Defending Jacob (39 page)

Laurie said, “That’s all we can do?”

“We should let the Newton police know too, just in case,” I suggested. “Maybe it’s time we had a cruiser camped out by our house. The world’s full of lunatics.”

I was distracted by a figure standing in the corner of the garage, quite a distance away but obviously watching us. He was an older man, near seventy probably. He wore a jacket, golf shirt, and scally cap. Looked like a million guys around Boston. Some old mick tough. He was lighting a cigarette—it was the flare of his lighter that caught my eye—and the glowing tip of the cigarette linked him with the car that had been parked outside our house a few nights before, the interior blacked out except for the little glowing firefly of a cigarette tip in the car window. And wasn’t he just the sort of dinosaur to drive a Lincoln frickin’ Town Car?

Our eyes met for a moment. He thrust his lighter into his pants pocket and continued walking, out through a doorway to a staircase, and he was gone. Had he been walking before I saw him? He seemed to have been standing and staring, but I had only just glanced over. Maybe he had just stopped a moment before to light the cigarette.

“Did you see that guy?”

Jonathan: “What guy?”

“That guy who was just over there looking at us.”

“Didn’t see him. Who was he?”

“I don’t know. Never seen him before.”

“You think he had something to do with the note?”

“Don’t know. I don’t even know if he was looking at us. But he seemed to be, you know?”

“Come on,” Jonathan encouraged us toward the car, “there are a lot of people looking at us lately. It’ll be over soon.”

A
round six that night, as the three of us finished our dinner—Jacob and I indulging ourselves in a little cautious optimism, spitting on Logiudice and his desperate tactics; Laurie trying to keep up the appearance of confidence and normalcy, even as she had become vaguely suspicious of the both of us—the phone rang.

I answered. An operator informed me that she had a collect call. Would I accept the charges? It came as a surprise that people still made collect calls. Was this a prank? Were there any phone booths left to make a collect call from? Only in prisons.

“Collect call from who?”

“Bill Barber.”

“Jesus. No, I won’t accept. Wait a minute, hang on.” I held the phone against my chest, as if my heart would speak to him directly. Then: “All right, I’ll accept the charges.”

“Thank you. Please hold while I connect you. Have a nice day.”

A click.

“Hallo?”

“What is it?”

“What is it? I thought you was gonna come down and visit me again.”

“I’ve been a little busy.”

He mimicked me, “
Oh, I been a little busy
. Relax, would ya? I’m just shittin’ ya, you dope. Wha’d ya think?
Hey, come on down, junior, I’ll take ya out fishin’!
I’ll take you fishin’—you know for what? For fishes!” I had no idea what this meant. Some prison slang, presumably. Whatever it meant, the joke was funny to him. He roared into the phone.

“Jesus Christ, you talk a lot.”

“No shit, ’cause I got no one to talk to in this fuckin’ place. My kid never visits me.”

“Was there something you wanted? Or did you just call to chat?”

“I want to know how the kid’s trial is going.”

“What do you care?”

“He’s my grandson. I want to know.”

“His whole life you never even knew his name.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“Yours.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you think that.” A pause.

“I heard my name came up in court today. We’re following the whole thing here. It’s like the World Series for cons.”

“Yeah, your name came up. See, even sitting in prison, you’re still screwing your family over.”

“Oh, junior, don’t be such a pisser. The kid’s gonna get off.”

“You think so? You figure you’re a pretty good lawyer, Mister Life-Without-Parole?”

“I know a few things.”

“You know a few things.
Pff
. Do me a favor, Clarence Darrow: don’t call here and tell me my business. I’ve already got a lawyer.”

“Nobody’s telling you your business, junior. But when your lawyer talks about bringing me in to testify, that makes it my business, now, don’t it?”

“It isn’t going to happen. That’s all we need is you on the stand. Turn the whole thing into a circus.”

“You got a better strategy?”

“Yeah, we do.”

“What is it?”

“We’re not even going to put on a case. We’ll put the Commonwealth to its burden. They have— What am I even talking to you about this for?”

“Because you want to. When the chips are down, a kid needs his old man.”

“Is that a joke?”

“No! I’m still your father.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m not?”

“No.”

“Then who is?”

“Me.”

“You don’t have a father? What are you, a tree?”

“That’s right, I don’t have one. And I don’t need one now.”

“Everybody needs a father, everybody needs a father. You need me now more than ever. How else are you gonna prove that ‘irresistible impulse’ thing?”

“We don’t need to prove it.”

“No? Why not?”

“Because Logiudice can’t prove his case. That’s obvious. So our defense is simple: Jacob didn’t do it.”

“What if that changes?”

“It won’t.”

“So why’d you come all the way down here and ask me about it? And test my spit? What was that all about?”

“Just covering my bases.”

“Just covering your bases. So the kid didn’t do it but just in case he did.”

“Something like that.”

“So what’s your lawyer want me to say, then?”

“He doesn’t want you to say anything. He shouldn’t have said that in court today. It was a mistake. He was probably thinking he’d run you up there to testify that you never had anything to do with your grandson. But I already told you, you’re not coming anywhere near that courtroom.”

“You better talk with your lawyer about that.”

“Listen to me, Bloody Billy. I’m going to say this for the last time: you don’t exist. You’re just a bad dream I used to have when I was a kid.”

“Hey, junior, you want to hurt my feelings? Kick me in the balls.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means don’t bother calling me names. It don’t bother me. I’m the kid’s grandfather no matter what you say. Nothing you can do about it. You can deny me all you want, pretend I don’t exist. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t change the truth.”

I sat down, suddenly unsteady.

“Who’s this guy Patz your cop friend testified about?”

I was pissed and confused, agitated, so I did not stop to consider. I blurted, “He’s the guy who did it.”

“That killed this kid?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve got a witness.”

“And you’re gonna let my grandson take the hit for it?”

“Let him? No.”

“Then do something, junior. Tell me about this guy Patz.”

“What do you want to know? He likes little boys.”

“He’s a child molester?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of? Either he is or he isn’t. How can you be sort of a child molester?”

“Same way you were a murderer before you actually murdered someone.”

“Oh, stop it, junior. I told you, you can’t hurt my feelings.”

“Would you stop calling me that, ‘junior’?”

“Does it bother ya?”

“Yes.”

“What should I call ya?”

“Don’t call me anything.”

“
Pssh
. I got to call you something. How else am I gonna talk to ya?”

“You’re not.”

“Junior, you got a lot of anger, you know that?”

“Was there anything else you wanted?”

“Wanted? I don’t want anything outa you.”

“I figured maybe you want a cake with a file in it.”

“Funny guy. A file in it. I get it. ’Cause I’m in prison.”

“That’s right.”

“Listen to me, junior, I don’t need no cake with a file in it, all right? You know why? I’ll tell you why. ’Cause I’m not in prison.”

“No. Did they let you out?”

“They don’t have to let me out.”

“They don’t? Let me give you a tip, crazy old man. That big building with the bars? The one they never let you out of? That’s called a prison, and you are definitely in it.”

“No. See, now you’re the one that doesn’t get it, junior. All they got locked up in this hole is my body. That’s all they got, my body, not me. I’m everywhere, see? Everywhere you look, junior, everywhere you go. Okay? Now, you just keep my grandkid out of this place. You got that, junior?”

“Why don’t you do it? You’re everywhere.”

“Maybe I will. Maybe I’ll fly right up there—”

“Look, I got to go, all right? I’m hanging up.”

“No. We’re not done—”

I hung up on him. But he was right, he
was
right there with me, because his voice kept right on rattling in my ears. I picked the phone up and smashed it down in its cradle again—one two three times—until I could not hear him anymore.

Jacob and Laurie both were staring at me with wide eyes.

“That was your grandfather.”

“I caught that.”

“Jake, I don’t want you to ever talk to him, all right? I’m serious.”

“Okay.”

“You’re never to speak to him, even if he calls you. You just hang up the phone. You got it?”

“Okay, okay.”

Laurie glared. “That goes for you too, Andy. I don’t want that man calling my house. He’s poison. Next time he calls, you hang up the phone, got it?”

I nodded.

“Are you all right, husband?”

“I don’t know.”

T
rial day five.

At the stroke of nine, Judge French stormed the bench and announced in a clenched way that the defendant’s motion for mistrial was denied. He said—as the stenographer repeated his words into a cone-shaped microphone which she held over her face like an oxygen mask—“Defendant’s objection to the mention of the defendant’s grandfather is noted for the record and the issue is preserved for appeal. I have given the jury a curative instruction. I think that’s enough. The prosecutor is cautioned not to mention the issue any further, and that’s all we’re going to hear about it. Now, absent any other objections, Court Officer, bring in the jury and let’s get started.”

I can’t say I was surprised. Mistrials are rare. The judge was not going to flush away the state’s enormous investment in seeing this trial through to the end, not if he could help it. He might have been embarrassed by a mistrial too. It might look like he had lost control of his courtroom. Logiudice knew all this, of course. He may have crossed the line intentionally, betting that the high stakes in this case made a mistrial particularly unlikely. But that is unkind.

The trial swept on.

“What is your name, please?”

“Karen Rakowski.
R-A-K-O-W-S-K-I
.”

“What is your occupation and your current assignment?”

“I am a criminalist with the Massachusetts State Police. I’m currently assigned to the State Police Crime Lab.”

“What is a criminalist, exactly?”

“A criminalist is someone who applies the principles of the natural and physical sciences to identify, preserve, and analyze evidence at a crime scene. She later testifies to her findings in a court of law.”

“How long have you been a criminalist with the state police?”

“Eleven years.”

“Approximately how many crime scenes would you say you’ve investigated over the course of your career?”

“Approximately five hundred.”

“Are you a member of any professional organizations?”

Rakowski proceeded to rattle off the names of a half dozen organizations, then her degrees and a teaching position and a few publications, all of which went swiftly by like a freight train: difficult to distinguish in detail but impressive in its length. The truth was, no one listened to Rakowski’s information dump because no one really questioned her qualifications. She was well known and respected. It should be pointed out that the job of “criminalist” has become a lot more professional and rigorous than it was when I started out. It has even become fashionable. Forensic science has become a lot more complex, particularly with respect to
DNA
evidence. No doubt the job has been glamorized by shows like
CSI
too. Whatever the reason, the job attracts more and better candidates now, and Karen Rakowski was among the first wave of criminalists in our county who were not just cops moonlighting as amateur scientists. She was the real thing. It was a lot easier to picture her in a white lab coat than in the jodhpurs and jackboots of the state police. I was glad she had been assigned the case. I knew she would give us a fair shake.

“On April 12, 2007, at around ten A.M., did you get a phone call about a murder in Cold Spring Park in Newton?”

“Yes, I did.”

“What did you do in response?”

“I went to the location, where I was met by Lieutenant Duffy, who gave me a briefing about what he had at the crime scene and what he wanted me to do. He brought me to the location where the body was lying.”

“Had the body been moved, as far as you know?”

“I was told it had not been disturbed since the police arrived there.”

“Had the medical examiner arrived yet?”

“No.”

“Is it preferable for the criminalist to arrive before the medical examiner?”

“Yes. The M.E. can’t process the body without moving it. Once the body is moved, obviously you can’t draw any inferences from its position.”

“Now, in this case you knew that the body had already been moved by the jogger who discovered it.”

“I did.”

“Were you able to draw any conclusions from the position of the body and from the surrounding scene nonetheless, when you first saw it?”

“Yes. It was apparent that the attack had taken place at the top of the hill by a walking trail and that the body had slid down the hill afterward. That was evidenced by a trail of blood leading down the hillside to the final resting position of the body.”