Mortal Danger

regret it.
    As fate would have it, Daniel Tavares and Judge Tuttman met for the first time on July 16, 2007, at the Worcester Superior Court. She knew little of his past beyond the fact that he had served his complete sentence for the manslaughter charges, and that this was a bail hearing on the two assault charges involving the corrections officers in Walpole Prison—one in 2005 and one in 2006.
    Tavares’s attorney, Barry Dynice, pooh-poohed the charges of any attacks on guards. He pointed out that the Massachusetts Department of Corrections had waited until the very last moment—when his client had been practically walking out of prison—to bring up those charges. He argued that Daniel Tavares had paid the price for his crimes and deserved to be released on his own personal recognizance.
    Dynice said Daniel wasn’t a flight risk. He had a twenty-four-year-old daughter, he’d worked hard to earn his GED (high school equivalency), and he was totally amenable to pretrial probation. “He has requested that he be placed on some kind of monitoring system,” Dynice said, “if there’s any concern about this.” (Tavares’s “son” wasn’t mentioned.)
    Daniel Tavares was fully capable of putting on a good face and a calm attitude to get what he wanted. He was no longer a wild-eyed, muscular man in his twenties. His hair was gray, and his physique was portly. He had dark circles beneath his eyes and the pasty greenish-yellow prison pallor.
    He didn’t look dangerous.
    Prosecutor William Loughin tried his best to point out Tavares’s long history. All of his crimes had involved violence, and he had even “committed crimes of violence while he was serving time for a crime of violence.”
    But this was only a bail hearing, not a murder trial.
    Judge Tuttman looked at the man she’d just met and mistook him for someone who had paid for the horrible crime he’d committed, who wanted only the chance for a new life, someone who was safe to let out on the streets. Although his fiancée was in Washington, she didn’t think he would leave Massachusetts. She didn’t even think it was necessary to have him wear an electronic bracelet or anklet so he could be tracked if he left the jurisdiction.
    And he promised to show up for all of his scheduled three-times-a-week probation appointments, to live with one of his sisters, and to find a job.
    Judge Tuttman released him on his personal recognizance. He showed up for two of his probation appointments, but he failed to appear on July 23.
    And then he was gone. He was on his way to Washington.
    A warrant for his arrest was issued, although there was no promise that Massachusetts would extradite him from other states. And, despite the fact that Massachusetts authorities knew about Jennifer Lynn Freitas and had her address, there were no warnings or requests to locate sent to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department. Ed Troyer, their media spokesman, commented on what an egregious oversight that had been. It was like letting a mad dog out of his cage while he frothed at the mouth and growled. If only the sheriff’s office in Washington had known who had sidled quietly into their midst, into a small town where nobody worried about locked doors.
    “But they didn’t tell us—”
    Granted, almost any state would have preferred to see aman like Tavares outside their jurisdiction. The Freitases, the Maucks, and anyone else who encountered him had no warning at all of who was headed their way.
    Mitt Romney, with his rugged good looks, deep voice, and charisma, in the summer of 2007 became the center of a national media firestorm, his reputation sullied—perhaps fatally—by a vicious “punk” he’d never heard of before.

Chapter Seven
    Ironically, Mitt Romney was in Washington State on the campaign trail when Brian and Beverly Mauck were murdered. Even while the Pierce County detectives continued their investigation, the word of Daniel Tavares’s latest act of violence had spread to Massachusetts—and to New York City.
    Rudy Giuliani, then Romney’s chief rival for the presidential nomination, seized upon the story and used it to cast doubt on his leadership qualities. “The governor is going to have to explain his appointment,” Giuliani told the Associated Press, “and the judge is going to have to explain her decision—but it’s not an isolated situation. Governor Romney did not have a good record in dealing with violent crime.”
    Mitt Romney called for