble out of blue-collar Crystalton, Ohio, and end up as the Republican candidate for state attorney general. I often think of the movements in the universe that put into motion events that change our lives. Why, for example, was Ricky Blood driving near the community college at the moment
that Tina Westmoreland's starter broke? Why did those two paths cross? How did I end up running for Ohio attorney general and not working the graveyard shift in a steel mill?

In my case, it was individuals, not events, that set the ball in motion. The first was my high school baseball coach, Andrew Suranovich. Along with coaching the baseball team, he was the guidance counselor at the high school. He was short—about five-six—and short-tempered. Although I never heard him say anything worse than “dag gummit,” he could give you a look of exasperation that made you feel like the dumbest human being ever to walk God's earth. He was not a particularly warm person and was tough to get close to, but he lived four doors down from us and we would occasionally walk to school together. He always asked about my grades and seemed to take a particular interest in my well-being. I'm not exactly sure why, and I imagine pity played into the equation since I was fatherless, but I couldn't discount the fact that I was a hell of a catcher and they don't grow on trees in small high schools.

On the second day of school my senior year, Mr. Suranovich walked into the metal shop where I was arc welding. He reached up under my shop coat, grabbed the back of my jeans and lifted, smashing everything of vital importance to me, and marched me whining and on tiptoes back to his office. The pressure had set my entrails ablaze and I sat for a moment sucking air and blinking away tears, wondering what infraction I had committed in barely more than one day of school. When I was finally able to speak, I asked, “What'd I do?”

“Don't you want to go to college?” he asked. I did. “Then why are you taking auto body repair instead of literature?”

I had no answer. Well, I had no good answer. “I wanted to learn to weld.”

He leaned over his desk and I could smell the bacon he had eaten for breakfast. “Yes, Mr. Van Buren, the question that's on the lips of college admissions officers everywhere: How are his welding skills?” He took a breath and filled out a drop-add form. “Tomorrow morning you report to Mrs. Siebert's literature class. Now, what are your plans for college?”

“I was thinking about attending the East Liverpool branch of Kent State. If I commute, take two classes a term, and go year-round, I can keep the costs down and graduate, I'm guessing, in about six years, maybe a little longer.”

I thought it was a good choice, but soon learned otherwise. Mr. Suranovich rubbed at his temples in a circular motion for a few moments before looking up, giving me that exasperated look. Then he flicked the back of his hand toward his door. “Please, be gone,” he said.

The following week I was summoned to his office where sat an erect, broad-shouldered man with a high forehead and the nose of a boxer who took more punches than he landed. When he stood, the man towered over me; he extended a hand that looked like it could have encircled mine twice. His name was Landis Jacoby and he was the head baseball coach and an assistant football coach at the University of the Laurel Highlands outside of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. He also had been Mr. Suranovich's college roommate. He had a hint of a West Virginia twang, and said, “Mr. Suranovich tells me that you're a pretty fair baseball and football player. He said you're the type of quality student-athlete we're looking for at the University of the Laurel Highlands, and frankly, I'm in desperate need of a catcher for next season. Think you might be interested?” I was apoplectic. The high school had given Adrian his own mailbox because he received so much mail from college coaches. This was the first time any college coach had shown any interest in me. Before I could answer he continued. “I've seen your grades. They're good enough for an academic scholarship. I could get you some money for baseball, add a little for football, and it'll be pretty close to a full ride.”

He started saying something about the beauty of the Laurel Highlands, trying to sell the school, but I cut him off. “You can quit selling now, coach, I'm in. I'll come play for you.”

He frowned. “Don't you want to come see the campus first?”

I shook my head. “No, sir. No need for that. I'm sure it's a fine campus.”

“You should probably talk it over with your parents.”

“That's not necessary. It's just my mom and she'll be real excited about this. Do I need to sign something?”

That was it. Landis Jacoby offered me a chance to go to college on a scholarship and I snatched it on the spot. I didn't step onto the campus until the two-day freshman orientation the following July.

The second person of influence was my ex-wife, Marie, who was actually a graduate student at the University of the Laurel Highlands and my speech instructor my sophomore year. Halfway through the semester, before we became lovers, she said, “Your oratory skills are exceptional. You should consider going to law school.”

It was the first time in my life that anyone ever told me I was exceptional at anything. With all the forethought that I had given my college selection, I asked, “Okay, how do I do that?” The next semester I enrolled in a debate class and found that, indeed, I was quite good at public speaking and debating. I changed my major to pre-law and following graduation was accepted to law school at the University of Akron.

Marie and I were married the summer after my first year of law school and divorced before the third summer. After eighteen months of marriage, while I was downtown clerking at the Ninth District Court of Appeals, she packed up her bags and left. The marriage had gone on the rocks quickly and I knew a split-up was coming, but I officially found out we were getting divorced when a classmate called and said he had read it on the statistics page of the
Beacon Journal
under the heading of “Divorces Requested.” I haven't spoken to Marie since the day our divorce was final. I never remarried.

After law school I clerked for a municipal court judge who recommended me for hire to the prosecuting attorney. It was 1982, and I became the youngest assistant prosecutor on the staff of Summit County Prosecuting Attorney T. Ambrose Livingston, who was the third person who dramatically influenced my life.

I rose through the ranks to the position of chief assistant prosecutor, which meant I supervised all the felony cases and personally prosecuted the death penalty cases. I was undefeated— four for four—in such cases when in January of 1995 T. Ambrose
walked into my office, sat alone at the conference table, balanced a pair of black wingtips on the lacquered surface, and scratched his testicles, an annoying habit that he was loath to stop because he was T. Ambrose Livingston, goddammit, and no one told him what he could and couldn't do, including scratching himself in public and sneaking cigarettes in his office. The county's chief law enforcement officer burned through a pack and a half of non-filtered cigarettes each day in a non-smoking building.

T. Ambrose interlocked his fingers behind his head and said, “My boy, I've decided to run for the United States Congress.”

“Congratulations, sir,” I said. “You'll make a fine congressman.”

He winked. “I know that. I think you'd make a fine prosecuting attorney.”

I nodded and said, “So do I.”

For a change it wasn't a rash decision. I knew T. Ambrose was considering a run for Congress, and I had been contemplating running for his vacated office for several months. With T. Ambrose's endorsement, I ran unopposed in the primary and easily won the general election. I was reelected in 2000. It was during that campaign that I became known as “The Button Man.”

Two days after Christmas in 1992, Gerald Riddick broke into the Barberton home of his ex-wife and shotgunned her to death. He then got a beer from the fridge, made himself a ham and cheese sandwich, and watched the Cleveland Browns game on television until her boyfriend came home from his job as a department store security guard. He walked into the house, said, “What the fu . . .” then met the same fate as his girlfriend. Gerald stepped over the boyfriend's corpse, got another beer, watched the last quarter of the Browns loss to the Steelers, threw his beer bottle through the television screen in disgust, then called the police to report the murders. I tried the case and secured a death penalty.

In 1999, the
Beacon Journal
did an article about Summit Countians on death row. During their interview with Riddick, he said he didn't think he deserved the death penalty because the murders had been crimes of passion. “The Button Man knew I didn't deserve the death penalty, but he nailed me with it anyways,” Riddick said.

When the reporter questioned the term “Button Man,” Riddick explained that on death row I was known as “The Button Man,” because I enjoyed seeing the button—the top of the plunger— drop on a syringe delivering the cocktail of deadly chemicals into a convict's arm. “If he could push the button himself, he would,” Riddick continued. “He enjoys watching men die.”

That was not true, but Riddick's nickname for me stuck. For better or worse, I became known as “The Button Man.” I believe it helped secure my reelection in 2000, and it certainly didn't hurt my name recognition in my run to be Ohio's attorney general.

*    *    *

Every male elected official in Summit County had receptionist envy over Justine Lundquist. She was a former college volleyball player who was six-foot-four in her heels, had legs that connected just below her rib cage, long blonde hair, blue-green eyes, and a smile that melted the heart of every man who walked into my lobby. During her first two weeks of employment, I had three talks with Justine about appropriate dress—skirt too short, top too revealing, skirt and top too tight. After the first two talks, I asked Margaret to handle the third. She said, “Umm-umm-umm-umm-umm, that is not my job. You hired little Miss Sugar Britches, so you go tell her your own self.”

Although it had been a patronage job—Justine was the niece of one of my biggest contributors—she had done an excellent job of running a smooth lobby, which at any moment could contain a half-dozen edgy men on the brink of indictment. She was intelligent and had an elementary education degree, but her primary motivation seemed to be husband hunting. She was in the midst of a steamy affair with Ben Brandt, chief of my civil division. Ordinarily, I would have nipped that in a hurry. But, with an eighteen-point lead in the polls and less than two months until the election, I was content to feign ignorance and hope that Mrs. Brandt didn't find out about the affair until I was sitting comfortably in Columbus.