Scott Turow - Presumed innocent

"I assume he didn't care," says Dickerman. He is tying to downplay the significance of the omission, but his answer has an ominous air, as if Molto would not be concerned about the truth.

Stern, who has never moved from the defense table, stands there one second more.

"Just so," he says. "Just so."

Molto approaches the podium and Ms. Maybell Beatrice, who works as a domestic in Nearing, is called. I am relieved to see Tommy up there again. For all of Nico's sloppiness, he now seems to have found his place in the courtroom. Tommy is far less adaptable. In the P.A.'s office there was always a kind of cultural divide, a barrier over which my friendship with Nico was ultimately stranded. Raymond picked an elite corps, young lawyers with lawschool credentials he liked and, after an apprenticeship, set them to work on Special Investigations. We prosecuted the guilty and rich for bribery and fraud; we ran long-term grand-jury investigations; we learned to try cases against the likes of Stern, lawyers who argued law to the judges and nuance to the jurors. Molto-and Della Guardia-never rose above the advanced prosecution of street crimes. Tommy's particular mix of pride and passion has been nurtured too long in the homicide courtrooms and branch courts. Those are places where no holds are barred, where defense lawyers use every cheap strategy and device, and prosecutors learn to imitate them. Tommy has become the kind of prosecutor that the P.A.'s office too often breeds: a lawyer who can no longer make out the boundaries between persuasion and deception, who regards the trial of a lawsuit as a series of gimmicks and tricks. I thought at the start that it would be his molten-hot personality that would be a detraction for the state. Instead, the burden he attaches to the prosecution is his inability to escape from his experience. He is brighter than Nico, with a gimlet-eyed cleverness, and he is always prepared, but by now every person in the courtroom suspects that his zeal has no limit. He will do anything to win. Whatever the old rivalry or jealousy surrounding Carolyn, I take it that this trait as well must be a partial source of the antipathy between the judge and him.

And it is the same thing that keeps my curiosity high about Leon and the B file, and whatever shadows lurk in Molto's past. I found Nico's comment about Molto's close relations with Carolyn intriguing. Who knows exactly how she beguiled him? More and more, like everyone else here, I find myself persuaded that there is something sinister in Molto's character. It is too easy for Molto to justify all of his behavior; there is no obvious catch point below which he won't sink. What started out as another of Stern's courtroom illusions seems to have acquired a life of its own. I have wondered, as I have tried to guess at the revelation that Kemp is off chasing, if Molto is not the target. Certainly as Stern has gone on with the old defense lawyer's artifice of placing the prosecutor on trial, Molto has responded poorly. He makes what is perhaps his biggest blunder yet in his direct examination of this Nearing maid.

Ms. Beatrice says that she saw a white man on the eight o'clock bus one Tuesday night in April. She does not know what Tuesday night it was, but it was Tuesday, because she works late on Tuesdays, and it was April, because she remembered it as last month when she first spoke to the police, who were doing random interviews in the bus station in May.

"Now, ma'am," Molto says, "I ask you to look around the courtroom to see if there is anyone you recognize."

She points to me.

Molto sits down.

Stern begins cross. Ms. Beatrice greets him without apprehension. She is an elderly woman, quite stout, with a lively and kindly face. Her gray hair is drawn back in a bun, and she wears round wire-rimmed glasses.

"Ms. Beatrice," says Stern amiably, "I take it that you are the kind of person who gets to the bus station a bit early." Stern knows this, of course, because of the time shown in her police interview.

"Yes, sir. Ms. Youngner run me up each night at quarter to so's I can buy me a paper and a Baby Ruth and get me a seat."

"And the bus on which you go into the city is the same bus that comes out of the city, is that right?"

"Yes, sir."

"It terminates-that is, it ends its run in Nearing and goes back in?"

"It turn round in Nearing, that's right."

"And you are there each night when that bus arrives at a quarter to?"

"Quarter to six. Most every night, yes, sir. 'Cept Tuesday, as I explain."

"And the people coming home from downtown get off the bus and walk past you, is that right, and you have occasion to see their faces?"

"Oh, yes, sir. They looks tired and weary, many a them."

"Now, ma'am-well, I shouldn't ask you this-" Stern looks again at the report of the police interview. "You are not saying you recognize Mr. Sabich as the man you saw on the bus that Tuesday night, are you?" There is nothing to lose with the question. Molto's direct has left the impression that is, in fact, the case. But Ms. Beatrice makes a face. She shakes her head most emphatically.

"No, sir. They is somethin here I like to explain."

"Please do."

"I knowed I seen this gentleman." She nods to me. "I tol' Mr. Molto that many a time. I seen this man when I go to get on the bus. Now I recollect, they was a man on that bus one Tuesday night, cause I works late that night on account of Ms. Youngner don't get home till near 7:30 on Tuesdays. And I recollect he was a white man, cause we don't get many white gentlemens that ride on the bus goin into town that time a night. Now I just can't remember whether would be this man or another man. I know he look real familiar to me, this man do; but I can't say that's cause I seen him in the station or cause. I seen him on the bus that night."

"You have some doubt that it was Mr. Sabich you saw that night."

"That's right. Can't say it was him. Coulda been him. I just can't say."

"Have you spoken with Mr. Molto about your testimony?"

"Many a time."

"And have you told him of what you've just told us?"

"Oh, yes, sir."

Sandy turns in Molto's direction with a look of silent and lofty reproof.

After court, Stern tells me to go home. He takes hold of Barbara and draws her toward me.

"Take your pretty wife to dinner. She certainly deserves some reward for her fine support."

I tell Stern that I was hoping we would begin talking about the defense, but Sandy shakes his head.

"Rusty, you must forgive me," he says. As chairman of the Bar Association's Committee on Criminal Procedure, he is responsible for a formal dinner to be given tomorrow night in honor of the retirement of Judge Magnuson, who has sat as a felony judge for three decades. "And I must spend an hour or two with Kemp," he adds off-handedly.

"Would you like to tell me where he has been?"

Stern screws up his face.

"Rusty, please. Indulge me." He again takes Barbara's arm and mine. "We have some information. I will tell you that. It bears on my examination tomorrow of Dr. Kumagai. But it is not worth repeating now. It may be a complete misunderstanding. I do not wish to raise false hopes. You are better off in the dark, rather than having your expectations dashed. Please. Accept my advice on that. You have been working long hours. Take an evening off. Over the weekend, we can discuss a defense, if it comes to that."

"'If it comes to that'?" I ask. His meaning is elusive. Is he proposing we rest--offer no evidence? Or is this new information so explosive that the trial will come to a halt?

"Please," Sandy says again. He begins leading us out of the courtroom. Barbara now intervenes. She takes my hand.

So we have a dinner at Rechtner's, an old-fashioned German place near the courthouse which I have always liked. Barbara seems especially cheerful after the pleasant developments today. She, too, was apparently affected by the dour events of yesterday. She suggests a bottle of wine and, once it is open, questions me about the trial. She enjoys the opportunity to finally have me at close quarters. Clearly, my unavailability has frustrated her. She asks serial questions with her large dark eyes still and intent. She is very concerned about the Hair and Fiber stipulation of yesterday. Why did we choose that, rather than testimony? She requires a full account of everything the lab report revealed. Then she inquires at length about Kumagai and what his testimony is expected to show. My responses, as they have been throughout, are laconic. I answer briefly, telling her to eat her meal, while I try to contain my discomfort. As ever, there is an aspect to Barbara's interest that I find frightening. Is her wonder truly as abstracted as it seems? Is it the procedures and puzzles that attract her, more even than their impact on me? I try to shift the conversation, asking what we hear of Nathaniel, but Barbara realizes she is being put off.