Reversible Errors

by Scott Turow

  The truth about Collins might yet emerge in the civil case, especially if the state was obstinate about settling. On the drive back to the city today, Arthur hoped to talk to Rommy about filing the lawsuit. Yesterday, Arthur had informed Ray Horgan that he expected to handle Rommy’s civil case and leave the firm.

  In the guardhouse, Arthur and Pamela handed over a pair of pants and a shirt to the lieutenant on duty, who wouldn’t accept the clothing.

  “The ones out there, Reverend Blight, they brought a suit. Five hundred bucks if it’s a dollar, too.” The lieutenant, who was white, glanced circumspectly in each direction, thinking better only now that he’d heard himself.

  In a moment, Blythe arrived. Accompanying him was an impressive-looking man, tall and handsome, splendidly dressed, an African American whom Arthur recognized from somewhere. Not from town, Arthur knew that much. Another hero was all Arthur could recall, perhaps an athlete.

  The lieutenant lifted his phone, and in a few minutes the Warden, Henry Marker, appeared. Also back, he warmed noticeably to Blythe and invited the entire party to accompany him. Inside the first gate, they turned in a direction Arthur and Pamela had not gone before and entered the separate orange-brick administration building. There were the same locks and guards, but here the purpose was to keep inmates out, not in.

  On the second floor, Marker showed them into his office, large but spare. Before the Warden’s desk, in a suit and tie, Romeo Gandolph sat slumped and fidgeting. He jumped up when the group entered, predictably puzzled about what he was supposed to do next. His hair had been shaped by someone and when he spread his hands in welcome, Arthur noticed that Rommy at last was free of manacles. Despite himself, Arthur, who had cried a great deal in the last week, began weeping again, and found Pamela in the same state. In the meantime, Blythe fell upon Rommy with a huge embrace.

  The Warden had several papers for Rommy to sign. Arthur and Pamela reviewed them while Blythe took Rommy to the other side of the room. Arthur heard them praying, then some high-spirited conversation. After Rommy scrawled his name on the documents, they were all ready to go. Marker walked them to the front gate. The buzzer sounded, and the Warden, like a butler, stood aside to open the door. As he did so, Blythe wiggled past Arthur and Pamela and was beside Rommy as the daylight fell upon him.

  The camera people as always were lawless, shouting and jostling. Blythe held Rommy’s elbow and steered him to the podium in the parking lot. He invited Arthur and Pamela up, giving them places in the second row behind Rommy and himself. Pamela had prepared a brief statement for Rommy, which he held in his hand, but Blythe took it from him and handed over a different sheet. Rommy started to read, then looked around helplessly. The half brother, now at his side, pronounced a few of the words. It occurred to Arthur for the first time to wonder how many rehearsals had been required before Rommy read the videotaped confession prepared for him a decade ago. For a moment, as he stood there, not knowing what to expect, the utter monstrousness of what had happened to Rommy Gandolph stormed over Arthur—that and the supreme satisfaction of knowing that Pamela and he had commanded the power of the law for Rommy’s benefit, that the law had made right what it first had made wrong. No matter how fuddled he became at the end of his days, Arthur, at this instant, believed he would remember he’d done this.

  Gandolph by now had given up on the statement. The stampede of reporters and technicians through the gravel parking lot had raised a haze of bitter dust and Rommy was blinking furiously and rubbing his eyes.

  “I can’t say much ’cept thanks to everybody here,” said Rommy.

  Reporters kept shouting the same questions—what did it feel like to be out, what were his plans. Rommy said he’d like a good steak. Blythe announced plans for a celebration at his church. The conference broke up.

  As Gandolph jumped down from the riser, Arthur pushed forward to reach him. On the phone, they had agreed that Rommy would drive back up to Kindle County with them. Arthur had been scouting out job prospects for Rommy. And there was also the lawsuit to discuss. But Rommy held back when Arthur pointed him toward the rear lot.

  “I was kinda goin with them-all,” said Rommy. If he was aware that he was disappointing Arthur, he gave no sign. But his face was wrinkled by curiosity. “What ride you got?”

  Arthur smiled a bit and gave the brand and the model. Rommy seemed to search the parking lot, but his eyes lit on the stretch.

  “Naw, I’m gone ride with them,” he said. His expression remained mobile and uncertain. Blythe’s security people were holding several reporters at bay. “I want to thank you-all for what you done, I truly do.”

  He offered his hand then. It was, Arthur realized, the first time he had ever touched Rommy Gandolph. His hand was oddly calloused and narrow enough to be a child’s. Gandolph pawed around in front of Pamela, who leaned over to hug him.

  “Tole you you should’ve hitched up with me,” he said. “I’m gone get me a wife pretty as you, only black. I’m gone be rich now, too. Get me some stock.” At that point the handsome man who had accompanied Blythe inside came to reclaim Rommy. In his company, Rommy Gandolph turned away and never looked back at either of his lawyers.

  They were in Arthur’s sedan on the way out of Rudyard when Pamela told Arthur who the man was—Miller Douglas, a noted civil rights lawyer from New York. No doubt now who was going to handle Rommy’s civil case. Rommy would sign the retainer agreement in the limo—if he hadn’t done it in the Warden’s Office already. Arthur pulled his car to the graveled shoulder of the road to come to terms with the news.

  “This is terrible,” he said. Pamela, still young enough to be remote from the business side of law, shrugged, unsurprised.

  “Don’t you think he’s got the right lawyer?” she asked. “Our firm doesn’t even do civil rights cases.”

  Arthur, who had never much bothered with that consideration, continued to suffer the ironies. Rommy was free. Arthur was not. Horgan would probably laugh when he took Arthur back, but there would be costs for years to come. At least Ray had asked him to reconsider. ‘Generally speaking, Arthur,’ he’d said, ‘you may find that there’s a bit of a drought before your next innocent client. A decade or two.’ Arthur took a second to ponder how he might package this for Ray, then gave up. As a disappointment, Rommy’s choice of a new lawyer still took second place. Despite the maelstrom surrounding Rommy’s release, the ceaseless phone calls from reporters, the exultation in the law firm, where Arthur now found he had many supporters, there was one misery, one low point where his spirit inevitably rolled to rest, as it did again now.

  Gillian. My Gillian, my Gillian, he thought, and yet again began to cry. Muriel had done a masterful job of vilifying her. Two days into it, the Tribune had actually gotten hold of Gillian’s FBI mug shot, taken when she was arrested in 1993, running it on the front page along with a report of several thousand words on Gillian’s drug taking, gleaned from sources as diverse as drug agents, defense lawyers, and addicts on the street. The story of the Junkie Judge had even reached many of the national news outlets, especially the ones that usually traded in celebrity gossip. Only a few stories mentioned that Gillian was sober either when she had been sentenced or now.

  As Rommy’s lawyer, it would have been improper for Arthur to call Gillian to console her. And he was far too hurt to do that anyway. As he could best recall, she had not even apologized. Perhaps, he told himself, if she had made some effort to express her regret for so deceiving him, perhaps then there might have been some path through the incredible thicket of conflicting obligations to his client. For days, he reviewed his voice messages every half hour and even left the office at lunch on Monday to check his mail at home. Perhaps his rebukes had been too stern, especially the parting shot he’d immediately regretted about her ‘case history.’ Possibly, she was held back by the imperatives of the legal situation. Most likely, she had simply given up, now that her prophecies of doom had come true. Three nights ago, amid stormy dreams, he a
woke with a cold fear that she had returned to drink. Then, in a minute, he remembered that drink was not the problem. By now his fantasies had turned gruesome, dim images of Gillian on rain-soaked streets disappearing in dark entryways doing God knows what.

  When they reached the city, Arthur parked near the IBM Building, but he hesitated as Pamela and he were about to enter. It suddenly struck him that he was no longer Rommy Gandolph’s lawyer. Despite his disappointment about the civil case and the disappearance of the fortune which, being his father’s son, he’d never truly believed would come to him, he experienced in this instant a sensation of clean release. He’d shouldered an enormous burden, staggered under it at times, but carried it to the end, and for many reasons was entitled to be relieved.

  In front of the revolving doors of the office building, Arthur kissed Pamela’s cheek and told her she was a great lawyer. Then, in a state of dread and anticipation, he marched the four long blocks to Morton’s. Gillian was not at the counter. Argentina, her colleague, leaned across the glass case, careful not to touch it and leave prints. She told Arthur quietly that Gillian had not been in all week, neither here nor the Nearing store.

  “The reporters are goons,” she whispered. “I think Gil quit.”

  “Quit?”

  “That’s what somebody said. They don’t expect her back. Supposedly, she’s leaving town.”

  As he walked back down Grand, with its magnificent shops and tall buildings, Arthur considered his options. He had absolutely no experience as a strategist in matters of the heart, and even now, he was too hurt to be certain what he wanted. But he was, after all, himself. Arthur Raven was a master of neither subtlety nor style. He knew only how to go forward at a steady pace.

  At least one person in Duffy Muldawer’s house was delighted to see him. Spying Arthur through the window of the side door, Duffy lit up, even while he was fiddling with the chain.

  “Arthur!” the old man cried out and threw one arm around him, as Arthur moved into the tiny entry. He didn’t let go of Arthur’s hand and clearly would have relished the chance to hear the details of the last week, engaging in the fraternal joy of defenders who had rare occasion to celebrate. But Arthur’s eyes had already fallen on Gillian, who in response to Duffy’s noise had appeared at the bottom of the stairs. Apparently, she’d been cleaning and was dressed in casual attire Arthur would have bet she did not even own, her thin pale legs emerging from a beaten pair of shorts. A T-shirt was rolled up at the sleeves. She was wearing rubber gloves and—a first in Arthur’s experience with her—hadn’t bothered with makeup. Behind her, he saw a suitcase.

  “It’s over,” he said. “He’s out.”

  Gillian said congratulations and stared up in the weak light of the short stairwell, then set a foot on the bottom step. Somewhere along, Duffy had had the good sense to disappear.

  “May I hug you?” she asked.

  When perhaps a full minute passed, they let go of one another and sat on the stairs. She held fast to his hand. Gillian, who never cried, had cried, and Arthur, ever tearful, had merely savored the intense pleasure of having her close to him again. Sitting, he discovered he had an astonishing erection. Gillian, too, felt desire, but at the core of his embrace she had experienced a sense of consolation pure enough to be brotherly. Neither of them had any idea what would happen now.

  “Are you okay?” he asked at last.

  She threw up her hands futilely. “Not stoned, if that’s what you’re worried about. Duffy’s seen to that.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “I have to, Arthur. Patti Chong, a woman I knew in law school, has agreed to hire me as a paralegal in her firm in Milwaukee. Do research. Perhaps, in time, if all goes well, as you suggested, I could reapply to the bar. But I have to get out of here.” She shook her head. “Even I finally feel that I’ve taken enough, Arthur. I had to send Duffy to the store for me yesterday to pick up a prescription. That picture!” She wrenched her eyes closed at the thought. Taken when Gillian was at her lowest point, sleepless most nights and ravaged by despair, the photo in the paper made her a bleary hag. Her hair looked wild. And of course her eyes were dead.

  “I’d have appreciated a call,” he said. “It would have been terrible if I came around here eventually and just found out you were gone.”

  “I couldn’t, Arthur. I couldn’t ask you for sympathy when every lash I took benefited Rommy. Besides,” she said, “I was much too ashamed. Too afraid of your reaction. And too confused. I can’t stay here, Arthur, and I knew you’d never go.”

  “I can’t leave,” he said. “My sister.”

  “Of course,” she answered.

  He was glad he had said it, because in him something opened like a gate. What he had told her was not true. He could leave. The people at the Franz Center would help Susan cope. His mother might finally find a way to be useful. And if all else failed, he would move Susan up there. The firm even had an office in Milwaukee. That could work. It could all work. Even the two of them. The best and most impregnable part of him, which always hoped, was again in charge.

  “I don’t know why I do things, Arthur,” she said to him. “I’ve been trying to understand myself for years—I think I’m getting better, but I have a long way to go. But I really believe I was trying to protect myself. It’s been as bad as I thought it would be, too. You have to admit that.”

  “It would have been easier with someone standing by you, Gillian.”

  “It couldn’t have been you, Arthur. That was part of the problem.”

  To him that sounded like an excuse and she could read that in his expression. But she was clear on this much.

  “I know what it feels like to want to hurt someone, Arthur. I know that very well. I swear my purpose wasn’t to cause you pain.”

  “I believe that.”

  “Do you?”

  “I’m sure you were far more interested in hurting yourself.”

  “Now you sound like Duffy.”

  “I’m serious. You keep undermining yourself. It’s really remarkable.”

  “Please, Arthur. I can’t handle any more analysis of my character. It’s not the kind of thing I want to take on alone. This has been very, very hard, Arthur, this period. There have been some white-knuckle evenings around here. I had forgotten what it felt like to yearn for intoxication.”

  Arthur considered that. Then he continued.

  “I want to be with you, Gillian. Leave with you. Live with you. Love you. I want that. But you have to see how hard you’ve worked at destroying yourself. So you don’t do that to us again. If you can promise that you see that and will wrestle with it for both our sakes—”

  “Please, Arthur. I’m neither dumb nor blind. I know exactly what kind of bleak Quixotic quest I’m on, rising so I can fall. But it’s hopeless, Arthur.”

  “Not hopeless,” he said. “Not at all. I can give you what you need.”

  “Which is?” She yearned to be skeptical, but because he was Arthur she believed him at once.

  “Me. I’m your man. I can say something to you, which I don’t think you’ve really heard before.” He took both her hands. “Now, look at me and listen. Listen.”

  He watched her elegant slender face turn to him fully, the blond lashes and perfect intelligent eyes.

  He said, “I forgive you.”

  She watched him for quite some time. Then she said, “Please say it again.”

  “I forgive you,” said Arthur, as he held her hands. “I forgive you, I forgive you, I forgive you.” He said it several more times after that.

  Also by Scott Turow

  Personal Injuries (1999)

  The Laws of Our Fathers (1996)

  Pleading Guilty (1993)

  The Burden of Proof (1990)

  Presumed Innocent (1987)

  One L (1977)

  Note

  AS USUAL, I’ve gotten by with a little help from my friends. Technical advice from Colleen Berk and Joe Tomaino about airline ticketing,
from Jeremy Margolis about firearms, from Jay Reich about Hungarian, and from Drs. Michael Kaufman and Carl Boyar about postmortem pathology was critical. I also had the benefit of comments from several discerning readers, Annette and Rachel, first, as always, and then from Jennifer Arra, Debby and Mark Barry, Leigh Bienen, Ellie Lucas, Jim McManus, Howard Rigsby, and the amazing Mary Zimmerman. I am hugely indebted to each of them. Jon Galassi and Gall Hochman remain the moon and stars of my literary life—and Laurie Brown will be special to me forever. My assistants, Kathy Conway, Margaret Figueroa, and Ellie Lucas, were indispensable. To all: thanks, guys.

  Copyright © 2002 by Scott Turow

  All rights reserved

  Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  19 Union Square West, New York 10003

  www.fsgbooks.com

  Designed by Abby Kagan

  eISBN 9780374706227

  First eBook Edition : April 2011

  Published simultaneously in Canada by HarperCollinsCanadaLtd

  First edition, 2002

  A portion of this book originally appeared in slightly different form in Playboy magazine.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Turow, Scott.

  Reversible errors / Scott Turow.—1st ed. p. cm.

  1. Kindle County (imaginary place)—Fiction. 2. Attorney and client—Fiction.

  3. Death row inmates—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3570.U754 R48 2002

  813’.54—dc21

  2002070891