Innocent

  When the four prisoners who are being held in administrative detention are released together in the yard for our one hour of exercise, I have an instant impulse to embrace each of them, which does not take long to stifle. Rocky Toranto is a transvestite, HIV-positive, who would not stop turning tricks in genpop. The other two who eye me as I trot around the yard and do my jumping jacks and push-ups are criminally insane. Manuel Rodegas has a face like a bug that was crushed. He is about five feet three, and his head seems to grow straight out of his shoulders. His conversation, while occasionally lucid, veers into gibberish much of the time. Harold Kumbeela is everyone's bad dream, six feet six, three hundred pounds, who crippled one man and nearly killed another while he was housed downstairs. He is far too violent to have been assigned to the state work farm and is here only because of a paid arrangement with Homeland Security, which rents half a dozen cells for immigration detainees who are awaiting deportation, which in Harold's case cannot come too soon. Unfortunately for me, Harold has learned that I was a judge and regularly seeks my advice about his case. Telling him I know nothing about immigration law was a feint that bought me only a couple of weeks. 'Yeah, bra,' he told me a few days ago, 'but maybe, dude, you could be studying up, you know. Do a bra a favor, you know?' I have asked the COs to keep an eye on Harold, which they do anyway.

  Nat comes down to see me every Sunday, bringing a basket of books, which the staff inspects, and the fourteen dollars I am allowed each week in the commissary. I spend the entire sum on candy, since no matter how much I exercise, the food rarely seems to be worth eating. Nat and I sit at a little whitewashed version of a picnic table. Because it is minimum security, I am allowed to reach over and touch his hand for a second and to hug him when he arrives and departs. We get only an hour. He cried the first two times he saw me here, but we have started to enjoy our visits, where he does most of the talking, generally bringing me news of the world, of work, and of the family, as well as the week's best offering of Internet jokes. We spend much of the hour laughing, although there is always a moment of anguish when we discuss the Trappers, mired in yet another hopeless season.

  Thus far, Nat has been my only visitor. It would be imprudent for Anna to join him for many reasons, and she keeps the same distance she has for most of the last two years. Besides, I am not really eager for anybody else to see me in here. On Sundays, when Nat arrives, I am walked through the nesting gatehouses by a CO named Gregg, literally progressing toward daylight.

  I am therefore completely startled when the door to my cell swings wide open and Torrez, one of the COs who helps me with my Spanish, says, "Su amigo." He stands aside and Tommy Molto ducks his head to come through the door. I have been lying on my bunk, reading a novel. I sit up suddenly, but I have no idea what to say. Nor does Tom, who stands inside the door, seeming to wonder only now why he is here.

  "Rusty." Tommy offers his hand, which I take. "Like the whiskers," he says.

  I have grown a beard here, largely because the light in my cell makes shaving hazardous and because the safety razors that we are allowed are famously dull.

  "How you doing here?" Molto asks.

  I open my hands. "I don't care much for the health club, but at least there's room service."

  He smiles. I use the line all the time in my letters.

  "I didn't come to gloat, if that's what you're afraid of," says Molto. "There was a meeting here of state prison officials and PAs from around the state."

  "Strange place for a get-together."

  "No reporters."

  "Ah."

  "The Corrections Department wants the prosecutors to okay a plan to release some inmates over sixty-five."

  "Because they're no longer risks?"

  "To save money. The state can't really afford to pay for their health care."

  I smile. What a world. No one in the criminal justice system ever talks about the cost of punishment. Everybody there thinks there's no price to morality.

  "Maybe Harnason made a better deal than he thought," I tell Tommy.

  Tommy likes that but shrugs. "I thought he told the truth."

  "So did I. Pretty much."

  Tommy nods. The cell door is still open, and Torrez is right outside. To make himself comfy, Tommy in his suit has leaned back against the wall. I have decided not to tell him that moisture often collects there.

  "Anyway," says Tommy, "there are some people who think you also ought to be a candidate for early release."

  "Me? Anyone outside my family?"

  "There seems to be a theory in my office that you pled guilty to a crime you didn't commit."

  "That's about as good as the other theories you guys had about me. They were all wrong, and so is this one."

  "Well, as long as I was around, I thought I'd look in on you and see what you had to say. Kind of a coincidence, but maybe that means I'm supposed to be here."

  Tommy always was a little bit of a Catholic mystic. I ponder what he's said. I don't know whether to be heartened or infuriated when it strikes me that Tommy still seems willing to trust my word. It's hard to imagine what he thinks of me. Probably nothing consistent. That's his problem.

  "You've heard it now, Tom. Where'd this theory in your office come from, anyway?"

  "I ran into Milo Gorvetich yesterday, and he repeated something people had been saying. I didn't quite understand at first, but it came to me in the middle of the night and it bothered me."

  Tommy looks about, then sticks his head outside the door to ask Torrez for a chair. It takes a minute, and the best they can come up with is a plastic crate. I was thinking of offering Molto the seatless stainless-steel commode, but Tommy is too proper to find that amusing. Nor is it much for comfort.

  "You were bothered in the middle of the night," I remind him when he is situated.

  "What bothers me is that I have a son. In fact, I'm about six months from having another one."

  I offer my good wishes. "You give me hope, Tommy."

  "How's that?"

  "Starting again at a late age? Seems to be working for you. Maybe something good will happen to me once I get out of here."

  "I hope so, Rusty. Everything is possible with faith, if you don't mind me saying so."

  I'm not sure that's the solution for me, but I take the advice as well-intended, and I tell Tommy as much. There is silence then.

  "Anyway," Molto says eventually, "if someone told me I needed to spend two years in the hole to save my boys' lives, I'd do it in a heartbeat."

  "Good for you."

  "So if I was convinced that somebody I loved had monkeyed with that computer, even with no say-so from me, I might have fallen on my sword and pled guilty, just to end the whole thing."

  "Right. But I'd be innocent that way, and I've said to you that I'm guilty."

  "So you claim."

  "Don't you find this a little ironic? I've told you for more than twenty years I'm not a murderer, and you won't believe me. You finally find a crime I actually committed, and when I say I did that, you won't accept that, either."

  Molto smiles. "I'll tell you what. Since you're such a truthful guy. You explain to me exactly how you managed to mess around with that computer. Just me and you. You have my word that no one else will ever be prosecuted. In fact, whatever you say will never leave this cell. Just let me hear it."

  "Sorry, Tom. We already made a deal. I said I wasn't going to answer questions, if you accepted the plea. And I'm sticking to it."

  "You want me to put it in writing? You have a pen? I'll write it down now. Tear a blank page out of one of your books." He points to the stack on my single slender shelf. 'I, Tommy Molto, Prosecuting Attorney for Kindle County, promise no further prosecutions of any kind related in any way to Rusty Sabich's PC and to keep any information relayed strictly confidential.' You think that's a promise I can't keep?"

  "Probably not, to be honest. But that's not the point, anyway."

  "Just you and me, Rusty. Tell me what happened. And I c
an let this whole thing go."

  "And you think you'd believe me, Tom?"

  "God knows why, but yes. I don't know if you're a sociopath or not, but I wouldn't be surprised, Rusty, if you haven't lied yet. At least as you understand the truth."

  "You've got that part right. Okay," I say, "here's the truth. Once and for all. You and me." I get up off the bed so I can look straight at him. "I obstructed justice. Now leave it be."

  "That's what you want?"

  "That's what I want."

  Molto shakes his head again and in the process notices the wet spot on the shoulder of his suit. He rubs at it a few times, and when he looks up I can't quite banish a smile. His eyes harden. I have touched the old nerve between us, Rusty up, Tommy down. I've made him Mr. Truth-and-Justice in town, but when it comes to the two of us, I can still push his buttons.

  "Screw you, Rusty," he says then. He heads out the door, then comes back, but only to grab the crate.

  CHAPTER 43

  Tommy, August 4-5, 2009

  Tommy always wondered what would become of kids like Orestes Mauro, the PA office's evidence specialist, who dealt with digital equipment. Having lived this long, Tommy felt he should have some idea, but he really didn't think there was anybody like Orestes when he was young. The kid was smart enough and got his work done, albeit his own way. But Orestes lived a life of play. The buds to his iPod were in his ears at all times, except when he removed one to speak to somebody else. Whenever Tommy overheard Orestes talking in the hall, it was about online games and the latest releases for his Xbox. And most of his interest in computers treated the machine and the software as a multilevel puzzle, so the task at hand, whatever it was, was largely secondary to the beguiling enigma of how everything inside the box functioned. Work, as a boring necessity, was something Orestes acknowledged, as long as it did not last too long. He was a sweet, friendly kid. If he noticed you were there.

  Orestes was visible in the evidence section, working over several cardboard boxes on which he was tapping out rhythms, when Tommy came through the door to the PA's office. It was close to seven p.m. He had been stuck in traffic far too long on his way back in from Morrisroe and the state work farm, and he'd finally pulled off to take surface streets the rest of the way home, which brought him past the County Building. He had already missed dinner with Dominga and Tomaso, so he decided to stop and pick up the files for his meeting at the court of appeals in the morning. He could take an extra half hour at home in the a.m. and give Dominga a little more time to sleep.

  Catching sight of Orestes, he veered into the evidence room, a converted warehouse space behind the freight elevator. Evidence gathered by grand jury subpoena was required by law to remain in control of the PA's office, rather than the police, and it was boxed and cataloged here. When O saw Tommy coming, he turned a full circle on his toe, a little bit of Michael Jackson.

  "Boss man!" He was always too loud with the buds in.

  "Hey, O." Tommy motioned to his ears, and Orestes pulled one out. Tommy tapped his other side, too. Orestes complied but clearly expected something grave.

  "T's up?"

  "The Sabich case," Tommy answered.

  Orestes groaned in response. "That the judge?"

  "The judge," answered Tommy.

  "Oh, man, that whole thing, that's just too fucked up," he said.

  A fair analysis. Tommy had been thinking about Rusty all the way back. It had been completely unsettling to see him in that cell, but more to Tommy than Sabich from the appearances. Tom had anticipated that Rusty might have been depressed or goofy, like most of the guys in seg, but there was something about him that seemed freed. His hair was long and he had a prison beard, whiter than Tommy might have expected, so he looked like an island castaway. And he had the same air--you can't touch me. The worst has happened. Now you can't touch me. Even so, Sabich had remained himself. He probably hadn't lied to Tommy, but he'd spoken in his own way, careful, even cagey, about the words he was using, so he could tell himself he was being honest, but typical of Rusty, making sure only he really knew the truth. Which left Tommy in the same bind he'd been in with Rusty for decades now. What was the fucking truth, anyway?

  "I'm still trying to figure out how they screwed around with the computer."

  "Oh, man," said Orestes. "Can't figure that. Wasn't me, man. I know that." He laughed.

  "Me neither. But I keep thinking there's something we missed. I'm wondering if maybe Sabich copped to the obstruction to protect his kid. Does that make any sense to you?"

  "Okay," said Orestes. He took the extraordinary step of turning off his iPod and sat on a metal stool. "Nobody asked me, but remember that big meet we had after you all had been in court, once you knew the card was phony? And Milo was trippin about how nobody who was on the computer in Judge Mason's chambers--not Sabich or the kid or the former clerk--not any one of them had time to mess around and to do all the stuff it took to get the card on there. Remember?"

  "Sure."

  "And Jimmy B., he went off then about how Sabich must have snuck into the courthouse?"

  "Right."

  "But here's the thing. What if it was all of them? What if they were in this together, planting that card? One of them downloaded from a flash drive, and another ran Spy, and another edited the directory. Together all of them, even a couple of them, had the time."

  Tommy grabbed his forehead. Of course. Maybe Orestes had a better future than he thought.

  "So is that what you think happened?" Molto asked.

  Orestes laughed out loud. "Dude," he said, "I don't have a clue. Computers, man, are always a trip. Ain't no one person who knows everything. That's why they're so cool."

  Tommy contemplated this bit of philosophy. It was pretty sci-fi. Computers, O was saying, were already like people in the sense that you could never fully understand them.

  "But if you were planting that card, is that how you would have done it?"

  "Me?" O laughed again, a high-pitched musical sound. "Oh, I could have done it for sure. But that's me."

  Orestes's casual confidence was slightly alarming. His job was to set up systems to ensure the evidence in his control was tamper-proof. Naturally, Tommy asked what he meant.

  "Well, that's just how it rolled out. Like the night I was up there with Jimmy B. to take the wrapping off--"

  "I thought that was in the morning, right before court?"

  "Hey, man. Twelve p.m. to eight." Orestes laid a thumb on one of the vivid stripes in his shirt. "Gotta go to school in the a.m. Get an education. Make something of myself." Orestes did a rim shot on one of the cardboard boxes to reemphasize the point. "So I went down to Brand's office, because the PC was on the trial cart, and together we pulled off all the wrapping, which took like forever because we had initialed three or four layers, and then I get down to the components and when I looked at it all, it's like, Fuck me, this is messed up."

  "Meaning?"

  "Cause, you know, the evidence tape on the tower, it was across the power button. But the power button is recessed, like down? So there's like this itty-bitty space under the tape, and I tell Brand, like, 'Bad job, we done a bad job, you could power that baby up.' He's like, 'No way,' so I had one of my tools--" From his breast pocket Orestes produced a tiny driver, small enough to fix the screws in eyeglasses. "And I just run it up in there. Brand, man, he's my peeps, but he just about choked me. He's thinking I was gonna violate the tape. That was the day the chiquita showed up from the bank, and Brand was like, 'Whoa, coolio, it's way bad enough already.' I didn't do nothing. Just scared him. Gorvetich and them got all the tape off in the morning, no problem.

  "But that's what I'm sayin. If I was going to mess with the computer, I'd have messed with it then."

  "So you could have turned the computer on?"

  "I didn't."

  "I know you didn't, O. But you could have? The other components, like the keyboard and the monitor--they were still sealed, weren't they?"

  "Totally
, man. But the ports on the tower weren't taped. You coulda used another mouse or monitor that was compatible. There're only about a billion. That's why I was tripped out about it. But that's not what happened or nothin. It had all been wrapped up for months, anyway. The initials were there and everything, I'm just saying, since you ask, that's how I coulda done it. But I didn't, and Sabich and them--they did. But I don't know how. Rule one, man. What you don't know, you don't know. You just don't."

  O had a great smile under the little fuzz that passed for a 'stache. He was a really smart kid, Tommy thought again. And as the years went on, he'd begin to realize what it was he didn't know.

  Brand was in his office in the morning, moving files around on his desk, when Tommy returned about eleven a.m. from his conference at the court of appeals. The substance of the meeting had been largely the same as the meeting at the prison yesterday. Nobody had enough money. What do they cut?

  Brand had taken the day off yesterday to interview political consultants. His opponent, Beroja, had the advantage of an existing organization. Brand would have a lot of help from the party, but he had to get his own people in place.

  Molto asked what he made of the consultants he'd met.

  "I liked the two women. O'Bannon and Meyers? Pretty sharp. Only guess what their last local campaign was."

  "Sabich?"