Presumed Innocent

by Scott Turow

  “34068.”

  “Dan Lipranzer?”

  “Not in. Who is this, please?”

  “When do you expect him?”

  “Who is this?”

  “No message,” I say, before hanging up.

  I knock on the adjoining door to see what Mac makes of all this. She’s gone. When I ask Eugenia where, she tells me that Mac is in Raymond’s office, meeting, as she puts it, “with Mr. Della Guardia.” She has been there almost an hour. I stand next to Eugenia’s desk, battling my own bitterness. All in all, this has not worked out. Nico is now Mr. Della Guardia. Mac is on his staff, until she takes the bench. Raymond is going to get rich. Tommy Molto has my job. And I’ll be lucky if next month I can pay the mortgage.

  I’m still standing by Eugenia, when the phone rings.

  “Mr. Horgan wants to see you,” she says.

  In the face of all the stern rebukes I have given to myself while I was marching down the hallway, the juvenile rush of sensation I feel when I see Nico in the P.A.’s chair astonishes me. I am immobilized by anger, jealousy, and revulsion. Nico has assumed a perfect proprietary air. He has removed his suit coat and his face is gravely composed, an expression which I know Nico well enough to realize is completely affected. Tommy Molto is sitting beside him, his chair somehow dropped a few inches back into the room. It strikes me that Tommy has already mastered the art of being a toady.

  Raymond motions for me to sit. He says that this is really Nico’s meeting now, so he offered him the chair. Raymond himself is standing up beside his sofa. Mac has her chair wheeled up to the window and is looking out. She still has not greeted me, and I realize now, from her demeanor, that Mac wants to be nowhere near this scene. The old saw: harder for her than for me.

  “We’ve made some decisions here,” Raymond says. He turns to Della Guardia. Silence. Delay, in his first assignment as P.A., is wordstruck. “Well, perhaps I should explain this first part,” Raymond says. He is extremely grim. I know his forced expression well enough to realize that he is angry and laboring to remain composed. You can tell, just from the atmosphere, that there were bruises raised during the preceding meeting.

  “I spoke last night with the mayor and told him that I had no desire to remain in office in light of the voters’ preferences. He suggested to me that as long as I felt that way that I ought to talk it over with Nico to see if he wants to come on early. He does—and so that’s what’s going to happen. With the County Board’s concurrence, I’ll be leaving Friday.”

  I can’t help myself. “Friday!”

  “It’s a little faster than I would have thought myself, but there are certain factors—” Raymond stops. Something is precarious in his manner. He is struggling. Horgan straightens the papers on the coffee table. He drifts to the sideboard and looks for something else. He is having a miserable time. I decide to make it easy for everybody.

  “I’ll be taking off then, too,” I say. Nico starts to speak and I interrupt. “You’ll be better off with a fresh start, Delay.”

  “That’s not what I was going to say.” He stands. “I want you to know why Raymond is leaving so soon. There’s going to be a criminal investigation of his staff. We have information—some of it came to us during the campaign, but we didn’t want to get into that kind of gutter stuff. But we have information and we think there’s a serious problem.”

  I am confused by Nico’s apparent anger. I wonder if he is talking about the B file. Perhaps there’s a reason for Molto’s connection to that case.

  “Here, let me butt in,” Raymond says. “Rusty, I think the best way to deal with this is to be direct. Nico and Tom have raised some questions with me about the Polhemus investigation. They’re not confident in the way you’ve handled it. And I’ve agreed now to step aside. They can examine that question in any way they think is best. That’s a matter for their professional judgment. But Mac suggested—well, we all agreed to make you aware of the situation.”

  I wait. The sense of alarm spreads through me before the instant of comprehension.

  “I am under criminal investigation?” I laugh out loud.

  From across the room Mac finally speaks. “‘Tain’t funny, McGee,” she says. There is no humor in her voice.

  “This,” I say, “is a crock. What did I supposedly do?”

  “Rusty,” Raymond says, “we do not need that kind of discussion now. Nico and Tom think that there are some things you should have spoken up about. That’s all.”

  “That is not all,” Molto says suddenly. His look is piercing. “I think you’ve been engaged in misdirection, hide the ball, ring around the rosy for almost a month now. You’ve been covering your ass.”

  “I think you’re sick,” I tell Tommy Molto.

  Mac has wheeled her chair about.

  “We don’t need this,” she says. “This discussion should take place somewhere else, with somebody else.”

  “The hell with that,” I say. “I want to know what this is about.”

  “It’s about,” says Molto, “the fact that you were in Carolyn’s apartment the night she was killed.”

  My heart beats so hard that my vision shifts, jumps. I was waiting for someone to chastise me because I had an affair with the decedent. This is incomprehensible. And I say so. Ludicrous. Bullshit.

  “What was that? A Tuesday night? Barbara’s at the U. and I was babysitting.”

  “Rusty,” says Raymond, “my advice to you is to shut your fucking mouth.”

  Molto is on his feet. He is approaching me, stalking. He is enraged.

  “We’ve got the print results. The ones you never could remember to ask for. And they’re your prints on the glass. Yours. Rozat K. Sabich. Right on that glass on the bar. Five feet from where the woman was found dead. Maybe you didn’t remember at first that all county employees get printed.”

  I stand. “This is absurd.”

  “And the MUDs you told Lipranzer not to get? The ones from your house? We had the phone company pull them this morning. They’re on the way down here right now. You were calling her all month. There’s a call from your house to hers that night.”

  “I think I’ve had enough of this,” I say. “If I can be excused.”

  I have gotten as far as Loretta’s little office outside Raymond’s when Molto calls out behind me. He follows me into the anteroom. I can hear Della Guardia yelling Molto’s name.

  “I want you to know one thing, Sabich.” He points his finger at me. “I know.”

  “Sure you do,” I say.

  “We’re going to have a warrant for your butt the first day we’re here. You better get yourself a lawyer, man, a damn good one.”

  “For your bullshit theory of an obstruction case?”

  Molto’s eyes are burning.

  “Don’t pretend that you don’t get it. I know. You killed her. You’re the guy.”

  Rage; as if my blood had quickened; as if my veins were filled only with that black poison. How old and familiar, how close to my being it seems. I come near Tommy Molto. I whisper, “Yeah, you’re right,” before I walk away.

  SUMMER

  IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF KINDLE COUNTY

  THE KINDLE COUNTY GRAND JURY, JUNE SESSION, charges as follows:

  On or about April 1 of this year, within the venue of Kindle County,

  ROAT K. SABICH

  defendant herein, did commit murder in the first degree in that he did knowingly, intentionally, and with malice aforethought trespass with force and arms upon the person of Carolyn Polhemus, thereby taking the life of the aforementioned Carolyn Polhemus;

  In violation of Section 76610 of the Revised State Statutes.

  A TRUE BILL:

  -------------------------/s

  Joseph Doherty, Foreperson

  Kindle County Grand Jury

  June Session

  -------------------------/s

  Nico Della Guardia

  Kindle County Prosecuting Attorney

  Done this Twenty-th
ird day of June

  [SEAL]

  18

  “The documents and reports are in the front. The witness statements are in the back,” says Jamie Kemp as he sets a heavy cardboard box on the faultless finish of the walnut meeting table. We are in the small conference room in the offices of his employer, Alejandro Stern, my attorney. Kemp is sweating. He walked two blocks in the July sun from the County Building with these papers. His navy tie has been pulled away from his collar and some of his fancy blond Prince Valiant hairdo, an affectation left over from his younger days, is matted to his temples.

  “I’m going to check my phone messages,” Kemp says, “then I’ll be back to look at this stuff with you. And remember—” Kemp points. “Don’t panic. Defense lawyers have a name for what you’re feeling. They call it clong.”

  “What’s clong?”

  “Clong is the rush of shit to your heart when you see the state’s evidence.” Kemp smiles. I am glad he thinks I can still take a joke. “It is not fatal.”

  It is July 14, three weeks since my indictment for murdering Carolyn Polhemus. Later this afternoon I will appear before Chief Superior Court Judge Edgar Mumphrey for my arraignment. Under state statutes governing discovery in criminal cases, the prosecution is required, prior to arraignment, to make available to the defense all physical evidence they intend to introduce, and a list of witnesses, including copies of their statements. Thus, this box. I stare at the familiar label applied to the cardboard: PEOPLE V. ROAT K. SABICH. I am full of that feeling again: This hasn’t happened. Alone in this comfortable room, with its dark wainscoting and rows of crimson-jacketed law books, I wait for this now familiar adhesion of dread and longing to pass.

  There is another copy of the indictment in the front of the box. I always focus on the same words. Trespass with force and arms. Trespass vi et armis, a term of the common law. With these same words for centuries persons in the English-speaking countries were accused of acts of violence. The phrase is archaic, long abandoned in most jurisdictions, but it is part of the text of our state statute, and reading it here always leaves me with the sense of a bizarre heritage. I have made league with the all-stars of crime, John Dillinger, Bluebeard, Jack the Ripper, and the million lesser lights, the half-mad, the abused, the idly evil, and the many who surrendered to a moment’s terrible temptation, to an instant when they found themselves well acquainted with our wilder elements, our darker side.

  After two months of daily press leaks, of rumor, innuendo, cruel gossip, I said resolutely that it would be a relief if an indictment finally came down. I was wrong. The day before, Delay sent Stern what is called the defendant’s “courtesy copy.” I first read the charges about forty feet from here, down the hall in Sandy’s tasteful cream-colored office, and my heart and all my other organs were at once all stalled and so full of pain that I was certain that something in those regions must have burst. I could feel the blood gone from my face and I knew that my panic was visible. I tried to sound composed, not to show courage but because I suddenly realized it was simply the only alternative.

  Sandy was sitting beside me on the sofa, and to him I mentioned Kafka.

  ‘Does it sound horrible and trite to say that I can’t believe this?’ I asked. ‘That I am full of incomprehension and rage?’

  ‘Of course you cannot,’ said Sandy, ‘of course not. I, who have practiced at the criminal bar for thirty years in this city, am not able to believe it, and by now I thought I had seen everything. Everything! And I do not say that loosely. I had a client, Rusty, I cannot use a name, of course, who once placed $25 million in gold bullion in exactly the place that you are sitting. Just the ingots, two feet high. And I, who have seen such things, I sit at home at night and think to myself, Truly, this is remarkable and frightening.’

  From Sandy these words had a kind of reach, the span of authentic wisdom. There is, with his soft Spanish accent, an elegance to the sound of even his ordinary speech. His dignity is soothing. Over time, I have found that I hover, like a lover, on every courtly gesture.

  ‘Rusty,’ Sandy said to me, touching the page I held in my hand, ‘you make no mention of the only thing’—he searched for a word—‘which is encouraging.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘No notice. No Section 5 notice.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said, and a shiver passed through me. In our state the prosecution must give notice at the time of indictment if it is seeking the death penalty. With all my finely calibrated calculations of Delay’s intentions over the months, some zealous internal defense had prevented my mind from even lighting on that possibility. My look, I believe, revealed some of my embarrassment, even humiliation, that I was already so detached from routine professional perspectives. ‘I assumed,’ I said weakly.

  ‘Ah well.’ Sandy smiled gently. ‘We have these habits,’ he said.

  At Sandy’s advice, we were not in town when the indictment was returned. Barbara and Nat and I went to a cabin owned by friends of her parents, up near Skageon. At night, you could hear the rushing of Crown Falls, a mile away, and the trout fishing proved better than at any time I can recall.

  But, of course, the calamity four hundred miles south was never out of mind. The day after, George Leonard from the Trib somehow got the number of the cabin and asked me for a comment. I referred him to Stern. Later, I came in to hear Barbara in conference with her mother. After she put down the phone I asked, somehow feeling that I should:

  “It’s all over?”

  “Everywhere. TV. Both papers. Front page. Pictures. Your old officemate Delay handed out every scummy detail.”

  This proved to be an understatement. My case is the stuff of supermarket tabloids: CHIEF PROSECUTOR CHARGED WITH MURDER—HAD AFFAIR WITH VICTIM. Sex, politics, and violence mix in Kindle County. Not only was the local press full of this for days, but the national media, too. Out of curiosity, I began to read these accounts myself. The library in Nearing has an excellent periodical section, and I have little to do now during the days. On Stern’s advice I refused to resign as a deputy P.A. and was placed on an indefinite administrative leave, with pay. As a result I have spent more time in the library than I would have expected. I join the old men and the bag ladies in enjoying the silence and the air conditioning as I inspect these national reports of my misconduct. The New York Times was, as usual, dryly factual, referring to everyone as Mr. and laying out the entire antic circumstance. It was, surprisingly, the national news magazines, Time and Newsweek, that did their best to make it all seem lurid. Each article was accompanied by the same photo, taken by some asshole I saw lurking in the bushes for a couple of days. Stern finally advised me to walk outside and let him take his picture, on the condition that he promise to beat it. That worked. The Minicam units which, according to the neighbors, were camped before the house for a week, while we were hiding out near Skageon, are yet to return.

  That makes little practical difference. After twelve years in which I sometimes prosecuted the biggest cases in town, the papers and TV stations had enough footage of me on file to put my face everywhere. I cannot walk around Nearing without enduring endless staring. There is now a permanent hesitation in everybody’s manner, a few portions of a second lost before a greeting. The comments of solace that are made, which are few, are ludicrous and inept—my cleaner telling me, “Tough break,” or the teenage gas-station attendant asking if that’s really me he’s been reading about in the paper. Another thing I like about the library is that no one is allowed to talk.

  And how do I feel, so instantly struck low, brought down from my station as model citizen and become a pariah instead? To say that there are no words is inaccurate. There are words, but they would be so many. My spirits keel about wildly. The anxiety is corrosive and I spend much time in a tumult of anger and disbelief. For the most part there is a numbness—a sense of idle refuge. Even in my concern for Nat, and how all of this will warp his future, the dawning thought is that it has happened, ultimately, just to me. I alon
e am the foremost victim. And to some extent, I can endure that. I acquired more of my father’s fatalism than I expected; a side of me has always been without faith in reason or in order. Life is simply experience; for reasons not readily discerned, we attempt to go on. At instants I am amazed that I am here. I have taken to watching my shoes as I cross the pavement, for the fact that I am moving, that I am going anywhere, doing anything, strikes me, at odd moments, as amazing. That in the midst of this misfortune life continues seems bizarre.

  And mostly I am like this, floating and remote. Of course, a great deal of the time is also spent wondering why this has occurred. But I find that at some point along the way my ability to assay ceases. My speculation seems to lead to a dark and frightening periphery, the edge of a black vortex of paranoia and rage from which, thus far, I have instantly withdrawn. I know that on some levels I cannot take much more, and I simply do not. I worry instead about when it will be over, and what the result will be. I want, with a desperation whose size cannot be encompassed by metaphor, I want all of this never to have taken place; I want things to be as they were before, before I allowed my life to be ransacked by Carolyn, and everything that followed. And then there is my consuming anxiety for Nat: What will happen to him? How can he be sheltered? How can I protect him from shame? How can I have brought him to the brink of being, for all purposes, half an orphan? These are in some ways my worst moments: this raging, lashing frustration, this sense of incompetence, these tears. And then, once or twice, in the last weeks, an extraordinary feeling, lighter than air, more soothing than a breeze, a hope that seems to settle in without accounting, and which leaves me with the sense that I have mounted some high rampart and have the courage simply to look ahead.