Presumed Innocent

by Scott Turow

  “Rusty, I prefer to see the defendant take the stand. No matter how often and how insistently jurors are told that they must not hold a defendant’s silence against him, it is an impossible instruction to follow. A jury wants to hear a denial, particularly when the defendant is a person accustomed to presenting himself in public. But in this case I am against it. We both know this, Rusty: Two groups of persons make good witnesses. Those who are essentially truthful. And skilled liars. You are an essentially truthful person and would ordinarily make a fine witness in your own behalf. Certainly, you have years of training in how to communicate with a jury. I have no doubt that if you were to testify to everything you knew you would do so convincingly and that you would be acquitted. Deservingly, I might add.”

  He looks at me briefly, a quick but penetrating expression. I am not positive whether that is a vote of confidence in my innocence or another comment on the poor quality of the state’s case, but I sense the former and I find myself pleasantly surprised. With Stern, of course, it is possible that he has offered that now only to sweeten this pill.

  “However,” he says, “I am convinced after observing you for several months now that you will not testify to everything you know. Some matters remain your secret. Certainly at this juncture I do not wish to pry. I mean that sincerely. With some clients persuasion is called for. With others you would just as well not know. In a few cases, it is best to leave things undisturbed. That is my sense here. I am confident that the choice you have made is a deliberate one, and well considered. But be that as it may, when one comes to the witness stand determined to tell less than the truth, he is like a three-legged animal in the wild. You are not a skillful liar. And if Nico blunders into this area of sensitivity, whatever it is, things will go very badly for you.”

  A pause, a silence just a bit longer than need be, passes between us.

  “We must assess the case as it is,” Stern says. “We have not had a bad day yet for the defense. Well, perhaps one. But there is not a piece of evidence that stands untarnished. And this afternoon we have dealt a blow from which the state is not likely to recover. It is my best professional judgment that you should not testify. Whatever your chances—and I admit that I think after today they are quite good—whatever your chances, they are best this way.

  “Having said all of that, let me remind you that it is your decision. I am your attorney. And I will present your testimony, if you choose to give it, with confidence and conviction—no matter what you choose to say. And certainly no choices need be made tonight. But I wanted to let you begin your period of final reflection with my own views in mind.”

  He is gone a few moments later, his tie knotted and his perfect jacket removed from its hanger behind the door. I remain in his office, made somber by his remarks. This is the closest Stern and I have come to a heart-to-heart. His candor, after so many months of suppression, is disturbing, no matter how kindly or elegantly phrased.

  I wander down the hallway with the thought in mind to have another glass of champagne. Kemp’s light is still on. He is at work in his small office. Over one of the filing cabinets, merely pasted to the wall, is a poster. Dropped out against a vibrant red background is a young man in a spangled jacket. He is playing a guitar, and the photo has caught him in motion so that his hair stands on end like a dandelion gone to seed. The word GALACTICS crosses from corner to corner in white caps. I am sure that few people who walk in recognize the Jamie Kemp of a decade ago.

  “I got you in some hot water with the boss,” I say. “I apologize.”

  “Shit, that’s my own fault.” He points to a chair. “He’s the most disciplined human being I know.”

  “And one hell of a lawyer.”

  “Isn’t he? Have you ever seen anything like what went on today?”

  “Never,” I tell him. “Never in twelve years. How long have you guys had that stuff?”

  “Sandy noticed the line in the autopsy Sunday night. We got the records from the gynecologist yesterday. You want to hear something? Stern thinks it was just a mistake. He feels Kumagai does everything half-ass. When he got the chemist’s results, he went on from there and forgot about the autopsy. I don’t buy that.”

  “No? What do you think?”

  “I think you were set up.”

  “Well,” I say, after an instant, “I’ve thought that a lot longer than you.”

  “I believed it,” says Kemp. “Most of the time.” I am sure he is thinking about the phone records again, but he does not mention them. “Do you know who did it?”

  I take a moment with that.

  “Why wouldn’t I tell my lawyers?”

  “What do you think about Molto?”

  “Maybe,” I say. “Probably.”

  “What does he get out of it? Keeps you from looking into that file? What do you call it? The B file?”

  “The B file,” I repeat.

  “Except he can’t believe you’re not going to mention it, if he puts it to you.”

  “Yeah, but look at the position I’m in. Would you rather be accused by the chief deputy P.A., or some wild man you’re trying to nail for murder? Besides, he wouldn’t know how far along we were. He’d just want to keep anybody from going forward.”

  “That’s pretty amazing, don’t you think? Bizarre?”

  “That’s probably one reason I don’t quite believe it.”

  “What are the others?”

  I shake my head. “I’ll have a better idea tonight.”

  “What’s tonight?”

  I shake my head again. For Lipranzer’s sake I cannot take any chances. This will be between only him and me.

  “Is this do-it-yourself night?”

  “That it is,” I say.

  “You better be careful. Don’t start doing Della Guardia any favors.”

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “I know what I’m doing.” I stand up and consider my last statement, one of the most farfetched I have recently made. I bid Kemp good night and go back down the hallway to look for the champagne.

  34

  Like Santa Claus or the demons that come out in the woods, Lipranzer arrives at my home after midnight. He seems lively and unusually good-humored as Barbara greets him at the door in her nightclothes. Awaiting Lip, I have felt not the slightest inclination to sleep. Instead, the events of the day have combined in such a fashion that for the first time in months I have a sensation which I recognize as something more than hope aborning. It is like the closed eyelids’ trembling reception of new daylight. Somewhere inside, there is faith reignited that I am going to be free. In that mellow luminescence, I have passed the most pleasant time in weeks with my wife. Barbara and I have been drinking coffee together for hours, talking about the demise of Painless Kumagai and Nathaniel’s scheduled return on Friday, the prospect of a renewed life a balm upon us.

  “Downtown they’re sayin some wild things,” Lipranzer tells both of us. “Right before I pulled out of the Hall, I talked to a guy who had just heard from Glendenning. They say Delay’s talkin about dismissin the case and Tommy is kickin and screamin and tryin to think up a new thing. Could that be right?”

  “It could be,” I say. At the mention of Nico dismissing, Barbara has taken hold of my arm.

  “What the hell happened in that courtroom today?” Lip asks. I start to tell him the story of Kumagai’s cross-examination, but he has already heard it.

  “I know that,” he says. “I mean, how is it possible? I told you that little jerk said the guy was shootin blanks. I don’t care how many times he denied it. One thing, Ted Kumagai is history. There ain’t a soul in the Hall not sayin he’ll be suspended by next week.”

  As Kemp predicted. By now, I find my feelings of sympathy pinched.

  Barbara sees us out the door. “Be careful,” she says. Lipranzer and I sit a moment in the driveway in the unmarked Aries. I perked another pot of coffee—this one with caffeine—when Lip arrived, and Barbara has given him a second cup for the road. He is sipping on
it as we sit there.

  “So where are we going?” I ask.

  “I want you to guess,” he says. It is, of course, a little late to go visiting. But I learned this approach from the coppers a long time ago. If you’ve got to find someone, the best time to be looking is in the dead of the night, when almost everybody’s at home. “Gimme your shot on Leon,” Lip says. “You know, tell me about him.”

  “I have no idea. He’s got some kind of job that he wants to keep. That was clear from the letter. So he has to make a good buck. But he lives on the edge. I don’t know. Maybe he owns a restaurant or a bar, with some straight partners. He could be anything semi-respectable. He runs a theater company, how’s that? Am I close?”

  “You’d never get close. Is he white?”

  “Probably. Pretty well off, whatever he is.”

  “Wrong,” says Lipranzer.

  “No shit?”

  Lipranzer is laughing.

  “All right,” I say, “twenty questions is over. What’s the scoop?”

  “Feature this,” says Lipranzer. “He’s a Night Saint.”

  “Come on.”

  “Sheet as long as my arm. Gang crimes has got all kinds of intelligence on him. This guy’s like a lieutenant now. Whatever they call them, a deacon. Runs things on two floors in the projects. He’s been up there for years. Apparently, he figured that all his hard-ass pals wouldn’t think much of him if they found out he’s runnin out to the Public Forest to suck white boys’ cocks. That’s his thing. Mojoleski’s got a snitch, gay as a jaybird, teaches high school, who gave him all kinds of information on this jamoche. Seems like he and Leon went sneakin around together for years. This guy was Leon’s teacher. Eddie somethin. Nine out of ten, that’s the fella who’s been writin letters.”

  “Son of a bitch. So where are we going? Grace Street?”

  “Grace Street,” says Lipranzer.

  The words are still enough to settle a shiver near my heart and my spine. Lionel Kenneally and I spent a few evenings in there. Early mornings, actually. Three a.m., four. The safest time for a white man.

  “I give him a call,” says Lipranzer. “He’s an affluent type. Got a phone and everything. In his own name, by the way. That P.I. Berman did a hell of a job. Anyway, I called about an hour ago. Said I was givin away newspaper subscriptions. He wasn’t interested, but he said yeah, when I asked if I was talkin to Leon Wells.”

  A Night Saint, I think as we drive toward the city. “A Night Saint,” I murmur out loud.

  I became familiar with the Grace Street projects during my fourth year as a deputy P.A. By then, I had joined Raymond Horgan’s fair-haired coterie, and he selected me to lead a large-scale police/grand-jury investigation of the Night Saints. This assault on the city’s largest street gang was announced by Raymond just in time to become the centerpiece of his first re-election campaign. For Raymond, it was an ideal issue. Negro gangsters were not popular with anybody in Kindle County, and success would permanently dispel his bleeding-heart image. The Saints investigation was my initial trip to the spotlight, the first time I worked with reporters at my side. It took almost four years of my life. By the time Raymond ran for re-election again, we had convicted 147 identified gang members. The press heralded Raymond Horgan’s unprecedented triumph, and never mentioned that more than 700 Saints remained on the street, doing all the old things.

  The Saints’ genesis would make some sociologist a reasonably good dissertation. Originally they were the Outlaws of the Night, a small, not particularly well-disciplined street gang in the North End. Their leader was Melvin White. Melvin was a fine-looking American, with one sightless eye, milky and wandering, and, for balance perhaps, a dangling turquoise earring, three inches long, in the opposite ear. His hair tended toward the straight and was worn in Gorgon fashion, resembling, if anything, an unkempt Rastafarian tangle. Melvin was a thief. He stole hubcaps, guns, mail, the change from vending machines, and all manner of motorized vehicles. One night Melvin and three of his pals killed an Arab gas-station owner who drew on them while they were emptying his register. They pled to involuntary manslaughter, and Melvin, who up until then had only visited state youth camp, went to Rudyard, where he and his three buddies got to meet men to admire. Melvin emerged four years later in a caftan and phylacteries and announced that he was now Chief Harukan, leader of the Order of Nighttime Saints and Demons. Twenty other bloods dressed just like him settled in the same part of town, and within the next twelve months they all began, as they put it, involving themselves in the community. Melvin gathered his followers to him in a deserted apartment building he called his ashram. He preached from a loudspeaker on weekends and evenings. And during the day he taught those inclined how to steal.

  Initially, it was mail. The Saints had people in the post office. Many, in fact. They stole not only checks and the tickets to events but account information, so that they could pass forgeries at any bank. Harukan had what for lack of anything else has to be called the vision to recognize the principles of capitalist enterprise, and his profits were reinvested, usually in decimated real estate in the North End purchased at county scavenger sales. Eventually entire blocks were Saint-owned. The Saints drove up and down in their big cars. They blasted their horns and played their radios. They hustled the daughters of the neighborhood and made hoodlums, willingly or not, of the sons. Harukan, in the meantime, emerged as a political figure. The Saints gave away food on the weekends.

  As they became better established, Melvin led the Saints into smack. Entire buildings became processing centers. Guys with chemistry degrees would cut the heroin with quinine and lactose while two dudes with M—16’s watched them. In a second area six women, each one stark naked to prevent any body-cavity smuggling, made up dime bags, closing them off with seal-a-meals. Out on the streets in Saintland, high-grade heroin was sold from stands. There were drive-up windows in garages to which white kids from the suburbs could come down to score, and on weekends the traffic was so bad that some mogul in caftan and shades would be down there with a whistle telling people where to go. Once or twice the newspapers tried to write about what was going on, but the coppers didn’t like it. There were policemen on the take, something the department has traditionally preferred to ignore, and the cops who weren’t taking were just scared. The Saints killed. They shot, they garroted, they stabbed. They murdered, of course, in dope squabbles; but they also killed because of minor differences of opinion, because someone insulted the upholstery in somebody’s ’mobile, or because of an innocent brushing of shoulders on the street. They ran six square blocks of this city, their own little Hey Dude fascist arena, a quarter of their terrain occupied by the Grace Street projects.

  I have heard it said on many occasions that these projects were drawn from the same architectural plans as the student dormitories at Stanford. Suffice it to say, there is no resemblance now. The small balconies at the rear of each apartment have been curtained off with chicken wire to end the rain of suicides, infants, drunks, and persons pushed, who, over the first five years, became a sauce upon the pavement below. Most of the sliding glass doors to the balconies have been replaced with plywood sheets; and from the balconies themselves a wide variety of objects hang, including laundry, garbage cans, gang banners, old tires, car parts, or, in winter, anything that profits by being kept out of the heat. No sociologist can portray how far the life in these three concrete towers is from the existence most of us know. It is not Sunday school, was Lionel Kenneally’s favorite phrase. And he was right; it was not. But it was more than cheap irony or even rabid racism could comprehend. This was a war zone, akin to what was described by the guys I knew who came back from Nam. It was a land where there was no future—a place where there was little real sense of cause and effect. Blood and fury. Hot and cold. Those were terms that had some meaning. But you could not ask anybody to do anything that involved some purchase on what might happen next year, even next week. At times when I listened to my witnesses describe the daily ev
ents of project life, in the disconnected way most of them had of doing that, I would wonder if they were hallucinating. Morgan Hobberly, my star, a reformed Saint who, truly, got religion, told me that one morning he rolled out of bed to the sound of gunfire outside his door. When he investigated, he found himself caught between two bloods trying to zap each other with carbines. I asked Morgan what he did. ‘Back to sleep, babe. Not my thing. Pulled my pill over my head.’

  In truth, my four years of investigation succeeded only because of Morgan Hobberly. The whole heroic incursion into gang life, which Stern has trumpeted before my jury on a dozen occasions, came down to one piece of luck: finding Morgan. An organization like Harukan’s did not have the kind of membership who could not be bought. Dozens of them were informants for the police or the federal agencies. But Melvin was smart enough to have a few of them out there doing counter-intelligence work. We were never sure what was right, since we got, through our sources, two or three different stories at any one time.

  But Morgan Hobberly was the real thing. He was on the inside. Not particularly because he wanted to be, but because the Saints enjoyed having him around. Everybody knows a Morgan Hobberly. He was born cool, given to grace the way some people are born to music, or horses, or high jumping. His clothes just hung on him right. His movements were lithe. He was not so much beautiful as composed, not so much handsome as present. Aloof was not the right word as much as magical. There was a vibration he stirred in me that somehow reminded me of my feelings for Nat. And because some moral voice that Morgan took for divine told him one morning that Harukan’s ways were evil, Morgan secretly went to work for the state. We put a body recorder on him and he sat in the meetings of chieftains. He gave us the numbers of phones that we connected to pen registers and, eventually, tapped. In the seventy days that Morgan Hobberly helped us, we gathered virtually all the evidence for trials that lasted another two years.