Scott Turow - Presumed innocent

He bangs his gavel. "Case dismissed," he says, and leaves.

Turmoil. My wife. My lawyers. Reporters. Onlookers, I do not know. They all wish to touch me. Barbara is the first. The feeling of her arms around me so firmly, her breasts girdled against me, her pelvis squeezed against mine is astonishingly stimulating. Perhaps this is the first sign of the regeneration of my life.

"I am so glad." She kisses me. "I am so glad for you, Rusty." She turns from me and hugs Stern.

Today, I elect to make my once-only exit through the heating plant. I do not wish to face the press's disordered melee. I gather Barbara, Stern, and Kemp toward the end of the lobby and then we drop out of sight. But of course there is no escaping. Another gaggle is waiting when we reach Stern's building. We make our way upstairs with little comment. From somewhere a luncheon has appeared in the conference room, but there is no opportunity to eat. The phones ring. And the secretaries soon report that the reception room is a mob scene, with reporters spilling out into the halls. The hungry monster must be fed. I cannot deny Stern this moment. He deserves it, and the consequences of this kind of success in a celebrated case, in terms of both economics and professional stature, will enlarge Stern's career for years to come. He is now a lawyer of national standing.

And so, after half a corned-beef sandwich, we all descend to the lobby of the building to again confront the jostling, shouting crowd of reporters, the microphones, the recorders, the brilliant lights that rise up around me like a dozen new suns. Stern speaks first, then me. "I don't think that anybody, under these circumstances, can say anything adequate, especially in a short period of time. I am very relieved that this is over. I will never fully understand how it happened in the first place. I am grateful that I was represented by the best lawyer on the face of the earth." I dodge the questions about Della Guardia. I am still not settled in my own mind. There is already a large part of me that is content with the idea that he was merely doing his job. No. one asks about Larren, and I do not mention his name. In spite of my gratitude, I doubt that after last night I could bring myself to praise him.

Back upstairs, there is now champagne, the same vintage as Kemp popped the night before. Was Stern preparing for victory, or does he always keep a case on ice? There are still many visitors in the offices. I stand among them with Kemp and Stern and drink toasts to Sandy. Clara is here, Sandy's wife. Mac arrives. She weeps as she embraces me in her chair.

"I never had any doubt," she says.

Barbara finds me to say that she is going to leave. She has some hope that Nat's return can be advanced one day. Perhaps the camp director can arrange a seat on the DC-3 that flies back and forth from Skageon. This will require many phone calls. I see her out through the lobby. She embraces me again. "I am so relieved," she says, "so, so glad it turned out this way." But something between us is impenetrably sad. I cannot, right now, imagine Barbara's inner states, but I think that even in this moment of rapturous gratefulness and relief she recognizes that something suspended still remains. In the aftermath of all of this, to go beyond our old troubles will require a treacherous journey across nearly unspannable chasms to grace and forgiveness.

In Stern's offices people keep arriving. A number of cops are here, lawyers around town who have come to congratulate Sandy and me. I feel ill at ease among the many outsiders, so few of whom I know. And my initial euphoria is long past, given way to a suppressed melancholy. At first I believe I am exhausted, and full of pity for myself. But eventually I recognize that my disturbance seems to arise, like black oil percolating from the earth, from something more particular, an idea that seems to demand time for contemplation, and quietly as I can, I leave. I do not say that I am going. I slip out with the excuse that I am finding the head. Then I drift out of the building. It is late afternoon. The shadows are longer and off the river a breeze is up that is rich and full of summer.

The night editions of the papers are on the stands. The Tribune head is half a page: JUDGE FREES SABICH. And the kicker: Calls Prosecution 'A Disgrace.' I pay my quarter. "Decrying a 'disgrace to the cause of justice' Kindle Country Superior Court Judge Larren Lyttle today dismissed murder charges against Rozat K. Sabich, former Chief Deputy in the Kindle County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, ending Sabich's eight-day-old trial. Judge Lyttle sharply criticized the case presented by the Kindle County Prosecuting Attorney Nico Della Guardia and stated at one point that he believed some of the evidence against Sabich, a former political rival of Della Guardia's, was manufactured by the prosecution." Both papers play it the same way. Nico takes it in the chops. A made-up case against a past political opponent. Ugly stuff. It will run coast to coast. My friend Nico will be doing the hurt dance for a long time to come. The press, blind as ever to half tones or grays, makes no mention of Nico's final gesture of decency in dismissing the case.

I go down to the river. The city is strangely quiet tonight. A new place with outdoor tables on the riverbank is open and I have two beers and a sandwich. I hold the sports page up before me, a way to avoid responding to the lingering gazes of occasional passersby, but for the most part I am engaged in a kind of numb reflection. I call Barbara near six, but there is no answer. I hope she is on the way to the airport. I want to get home to see Nat. But before that there is one stop I have to make.

The front door is open when I return to Stern's office, but the suite is almost deserted. I hear only one voice, which I know just by its word-blank rumble to be Stern's. I follow the sound to Sandy's rich office. From what I hear in the hallway, I take it that he is discussing another lawsuit. The lawyer's life, I think, as I catch sight of him there. This morning Sandy Stern won the best-known case of his career; tonight he is working. There is a brief open before him while he talks on the phone. Copies of the afternoon editions of both papers have been tossed aside onto the sofa. "Ah yes," he says, "Rusty has just come in now. Yes. No later than ten tomorrow morning. I promise." He replaces the receiver. "A client," he says. "So, I see you returned."

"I'm sorry I ran out."

Sandy raises a hand. No explanation is needed.

"But I wanted to see you," I tell him.

"That happens," says Stern. "I have clients, after trials such as this, very intense experiences, who are coming back for days, weeks really. It is very difficult to believe it is over."

"That's sort of what I'd like to talk about," I say. "May I?" I take one of Sandy's cigars, which he has often offered. He joins me and selects one as I hold his humidor. We smoke, lawyer and client. "I wanted to thank you."

Sandy raises his hand the same way he did before. I tell him how much I admired his defense of me, how seldom I was inclined to second-guess. You are, I say, the very best. This praise appears to run over Sandy with the soothing effect of a bath of warm milk. With this last compliment he does little more than laugh and tip his cigar, one of his courtly gestures, helpless before the truth.

"I also have been thinking about things, and I'd like to know what happened in that courtroom today."

"Today?" asks Sandy. "Today you were acquitted of serious charges."

"No, no," I say. "I want to know what really happened. Yesterday you explained to me why Larren would have to let the case go to the jury. And today he acquitted me, without so much as a motion from the defense."

"Rusty, I made an estimate of what the judge might think. What lawyer do you know who possesses the ability to always correctly predict judicial inclinations? Judge Lyttle decided not to expose you to the risk of an unsupported jury verdict, which might have increased the pressure on him away from what he thought was right. We should both be grateful to him for his perspicacity and his fortitude."