Scott Turow - Presumed innocent

"I do not."

"I'll answer that," says Nico suddenly. He is standing. He has quite clearly lost his temper. His color is up and his eyes are wide. "He took no action. He wasn't going to chase Rusty Sabich's red herrings." This speech before the jury would ordinarily be grossly improper. But it is precisely the kind of riposte that Larren's warning in the hallway seemed to invite, and Della Guardia has taken full advantage of the opportunity. No doubt he and Tommy discussed this on the way back in from the corridor and decided that Nico would attempt to make a spirited defense of Molto in the jury's presence. Stern ventures no objection. Instead, he slowly turns to face Molto.

"Mr. Della Guardia," he says, "perhaps we will a learn something about red herrings." He pauses. "And scapegoats."

Those are the last words from Stern on Raymond's cross.

Larren recesses for the week. On Fridays he hears motions in other cases.

I wait for some explanation from Stern of his new tactics, but he goes on picking tip papers from the defense table. Raymond stops by to shake Sandy's hand on his way from the courtroom. He wanders wide of me. Finally Stern comes to see me. He wipes his face with his handkerchief. He appears relaxed. Leaving aside the last bit, the cross-examination of Horgan went exceptionally well.

I am too concerned, however, to congratulate him.

"What is this?" I ask. "I thought you told me we weren't going down the road to accusation."

"Clearly, Rusty, I changed my mind."

"Why?"

Stern gives me his Latin smile: the world is full of mystery.

"Instinct," he replies.

"And what evidence are we going to offer?"

"Now you remind me," he says. He is quite a bit shorter than I am and he cannot comfortably swing his arm around my shoulder. Instead, he uses another confidential gesture and touches my lapel. "For the time being, I will have to leave that concern to you, he says, and turns away.

Tonight I say that I am bushed and leave Stern and Kemp early, but there is an appointment that I want to keep. I called after court, and good to his word, Lionel Kenneally is here, in a neighborhood tavern called Six Brothers. The cabbie gives me a peculiar look when he drops me. It is not that there are no white people around here. There are a few stoical families holding on against the Ricans and the blacks, but they do not wear chalkstriped suits and carry briefcases. Instead, their shinglesided bungalows are tucked in among the warehouses and factories which cover most of every block. There is a sausage plant across the street, and the air is heavy with the scent of spices and garlic. The tavern is like so many others out this way: just a joint with Formica tables, a vinyl floor, lights over the mirrors. Above the bar, there is a neon Hamm's sign which casts weird shadows from the reflective spangles of the continuous waterfall.

Kenneally does not even wait for me. Instead, he starts to move when I enter and I follow him back to a smaller room with four tables where he says we won't be bothered.

"So what the fuck is this about?" He is smiling but his tone is not altogether friendly. I've got the frigging watch commander out with an indictee, an enemy of the state, an accused homicidal felon. It is not place for a ranking police officer to be seen.

"I appreciate your coming, Lionel."

He waves that off. He wants me to get down to business. A woman pokes her head in. I decline to drink at first, then think better of it and order a Scotch-rocks. Lionel already has a whiskey in his hand.

"I need to ask you some questions I should have asked when I came out to see you in the district in April."

"About?"

"About what the hell was going on out in the North Branch eight or nine years ago."

"Meaning?" His look is close: he does not want to get led astray.

"Meaning, was somebody taking money?"

Kenneally bolts his drink. He's thinking.

"You know you're hot fucking stuff, don't you?" he asks.

"I see the papers."

He looks at me. "You going down on this thing?"

I tell him the truth.

"I don't think so. Stern is a magician. He's got three of the jurors thinking about inviting him for dinner, you can tell from the looks on their faces. He cut a good piece out of Horgan today."

"They say downtown that Nico doesn't have the horses. They say he went too soon, Molto forced his hand. They say if he had any brains he would've got you in a room with a tape recorder and somebody you trust instead of lettin Mac make him tell you what he had." I recognize now that what I thought might be a glaze of alcohol is anger. Lionel Kenneally is pissed. He's heard enough about this case to figure that he did something he doesn't do frequently: made an error in judgment. "Myself, I figure you might be goin down anyway. Sure as fuck, you didn't tell me you were in there handlin her glassware when you was out here before."

"You want me to tell you I didn't kill her?"

"Fuckin-A right I do."

"I didn't kill her."

Kenneally stares, a fierce, immobile look. I know my delivery was too measured to provide him with any assurance.

"You are one fuckin strange son of a bitch," he says.

The barmaid, wearing one of those old ruffled tops to show the beginning of her cleavage, comes in with my drink. She also puts another tumbler of whiskey in front of Lionel.

"You know," I tell Kenneally as I sip, "that is something I never understood about myself. I mean, my old lady was as weird as those women downtown carrying around shopping bags, and my old man had spent most of World War 11 eating dead horses and stuff such as that, which does some work on your cerebrum, believe me. Everything in my whole life was weird. And until this happened, I really thought I was Joe College. That's who I wanted to be and that's what I thought I was. Really, I thought I was fucking Beaver Cleaver, or whoever the boy next door is these days. I really did. And about the only thing I've gotten out of this experience to date is hearing you tell me I am one strange son of a bitch and listening to that little harp string that sounds in my chest when somebody, even if he's half-crocked, has said something that is really right. So I thank you." I tap his glass with mine. I am not sure that Lionel particularly enjoyed this routine. He watches me for a minute.

"What'd you come here for, Rusty?"

"I already told you. Just answer that one question."

Kenneally sighs. "Ain't you a fuckin pip. One question, all right? And what's said here stays here. It's me and you. I ain't listenin to any fuckin sob stories about your constitutional rights or that shit. Nobody's fuckin callin me to testify against the P.A. That happens, world's gonna think you confessed right here tonight."

"I have the ground rules."

"Your short answer is, I don't exactly know. Maybe I heard some things, all right? But that wasn't my show. Things out this way were a little loose. You know what I'm sayin? Remember, we're talkin before Felske stepped in shit." Felske was a bail bondsman who used to take care of certain cops for referring him business. When the bail law was reformed, permitting personal-recognizance bonds and obviating the need for outside sureties, Felske and his coppers maintained their income by selling the coppers' assistance on occasion. Sometimes the cops would talk a witness into not showing up. Sometimes the cops would forget things when they testified. Felske, however, made such a proposition one day to a man with an electronic lapel pin. The copper involved, named Grubb, flipped for the FBI and took down Felske and three other officers. That was five years ago. "Back then, this was a wide-open place."

"Was Tommy Molto one of the people you heard things about?"

"I thought you said one question."