Reversible Errors

by Scott Turow

“Detective Starczek, make the acquaintance of Romeo Gandolph.”

  The man Carney was pushing along was a scrawny, crazed-looking little thing, with eyes flashing around like Mars lights. You weren’t going to have to convene a grand jury to figure out how he got the name Squirrel. Larry pushed him against the patrol car and patted him down. Rommy whined, asking several times what he had done.

  “Shit,” Larry said. “Where’s the locket, Romeo?”

  Romeo, as expected, said he didn’t know nothing about that.

  “Shit,” said Larry again. Gandolph wouldn’t have held the cameo for months, only to sell it now. Larry described the piece, but Squirrel kept saying he hadn’t seen nothing like it.

  Larry thought of Erno’s warnings about Collins. This wasn’t the first time a jailhouse snitch had run changes on Larry. He was ready to let Squirrel stroll, but Lenahan unexpectedly grabbed Gandolph by the scattered hairdo and pushed him into the back of the cruiser. Squirrel was moaning that his arm still hurt from last night, when he’d been cuffed for most of the evening to an iron ring above his head on the wall.

  At Six, Lenahan pointed Rommy to a bench—he knew the way himself—then took Larry’s biceps. He could tell there was a problem from the way Carney kept looking up and down the hall.

  “You ain gonna find any reports or nothing from last night.”

  “Because?”

  “Cause you ain gonna find that cameo in Property.”

  Larry groaned. He was just too old for this shit.

  “Carney, I know it’s not on you, but this meatball’s gonna tell me he had that locket last night when they pinched him. You know that. So what am I supposed to tell Harold?”

  “I understand,” said Carney. “I’m doin what I can. We been looking for Norris all day now. He’s off. Girlfriend swears he’s on the way in.”

  They were interrupted by a communications clerk. Larry had a call. His first thought was Muriel, but it was Greer instead. Larry tried to strike a cheerful note.

  “I think we’re about to clear this case, Commander.” He gave Harold some of the details.

  “Who’s with you, Larry?”

  He knew Harold meant Task Force detectives, but Larry played dumb and mentioned Lenahan and Woznicki.

  “The Lone Ranger rides again,” said Greer to himself. He told Larry he would get a Homicide detective there on the double.

  When Larry lowered the phone, there was a big black guy waiting. He had on a snappy, short leather jacket and a knit shirt that didn’t quite cover his full belly. He was smiling as if he had something to sell. Which he did, in a way. This was Norris.

  “Hear you need this,” he said. He took the cameo out of his coat pocket. He hadn’t even bothered to put it in a plastic sleeve.

  Larry had made it for a long time on this Force by saying live and let live. Best he knew, the Pope wasn’t drawing up papers to nominate him for sainthood either. But he did the job. Maybe that was his greatest source of pride. He came on every day to do the job—not to catch a nap or shake down dopers or hide in the station house while he schemed about a long-term disability leave. He did the job, like every other good cop he knew. This was too much. He grabbed the locket roughly from Norris’s hand. The christening pictures were inside, two babes both still bloated from the savage trip down the birth canal.

  “You’re just Dick Fuckin Tracy, aren’t you?” Larry said to Norris. “You pinch a guy who’s got jewelry in his pocket that was on TV every day for a week because it belonged to a murder vic. And the guy you snatch happens to have had a known thing with another of the victims. And what are you thinking about? How much you can get when you sell the fucking evidence. I hope there aren’t any more at home like you.”

  “Ease up. This ain your man. This is just some little local wackhead booster. He wouldn’t cop on the wigs, so I’s teaching him a lesson. What’s the harm?”

  “Harm? I got a great chain of evidence, don’t I? Booking sheet, evidence log? How do we prove to Bernie the Attorney this is what you took off his client?”

  “Don’t bust my chops, man. Everybody here knows how to testify.”

  Larry turned away, but Norris called after him.

  “You know, if he’s wrong on the murders,” he said, “I oughta get a piece of the bust.”

  Larry didn’t bother to answer. You couldn’t talk to a guy like that.

  9

  MAY 22, 2001

  Inside

  OUTSIDE the Men’s Maximum Security Penitentiary at Rudyard, Gillian had a final cigarette. She kept her back to the prison and instead surveyed the pretty Midwestern street of small frame houses, where the lawns had recently greened and the maple trees in the parkway were all in new leaf. Arthur was still in his fancy automobile, speaking on the car phone to his office. ‘My robber baron against your robber baron,’ was how he’d described his practice on the drive down, but, like all lawyers in medias res, he seemed given over to it, soothing clients and plotting strategy in the fierce war of words that was civil litigation.

  For Gillian’s sake, Arthur had left his carnivorous young associate back in the IBM Building. Rocketing along the highway, beside the corn plants which were bursting through the earth with their green leaves drooping like welcoming hands, Arthur and she had conversed pleasantly. He had told her what he’d learned about Erno Erdai, the prisoner they were going to see, and they had also talked at length about Duffy Muldawer, her landlord, with whom Arthur had happily renewed acquaintance this morning, reminiscing over their courtroom battles years before, when Arthur was a Deputy P.A. in Gillian’s courtroom.

  In truth, Duffy had never been much of a lawyer—he’d gone to law school as an adjunct to his priestly duties, and ended up as a State Defender when love, which sadly did not last, had led him to abandon his vows. His true gift was in his original calling. Gillian had discovered that in 1993, when she had entered one of the fabled twelve-step programs. With a sentencing in her future, it was imperative to clean up, but she could not abide the cant, the formulae, the circles of lost souls baring their troubles and still lost. In desperation, she’d called Duffy, who’d offered to help when the first articles about her appeared in the papers. He was her one true confessor. Without him, she might have remained at the bottom forever.

  As Arthur’s call wore on now, Gillian ground her cigarette into the gravel of the lot and checked herself over in the reflection of the car’s smoked windows. She’d worn a black David Dart pantsuit, with a cardigan-style jacket, pearls, and gold button earrings. The effect was intended to be demure, to attract as little attention as possible inside the institution. But Arthur, who’d apparently been watching her through the windshield while he finished on the phone, seemed to have missed the point.

  “You look great, as usual,” Arthur said, standing up from the car. He spoke with the same enthusiasm he had in his office. She sensed in Raven, as with so many males, a hint of tireless sexual appetite. But she was largely inured to men. She had even begun wearing a plastic wedding band to work. Saleswomen apparently had the same reputation as nurses and the gals lingering in a watering hole at closing time. Men actually seemed to cruise the counters. Now and then, some appeared to recognize her from her former life, and within that cohort were a few males who, for whatever demented reason, seemed to regard her as either easy pickings or an unfulfilled yen. She rebuffed them all. Sex had never been especially easy for her, anyway. Too much Catholic school or something like that. She had loved being attractive, the power it bestowed. But the mechanics of love, much like love itself, had never really been very satisfying for Gillian.

  She thanked Raven for his kindness and turned to face the institution, summoning resolve. For decades, at moments like this, Gillian had conjured the image of a ball bearing, gleaming, smooth, and impenetrable, and that was what was in her mind as they reached the front gates of Rudyard.

  Inside the guardhouse, Arthur did the talking. The plan was for her to visit alone with Erdai, who was expecting
her, in the hope he would agree to see Raven next. She was not sure exactly what faced her, but the police reports and other documents Arthur had shown her made Erdai’s story sound uncomfortably like hers. He’d worked his way up from police cadet to a significant executive position at TN, and then, in an inexplicable instant, had lost hold of everything. In February of 1997, Erdai had been at Ike’s, a well-known hangout for police officers, when he’d had a run-in with a man named Faro Cole. According to Erdai’s statements afterwards, he had once investigated Cole for a ticket fraud against the airline. Described as a black male about thirty, Cole had entered the tavern and displayed a gun, shouting that it was Erdai’s fault he was broke. Several cops in the place had come at Cole with weapons drawn, and the man had thrown his arms in the air, still holding the revolver, but by the barrel, not the trigger. Finally, after brief negotiations, he’d handed the gun to Erdai and agreed to go outside with him to talk. No more than five minutes later, Cole had burst back through the door of the bar. By all accounts, Erdai, who was about five feet behind him, dropped the young man with a single shot through the back.

  Erdai claimed, improbably, that the shooting was self-defense, but he found little support, especially in light of the ballistics and path reports. Erno was charged with attempt murder. Cole, who recovered, conceded, through an attorney, that he had been stoned and provocative and even made no objection to Erno’s lawyer’s plea for leniency. But because Erdai had shot and killed his mother-in-law several decades before, the P.A.’s Office was adamant that he’d already had his second chance. Erdai pled to Agg Battery, Firearm, and received a sentence of ten years, which would have gotten him out in five, had he not developed a stage-four cancer of the lung. The Warden’s Office had confirmed to Arthur that Erdai’s prognosis was poor. Notwithstanding that, the Prisoner Review Board had denied his request for commutation or compassionate furlough, much as they turned down everyone else. Erdai was going to die in here, a thought that seemed fully appalling to Gillian as she waited on a bench beside Arthur.

  “Is he still lucid?” Gillian asked Raven.

  “According to the medical staff.” Her name was called then. “I guess you’re going to see for yourself.”

  “I guess so,” she answered and stood. So far as Gillian could tell, Erdai was Rommy Gandolph’s last hope, and Arthur had become visibly nervous as the moment of truth neared. Coming to his feet to wish her good luck, he offered a damp hand, then Gillian headed off in the company of a female correctional officer. When the main gate to the cellblock finally smashed closed behind them, Gillian’s heart squeezed. She must have made a sound as well because the c.o. turned to ask how she was.

  “Fine,” Gillian answered, but she could feel her face was pinched.

  The officer, who was stationed in the infirmary to which they were heading, had introduced herself as Ruthie, a stout chatterbox with straightened hair. Even a prison could not dim her cheerfulness, and her tireless commentary about varied subjects, including Erdai, recent construction, and the weather, made a welcome distraction.

  When they arrived, the infirmary proved to be a separate two-story structure connected to the main block by a dark hall. Gillian followed Ruthie down the corridor to another double set of barred doors. A guard sat in a small control room on this side, monitoring ingress and egress through bulletproof windows. Ruthie lifted the visitor’s pass hanging from Gillian’s neck and the buzzer sounded.

  Within the prison hospital, there was an odd liberty. It was like entering an asylum. The worst offenders were chained to their beds, but only if they caused trouble. As in the yard, even the murderers wandered about freely. In the ward to which Ruthie led Gillian, two unarmed correctional officers sat in the corners on folding chairs, moseying around now and then to limber up, but appearing otherwise aimless. Halfway into the room, Ruthie pulled back a curtain and there in a bed was Erno Erdai.

  At the moment, he was recovering from a second surgery to remove a lobe from his lung. He had been reading a book, his hospital bed raised to support him, and wore a washed-out hospital gown, while an IV dripped into his left arm. Erdai was thin and pale, with an arrow tip of a long nose. When his light eyes came up, they lingered on Gillian before he coughed harshly. After he recovered, he extended his hand.

  “I’ll just leave you to talking,” Ruthie said. She did not actually depart. She found a plastic bucket chair for Gillian, then crossed to the other side of the ward, where she made some show of looking in the other direction.

  “I knew your old man, you know,” Erdai said. His speech had a faint foreign lilt, as if he’d come of age in a home where English was a second language. “In the Academy. He was my instructor. He taught Street Tactics. He was good at it, too. They say he was hell out there.” Erno laughed. He had a tongue depressor on one side of his mouth and chewed on it periodically. Gillian had often heard as much of her father, but it was hard to reconcile with the man whom she saw her mother wallop time and again. Gillian was always desperate for him to fight back. He was six foot three and could have toppled his wife with one swat. But he was scared of May like the rest of them. Gillian had hated him for it.

  “I don’t suppose you remember me from being in your court,” Erdai asked, “now that you see me?” It seemed important to him to think he had made an impression, but she saw no need for gallantry.

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “Well, I remember you. And you look a damn sight better off. Do you mind me saying that? Doesn’t seem like you’re drinking now.”

  “No.”

  “I don’t mean anything by asking,” said Erdai. “I drank too much, too. Only I’m not like you. I’d start right in again. The stuff in here the inmates make? You take your life in your hands and it tastes like it, too. I drink it anyway when I get the chance.” Erno shook his head briefly, then glanced at the book that remained open in his hands, a history of World War II. She asked if he liked it.

  “It’s all right. It’s something to do. Did you read a lot when you were inside?”

  “Some,” she said. “Not as much as I thought I would. Now and then, I try to remember what I did, and most of it’s blank. I really think I spent a lot of time just staring.”

  There were entire chains of association she’d had to abandon. Thinking of herself as a judge. As a respectable citizen. The law, which had been her life in many senses, was all but erased. As far as she could tell now, she had gone through the first year or so in prison with the equivalent of screen fuzz in her brain. The set was on; no signal was receiving. Rarely, very late at night, she cried, usually when she had been aroused by a dream and endured that moment when she realized that she was not in bed, alone, awaiting the trials of another day, but was instead here—in prison, a felon, a junkie. She had gone down and down like something tossed into a channel that ran to the center of the earth. The feeling of those moments, which she’d have been glad to leave behind her forever, returned for an instant and she straightened up to subdue it.

  “So you want to hear my story?” Erdai asked.

  Gillian explained about Arthur. She’d come because it seemed important to Erno, but it was the defense lawyer who was better suited to listen to whatever he had to say.

  “So that’s what the lawyer’s about,” said Erno. “I thought he was coming to give you advice. Well, he’ll just twist it around to suit what’s best for him. That’s how they do it, isn’t it? Whatever to get his name in the papers?”

  “Well, he certainly won’t be looking out for you. You know that. If you’re worried—”

  “I’m not worried about anything,” he said. “What’s he gonna do? Get me the death penalty?” Erdai looked toward his feet, shrouded by the bedcovers, as if they were somehow the emblem of his mortality, which he might comprehend in a few vacant instants. “You know, it always bothered me that he was here—Gandolph? We never see the Yellow Men, but I knew he was across the way. It was on my conscience. But I thought I was getting out, so why screw with
it? Now, it’ll be the other way. He’s done the time for everything they didn’t catch him on anyway.” He used his tongue to move the stick to the other side of his mouth and smiled at the notion. Gillian, confused by this soliloquy, considered asking a question, but thought better of it.

  “Well, that’s how we used to look at it, right?” Erno asked. “They all did something.”

  She doubted she had been that cold. She didn’t believe many defendants were innocent, but she drew the line at locking them up because they were probably guilty of something else. She did not, however, want to quarrel with Erdai. The man was brusque. Undoubtedly, that had always been the case, but Gillian sensed there was now something settled in his anger. It was deep inside, either coped with or controlling him, she couldn’t tell which.

  “I have to admit,” he said, “I never figured on seeing your face. I just wanted to find out if anybody else had the gumption to do it—you know, to go out of their way on this to set it straight. I’ve always hated being the only fool. I give you a lot of credit for coming.”

  She told him she wasn’t sure she had much to lose, except the day.

  “Oh, sure you do,” said Erno. “Once they start trying to figure out what went wrong in that case, the papers’ll drag all of it up again. About you? You know they will.”

  She had not thought of that, not once, mostly because she had no clear idea what Erdai might be saying. Nonetheless, with his warning, she felt an icy constriction at her center. Obscurity was the only refuge she had now. But in a second, her anxiousness eased. If somehow she again became a cause célèbre, she would go. She had returned to the Tri-Cities, knowing that if she did not look all of it over again through sober eyes, she’d never come to terms with what had happened. And she was not prepared to leave yet. But she would be someday. Departure remained part of her plan.

  Erdai was studying her without apology.

  “You think I should talk to this lawyer?”