Scott Turow - Presumed innocent

Is the stuff in here called Zorak V? I asked Barbara quietly while the troopers were upstairs.

I don't know what it is, Rusty. Barbara, as usual, seemed to be placing a premium on maintaining her composure. She had a little pursed-up expression, peeved but no worse. As if they were fourteen-year-olds setting off firecrackers too late at night.

Is it synthetic? I asked.

Do you think we could afford wool? she replied.

I called Stern, who had me make an inventory of what they took. The next day I voluntarily provided a blood sample downtown. But I never testified. Stern and I had our one serious dispute about that. Sandy repeated the accepted wisdom that an investigation target accomplishes nothing by pre-trial statements except to prepare the prosecutor for the defense. In his own gentle way, Stern reminded me of the damage I had already done with my outburst in Raymond's office. But in late April, unindicted, and convinced I never would be charged, my goal was to prevent this mad episode from damaging my reputation. If I took five and refused to testify, as I had the right to do, it would probably never reach the papers, but every lawyer in the P.A.'s office would know, and through them half the others on the street. Sandy prevailed when the results of the blood test came back and identified me as a secreter-that is, someone who produced A-type antibodies, just like the man who had last been with Carolyn. The chances of this being a coincidence were about one in ten. I realized then that my last opportunity for quick exoneration had passed. Tommy Molto refused to accept any substitute for my assertion of the privilege and so one bleak afternoon in May, I, like so many others I had often ridiculed, snuck into the grand-jury room, a little windowless chamber that looks something like a small theater, and repeated in response to thirty-six different questions, 'On the advice of my attorney, I will decline to answer because it may tend to incriminate me.'

"So," says Sandy Stern. "How do you enjoy seeing the world from the other side?" Engrossed in mysteries of the cardboard box, I did not notice him enter the conference room. He stands, with one hand on the door handle, a short, roundish man, in a flawless suit. There are just a few stray hairs that cross his shining pale scalp, emanating from what was once a widow's peak. Tucked between the fingers is a cigar. This is a habit which Stern indulges only in the office. It would be uncivil in a public place and Clara, his wife, forbids it at home.

"I didn't expect you back so soon," I tell him.

"Judge Magnuson's calendar is dreadful. Naturally, the sentencing will be called last." He is referring to another case on which he has been engaged. Apparently he has spent a good deal of time waiting in court and the matter is not yet concluded. "Rusty, would you mind terribly if Jamie appears with you at the arraignment?" He begins to explain at length, but I interrupt.

"No problem."

"You're very kind. Perhaps then we can take a few moments with what your friend Della Guardia has sent over. What is it you call him?"

"Delay."

Sandy's consternation is apparent. He cannot figure out the reason for the nickname and he is too gentlemanly to ask me to reveal even the most trivial confidence of the P.A.'s office, with which he is so often a contestant. He removes his coat and calls for coffee. His secretary brings it and a large crystal ashtray for his cigar.

"So," he says. "Do we now understand Della Guardia's case?"

"I think I do."

"Fine, then. Let me hear it. Thirty-second summation, if you please, of Nico's opening statement."

When I retained Sandy, within three or four hours of that bizarre meeting in Raymond's office, we spent thirty minutes together. He told me what it would cost-a $25,000 retainer, against a fee to be billed at $150 an hour for time out of court and $300 an hour in, the balance, strictly as a courtesy to me, to be returned if there was no indictment; he told me not to talk to anyone about the charges and, in particular, to make no more outraged speeches to prosecutors; he told me to avoid reporters and not to quit my job; he told me this was frightening, reminiscent of the scenes of his childhood in Latin America; he told me that he was confident that with my extraordinary background this entire matter would be favorably resolved. But Sandy Stern, with whom I have done business for better than a decade, against whom I have tried half a dozen cases, and who on matters of gravity, or of little consequence, has always known that he could accept my word-Sandy Stern has never asked me if I did it. He has inquired from time to time about details. He asked me once, quite unceremoniously, whether I'd had 'a physical relationship' with Carolyn, and I told him, without flinching, yes. But Stern has remained far clear of ever putting the ultimate question. In that he is like everybody else. Even Barbara, who evinces by various proclamations a belief in my innocence, has never asked me directly. People tell you it's tough. They cling or, more often, seem visibly repulsed. But nobody has sufficient sand to come out with the only question you know they have in mind.

From Sandy this indirection seems more of his classical manner, the formal presence that lies over him like brocaded drapes. But I know it serves for more. Perhaps he does not ask because he is not certain of the verity of the answer he may get. It is a given of the criminal justice system, an axiom as certain as the laws of gravity, that defendants rarely tell the truth. Cops and prosecutors, defense lawyers and judges-everybody knows they lie. They lie solemnly; with sweaty palms and shifty eyes; or, more often, with a look of schoolboy innocence and an incensed disbelief when their credulity is assailed. They lie to protect themselves; they lie to protect their friends. They lie for the fun of it, or because that is the way they have always been. They lie about big details and small ones, about who started it, who thought of it, who did it, and who was sorry. But they lie. It is the defendant's credo. Lie to the cops. Lie to your lawyer. Lie to the jury that tries your case. If convicted, lie to your probation officer. Lie to your bunkmate in the pen. Trumpet your innocence. Leave the dirty bastards out there with a grain of doubt. Something can always change.

Thus it would be an act contrary to his professional acumen were Sandy Stern to commit himself to an unreserved faith in everything I say. Instead, he does not ask.

This procedure has one further virtue. If I were to meet any new evidence by frontally contradicting what I had told Sandy in the past, legal ethics might require him to withhold me from the witness stand, where I almost certainly intend to go. Better to see everything the prosecution has, to be certain that my recollection, as the lawyers put it, has been fully "refreshed," before Sandy inquires about my version. Caught in a system where the client is inclined to lie and the lawyer who seeks his client's confidence may not help him do that, Stern works in the small open spaces which remain. Most of all, he desires to make an intelligent presentation. He does not wish to be misled, or to have his options curbed by rash declarations that prove to be untrue. As the trial approaches, he will need to know more. He may ask the question then; and I certainly will tell him the answer. For the time being, Stern has found, as usual, the most artful and indefinite means by which to probe.

"Della Guardia's theory is something like this," I say. "Sabich is obsessed with Polhemus. He's calling her house. Can't let go. He has to see her. One night, knowing that his wife will be going out and that he can get to Carolyn on the sneak, he calls up, begs to see her, and Polhemus finally agrees. She rolls around with him for auld lang syne, but then something goes wrong. Maybe Sabich is jealous of another relationship. Maybe Carolyn says that this was merely the grand finale. Whatever it is, Sabich wants more than she will give. He blows a gasket. He gives her what-for with some heavy instrument. And decides to make it took like rape. Sabich is a prosecutor. He knows that this way there will be dozens of other suspects. So he ties her up, opens the latches to make it look like somebody slipped in, and then-this is the diabolical part-pulls her diaphragm out of her, so there won't be any evidence of consent. Like all bad guys, of course, he makes a few mistakes. He forgets the drink he had when he came in, the glass he left on the bar. And he does not think-maybe even realize-that the forensic chemist will be able to I.D. the spermicide. But we know he did evil to this woman, because he never revealed-he lied-about his presence on the night of the murder, which is established by all the physical evidence."