Defending Jacob

by William Landay

  Nine-thirty P.M.

  Laurie lay on the couch gazing at me, her book tented on her belly. She wore a brown V-neck shirt with a wreath of chunky embroidery around the neck, and her tortoiseshell reading glasses. Over the years she had found a way to carry her younger style into middle age; she had upgraded the embroidered peasant blouses and ripped jeans of her brainy funkster teens for a more elegant, tailored version of the same look.

  She said, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Talk about what?”

  “Jacob.”

  “We already did.”

  “I know, but you’re brooding.”

  “I’m not brooding. I’m watching TV.”

  “The Cooking Channel?” She smiled, warmly skeptical.

  “There’s nothing else on. Anyway, I like cooking.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I like watching cooking.”

  “It’s okay, Andy. You don’t have to if you’re not ready.”

  “It’s not that. It’s just there’s nothing to say.”

  “Can I ask you one question?”

  I rolled my eyes: Does it matter if I say no?

  She picked up the remote from the coffee table and switched off the TV. “When we talked to Jacob today, you said you didn’t think he did anything, but then you turned around and cross-examined him.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You did. You never accused him of anything, exactly, but your tone was … prosecutorial.”

  “It was?”

  “A little.”

  “I didn’t mean for it to be. I’ll apologize to him later.”

  “You don’t have to apologize.”

  “I do, if that’s how I came off.”

  “I’m just asking why. Is there anything you’re not telling me?”

  “Like what?”

  “Whatever made you go after him that way.”

  “I didn’t go after him. Anyway, no, I was just upset about the knife. And what Derek wrote on Facebook.”

  “Because Jacob’s had some behavioral—”

  “Jesus, Laurie, come on. Be serious. This is just some kids gossiping. If I could get my hands on Derek. That was incredibly stupid, what he wrote. Honestly, sometimes I think that kid isn’t all there.”

  “Derek’s not a bad kid.”

  “Will you still say that when Jacob gets a knock on the door one day?”

  “Is that a real possibility?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Do we have any responsibility here?”

  “You mean, is it our fault somehow?”

  “Fault? No. I mean, do we have to report it?”

  “No. God, no. There’s nothing to report. It’s not a crime to have a knife. It’s not a crime to be a stupid teenager either—thank God, or we’d have to throw half of ’em in the can.”

  Laurie nodded neutrally. “It’s just, he’s been accused, and now you know about it. And it’s not like the cops aren’t going to find it anyway; it’s right there on Facebook.”

  “It’s not a credible accusation, Laurie. There’s no reason to bring the whole world down on Jake’s head. The whole thing is ridiculous.”

  “Is that what you really think, Andy?”

  “Yes! Of course. Don’t you?”

  She searched my face. “Okay. So this isn’t what’s bothering you?”

  “I already told you: nothing’s bothering me.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “What did you do with the knife?”

  “I got rid of it.”

  “Got rid of it where?”

  “I threw it away. Not here. In a Dumpster somewhere.”

  “You covered for him.”

  “No. I just wanted that knife out of my house. And I didn’t want anyone using it to make Jacob look guilty when he’s not. That’s all.”

  “How is that different from covering for him?”

  “You can’t cover for someone who didn’t do anything wrong.”

  She gave me a searching look. “Okay. I’m going up to bed. You coming?”

  “In a little while.”

  She got up, came over to plow her fingers through my hair and kiss my forehead. “Don’t stay up too late, sweetheart. You won’t be able to get up in the morning.”

  “Laurie, you didn’t answer my question. I asked you what you think? Do you agree it’s ridiculous to think Jacob did this?”

  “I think it’s very hard to imagine, yes.”

  “But you can imagine it?”

  “I don’t know. You mean you can’t, Andy? You can’t even imagine it?”

  “No, I can’t. This is our son we’re talking about.”

  She pulled back from me visibly, cautiously. “I don’t know. I guess I can’t imagine it either. But then I think: when I woke up this morning, I could not have imagined that knife.”

  8 | The End

  Sunday, April 22, 2007, ten days after the murder.

  On a raw, drizzly morning, hundreds of volunteers turned out to sweep Cold Spring Park for the missing knife. They were a cross-section of the town. Kids from the McCormick, some who had been friends with Ben Rifkin, some who were clearly from other school tribes—jocks, geeks, kittenish good girls. There were lots of young mothers and fathers. A few of the activist machers who were constantly organizing community efforts of one kind or another. All these assembled in the morning damp, listened to instructions from Paul Duffy about how the search would proceed, then in teams they tromped off across the spongy wet ground to search their assigned quadrants of the woods for the knife. There was a determined mood to the whole adventure. It was a relief for everyone to do something finally, to be admitted into the investigation. Soon, they were sure, the whole thing would be resolved. It was the waiting, the uncertainty that was wearing them down. The knife would end all that. It would bear fingerprints or blood or some other morsel that would unlock the mystery, and the town would finally be able to exhale.

  Mr. Logiudice: You didn’t take part in the search, did you?

  Witness: No, I did not.

  Mr. Logiudice: Because you knew it was a fool’s errand. The knife they were looking for had already been found in Jacob’s dresser drawer. And you had already dumped it for him.

  Witness: No. I knew that was not the knife they were looking for. There was no doubt in my mind. Zero.

  Mr. Logiudice: Then why didn’t you join the search?

  Witness: A prosecutor never takes part in his own searches. I couldn’t risk becoming a witness in my own case. Think about it: if I were the one to find the murder weapon, I’d have become an essential witness. I’d be forced to cross the courtroom and take the stand. I’d have to give up the case. That’s why a good prosecutor always hangs back. He waits at the police station or out on the street while a search warrant is executed, he watches from the next room while a detective conducts an interrogation. That is Prosecution 101, Neal. It’s standard procedure. It’s exactly what I taught you, once upon a time. Maybe you weren’t listening.

  Mr. Logiudice: So it was for technical reasons?

  Witness: Neal, no one wanted the search to succeed as much as I did. I wanted my son to be proven innocent. Finding the real knife would have accomplished that.

  Mr. Logiudice: You’re not the least bit troubled by the way you disposed of Jacob’s knife? Even now, knowing what happened?

  Witness: I did what I thought was right. Jake was innocent. It was the wrong knife.

  Mr. Logiudice: Of course you weren’t willing to test that theory, were you? You didn’t submit the knife for forensic testing, for fingerprints or blood or fiber traces, as you threatened Jacob you might?

  Witness: It was the wrong knife. I did not need a test to confirm that for me.

  Mr. Logiudice: You already knew.

  Witness: I already knew.

  Mr. Logiudice: What was it—what made you so sure?

  Witness: I knew my son.

  Mr. Log
iudice: That’s it? You knew your son?

  Witness: I did what any father would do. I tried to protect him from his own stupidity.

  Mr. Logiudice: Okay. We’ll leave it. All right, so while the others searched in Cold Spring Park that morning, you waited where?

  Witness: In the parking lot at the entrance to the park.

  Mr. Logiudice: And at some point Mr. Rifkin, the victim’s father, appeared?

  Witness: Yes. When I first saw him, he was coming from the direction of the woods. There are playing fields at the front of the park there, soccer fields, baseball. That morning the fields were empty. It was just a huge flat open grassy expanse. And he was making his way across it toward me.

  This will always be my lasting image of Dan Rifkin alone in his misery: a small figure meandering across this massive green space, head bowed, arms thrust down into his coat pockets. The wind kept blustering him off course. He zigzagged like a little boat tacking upwind.

  I went out onto the fields to meet him, but we were some distance apart and the crossing took time. For an awkward interval we watched each other approach. What must we have looked like from above? Two tiny forms inching across an empty green field toward a meeting somewhere in the center.

  As he drew close, I waved. But Rifkin did not return the gesture. Thinking he was upset by accidentally running across the search, I made a churlish note to ream out the victim advocate who had forgotten to warn Rifkin away from the park that day.

  “Hey, Dan,” I said in a wary tone.

  He wore aviator sunglasses, though the weather was gray, and his eyes showed dimly through the lenses. He stared up at me, his eyes behind those lenses as huge and inexpressive as a fly’s. Angry, apparently.

  “Are you okay, Dan? What are you doing here?”

  “I’m surprised to see you here.”

  “Yeah? Why is that? Where else would I be?”

  He snorted.

  “What is it, Dan?”

  “You know”—his tone going philosophical—“I’ve had the strangest feeling lately, like I’m onstage and all the people around me are actors. Everyone in the world, every single person rushing around me on the sidewalk, they march around with their noses up in the air pretending like nothing has happened, and I’m the only one who knows the truth. I’m the only one who knows Everything Has Changed.”

  I nodded, benign, indulging him.

  “They’re false. You know what I mean, Andy? They’re pretending.”

  “I can only imagine how you must feel, Dan.”

  “I think maybe you’re an actor too.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I think you’re false.” Rifkin took off his sunglasses, folded them carefully, and stowed them in an inside pocket of his jacket. The bags under his eyes had darkened since I saw him last. His olive skin had taken on a grayish pallor. “I hear you’re being taken off the case.”

  “What? You heard that from who?”

  “Doesn’t matter who. I just want you to know: I want another DA.”

  “Okay, well, that’s something we can talk about, certainly.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. It’s already done. Go call your boss. You need to talk to your own people. I told you, I want another DA. Someone who won’t just sit on the case. And that’s going to happen now.”

  “Sit on the case? Dan, what the hell are you talking about?”

  “You said everything was being done. What was being done, exactly?”

  “Look, it’s been a hard case, I acknowledge—”

  “No, no, it’s more than that and you know it. Why haven’t you pressed those kids? Still, to this day? I mean, really put the screws to them? That’s what I want to know.”

  “I have talked to them.”

  “Including your own kid, Andy?”

  My mouth fell open. I extended my hand toward him, to touch his arm, to connect, but he raised his arm as if to backhand it away.

  “You’ve been lying to me, Andy. All along you’ve been lying.”

  He looked off toward the trees. “Do you know what bothers me, Andy? About being here, in this place? It’s that for a while—for a few minutes, maybe just a few seconds, I don’t know how long—but for some amount of time my son was alive here. He was out there lying in some fucking wet leaves, bleeding to death. And I wasn’t here with him. I was supposed to be here to help him. That’s what a father does. But I didn’t know. I was off somewhere, in the car, in my office, talking on the phone, whatever it was I was doing. Do you understand that, Andy? Do you have any idea how that feels? Can you even imagine it? I saw him get born, I saw him take his first steps and … and learn to ride a bike. I took him to his first day of school. But I wasn’t here to help him when he died. Can you imagine how that feels?”

  “Dan,” I said weakly, “why don’t I get a cruiser down here to drive you home? I don’t think it’s good for you to be here. You should be with your family.”

  “I can’t be with my family, Andy, that’s the fucking point! My family is dead.”

  “Okay.” I looked down at the ground, at his white sneakers spattered with mud and pine needles.

  “I’ll tell you something,” Rifkin added. “It doesn’t matter what happens to me now. I could become a … a drug addict or a thief or a bum. It just doesn’t matter what happens to me from here. Why should it? Why should I care?”

  He said this with a bitter snarl.

  “Call your office, Andy.” A beat. “Go on, call. It’s over. You’re out.”

  I took out my cell phone and called Lynn Canavan directly on her cell. It rang three times. I could imagine her reading the caller ID window, preparing herself to answer.

  “I’m at the office,” she said. “Why don’t you come down here right away.”

  I told her, as Rifkin looked on with satisfaction, that if she had something to say, she could say it right then and save me the trip.

  “No,” she insisted. “Come to the office, Andy. I want to talk to you face-to-face.”

  I snapped the phone shut. I wanted to say something to Rifkin, good-bye or good luck or some valedictory bullshit, who knew what? Something told me he was right and this was good-bye. But he did not want to hear it. His posture announced as much. He had already assigned me a villain’s role. Probably he knew more than I did, anyway.

  I left him on that green field and drove across the river to Cambridge in a defeated reverie. I was resigned to the fact that I would be removed from the case; it simply did not make sense that Rifkin would have come up with that on his own. Somebody had tipped him off, probably Logiudice, whose Iago whispers in the district attorney’s ear had finally won the day. Okay, then. I would be removed for a conflict of interest, a technicality. I had been outmaneuvered, that was all. It was office politics, and I was an apolitical guy, always had been. So Logiudice would have his high-profile case, and I would move on to the next file, the next body, the next case to enter the funnel. I still believed all this, foolish or delusional or rationalizing as I was. I still did not see what was coming. There was so little evidence pointing to Jacob—a schoolgirl with a secret, some kids gossiping on Facebook, even the knife. As evidence these were nothing. Any semicompetent defense lawyer would swipe them aside like cobwebs.

  At the courthouse, there were no fewer than four plainclothes troopers waiting at the front door to meet me. I recognized them all as CPAC guys but I knew only one very well, a detective named Moynihan. They escorted me like a Praetorian guard through the courthouse lobby to the district attorney’s office, then through cubicles and hallways abandoned on a Sunday morning, to Lynn Canavan’s corner office.

  There were three people there, seated at the conference table, Canavan, Logiudice, and a press guy named Larry Siff, whose constant presence at Canavan’s side for the past year or so had been a discouraging sign of the permanent campaign. I had no beef with Siff personally, but I despised his intrusion into a sacred process to which I had devoted my life. Most of the
time he did not even have to speak; his mere presence ensured that political implications would be considered.

  District Attorney Canavan said, “Sit down, Andy.”

  “Did you really think you needed all this, Lynn? What did you think I was going to do? Jump out the window?”

  “It’s for your own good. You know how it goes.”

  “How what goes? I feel like I’m under arrest.”

  “No. We just have to be careful. People get upset. They react unpredictably. We don’t want any scenes. You’d have done the same thing.”

  “Not true.” I sat down. “So what am I going to be upset about?”

  “Andy,” she said, “we have some bad news. On the Rifkin case? The print on the victim’s sweatshirt? It’s your son Jacob’s.” She slid a stapled report toward me.

  I scanned the report. It was from the State Police Crime Lab. The report identified a dozen points of comparison between the latent found at the murder scene and one of the knowns on Jacob’s print card, much more than the standard eight required for a positive match. It was the right thumb: Jacob had reached out and grabbed the victim by his unzipped sweatshirt, leaving the print on that inside tag.

  I said, bewildered, “I’m sure there’s some explanation.”

  “I’m sure there is.”

  “They go to the same school. Jacob is in his class. They knew each other.”

  “Yes.”

  “It doesn’t mean—”

  “We know, Andy.”

  They looked at me with pity. All except for the younger troopers, now standing by the window, who did not know me and could still despise me as they would any other bad guy.

  “We’re putting you on paid leave. It’s partly my fault: it was a mistake to let you have the case in the first place. These guys”—she gestured toward the troopers—“will go to your office with you. You can take your personal belongings. No papers, no files. You’re not to touch the computer. Your work product belongs to the office.”

  “Who’s taking the case?”

  “Neal is.”

  I smiled. Of course he is.

  “Andy, do you object to Neal trying the case for some reason?”

  “Does it matter what I think, Lynn?”