Presumed Innocent

  “I won’t be the same,” I say.

  “I imagine.”

  “I doubt you can.”

  “Are you waiting for me to say I’m sorry?”

  “You don’t have to be sorry. It doesn’t do a damn thing for me, anyway.”

  “So you don’t want me to tell you I’m sorry?”

  “I’m done giving you advice, Raymond, on how to behave.”

  “Because I am.”

  “You should be.”

  Raymond does not miss a bite. He was prepared for some rancor.

  “You know why I’m sorry? Because Nico and Tommy made me believe it. It never dawned on me that they had fucked around with the evidence. I figured they’d do as they were taught. They’re gonna recall him, you know. Della Guardia? They’re gonna try. There are petitions circulating right now.”

  I nod. I have read as much. Nico announced last week that there were no grounds for the appointment of a special prosecutor. He expressed his confidence in Molto. And the papers and the TV editorialists pilloried him again. A state legislator made a speech on the floor of the House. This week’s word is Cover-up.

  “You know what Nico’s problem is, don’t you? Bolcarro. Bolcarro won’t give him the time of day anymore. Augie’s gonna sit on his hands on this recall, too. Nico will have to make it on his own. Bolcarro feels like he gave Nico a boost, and the next thing he knows, Della Guardia’s a candidate for mayor. Sound familiar?”

  I say, “Mmm-hmm.” I want to sound bored. I want to sound petulant. I came here to make my anger plain. I have promised myself that I will not be concerned about how low I sink. If I feel like calling names, I will do it. Throwing punches. Tossing food. There will be no point below which I will not descend.

  “Look,” he says suddenly, “put yourself in my shoes. This was a hard thing for everybody.”

  “Raymond,” I say, “what in the fuck did you do to me? I ate your shit for twelve years.”

  “I know.”

  “You were out to ax me.”

  “I told you, Nico made me believe it. Once you believe it, I’m sort of a victim in the whole thing.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” I say. “And when you’re done fucking yourself, go fuck yourself again.” I wipe the corners of my mouth with the linen napkin. But I make no move to leave. This is just the beginning. Raymond watches me, bitterness and consternation moving through his ruddy face. Finally he clears his throat and tries to change the subject.

  “What are you going to do, Rusty, with your career?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “I want you to know I’ll help however I can. If you like, I’ll see what’s available here. If there’s anything else in town that interests you, just say so. Whatever I’m able to do, I will.”

  “The only job outside the P.A.’s office that ever sounded good to me was something you mentioned—being a judge. Think you can do that? Do you think you can give me back the life I had?” I look at him levelly, intent on letting him know that this tear cannot be repaired. My tone is sardonic. No judicial candidate can carry the baggage of a murder indictment. But Raymond does not flinch.

  “All right,” he says. “Do you want me to explore that? See if I can find you a seat?”

  “You’re full of it, Raymond. You don’t have that kind of clout anymore.”

  “You may be wrong about that, my friend. Augie Bolcarro thinks I’m his best buddy now. Just as soon as he got me out of the way, he decided I could be useful. He calls me up with questions twice a week. I’m not kidding, either. He refers to me as an elder statesman. Isn’t that something? If you’d like, I’ll speak with him. I’ll have Larren speak with him.”

  “Don’t do that,” I tell him quickly. “I don’t want your help. And I don’t want Larren’s, either.”

  “What’s wrong with Larren? I would figure you’d worship that guy.”

  “He’s your friend, for one thing.”

  Horgan laughs. “Boy, you came up here with one idea in mind, didn’t you? You just want to piss all over me.” Raymond pushes the plate aside. “You want to give me twelve years’ backtalk in five minutes? Fine, go ahead and do it. But listen to me. I didn’t set you up. You want to take a dump on somebody? Tommy deserves it. So does Nico, as far as I’m concerned. Join the crowd. If you want, I’m sure you can contact the Bar Association. They’ll move you to head of the line and let you take a public crap all over both of them.”

  “They already called. I told them I had nothing to say.”

  “So why me, huh? I know you didn’t like seeing me on the witness stand, but did I lie up there? I didn’t say a goddamn thing that didn’t happen. And you know that, brother.”

  “You lied to me, Raymond.”

  “When?” For the first time, he’s surprised.

  “When you gave me the B file. When you told me how Carolyn asked for it. When you told me that it was a bullshit allegation.”

  “Oh,” says Horgan slowly. He takes a moment to adjust. But he does not falter. Raymond Horgan, as I always knew, is tough. “Okay. Now I get it. Some little birdie has been whispering in your ear, huh? Who was it? Lionel Kenneally? He was always your asshole buddy. You know, there are a few things you might like to hear about him, too. Nobody’s a hero, Rusty. You got your nose bent out of shape about that? Fine. I’m not a hero. Some other people weren’t heroes. That has nothing to do with you being charged with murder.” He points at me, still unflummoxed.

  “And how about my getting a fair trial, Raymond? Did you think about that? Did you know whether or not Larren was going to tool me because he wanted to keep that thing under wraps?”

  “He’s not that kind of guy.”

  “He’s not what kind of guy? We’re talking about somebody who sold his robe. Come off it. The only thing he cared about—or you, for that matter—was making sure nobody found out. Let me ask you something, Raymond. How was it that my case got drawn to Larren? Who gave Ed Mumphrey the call?”

  “Nobody gave Mumphrey any calls.”

  “Just dumb luck, huh?”

  “So far as I know.”

  “Did you ever ask?”

  “Larren and I didn’t talk about your case. Ever. Not once that I remember. I was a witness, and as strange as it may sound to you, we both behaved properly. Look,” he says. “I know what you think. I know how it sounds. But, Rusty, you’re talking about bullshit. It’s something that happened to the guy nine years ago, when he had his head stuck completely up his ass.”

  “How did it happen, Raymond?” I ask, my curiosity for a moment greater than my anger.

  “Rusty, I don’t know what the fuck went on. I talked to him about it exactly once. And the conversation didn’t last any longer than it had to. He was drunk on his ass half the time in those days. You know, she was the P.O. Guys on bond would give her their sob story. She started putting in a word with the judge. And he’d go along. I’m sure he thought it’d make her happier to lift her skirt. One day, one of these guys she’s helped out gives her a C-note for her troubles. She brings it to Larren to figure out what to do. He thinks it’s funny. She does, too. They go out and blow it on dinner. One thing leads to another. They had a high old time, I guess. He always thought it was like a fraternity prank. They both did.”

  “And you hired her, knowing this?”

  “Rusty, that’s how I hired her. Larren was giving me all this hearts-and-flowers crap about how broke she was from paying off her law school tuition and making 11K a year as a P.O. I said, Fine, I’d double her salary, but knock this shit off. I thought I’d leave her out there as a deputy. Nobody ever liked those assignments. And with two other deputies to watch her, what could she do? And instead, it turns out that she did a helluva job. A hell of a job. She wasn’t long on scruples, but the lady had a lot of brains. And I finally got Larren transferred downtown. And he performed with real distinction. I’ll go to my grave believing that. No one will ever be able to knock Larren’s integrity on his handling of a felony ca
se. A year later they were both so respectable they didn’t even talk to one another. If she exchanged ten words with Larren in the last five, six years, I’d be amazed. And, you know, as the time passed, it got to the point that I could see what he saw in her. You know what came of that.”

  This, of course, is the answer to what puzzled me last spring. Why did Carolyn make her move first for me rather than Raymond, when she perceived the prospective vacuum at the head of the office. It was not my manliness, my dark good looks. I was fresher, nowhere near as wise. She probably figured Raymond would know better. He should have; maybe he even did. Maybe that’s why she didn’t end up with what she wanted, why Raymond gave no sign of having been pained. He saw her coming. He knew what to look for.

  “Well, isn’t that nice,” I say. “Everything worked out. Until you get a certain piece of anonymous correspondence. And so you gave her that file to trunk.”

  “No, sir. No way. I gave it to her. I didn’t know what it was. I told her to look at it. And to bear in mind that she could never tell who might come looking over her shoulder. That’s all I said. What do you want from me, Rusty? I’m seeing the gal by then. Am I supposed to pretend? If I was such a bum, I’d have done just what you said. Headed for the shredder with the thing.”

  I shake my head. We both know he is much too careful for that. No way to tell who may come looking for the letter. That’s the kind of job that a Medici like Raymond knows he should hand off. And with instructions that will never bounce back on him. Very artful. Investigate. See what’s going on. And what goes unspoken is that if it has to do with Larren and you, clean the mess up very carefully. Carolyn certainly tried. I don’t have to wonder anymore who had Leon’s arrest file from the 32nd District.

  “And when she got cooled, you ran and collected the file?”

  “When she got ‘cooled,’ as you put it, I got a call from His Honor. You know, I had told him about the letter when the thing came in. So he’s on the phone the day they find the body. Pure Larren, too. He’s always been a sanctimonious asshole. He says to me, It might be politically sensitive, why don’t I collect that file?” Raymond laughs. Alone. I do not relax my severe expression. “Listen, Rusty, when you asked me, I gave you the thing.”

  “You had no choice. And you tried to mislead me anyway.”

  “Look,” he says, “he’s my friend.”

  And the key to Raymond’s black support. If Raymond had ever prosecuted Larren Lyttle, or let somebody else do it, he could have just as well resigned as run for re-election. But I don’t mention that. Disgust has finally displaced some of my anger.

  I stand up to leave.

  “Rusty,” he says to me, “I meant what I said. I want to help you. You give me the high sign and I’ll do whatever you want. You want me to kiss Augie Bolcarro’s ass in Wentham Square at noon so he’ll make you a judge, I’ll do it. You want to work for the big bucks, I’ll try to arrange that, too. I know I owe you.”

  What he means is that he wants to keep me happy, now more than ever. But his genuflection is still soothing in a way. You cannot continue pounding a man who’s on his knees. I say nothing, but I nod.

  On the way to the door, Raymond again points out all the modern art along the walls. He apparently has forgotten that he gave the same dime lecture to Stern and me. As we’re parting by the elevator, he reaches for me and tries to take me into an embrace.

  “It was a terrible thing,” he says.

  I break away. I actually shove him slightly. But there are people around and Horgan pretends not to have noticed. The elevator arrives. Horgan snaps his fingers. Something has come to mind.

  “You know,” he says quietly, “there was one thing I promised myself I was gonna ask you today.”

  “What’s that, Raymond?” I ask as I step inside.

  “Who killed her? I mean, who do you think?”

  I say nothing. I remain impassive. Then, as the elevator doors begin to close, I nod to Raymond Horgan in a gentlemanly way.

  38

  One day in October I am working in the yard and I feel an odd stirring. I am fixing the fence—removing the posts, sinking new ones in cement, nailing on the beeftail. For a moment I consider the tool with which I am working. A Whatchamacallit. It is an inheritance of sorts from my father-in-law. After his death, Barbara’s mother brought all his yard and home equipment over here. The Whatchamacallit is a piece of black iron, a kind of cross between a hammer’s claw and a crowbar. You can use it for anything. On the night of April 1, it was used to kill Carolyn Polhemus.

  Right after the trial I noticed that there was still a crust of blood and one blond hair clinging to the edge of one of the two teeth. I stared at the Whatchamacallit for a long time, then I took it to the basement and washed it in the laundry tub. Barbara came downstairs as I was doing it. She stopped dead on the stairway when she saw me, but I tried to appear jovial. I reached for the hot water and began to whistle.

  I have picked it up a dozen times since then. I want to observe no fetishes, no taboos. And after a moment for reflection, I decide it is not the Whatchamacallit singing to me like a ghost. Instead, as I consider the grass, the roses and their thorns, the vegetable bed that I helped Barbara put in this spring, there is the sense of something in this house, this land that is irretrievably used up and old. I am finally ready for some considered changes. I find Barbara in the dining room, where she is grading papers. They are stacked across the table like my mother’s magazines and notecards from her era as a radio personality. I sit down on the other side.

  “We should think about moving back into the city,” I tell her.

  I expect, of course, that this concession will bring from Barbara the radiance of victory. She has advocated this move for many years. Instead, Barbara puts down her pen and holds her forehead. She says, “Oh, God.”

  I wait. I know something awful is going to happen. I am not scared.

  “I didn’t want to talk about this yet, Rusty.”

  “What?”

  “The future,” she says, and adds, “I didn’t think that it would be fair to you. So soon.”

  “All right,” I say. “You’ve nodded in the direction of good taste. Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

  “Rusty, don’t be like that.”

  “I’m like that. I’d like to hear.”

  She folds her hands.

  “I’ve taken a job for the January term at Wayne State.”

  Wayne State is not in Kindle County. Wayne State is not within four hundred miles of here. Wayne State, as I recall, is in a city I have visited once, which is called Detroit.

  “Detroit, right?”

  “Right,” she says.

  “You’re leaving me?”

  “I wouldn’t put it like that. I’m taking a job. Rusty, I hate to do this to you now. But I feel I have to. They had hired me for the September term. I was going to tell you in April, but then all that craziness began—” She shivers her head with her eyes closed. “Anyway, they were nice enough to give me an extension. I’ve changed my mind half a dozen times. But I’ve decided it’s for the best.”

  “Where’s Nat going to be?”

  “With me, of course,” she answers, her look suddenly fierce and aquiline. On this point, she means to say, there must not be even a thought that she might yield. It occurs to me, as a sort of reflex, that I could probably go to court and try to prevent that. But just now I have had enough of litigation. In its odd way, the thought inspires a smile, rueful and brief, a reaction which brings a vaguely hopeful look to Barbara.

  “What do you mean you’re not leaving me, you’re taking a job?” I ask. “Am I invited to Detroit?”

  “Would you come?”

  “I might. This isn’t a bad time for me to start over. There are a few unpleasant things following me around here.”

  Barbara immediately tries to correct me. She has thought all of this through, perhaps to salve her conscience, probably because there are always these geo
metries in her head.

  “You’re a hero,” Barbara says. “They wrote about you in The New York Times and The Washington Post. I’ve been expecting you to tell me any day that you’re going to run for office.”

  I laugh out loud, but this is a sad remark. More than anything Barbara has said, it proves how far we have already drifted. We have again ceased communication. I have not told her enough for her to understand my own thoroughgoing revulsion with what has gone on in the interest of politics.

  “Would it offend you if I moved somewhere closer than here so that I can see my son? Granting that we’re not about to live in the same house.”

  She looks at me.

  “No,” she says.

  I consider the wall for a moment. My God, I think. What happens in a life. And then I think once more of how this all began and pine, as I have so often lately. Oh, Carolyn, I think. What did I want with you? What did I do? But it is not as if I am entirely without an account.

  I am nearly forty now. I can no longer pretend that the world is unknown to me, or that I like most of what I’ve seen. I am my father’s son. That is my inheritance—the grimness of outlook bred of knowing that there is more cruelty in life than simple wits can comprehend. I do not claim that my own sufferings have been legion. But I have seen so much. I saw my father’s hobbled soul, maimed by one of history’s great crimes; I saw the torment and the need, the random and passionate anger that brings such varied and horrible misbehavior to our own streets. As a prosecutor I meant to combat it, to declare myself a sworn enemy of the crippled spirit that commits each trespass with force and arms. But of course, it overcame me. Who can observe that panorama of negative capacity and maintain any sense of optimism? It would be easier if the world were not so full of casual misfortune. Golan Scharf, a neighbor, has a son born blind. Mac and her husband, in a moment of revelry, turn a corner and plunge into the river. And even if luck, and luck alone, spares us the worst, life nonetheless wears so many of us down. Young men of talent dull it and drink it all away. Young women of spirit bear children, broaden in the hips, and shrink in hope as middle years close in upon them. Every life, like every snowflake, seemed to me then unique in the shape of its miseries, and in the rarity and mildness of its pleasures. The lights go out, grow dim. And a soul can stand only so much darkness. I reached for Carolyn. With all deliberation and intent. I cannot pretend it was an accident, or serendipity. It was what I wanted. It was what I wanted to do. I reached for Carolyn.