Scott Turow - Presumed innocent

"Brother," I tell Lip suddenly, "we are really nowhere."

He makes a sound. "You ever get the fingerprint lab?"

I swear. "I knew I forgot something."

"You are a class A fuck-up," he says. "They ain't gonna do it for me. I asked twice already."

I promise I will do that, as well as see Painless, today or tomorrow. When we get back to my office, I ask Eugenia to hold my calls and I close the door. I pull the B file that Horgan gave me out of my drawer.

Lip studies it a moment.

The B file, as I received it from Raymond, consists, in its entirety, of a log-in slip, produced when the case was entered in our computer system; a single sheet of sparse notes in Carolyn's hand; and a xerox of a long letter. There is nothing in the file to indicate whether an original of this letter was received or this copy is all that came in. The letter is typewritten and clean-but it still does not look professional. The margins are narrow and there is only a single paragraph. The author is someone who knows how to type but seemingly does not do it often-a housewife, perhaps, or a professional man. I have read the letter four or five times by now, but I read it one more time, taking each page from Lip as he finishes.

Dear Mr. Horgan: I am writing to you because I have been a fan of yours for many years. I am sure that you didn't know anything about the things that are making me write this letter. In fact, I think you would want to do something about them. Probably there is nothing you can do, since all this happened a long time ago. But I thought you would like to know. It happened while you were P.A. and it's kind of about somebody who worked for you, a deputy prosecuting attorney who I think was taking bribes. Nine years ago this summer a person I will call Noel got arrested. Noel was not this person's real name, but if I told you his real name you would go to him first to talk about a lot of the things I am saying in this letter and he would think about it and know I turned him in. Then he would hurt me to get even. Believe me, I know him real well and I know what I am talking about. He would make me very sorry. Anyway, Noel got arrested. I happen to think that what it was for isn't real important, but I will tell you that it was something which he was very embarrassed about, because that is the kind of person he is. Noel thought that if the people he worked with and hung out with found out, they wouldn't have anything to do with him. Great friends. But that's Noel. The lawyer he got told him he should just admit it in court because nothing was going to happen and nobody would ever know about it. But Noel is a very paranoid-type person and he ran all over the place fussing about what would happen if anybody ever found out. Pretty soon he started saying how he was going to pay somebody off. I thought he was joking around at first. Noel would stoop to anything, but it just didn't sound right for him. If you knew him you would understand why. But he kept telling me he was going to do this. And it would cost $1500. I know all this because, to make a long story short, I'm the one who gave him the money. Since Noel is like he is, I thought I better be sure it was going where he said. We went all the way out to the North Branch at Runyon and 111th. Out there, we didn't wait even a minute, when a secretary who seemed to know Noel walked up and took us downstairs to the P.A.'s office. Your name, RAYMOND HORGAN, was written right on the door. I remember Noel told me to wait outside. I was too scared by then to fight about it, which was pretty dumb since I came all the way out there to see him give somebody the money. But anyway, he wasn't inside two minutes and he's back out. He had put all of this money in a sock (I'm not kidding!) and when he came out he showed me the sock and it was empty. I just about ran out of there, but Noel was very cool. I asked him later what happened. Noel never liked to talk about this thing. He said he was protecting me, which is a laugh. I'm sure he just figured that if I didn't forget about it, sooner or later I'd want the money back. Anyway, he did say that the girl took him into an office and told him to wait at a desk there. Then a man talked behind him. He told Noel just to put what he brought in the center drawer of the desk and to leave. Noel said he never looked back or anything. Ten days later, Noel had to go to court. He was just about crazy again. He kept saying he knew he was going to get screwed over and everything, but when we got there, the lawyer from the prosecuting attorney told the judge that the case was dismissed. I have tried and tried to remember this lawyer's name, but I can't. Once or twice I asked Noel the name of the guy he bribed, but like I said, he really never liked to talk about this and just told me to mind my own business. So I am writing this letter to you. I haven't seen Noel in about two years. Frankly, this is not the worst thing he ever did, by a long shot, if you believe him, but it's really the only thing I ever saw him do myself. I'm not really out to get Noel, but I thought that this P.A. was really wrong for taking this money and taking advantage of people that way, and I wanted to write to you so that you could do something about it. A couple of people who I have told this story to without using any names said that you couldn't do anything about something so old since the statue of limitations is past, but I figure this couldn't have been the only time something like this ever happened and maybe even they're still doing the same thing. Actually, I think that what I just wrote isn't true. I hope you get Noel too. But I don't want him to know you got him from me. And if you do get him from someone else, I beg you please (Please!) not to show him this letter I am TRUSTING YOU.

The letter, of course, is unsigned. Our office gets letters like this every day. Two paralegals are assigned to do pretty much nothing but answer this kind of correspondence, and talk to the various cranks who wander into the reception area in person. The more serious complaints tend to get passed along, which, presumably, is how this one found its way to Raymond. Even at that point, a lot of what comes in is junk. But this one, for all its funny twitches, has the ring of the real thing. It is more than possible, of course, that our tipster was simply scammed by his friend Noel. But the guy who wrote the letter was in the best position to judge, and he doesn't seem to think that was the case.

Scam or not, it is easy to figure out why Raymond Horgan would not want this file floating around in an election year. Nico would love to have evidence of any kind of undiscovered crimes committed during Raymond's regime. As the letter writer surmises, it is not likely that friend Noel's case was an isolated episode. What we have in hand is a first-class scandal: an unnoticed worse-unapprehended bribery ring operating in one of the branch courts.

Lipranzer has lit a cigarette. He has been quiet a long time.

"You think it's bull?" I ask.

"Neh," he says. "Somethin's there. Maybe not what this jamoche thinks, but it's somethin."

"Do you think it's worth looking at?"

"Can't hurt. We ain't exactly buried in leads."

"That's what I thought. Carolyn figured these guys were gay," I say. "I think she was probably on the right track." I point to her notes. She has the section number of various provisions of what is still titled the Morals chapter of the state criminal code written down, a question mark beside them. "Remember the panty raids out in the Public Forest? That would have been right about then. We were busting those guys in carloads. And the cases went to the North Branch, didn't they?"

Lip is nodding: it all fits. The embarrassing nature of the crime, the mania to conceal it. And the timing is right. Sexual crimes, involving consenting adults, were ignored as a matter of policy in Raymond's first administration. The cops brought in the cases, but we gave them the shuffle. By the time Raymond began to campaign for re-election, certain groups, prostitutes and gays particularly, were, in their more florid segments, largely beyond control. With the gays, the problem was acute in the public forests which ring the city. Families would not go there at midday on the weekends for fear of what their children would be exposed to. There were some fairly graphic complaints about what was taking place in broad daylight on the picnic tables, where, Mom tended to point out, people were supposed to eat. With the election nine months away, we made a large show of a concerted clean-up. Dozens of men were arrested every night, often inflagrante delicto. Their cases were usually disposed of with court supervision-a kind of expungeable guilty plea and the defendants then disappeared.