Defending Jacob

by William Landay

  “Is there a—whaddaya call it?—a treaty, like a fugitive treaty?”

  “An extradition treaty? I don’t know. I guess that’d be another thing you’d want to check out first.”

  “Yeah. I guess so.”

  “How would you pay for the ticket?”

  “I wouldn’t. You would.”

  “And a passport? You surrendered yours, remember?”

  “I’d get a new one somehow.”

  “Just like that? How?”

  Laurie came and sat on the floor beside the bed and stroked his hair. “He’d sneak across the border into Canada and he’d get a Canadian passport.”

  “Hm. Not sure it’s actually that easy, but okay. So what would you do once you got to Buenos Aires, which we know is in Argentina?”

  Laurie said, “He’d dance the tango.” Her eyes were wet.

  “Do you know how to dance the tango, Jacob?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Not exactly, he says.”

  “Not exactly, like, meaning not at all.” He laughed.

  “Well, you can get tango lessons in Buenos Aires, I would think.”

  Laurie said, “In Buenos Aires, everybody knows the tango.”

  “You’ll need someone to dance the tango with, won’t you?”

  He smiled shyly.

  Laurie said, “Buenos Aires is filled with beautiful women who dance the tango. Beautiful, mysterious women. Jacob will have his pick.”

  “Is that true, Dad? Lots of beautiful women in Buenos Aires?”

  “That’s what I hear.”

  He lay back and laced his fingers behind his head. “This is sounding better and better.”

  “What will you do there when you get done dancing the tango, Jake?”

  “Go to school, I guess.”

  “I pay for that too?”

  “Of course.”

  “And after school?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll be a lawyer like you.”

  “Don’t you think you’ll want to keep a low profile? You know, being a fugitive and all?”

  Laurie answered for him. “No. They’re going to forget all about him and he’s going to have a long, happy, wonderful life in Argentina with a beautiful woman who dances the tango, and Jacob will be a great man.” She got up on her knees so she could look at his face and continue to stroke his hair as he lay there. “He’ll have children, and his children will have children, and he’ll bring so much happiness to so many people that no one will ever believe that once upon a time in America people said horrible things about him.”

  Jacob closed his eyes. “I don’t know if I can go to court tomorrow. I just don’t want to do it anymore.”

  “I know, Jake.” I laid my palm on his chest. “It’s almost over.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  Laurie: “I don’t think I can do it anymore either.”

  “It’ll be over soon. We just have to hang in there. I promise.”

  “Dad, you’ll tell me, right? Like you said? If it’s time for me to …?” He cocked his head toward the door.

  I suppose I could have told him the truth. It’s not like that, Jake. There’s nowhere to go. But I didn’t. I said, “It’s not going to happen. We’re going to win.”

  “But if.”

  “If. Yeah, definitely I’ll tell you, Jacob.” I tousled his hair. “Let’s try to get some sleep.”

  Laurie kissed his forehead, and I did the same.

  He said, “Maybe you guys’ll come to Buenos Aires too. We can all go.”

  “Can we still order from China City there?”

  “Sure, Dad.” He grinned. “We’ll fly it in.”

  “Okay, then. For a second, I didn’t think it was a realistic plan. Now get some sleep. Another big day tomorrow.”

  “Let’s hope not,” he said.

  When Laurie and I got into bed, she said in a pillow-talk murmur, “When we were talking about Buenos Aires, that was the first time I’ve felt happy in I don’t know how long. I don’t remember the last time I smiled.”

  But her confidence must have faltered, because only a few seconds later, as she lay on her side facing me, she whispered, “What if he went to Buenos Aires and killed someone there?”

  “Laurie, he’s not going to Buenos Aires and he’s not going to kill anyone. He didn’t kill anyone here.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  She looked away.

  “Laurie?”

  “Andy, what if we’re the ones who are wrong? What if he gets off and then, God forbid, he does it again? Don’t we have some responsibility?”

  “Laurie, it’s late, you’re exhausted. We’ll have this conversation some other time. For now, you need to stop thinking that way. You’re making yourself crazy.”

  “No.” She gave me an imploring look, like I was the one who was not making sense. “Andy, we need to be honest with each other. This is something we need to think about.”

  “Why? The trial isn’t over yet. You’re quitting too soon.”

  “We need to think about it because he’s our son. He needs our support.”

  “Laurie, we’re doing our job. We’re supporting him, we’re helping him get through the trial.”

  “Is that our job?”

  “Yes! What else is there?”

  “What if he needs something else, Andy?”

  “There is nothing else. What are you talking about? There’s nothing more we can do. We’re already doing everything humanly possible.”

  “Andy, what if he’s guilty?”

  “He won’t be.”

  Her breathy whispering became intense, pointed. “I don’t mean the verdict. I mean the truth. What if he really is guilty?”

  “He isn’t.”

  “Andy, is that what you really think? He didn’t do it? Simple as that? You have no doubt at all?”

  I did not answer. I could not bear to.

  “Andy, I can’t read you anymore. You need to talk to me, you need to tell me. I’m never sure what’s going on inside you anymore.”

  “Nothing’s going on inside me,” I said, and the statement felt even truer than I’d intended.

  “Andy, sometimes I just want to grab you by the lapels and make you tell the truth.”

  “Oh, the thing with my father again.”

  “No, it’s not that. I’m talking about Jacob. I need you to be absolutely honest here, for me. I need to know. Even if you don’t, I need to know: do you think Jacob did it?”

  “I think there are things a parent should never think about a child.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “Laurie, he’s my son.”

  “He’s our son. We’re responsible for him.”

  “Exactly. We’re responsible for him. We need to stick with him.” I put my hand on her head, stroked her hair.

  She swiped it away. “No! Andy, do you understand what I’m saying to you? If he’s guilty, then we’re guilty too. That’s just the way it is. We’re implicated. We made him—you and me. We created him and we sent him out into the world. And if he really did this—can you handle that? Can you handle that possibility?”

  “If I have to.”

  “Really, Andy? Could you?”

  “Yes. Look, if he’s guilty, if we lose, then we’ll have to face that somehow. I mean, I get that. We’ll still be his parents. You can’t resign from this job.”

  “Andy, you are the most infuriating, dishonest man.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I need you to be here with me right now, and you’re not.”

  “I am!”

  “No. You’re managing me. You’re talking in platitudes. You’re in there behind those handsome brown eyes and I don’t know what you’re really thinking. I can’t tell.”

  I sighed, shook my head. “Sometimes I can’t tell either, Laurie. I don’t know what I’m thinking. I’m trying not to think at all.”

  �
��Andy, please, you have to think. Look inside yourself. You’re his father. You can’t avoid this. Did he do it? It’s a yes-or-no question.”

  She was pushing me toward it, this towering black idea, Jacob the Murderer. I brushed against it, touched the hem of its robe—and I could not go any further. The danger was too great.

  I said, “I don’t know.”

  “Then you think he might have.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But it’s possible, at least.”

  “I said I don’t know, Laurie.”

  She scrutinized my face, my eyes, searching for something she could trust, for bedrock. I tried to put on a mask of resolve for her, so she would find in my expression whatever it was she needed—reassurance, love, connection, whatever. But the truth? Certainty? I did not have those. They were not mine to give.

  A couple of hours later, around one A.M., there was a siren in the distance. This was unusual; in our quiet suburb the cops and fire engines generally do not use them. Flashers only. The siren lasted only five seconds or so, then resonated in the quiet, suspended like a flare. Behind me Laurie was asleep in the same position as before, with her back to me. I went to the window and looked out but there was nothing to see. I would not find out until the next morning what that siren was and how, unknown to us, everything had already changed. We were already in Argentina.

  36 | Helluva Show

  The phone rang at five-thirty the next morning, my cell phone, and I answered it automatically, conditioned over the years to receive these emergency calls at crazy hours. I even answered in my old commanding voice, “Andy Barber!,” to convince people that I had not actually been sleeping, no matter what the hour.

  When I hung up, Laurie said, “Who was that?”

  “Jonathan.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So what was it?”

  I felt a grin spread over my face and a dreamy, bewildered happiness embraced me.

  “Andy?”

  “It’s over.”

  “What do you mean, it’s over?”

  “He confessed.”

  “What? Who confessed?”

  “Patz.”

  “What!”

  “Jonathan did what he said he would in court: he had him served. Patz got the subpoena and last night he killed himself. He left a note with a full confession. Jonathan said they’ve been at his apartment all night. They confirmed the handwriting; the note is legit. Patz confessed.”

  “He confessed? Just like that? Is that possible?”

  “It doesn’t seem real, does it?”

  “How did he kill himself?”

  “Hung himself.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Jonathan says he’s going to move for dismissal as soon as court opens.”

  Laurie’s hands covered her mouth. She was already crying. We embraced, then we ran into Jacob’s room as if it were Christmas morning—or Easter, given that this miracle was more in the nature of a resurrection—and we shook him awake and hugged him and shared the incredible news.

  And everything was different. Just like that, everything was different. We got dressed in our trial clothes and we bided our time till we could drive to the courthouse. We watched the news on TV and checked Boston.com for mention of Patz’s suicide but there was none, so we sat there grinning at one another and shaking our heads in disbelief.

  It was better than a not-guilty from the jury. We kept saying this: not guilty is merely a failure of proof. Jacob had actually been proven innocent. It was as if the entire horrific episode was erased. I do not believe in God or miracles, but this was a miracle. I cannot explain the feeling any other way. It felt as if we had been saved by some sort of divine intervention—by a real miracle. The only limit on our joy was the fact we could not quite believe it and we did not want to celebrate until the case was officially dismissed. It was at least conceivable, after all, that Logiudice would continue his prosecution even in the face of Patz’s confession.

  In the event, Jonathan did not get the chance to move for dismissal. Before the judge even took the bench, Logiudice filed a nol pros—a nolle prosequi, which announced the government’s decision to drop the charges.

  At nine sharp, the judge bounded out to the bench with a little grin. He read over the nol pros with a theatrical flourish and, with a palm-up motion of his hand, he asked Jacob to stand. “Mr. Barber, I see from your face and from your dad’s face that you’ve already heard the news. So let me be the first to tell you the words I’m sure you’ve longed to hear: Jacob Barber, you are a free man.” There was a cheer—a cheer!—and Jacob and I hugged.

  The judge banged his gavel but he did so with an indulgent smile. When the courtroom was relatively quiet again, he gestured to the clerk, who read in a monotone—apparently only she was not happy for the result—“Jacob Michael Barber, in the matter of indictment number oh-eight-dash-four-four-oh-seven, the Commonwealth having nolle prosequi the within indictment, it is ordered by the court that you be discharged of this indictment and go without day insofar as this indictment is concerned. The bail previously posted may be returned to the surety. Case dismissed.”

  Go without day. The awkward legal formulation that is the defendant’s ticket out. It means, You may go without any more court days scheduled—go and not come back.

  Mary rubber-stamped the indictment, slipped the paper into her file, and tossed the file into her out-box with such bureaucratic efficiency that you might have thought she had a stack of cases to get through before lunch.

  And it was over.

  Or almost over. We made our way through the crowd of reporters, jostling now to congratulate us and get their video in time for the morning shows, and we wound up literally running down Thorndike Street to the garage where we were parked. Running, laughing—free!

  We made it to our car and for an awkward moment we were preoccupied with trying to find the words to thank Jonathan, who graciously declined the credit because, he said, truthfully, he had not actually done anything. We thanked him anyway. Thanked him and thanked him. I pumped his arm up and down, and Laurie hugged him. “You would have won,” I told him. “I’m sure of it.”

  In all of this, it was Jacob who saw them coming. “Uh-oh,” he said.

  There were two of them. Dan Rifkin came first. He was wearing a tan trench coat, fancier than most, over-designed, with a profusion of buttons, pockets, and epaulettes. He still had that doll-like immobile face, so it was impossible to know exactly what he intended. Apologizing to us, perhaps?

  A few feet behind him was Father O’Leary, a giant by comparison with Rifkin, ambling along with his hands in his pockets and his scally cap pulled low over his eyes.

  We turned slowly to meet them. We must all have had the same expression, puzzled but pleased to see this man who should naturally have been our friend now, despite the pain he had been through, graciously coming to welcome us back into his world, into the real world. But his expression was strange. Hard.

  Laurie said, “Dan?”

  He did not respond. He took from one of the deep pockets of his trench coat a knife, an ordinary kitchen knife, which I recognized, absurd as this sounds, as a Wüsthof Classic steak knife because we have the same set of knives in a knife block on our kitchen counter. But I did not have time to fully fathom the sublime weirdness of being stabbed with such a knife because almost immediately, before Dan Rifkin got within a few feet of us, Father O’Leary grabbed Rifkin by the arm. He banged Rifkin’s hand once on the hood of the car, which caused the knife to clatter down to the concrete garage floor. Then he flipped Rifkin’s arm behind the little man’s back and easily—so easily he might have been manipulating a mannequin—he bent him over the hood of the car. He said to Rifkin, “Easy there, champ.”

  He did all this with expert, graceful professionalism. The whole transaction could not have lasted more than a few seconds, and we were left gaping at the two men.

  “Who ar
e you?” I said finally.

  “Friend of your father’s. He asked me to look out for you.”

  “My father? How do you know my father? No, wait, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

  “What do you want me to do with this guy?”

  “Let him go! What’s wrong with you?”

  He did.

  Rifkin straightened himself up. He had tears in his eyes. He looked at us with helpless impotence—apparently he still believed Jacob had killed his son, but he could not do anything about it—and he staggered off, to what torments I cannot imagine.

  Father O’Leary went to Jacob and extended his hand. “Congratulations, kid. That was something in there this morning. Did you see the expression on that asshole DA’s face? Priceless!”

  Jacob shook his hand with a bewildered expression.

  “Helluva show,” Father O’Leary said. “Helluva show.” He laughed. “And you’re Billy Barber’s kid?”

  “Yeah.” I had never been proud to say that. I’m not sure I had ever actually said it out loud in public before. But it gave me a connection to Father O’Leary and it seemed to amuse him, so we both smiled at it.

  “You’re bigger than him, that’s for sure. You could fit two of that little shit inside a you.”

  I did not know what to do with that comment so I just stood there.

  “Tell your old man I said hello, all right?” Father O’Leary said. “Jesus, I could tell you stories about him.”

  “Don’t. Please.”

  Finally to Jacob: “It’s your lucky day, kid.” He laughed again and ambled away and I have never seen Father O’Leary again to this day.

  Part

  FOUR

  “Precisely how the electrical signals and chemical reactions occurring second by second in the human body make the leap to thought, motivation, impulse—where the physical machinery of man stops and the ghost in the machine, consciousness, begins—is not truly a scientific question, for the simple reason that we cannot design an experiment to capture, measure or duplicate it. For all we have learned, the fact remains that we do not understand in any meaningful way why people do what they do, and likely never will.”

  —PAUL HEITZ,