Scott Turow - Presumed innocent

"She had a lot of boyfriends," Marty volunteers.

"Did she?"

"I guess. I mean, there were a lot of times she didn't want me around. I'd call, you know, and I could tell somebody else was there. I couldn't always figure out what was going on with her. I think she liked having secrets, you know?" He shrugs. "I mean, I thought I'd get to know her. That's why I came out here. My dad kept trying to discourage me, but I thought it would be neat. I'm not so interested in school right now, anyway. I figured, you go to college, one place is as good as another. It turns out that I'm like flunking everything anyhow."

"Really?"

"Not everything. I can't understand physics, though. I really can't. I honestly am flunking that."

A girl with a T-shirt from the world tour of a rock group and a smart-looking set comes through the door and asks if he's seen somebody named Harley. Marty says he hasn't. You can hear a stereo on down the hallway when she goes in and out the door. The boy changes brushes and comes within inches of the canvas as he works. His strokes are achingly small. He goes on talking about Carolyn.

"I knew she was out here for years. I started writing her letters. Then when I could really get my courage up, I got her on the phone. It wasn't the first time I ever like talked to her or anything. She'd call up once in a while. Right after the first of the year a lot. Like she wanted to call over the holidays but she knew better than to do that. Anyway, she was nice about it. Real nice. 'Oh, well that would be lovely.' La la, ta ta. Real polite," he says, and nods to himself. "Civil. That's a word, right?"

"Right," I say.

"I'd see her. Sundays I saw her a lot. Once or twice, I met people-I guess, when it seemed to her the right thing to do. You know, that's how she introduced me to Mr. Horgan."

The emotional currents are strong here. It is best just to let the boy go, it seems, whatever my impulse to ask questions.

"I mean, she was real busy. She had her career and all. She wanted to run for prosecuting attorney someday. Did you know that?"

I hesitate longer than I should, even in this ungainly conversation. Perhaps my own expression discloses some reflex of distress, for the boy looks at me oddly. I tell him, finally, that the P.A.'s office is full of people who see that in their future. But that does not put him off.

"Did you like know her real good? I mean, did you work with her or something?"

"Now and then," I say, but I can tell from the way his glance lingers that I have failed in my effort to be oblique. "You were telling me what happened when you saw her."

He waits a moment, but he is accustomed to cooperating with grownups, and he turns his attention to his brush, rubbing it around inside a little plastic tray. His shoulders move before he speaks.

"Not much happened," he says, then rears his head of tangled brass-colored hair and looks back at me directly.

"I mean she never talked about back then," he tells me, "about when I was a kid. I suppose I expected her to. But I guess she just didn't feature that part of her life. You know? She like said nothing."

I nod, and for a moment we are silent, still looking at one another. His eyes again take on that quickened light.

"I didn't make any difference to her. You know? She was as nice as pie. Now. But like she didn't care. That's why my old man didn't want me to come out here. I mean, he spent all those years making up for her, saying that it was a time in her life, all that. He never wanted me to feel like she left because of me. But he knew what was going on." He throws his brush down. "If you want to know the truth, Mr. Horgan had to like talk me into going to the funeral. I wasn't gonna. I just really didn't feel like it. My own mother. That's pretty terrible, isn't it?"

"I don't know," I say. He takes his canvas down and stares at it, near his feet. He seems to recognize-and welcome-my close observation of him. Young, I think. There is such a tender quality to this boy's discomfort. I speak quietly.

"My mother died while I was in law school," I say. "The next week I stopped by to see my father. I never did that, but I figured under the circumstances." I motion. "Anyway, he was packing. Half the household was in boxes. I said, 'Pa, where you going?' He says, 'Arizona.' Turned out he'd bought a piece of land, a trailer. And he never said word one to me about it. If I hadn't come by that day, I'm sure he'd have left town without even saying goodbye. And it was always like that with us. Sometimes that's the way things are between parents and kids."

The boy looks toward me for a long moment, mystified by my candor or the things of which we speak.

"And what do you do about that, huh? Anything?"

"You try to grow up," I say. "In your own way. I have this son and he's the world to me."

"What's his name?"

"My son?"

"Right.'

"Nat."

"Nat," says Carolyn's son. He looks at me again. "What was she to you, anyhow? I mean, this isn't just work, right? Was she like your girlfriend, too?"

I am sure that he has seen my wedding band. His gesture toward me with his chin as he asks this question seems almost to point in that direction, but I do not feel capable of further devices with this soft, decent boy.

"I'm afraid at one point she was my girlfriend, too. Late last year," I say. "Just a little while."

"Yeah," says the kid, and shakes his head with real disgust. He's waiting to meet somebody she didn't gull, and there is nobody here who can make that claim.

"When I flunk out," he says to me, "I'm going home." This declaration has sufficient weight that it seems to me, perhaps, this matter has just now been decided. But I do not respond. He does not need me to tell him he is correct. I smile, warmly enough, I hope, to show how much I like him. Then I leave.

"In the Hall, you know," says Lip, referring to McGrath Hall, the police department headquarters, "they are calling this thing Mission Impossible." He means our investigation of Carolyn's murder. "That's how the dicks are talkin. You know, 'What's new with Mission Impossible?' Like nobody'll ever figure this fuckin thing out. Not in time for Horgan. He never shoulda let the press think we could come up with somethin fast. He shoulda downplayed it, instead of givin forty fuckin interviews about how hard we're workin." Lip's mouth is full of torn bread and red sauce, but that does not stop him from complaining. His irritation is extreme. We are standing before a vacant lot, a dump of sorts beneath the highway viaduct. Broken pieces of stressed concrete, with the snaky rusted coils of reinforcement sticking from them, litter the uneven ground, along with more ordinary refuse: bottles, newspapers, abandoned auto parts. There is also a snowfall of white wax-paper balls and crushed cups left by the many customers who have preceded us in taking a sandwich from Giaccalone's across the street. It is one of Lip's favorite places, an Italian stand where they insert an entire veal chop, laden with marinara, into a Vienna roll. Lipranzer likes heavy fare at lunchtime, the single man's answer to the anomie of dinner. Our soft drinks rest on the backless remains of a public bench on which each of us has perched one foot. Various street gangs and adolescent lovers have inscribed their names in the planks of the bench's punky seat.

Walking back to Lip's car, we trade information. I talk about my visit with the kid, and the fact that he provided no meaningful leads. Lip discusses his own recent activities. He interviewed the neighbor who said she thought she saw a stranger.

"Mrs. Krapotnik," Lip says. "She's a winner. Talk some? I'm tellin you." He shakes his head. "She'll look at mug books, but first I gotta get some earplugs."

"How about the Index?" The Index is the state file on sex offenders.