Scott Turow - Presumed innocent

This exposition is eerily comforting to me. The heartless hip analysis of crime is so much a part of my life and my mentation that I cannot make myself sound ruffled or even feel a fragment of concern. The world of crime has its argot, as ruthless as the jazzman's is sweet, and speaking it again I feel I am back among the living, among those who see evil as a familiar if odious phenomenon with which they have to deal, like the scientist studying diseases through his microscope.

I go on.

"That's Nico's theory, something like that. He has to straddle a little bit on the question of premeditation. He might argue that Sabich had it in mind to do her in from minute one, that he chose this night so he had an alibi, in case she refused to build the old fire anew. Maybe Sabich was on a different trip: You can't live if you won't be mine. That'll depend on evidentiary nuances. Probably Nico will give an opening that won't lock him in. But he'll be close to this. How does it sound?"

Sandy looks over his cigar. They are Cuban, he told me a few weeks ago. A former client gets them, he does not ask how. The wrapper, deep brown, burns so cleanly that you can see the leaf veins etched within the ash.

"Plausible," he says at last. "Evidence of motive is not strong here. And it is usually critical in a circumstantial case. Nothing ties you to any instrument of violence. The state is further disadvantaged because you were, in essence, a political opponent of Della Guardia-never mind that you did not consider yourself a political employee, a jury will not believe that, and for our purposes should not be told that. There is additional evidence of bad feeling between you and the prosecuting attorney inasmuch as you personally fired him from his post. The importance of these matters, however, could be greatly reduced if the prosecuting attorney himself did not try this case."

"Forget that," I say. "Nico would never move out of the spotlight."

Stern seems to smile as he draws on the cigar.

"I quite agree. So we will have those advantages. And these factors, which would raise questions in the mind of any reasonable person, will take on large importance in a circumstantial case, from which you and I both know juries are disinclined. Nevertheless, Rusty, we must be honest enough to tell ourselves that the evidence overall is very damaging."

Sandy does not pause long, but the words, even though I probably would have said as much myself, feel like something driven against my heart. The evidence is very damaging.

"We must probe. It is difficult, of course, and I am sure painful, but now is the time that you must put your fine mind to work on this case, Rusty. You must tell me every flaw, every defect. We must look scrupulously at each piece of evidence, each witness, again and again. Let us not say that any of this hard work will be done tomorrow. Best to begin right now, today. The more deficiencies we find in this circumstantial case, the better our chances, the more Nico must explain, and explain with difficulty. Do not be afraid to be technical. Every point for which Della Guardia cannot account increases your opportunities for acquittal."

Although I have hardened myself, one word catches me like a blow. Opportunities, I think.

Sandy summons Jamie Kemp to take part in our discussion, as it is bound to suggest various motions for discovery that we will soon be called upon to file. To hold down my expenses, Stern has agreed to allow me to assist in research and investigation, but I must act under his direction. With Kemp, I share the work of the junior lawyer, and I have enjoyed this collaboration more than I had counted on. Kemp has been Stern's associate about a year now. As I get the story, quite some time ago Jamie was a guitarist in a medium-popular rock-and-roll band. They say he went through the whole shot, records and groupies and road shows, and when things went downhill he decamped for Yale Law School. I dealt with him in the P.A.'s office on two or three occasions without incident, but he had a reputation there for being preppie and stuck-up, impressed by his own blond good looks and a lifetime of good fortune. I like him, though he sometimes cannot suppress a little of that Waspy amusement with a world by which, he is convinced, he will never quite be touched.

"First," says Stern, "we must file a notice of alibi." This is a declaration, no questions. We will formally notify the prosecution of our intention to stand by my statement in Raymond's office that I was at home the night Carolyn was murdered. This position deprives me of what, in theory, is probably the best defense-conceding that I saw Carolyn that night for an unrelated reason. That posture would dampen the force of the physical evidence and focus instead on the last of any proof tying me to the murder. For weeks, I have been expecting some artful effort by Stern to discourage the alibi, and I find myself relieved. Whatever Sandy thinks of what I said, he apparently recognizes that to reverse field now would be too difficult. We would have to conceive an innocent explanation for my eruption on Black Wednesday-why I went out of my way to lie, in outraged tones, to my boss, my friend, and the two top lawyers from the new administration.

Stern pulls the box to him and begins sorting through the documents. He starts from the front, the physical evidence.

"Let us go to the heart of the matter," says Stern. "The glass." Kemp goes out to make copies of the fingerprint report, and the three of us read. The computer people made their findings the day before the election. By then Bolcarro was playing ball with Nico, and so Morano, the police chief, surely was as well. This report must have gone straight to the top and right out to Nico. So Delay probably told the truth himself when he claimed that Wednesday in Horgan's office that he had acquired significant evidence against me during the campaign and chose not to publicize it. Too much of a last-minute mess, I would suppose.

As for the report, it says, in brief, that my right thumb and middle finger have been identified. The other latent present remains unknown. It is not mine; it is not Carolyn's. In all likelihood it belongs to one of the initial onlookers at the scene: the street cops who responded to the call, who always seem to run around touching everything before the homicide dicks arrive; the building manager, who found the body; the paramedics; maybe even a reporter. Nonetheless, it will be one of the difficult stray details for Della Guardia to cope with.

"I would like to look at that glass," I say. "It might help me figure some things out."

Stern points at Kemp and tells him to list a motion for production of physical evidence.

"Also," I say, "we want them to produce all the fingerprint reports. They dusted everything in the apartment."

This one Stern assigns to me. He hands me a pad:

"Motion for production of all scientific examinations: all underlying reports, spectographs, charts, chemical analyses, et cetera, et cetera, you know it better than I do."

I make the note. Stern has a question.

"You had drinks in Carolyn's apartment, of course, when you were there in the past?"

"Sure," I say. "And she wasn't much of a housekeeper. But I think she'd wash a glass once in six months."

"Yes," Stern says simply.

We are both grim.

Kemp has another idea.

"I'd like to get a complete inventory of everything in that apartment. Every physical object. Where's the contraceptive jelly or whatever it is that this chemist is saying he finds present? Wouldn't that have been in her medicine cabinet?" He looks to me for confirmation, but I shake my head.

"I don't even remember discussing birth control with Carolyn. I may be male chauvinist of the year, but I never asked her what she was doing."

Stern is ruminating, temporizing in the air with his cigar.