Favorite Sons (20 page)

Although she was not my secretary, I used Justine as my first line of defense. She always knew if there was trouble brewing back in the
offices. When I returned from Ricky Blood's execution, I stopped by her desk and asked, “Anything going on that I need to know about?”

“It's been pretty quiet out here,” she said. “However, the rock star in the corner has been waiting for you for two hours.”

I looked over my shoulder to where a silver-haired man slouched in an orange fake leather and chrome chair, his arms crossed at the chest, a thin smile creasing his lips. He was wearing dark, wraparound sunglasses that pinched his forehead so that little ripples of skin puffed up around his temples. I turned back to Justine and asked, “Who is he?”

She shrugged. “He wouldn't give me his name. He said he needed to talk to you in person. I asked what it was in regard to, and he said it was very important, something about helping you win the election. He's been sitting there with that stupid-ass smirk on his face. He gives me the creeps.”

The man had a greasy, unwashed look to him and a yellow tinge to his skin, like a long-time smoker or someone losing a battle to a cirrhotic liver. His hair was a dingy, gunmetal gray, heavy with gel and combed neatly off his face. While his face and hair appeared to need a good scrubbing, he was neatly attired, his khakis and blue dress shirt cleaned and pressed, his brown dress shoes buffed and shiny. He smelled heavily of tobacco smoke and cheap aftershave. His smile revealed dull, graying teeth, and the smug look of a poker player holding a royal flush in a winner-take-all pot.

I walked up to him and asked, “Are you waiting to see me?”

“I am, at that.”

I extended my hand and said, “Hutchinson Van Buren.”

In a condescending tone he said, “Why, I know who you are, Mr. Van Buren. Everyone knows the Button Man. Why, I feel as though I am in the presence of greatness.”

He made no effort to extend his hand and I could feel a wave of heat racing up around my neck. I withdrew my hand. “Is there something I can help you with?” I asked.

“No, not at all.” He nodded toward Justine. “You heard the lady at the desk, the one I give the creeps. I'm here to help you. I'm going
to help you win the election. In fact, what I have to say is critical to your campaign.”

“Really? How's that, seeing that I'm already up eighteen points in the polls?”

He smiled. “Ah, but polls are just opinions of the electorate, Mr. Van Buren, and as we know they can be fickle animals. The momentum in an election can change quickly. Maybe we should go to your office and talk in private.”

“Whatever it is you have to say, why don't you just tell me here? I have a full schedule the rest of the afternoon.”

The playful smile turned evil. “Oh, I think you'll be able to carve out a little time for me, Mr. Van Buren.” Slowly, he took off his sunglasses; the eyes were tired and yellow, and his right pupil was lying dead in the corner of the socket, staring at his shoes. Tens of thousands of frozen needles peppered my skin. The heat raced up from my neck, engulfing my ears and forehead. “Is it all coming back to you now, prosecutor?”

“You're Jack Vukovich.”

“I can excuse you for not recognizing me at first. I've changed quite a bit since you last saw me, but thirty years in a penitentiary will age a man before his time.”

“What is it that I can do for you, Mr. Vukovich?”

“See, we're still having a communications problem. It's not what you can do for me; I'm here to help you.”

“I don't see how that's possible.”

“Oh, but it is. You see, I'm not blind in both eyes.” He pointed to the left. “I see real good out of this one. And I saw some things up on Chestnut Ridge thirty-three years ago that a smart man running for state attorney general might want to discuss.”

I choked down the tennis ball that was lodged in my throat; I was struggling not to look panicked, but felt I was failing. “I can't imagine that, but I'll hear you out. Come on back.”

Jack Vukovich smiled as he arose and followed me to my office. Along the way he asked, “So, how was the execution? Everything you'd hoped for?” I didn't answer. “Nasty bit of a human being, that Buchanan fella. I can't say I'm a big fan of the death penalty, given my past experience, but he was particularly
anti-social, don't you think, torching that young girl the way he did?”

“I'd like not to be disturbed, Margaret,” I said without breaking stride.

She looked up and stared hard at Vukovich, who danced his fingers across her desk as he passed and said, “Good afternoon, madam.” She just frowned.

As I took off my suit jacket and situated myself behind my desk, Vukovich walked to the corner window and stared out over the downtown. “Ah, the once-majestic city of Akron, the has-been, never-will-be-again rubber capital of the world. Now it looks like Beirut.” He shook his head. “I just can't believe the way this country has allowed its industrial complex to crumble.”

“Really? I find it interesting that a man such as yourself would be concerned about our country's industrial demise.”

“Why, I am, indeed. In spite of the injustices that have been heaped upon me, I am a proud American, Mr. Van Buren.” He continued to smile.

“How about we get to the point? What is it that you want, Mr. Vukovich?”

“What say we keep it friendly? Call me Jack. Or, if you like, call me by the nickname you and your buddies used when you didn't think I could hear you. What was that name? Oh yeah, ‘One-Eyed Jack.' Just call me that.”

“That was a long time ago, Mr. Vukovich. I'd prefer to keep this formal. Again, what do you want?”

He ignored me, walking across the room to a wall adorned by my college and law school diplomas, two state prosecutor of the year plaques, and framed certificates of commendation. “My, my, look at all the little boy from Crystalton has accomplished.” He rocked from heel to toe, his hands shoved into his pants pockets. “Why, you've got your own little hall of fame here. It's very impressive.” Again, the tone was condescending. He had retained his Ohio Valley twang, though his voice had a faint feminine quality that I didn't recall from my younger years. He walked over to my desk, reached into the glass dish, and plucked out a piece of chocolate candy. As he sat in the chair directly in front of my desk, he skinned the chocolate
of its aluminum foil wrapper, popped it in his mouth, and casually dropped the wrapper on the floor.

“You mentioned Chestnut Ridge,” I said. “Why would I care about anything that happened up there?” Jack Vukovich rolled his tongue around the inside of his mouth, working it between his lips and gums, skimming the chocolate off his teeth before he swallowed and said, “You wouldn't have brought me back to your office if you didn't know what I was talking about, so how about we dispense with the bullshit, Mr. Van Buren? Here's what happened that morning on Chestnut Ridge. Yeah, I was in the weeds with that Sanchez boy. Guilty as charged. I didn't kill him and you know that. However, I was still in the woods when you and your little Boy Scout troop came into the clearing and ran into that retard. I saw everything.” Again he pointed to his good eye. “I saw Petey bump the Nash kid with his head. I saw the Nash kid push him, and I saw Petey come up with the stick. Then I watched as Adrian Nash took that rock and crushed the retarded kid's skull. That poor bastard was dead before he hit the ground.”

For a long moment I sat in silence. My mind raced back through the decades to that morning on the hill. Bits and pieces flashed through my mind—the fog, the burn in my thighs as we climbed the steep path, Pepper's incessant chatter, Adrian finding the maul and washing it off in the high-running Little Seneca Creek, the hunger pangs before we made the clearing, the chilling sight of Petey in the bright sunshine, the awful instant that stone hit bone. The memories, however, did not end there. I distinctly recalled the sound of an animal crashing through the brush after Petey dropped. At least I always assumed it to have been an animal. I felt light in the head, woozy, a combination of panic and nervous energy. It felt like the aftermath of an Adrian Nash fastball to the temple, a pain so intense that your mouth fills with salty bile and your guts erupt in fire while you choke back the urge to vomit. Moisture soaked my armpits and the heat of a tropic sun pounded on the back of my neck. Still, I was careful not to give any verbal confirmation of the veracity of his comments because of the possibility, though remote, that he was wired. “That's a very interesting tale, Mr. Vukovich, especially when you consider the fact that you pleaded guilty to that murder.”

For the first time, the smug smile disappeared from his lips. “You'd be surprised what a man will confess to when someone is threatening him with the electric chair and he's been stupid enough to leave physical evidence at the scene of a murder. By the way . . .” He pointed to a spot an inch above his right eye. “That Nash boy hit him right here.”

“That's something you could have learned from detectives or an autopsy report.”

“You're right. I could have. But I didn't. I know it because I saw it happen.”

“If you saw it happen, why didn't you tell the sheriff?”

“Maybe I did. Maybe they didn't want to keep young mister Nash from earning a football scholarship. Or, maybe I didn't want to drag my nephew into the mess.”

“It doesn't seem like you're having any problems with that right now.”

“Three decades in prison will change your perspective on things. My heart's not as soft as it used to be.”

“I'll ask you this one more time, Mr. Vukovich, then I want you to get the hell out of here. What is it that you want?”

“Well, I would hate to see ill come to a small-town boy, someone with such great potential as you, Mr. Van Buren, but I'm afraid I'm being pushed into a corner where I might be forced to reveal to the world what really happened that day up on Chestnut Ridge.”

“I see. So, this is a shakedown.”

He recoiled and said, “Oh,” pressing his hands to his chest like a cowboy pierced by an arrow in an old western. “‘Shakedown' is such an ugly word. No, no, no. That's not it at all. I'm just here asking for a little . . .” He paused, looking upward as though in deep contemplation, “ . . . consideration.”

“What kind of consideration?”

“I'm having an issue with the police department in Portage Township.”

“What kind of issue?”

He brought his fingertips together just below his chin. “Let's just say it's a little misunderstanding, some accusations that are going around. Totally untrue, you understand?”

“I see. These accusations, they wouldn't have anything to do with you messing around with some little boy, would they?” The question hung in the air for several silent, tense moments. I sensed his discomfort and added to it. “Is he mentally retarded, too, Jack?”

The salvo hit home. His nostrils flared and the jaw clenched under the flaccid skin, and I thought for a moment he was going to come over the desk at me. It took a moment for him to regain his composure. The forced smile slowly returned to the lips of Jack Vukovich as he pushed himself upright with his elbows. “Here's the deal, Mr. Van Buren. You make this go away and I'll go away. I'll leave the county and never be a problem to you again. We'll all go on with our lives.”

“What about the boy, the victim of this alleged misunderstanding? Will he just go on with his life, too?”

“I don't know how much clearer I can make this. There's nothing to it. This is just the imagination of an overzealous cop, the kind of guy who gives law enforcement a bad name, if you know what I mean. Just be a good prosecutor and make it go away. Do that, and you and me are good.”

“And if I don't?”

“If you don't, then my memory is going to get a whole lot better. I'll give the information to every newspaper in the state and your opponent. I'll tell them everything I know.”

“Do you really think that will hurt me? No one will believe an ex-con.”

“Ordinarily, that might be true, but I've already gone to the trouble of taking a polygraph test.” He reached into his jacket and produced photocopies of several pages of polygraph results and dropped them on my desk. “I took the liberty of making you a copy, along with the list of pertinent questions that I was asked.”

I picked up the paper and scanned the questions.

Were you in the woods on Chestnut Ridge near Crystalton, Ohio, on the morning of June 14, 1971?

Did you kill Peter Sanchez?

Can you identify the killer?

Was a prominent Ohio politician among the group when Sanchez was killed?

He pointed with a grunge-stained index finger at the papers in my hand. “I suggest you have those results reviewed by your own polygraph expert,” Vukovich said. “I'm certain you'll find that I was truthful.” I felt a burn deep in my stomach, as though I had been kicked in the balls. I dropped the papers back on my desk without comment. I was trying to disguise my fear, but the heat rising in my ears told me I was failing miserably. He continued, “Look, Mr. Van Buren, I'm an old man and a danger to no one.”

“Except for the boys you target.”

“See, there you go again with all that ugliness.”

I massaged my temples with the tips of my fingers and asked, “This is a big state, Jack. How in God's name did you end up in my jurisdiction?”

It was a rhetorical question, but one that caused Jack Vukovich to snort and laugh out loud. “Well, it wasn't by accident. Hell, once I found out you were the prosecutor, I said, ‘Jack, my boy, this is your lucky day. You just found yourself a get-out-of-jail-free card.' That's when I moved to Summit County—been living here a couple of years. I figured if I had any problems, you'd be glad to help me out, considering that I did all those years in the joint for a crime you helped to cover up.” He went for my jugular, continuing to smile. I wanted to vomit. “I've got to tell you, Mr. Van Buren, it was almost worth all those years in prison to be able to sit here today and see you with that sick, I'm-so-fucked look on your face.”