Authors: Ken Englade
For his part, Andy remained skeptical, alluding again to his wish for an attorney.
Ignoring what Andy’s trial lawyers later would heatedly argue was only one of a number of requests from Andy for counsel, McGowan went on. “Andy’s the one,” he said. “His fucking lawyer ain’t the one. Andy’s the one that can make or break himself. And either you get on our side or you don’t. That’s your choice. I can’t make it for you. Can’t
nobody
make it for you.”
“I know,” Andy relied, “but I’m going to have to have my attorney present before I do it.”
McGowan seemed to give in. “Mighty fine,” he replied. “But are you going to do it?”
“I’m going to have to talk to my attorney,” Andy replied.
McGowan ignored him, claiming that if Andy refused to cooperate, the district attorney’s office would look with disfavor upon his resistance and treat him more harshly than if he went along. Seemingly as much to organize his thoughts as for Andy’s benefit, McGowan outlined his theory about Joy being at one end of the chain that led to Rozanne while the other end was still a question mark. However, he added, from where he was right then, Andy was the last person in line. “If it needs to stop at you, that’s fine,” McGowan said, toughening his stance, “because I’m going to tell you that we’re going to get Joy Aylor. And if we have to, we’re going to get you. Now that’s just the way it has to be.”
Although sobered by the remarks, Andy refused to open up. “I need to hear from my dad saying he’s going to get me an attorney or he’s going to have one court-appointed.”
“I understand that,” McGowan replied, shaking his head slowly. “But I want you to know where I’m coming from, too.”
To help break the ice, McGowan suggested they discuss less sensitive issues, ones that did not require Andy to face the issue of Rozanne’s attack directly. “Let’s talk about some bullshit stuff,” McGowan said lightly. “Stuff that don’t have nothing to do with nothing.”
“Not on the record?” Andy asked skeptically.
“Nothing on the record,” McGowan confirmed. “Just bullshit stuff.”
20
For twenty minutes or more, McGowan and Andy chatted about how investigators had traced him, lost his trail, picked it up, then lost him again before finally catching up with him after he returned to Dallas.
Andy, relaxing more by the minute, related how he had used three different aliases on his travels through Nevada, New Mexico, Idaho, Oregon, and the Dakotas. “I probably could have stayed gone forever,” he added.
“Why didn’t you?” McGowan asked.
Andy shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I thought there would be a point where you would turn around, come back here, and do the right thing,” McGowan said. “I thought you would sit down with me and we could get it right.”
Again, the conversation drifted away, this time to talk about Andy’s daughters, the two young girls he had not seen in five months and missed terribly. Life on the run had its downside, Andy agreed, and one of the most prominent disadvantages was not being able to see family and friends.
“Well, hell, I know that,” McGowan commiserated. “A guy that’s used to having a home, a family, a job, goes to work, comes back home, even got a girlfriend on the side, he isn’t ready for that kind of shit. For the kind of guy that’s killed fifteen people, that’s an easy life, probably the best one. But for a guy that’s an everyday guy, that shit ain’t going to work.”
Just when it appeared that McGowan and Andy were approaching a rapport, Investigator Ken McKenzie entered the room, feigning a casualness that immediately raised Andy’s hackles. “I’m sorry,” he told McGowan, nodding at McKenzie, “but I won’t say another word with him in here.”
McGowan nodded, inwardly pleased with the opening moves in the good-cop/bad-cop scenario that was beginning to be played out. Claiming a sudden craving for a cup of coffee, McGowan excused himself and briskly left the room, anxious to see what would happen when McKenzie and Andy were left alone together.
As soon as the door closed, Andy turned to McKenzie and stared sullenly at him.
“I know I’m not your favorite person in the world,” McKenzie began unctuously, claiming he knew that Andy felt a great deal of hostility toward him. “But I do know some things that you probably want to know.” The main thing, McKenzie said, was that Andy’s daughters were doing well, that they had no knowledge about what had been happening in the last few months while their father was being sought as a fugitive.
Andy glared at McKenzie, scorning what he considered his bogus attempts to sound friendly. He responded only when necessary, and then only in monosyllables.
“You know this isn’t the end of the world,” the detective pointed out. “You read the newspaper. You know that people have gone up against a lot bigger walls than what you’re going up against. And they climb those walls to go on to lead productive lives.
“What I’m saying,” McKenzie blurted, rushing on when Andy failed to respond, “is you can read the paper every day and there’s articles in there about people that have committed a lot worse crimes than you’ve committed and within a short period of time they’re back out on the street.”
Andy looked at him coldly. “I say I want to speak to my attorney before I talk to y’all and you say, ‘Well, that makes us think you did it; we think you pulled the trigger.’ ” Didn’t that mean, Andy asked, that he might be a prime target for execution?
“Well,” McKenzie added hurriedly, “let me tell you there are a thousand people killed here in this state every year. You hear maybe about one or two that get death and that’s usually after about ten or fifteen years. What you hear about a lot of times are people who have committed several murders and they’re back out on the street.”
When Andy again sat silently, McKenzie decided to take the direct approach. “Why did you kill Rozanne Gailiunas?” he asked abruptly, the same thing he had asked Larry Aylor on the night Rozanne was shot.
Andy went rigid. “I want to talk to my attorney,” he blurted.
Again, McKenzie ignored him, pointing out instead how he knew that Andy had been dealing drugs, how he had gone through some tough times, but how he had come through the situation as a better and stronger person. “Answering my questions, Andy, all it’s going to do is just let me know more about you,” McKenzie added.
“I’ll wait until I have my attorney present,” Andy repeated.
McKenzie leaned forward. “This case
is
going to go to trial,” he said unequivocally, adding that it would be better for Andy to tell them what he knew so the courts would look more favorably upon his situation.
Andy stared at the table without answering.
“What are you thinking of?” McKenzie asked. “What are you thinking right now?”
“I want my attorney,” Andy responded.
McKenzie leaned back in his chair. “Want a Coke?” he asked.
McGowan returned to the room in time to hear the last few exchanges between McKenzie and Andy. Figuring it was time to raise the good-cop flag, he sent McKenzie for coffee. As soon as the abrasive investigator was out the door, McGowan turned to Andy and said softly, “After he brings the coffee back, I’m going to ask him not to stay in here if that’s all right with you.”
“Yeah,” Andy said angrily. “He doesn’t care what he does. He was downright rude and hateful to Shelley, to me, to my wife…”
“I’m listening,” McGowan broke in, explaining that not all investigators handled things the same way.
“The fact remains,” Andy said, “I’ve been told by two different attorneys not to say anything without my attorney.”
McGowan tried to temporize, explaining how most people he met on the street would tell him to never trust a cop. But those people, he added, were not in serious trouble.
“I have some good friends that are cops,” Andy interjected.
“Well,” McGowan philosophized, “it’s like riding a motorcycle. You can’t tell somebody what it’s like to have a wreck on a motorcycle until you’ve had one.”
Effortlessly, McGowan switched from motorcycles to wives and families. “A guy says ‘I’m going to get married.’ You try to tell him, man, you ought to think about that, maybe live with ’em for awhile, that kind of thing, because that marriage, that’s a heavy responsibility. How many of ’em listen to you?”
Without waiting for an answer, he continued: “That’s right. You got it! I didn’t. You didn’t. And it’s a lot of fucking responsibility. Marriage sounds like fun, you know. You got your wife and she’s there all the time, but there’s a lot of extra shit that goes with it. The arguments, the hassles, even children are the same way. We love ’em to death, but at times they’re a pain in the ass. They get sick, have doctor bills…”
“I’m prejudiced,” Andy broke in, “but mine were never a pain in the ass. I’ve been real fortunate with my little girls. I was fortunate to have healthy, damn good girls.”
“But you know what I mean,” McGowan insisted. “And it’s kind of the same thing [with lawyers].” Lowering his voice, playing the part of confider, the detective cautioned Andy to be careful about picking an attorney.
“Don’t fall in a trap and get you some bloodsucker,” he warned, pointing out that attorneys were expensive. “You have any idea what it’s going to cost?” he asked, explaining that in a capital murder case a lawyer would probably go home with $250,000.
Before McGowan could say anything else, McKenzie returned to the room. McGowan gave him a pointed glance. “Ken,” he said firmly, “leave us alone for a bit. Would you please?”
McKenzie nodded and left.
“Okay,” McGowan said, turning back to Andy, “we’re going to get first things out of the way first. I don’t want you saying no shit about ‘I want to see my attorney’ because I ain’t going to use nothing right now against you. This is all fucking off the record from this point forward.”
“But Mo—” Andy began.
McGowan raised his hand. “Listen to me first,” he said. “If we get one issue out of the way, the odds are split. Some people say yeah, some say no. We get one issue out of the way, Andy! Then you got everything to gain by getting on this team over here. That’s the truth and that’s what some others have done. It’s a hell of a lot easier; it’s less of an obstacle. You see what I’m getting at?”
Andy looked puzzled. “No,” he admitted. “I’m waiting for you to explain it.”
“All right,” McGowan sighed. “McKenzie said it a different way. He says you did it. Now I’m asking you straight out if you did and I want you to tell me yes or no, and that’s it. Nothing else. That’s what I want to know and then we’ll go from there.”
Andy stared at him. “If I shot the girl?” he asked cautiously.
“Yeah,” said McGowan.
“No!” Andy replied quickly.
“Then, Andy,” McGowan said easily, “you got every fucking reason in the world to get on this fucking team, son. Every fucking reason you can think of for you to be over here.” If he did not cooperate, McGowan said, the district attorney’s office would come after him with everything it had. Dismissing McKenzie’s references to Andy’s involvement with drugs, McGowan declared that was the least of the things they were interested in. No matter what else investigators might have against him, McGowan said, it was of little consequence compared to the murder of Rozanne Gailiunas.
“We’re interested in one thing,” he said, “and if you’re telling me the truth, son, you’ve got everything to gain and probably plenty to lose. Now we’ve beat around the bush,” he said soberly, “and we’ve talked some because I was personally interested. But business is business and you ain’t been doing shit right lately. And being scared and all that shit, that’s fine. A lot of people are that way and I’m not sure I wouldn’t be the same way. But I ain’t in your shoes and if I was, I know what decision I’d make, because you got a lot to fucking gain if that’s true.”
If he were telling the truth about not being involved in the attack on Rozanne, McGowan promised, he would stand behind Andy all the way. “But I got to have the truth,” he said. “I got to know so that I can get the right one. The ones that don’t get on the team, we’re going to fucking handle.” One or two of the people they had questioned had proved uncooperative, McGowan pointed out, and they were paying the price. “I’m throwing you a pass,” he told Andy, “and it’s up to you to catch it. Conspiracy is a hell of a lot better than the big motherfucker.”
Andy appealed again to McGowan. “Don’t you think I should also have the right to at least talk with an attorney—”
“Sure—” McGowan interjected.
“—and make that decision after talking with him?”
“Sure,” McGowan repeated, adding, without making a move to rise, “if that’s what you want to do.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind,” Andy said, “that sitting here right now, Mo, knowing that if I’m going to trust anyone, you’re the person. But I’m still drilled with the idea that it should be with an attorney to talk to.”
“A lot of people are drilled with that same thought,” McGowan said sympathetically.
“I would like to talk to an attorney,” Andy asserted.
“Okay,” McGowan said, “I ain’t got no problem with that. But what I’m telling you up front—”
It was Andy’s turn to interrupt. “Are you saying that after I talk with an attorney that I don’t have any chance to come on your side?”