Presumed Innocent

by Scott Turow

  “Well, what is it that the defense wants to do with this glass?”

  I stand immediately. “I want to take a look at it, Your Honor.”

  Sandy gives me a corrosive glance. With his hand on my forearm, he puts me back down in my seat. I will have to learn: it is not my place to speak.

  “Fine,” says Larren, “Mr. Sabich wants to look at the glass. That’s all. He’s got that right. The prosecution has got to show him the evidence. You know, I’ve looked over the discovery and I understand why Mr. Sabich might want to look very carefully at that glass. So that motion will be allowed.” Larren points at me. It is the first real notice he has taken of my presence. “And by the way now, Mr. Sabich, you of course will be heard through counsel, but if it’s your desire to speak yourself, you have that right. At any time. When we have our conferences in chambers or during the proceedings, you have every right to attend. I want you to know that. We all know Mr. Sabich is a fine trial lawyer, one of the finest trial lawyers we have in these parts, and I’m sure he’ll be curious about what we’re doin from time to time.”

  I look at Sandy, who nods, before I answer. I thank the court. I tell him I will listen. My lawyer will speak.

  “Very well,” the judge says. But his eyes hold the light of a warmth that I have never seen from him in court. I am a defendant now, in his special custody. Like a chieftain or a Mafia don, he owes me some protection while I am in his domain. “Next we have this motion to get into the apartment.”

  Molto and Nico confer.

  “No objection,” Nico says, “so long as a police officer is present.”

  To that, Sandy instantly objects. A few moments of typical courtroom skirmishing follow. Everybody knows what’s going on. The prosecutors want to figure out what we are looking for. On the other hand, they have a valid point. Any disturbance of the contents of Carolyn’s apartment will hinder their ability to make further use of the scene for evidentiary purposes.

  “Well, you have pictures by now,” Larren says. “Every time I have one of these cases, I wonder if the prosecutors haven’t formed some kind of alliance with Kodak.” The reporters all laugh and Larren himself smiles. He is like that. He loves to entertain. He directs his gavel at Della Guardia. “You can have a trooper by the door so you can be sure that no members of the defense remove anything, but I’m not gonna let you snoop on what they’re lookin at. The prosecution’s had four months to look all over that apartment,” Larren says, including in his count the month when I was head of the investigative team. “I think the defense is entitled to a few minutes in peace. Mr. Stern, you draft an appropriate order and I’ll sign it. And let’s be sure that you give notice in advance to Ms. Polhemus’s administrator or executor or whoever represents her estate, so they know what the court intends to allow.

  “Now, let’s talk about this motion to disqualify Mr. Molto.” This is our request to prevent Tommy Molto from acting as one of the trial lawyers on the case, because Nico has said Molto may be a witness.

  Nico starts right in. To disqualify one of the prosecutors with three weeks to trial would be an onerous burden. Impossible. The state could never be ready. I do not know if Nico is looking for more time, or trying to defeat the motion. He is probably not sure himself.

  “Well, look now, Mr. Della Guardia, I’m not the person who told you to put Mr. Molto on your witness list,” Judge Lyttle says. “I cannot imagine how you thought you were going to proceed with a prosecutor who might be a witness. A lawyer may not be an advocate and a witness in the same proceeding. We’ve been doin business in our courts the same way for about four hundred years now. And I do not intend to change it for this trial, no matter how important it is to any of the participants, no matter how many reporters show up from Time or Newsweek or anyplace else.” Judge Lyttle pauses and squints toward the reporters’ gallery, as if he only now had noticed them there.

  “But let me say this—” Larren stands up, and wanders behind the bench. Five feet off the ground to start with, he speaks from an enormous height. “Now, I take it, Mr. Delay Guardia, that the statement you are speaking of is the one where Mr. Sabich responds to Mr. Molto’s accusation of murder by saying, ‘You’re right.’”

  “‘Yeah, you’re right,’” says Nico.

  Larren accepts the correction, bowing his large head.

  “All right. Now, the state has not offered the statement yet. However, you’ve indicated your intentions and Mr. Stern has made his motion for that reason. But this is what occurs to me. I really am not sure that statement will come into evidence. Mr. Stern hasn’t made any objection yet. He would rather see Mr. Molto disqualified first. But I imagine, Mr. Delay Guardia, that when we get there Mr. Stern is gonna say that this statement is not relevant.” This is one of Larren’s favorite means of assisting the defense. He predicts objections he is likely to hear. Some of them—like this one—are clearly going to come. Others never would have occurred to defense counsel. In either event, when formally made, the objections foretold inevitably succeed.

  “Your Honor,” says Nico, “the man admitted the crime.”

  “Oh, Mr. Delay Guardia,” says Judge Lyttle. “Really! You see, that is my point. You tell a man he’s engaged in wrongdoing and he says, ‘Yeah, you’re right.’ Everyone recognizes that’s facetious. We all are familiar with that. Now, in my neighborhood, had Mr. Sabich come from those parts, he would have said, ‘Yo’ momma.’”

  There is broad laughter in the courtroom. Larren has scored again. He sits on the bench, laughing himself.

  “But you know, in Mr. Sabich’s part of town, I would think people say, ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ and what they mean is ‘You are wrong.’” Pausing. “To be polite.”

  More laughter.

  “Your Honor,” Nico says, “isn’t that a question for the jury?”

  “On the contrary, Mr. Delay Guardia, that is initially a question for the court. I have to be convinced this evidence is relevant. That it makes the proposition for which it is offered more probable. Now, I am not ruling yet, but, sir, unless you are a good deal more persuasive than you have been so far, I expect that you will find me ruling that this evidence is not relevant. And you might want to keep that in mind in addressing Mr. Stern’s motion, because if you’re not going to be offering that evidence, or relying on it in cross-examination of the defendant, why then, I’d have to deny the defendant’s motion.”

  Larren smiles. Nico, of course, is screwed. The judge has as much as told him that the statement will not be admitted. Nico’s choice is to lose Molto and make a futile effort to introduce the evidence, or to keep Tommy and abandon the proof. It is really no choice at all for him—better to take half a loaf. My statement to Molto has just disappeared from this case.

  Molto approaches the podium. “Judge—” he says, and gets no further. Larren interrupts. His face drains of all good humor.

  “Now, Mr. Molto, I will not listen to you address the admissibility of your own testimony. Maybe you can convince me that that time-honored rule prohibiting a lawyer from bein a witness in a case he tries shouldn’t be applied here, but until you do, I will not hear further from you, sir.”

  Larren closes business quickly. He says he will see us for trial on August 18. With one more glance toward the reporters, he leaves the bench.

  Molto is still standing there, his look of disgruntlement plain. Tommy’s always had a bad habit for a trial lawyer of allowing his dissatisfaction to be evident. But Judge Lyttle and he have been going at each other now for many years. I may not have recalled Carolyn’s service in the North Branch, but I could never have forgotten Larren and Molto. Their disputes were notorious. Exiled by Bolcarro to that judicial Siberia, Judge Lyttle applied his own rough justice. The cops were guilty of harassment, unless proven otherwise. Molto, beleaguered and bitterly unhappy, used to claim that the pimps and junkies and sneak thieves, some of whom made daily appearances in Larren’s courtroom, would rise to applaud him when he assumed the bench for the
morning call. The police despised Judge Lyttle. They invented racial epithets that showed the same imagination which put humankind upon the moon. Larren had been downtown for years by the time I finished the Night Saints investigation and Lionel Kenneally was still complaining whenever he heard Larren’s name. There was one story Kenneally must have told me ten times about a battery case, brought by a cop who claimed that the defendant had resisted arrest. The cop, named Manos, said he and the defendant had gotten into a tussle shortly after the defendant called the cop a name.

  What name? Larren asked him.

  Here in court, said Manos, I’d rather not say, Judge.

  Why, Officer, are you afraid you might offend those present? Larren gestured toward the forward benches, where the defendants on the morning call were seated, an assemblage of hookers, pickpockets, and junkie thieves. Speak freely, Judge Lyttle said.

  He called me motherfucker, Your Honor.

  From the benches there were whistles, catcalls, lots of joviality. Larren gaveled silence, but he was laughing, too.

  Why, Officer, said Larren again, still smiling, didn’t you know that is a term of endearment in our community?

  The folks on the benches went wild: black-power salutes and a frenzy of stroking palms. Manos took all of this in silence. A minute later, when Molto rested, Larren directed a verdict for defense.

  ‘And the great part,’ Kenneally told me, ‘is that Manos comes up to the bench then, stands there with his hat in his hand, and says to Lyttle, sweet as a school kid, “Thank you, motherfucker,” before he walks away.’

  I have heard this story from two other people. They agree on the final exchange. But both of them swear the last remark came from the bench.

  23

  Every week, usually on Wednesday night, the phone rings. Even before he starts I know who it is. I can hear him pulling on his goddamn cigarette. I am not supposed to talk to him. He is not supposed to talk to me. We both have our orders. He does not say his name.

  How you doin? he asks.

  Hanging in.

  You guys okay?

  Getting by.

  This is a tough thing.

  Tell me about it.

  He laughs. No. I guess I don’t gotta tell you. Well, you need anything? Anything I can do?

  Not much. You’re good to call.

  Yeah, I am, but I figure you’ll be runnin the joint again soon. I’m coverin my bets.

  I know you are. What about you? How you doing?

  Good. Survivin.

  Schmidt still on your case? I ask, referring to his boss.

  Hey, always. That’s the guy. Screw him, I figure.

  How tough are they making it on you?

  These cupcakes? Come on.

  But I know Lip is having a hard time. Mac, who has also called on a couple of occasions, told me they pulled him back into McGrath Hall, took him off the Special Command in the P.A.’s office. Schmidt has got him chained to a desk, signing off on other dicks’ reports. That is bound to drive him crazy. But Lip always was doing a high-wire act with the department. He had to keep dazzling the crowds to hold off his detractors. Plenty of people were waiting to see him fall. Now he has. Cops will always figure that Lipranzer knew and let me hide it. That’s just the way they think.

  I’ll call next week, he always promises at the end of every conversation.

  And he does, faithfully. Our talks do not seem to vary more than a line or two. About a month along, when it was becoming clear to everyone that this was serious, he offered money. I understand these kinda things can be expensive, he said. You know a bohunk’s always got some dough salted away.

  I told him Barbara had come through in the pinch. He made a remark about marrying a Jewish girl.

  This week, when the phone rings, I have been waiting.

  “How you doin?” he asks.

  “Hanging in,” I say.

  Barbara picks it up, just in time to hear that exchange.

  “It’s for me, Barb,” I say.

  Unaware of our arrangement, she says simply, “Hi, Lip,” and puts the phone back down.

  “So what’s goin on?”

  “We’re going to trial now,” I say. “Three weeks. Less.”

  “Yeah, I know. I seen the papers.” We both hang on that for a while. There is nothing Dan Lipranzer can do about his testimony. It is going to break my back, both of us know it, and there is no choice. He answered Molto’s question the day after the election, before Lip could guess the score; and I tend to think that the answers would have been the same, even if Lip knew the consequences. What happened happened. That’s the way he would explain it to himself.

  “So you gettin ready?” he asks.

  “We’re working real hard. Stern’s amazing. He really is. He’s the best by a time and a half.”

  “That’s what they say.” When he pauses, I recognize the click of his lighter. “Well, okay. Anything you need?”

  “There is,” I say. If he hadn’t asked, I wasn’t going to say anything. That’s the deal I made with myself.

  “Shoot,” he tells me.

  “I’ve got to find this guy Leon. Leon Wells. You know, the guy who’s supposed to have paid off the P.A. in the North Branch? The defendant in the court file you dug up, the one with Carolyn and Molto? Stern hired some skip tracer and he came back with a complete zip. As far as he can tell, no such guy even exists. I don’t know any other way to go. I can’t have a heart-to-heart with Tommy Molto.”

  This private investigator was named Ned Berman. Sandy said that he was good, but he seemed to have no idea what he was doing. I gave him copies of the pages of the court file. Three days later he was back saying he could not help. The North Branch, man, in those days, he said, it was a real zoo. I wish you luck. I really do. You couldn’t tell out there who was doing what to who.

  Lipranzer takes some time with this request, more than I expected. But I know the problem. If the department finds out he helped in the preparation of my defense, they will can him. Insubordination. Disloyalty. Fifteen years plus, and his pension, in the dumper.

  “I wouldn’t ask, you know I wouldn’t. But I think it might really matter.”

  “How?” he asks. “You thinkin Tommy’s kinky on this? Set you up to keep you from lookin?” I can tell that even though he is trying not make judgments, Lipranzer regards that notion as farfetched.

  “I don’t know what to say. You want to hear me say I think it’s possible? I do. And whether he’s sandbagging me or not, if we could get that kind of stuff out, it would look real bad for him. Something like that can really catch a jury’s attention.”

  He is silent again.

  “After I testify,” he says. “You know, those guys have got their eye on me. And I don’t want anybody askin me any questions where I got to give the wrong answer under oath. A lot of people would like to see that. When I get off the stand, they’ll ease up. I’ll work on it then. Hard. Okay?”

  It is not okay. It is likely to be too late. But I’ve asked for much too much already.

  “That’s great. You’re a pal. I mean that.”

  “I figure you’ll be runnin the joint again soon,” he says. He says, “I’m just coverin my bets.”

  Tee ball, again. The summer league. In this circuit, mercifully, there are no standings, for the Stingers are only marginally improved. In the heavy air of the August evenings, the fly balls still seem to mystify our players. They fall with the unhindered downward velocity of rain. The girls respond better to tutoring. They throw and bat with increasing skill. But the boys for the most part seem unreachable. There is no telling them about the merit of a measured swing. Each eight-year-old male comes to the plate with dreams of violent magic in his bat. He envisions home runs and wicked liners. For the boys, there is no point in the repetitive instructions to keep the ball on the ground.

  Nat, surprisingly, is something of an exception. This summer he is changing, beginning to acquire some worldly focus. He seems newly aware of his p
owers, and of the fact that people regard the manner in which you do things as a sign of character. When he takes his turn at bat and hits, I watch the way his eyes lift as he comes around first base before he sprints for second. It is not enough to say that he is merely imitating the players on TV, because what is significant is that he noticed in the first place. He is starting to care about style. Barbara says he seems more particular about his clothes. I would be more delighted by all of this were I not wary about the motives for this sudden maturation. He has not reached and developed so much as he has been plucked by the heels from his dreaminess. Nathaniel has turned his attention to the world, I suspect, because he knows that it has caused so much trouble for his father.

  After the game, we head home alone. No one has been so heartless as to suggest we skip the picnic, but it is for the best. We attended once after the indictment, and the time passed so fitfully, with such sudden ponderous silences arising at the mention of the most ordinary topics—work to which I do not go; TV detective shows that turn on predicaments like mine—that I knew we could not return. These men are generous enough to accept my presence among themselves. The risk I pose is for the kids. We all must think about the months ahead, the impossibility there would be of explaining where I’d gone—and what I did. It is unfair to hobble these splendid evenings with the omen of evil. Instead, Nat and I depart with a friendly wave. I carry the bat, the glove. He goes along stomping out dandelions.

  From Nathaniel, there are no words of complaint. I am pathetically touched by this, by my son’s loyalty. God only knows what mayhem his friends are wreaking on him. No grownup can fully imagine the smirking wisecracks, the casual viciousness he bears. And yet he refuses to desert me, the vessel from which this pain has poured. He does not dote. But he is with me. He pulls me to my feet from the sofa to work with him on the slider; he accompanies me at night when I venture out to get the paper and a gallon of milk. He walks beside me through the small woods between our subdivision and the Nearing village green. He shows no fear.