Scott Turow - Presumed innocent

I should have figured that Horgan was in the middle of this somehow. I take a minute. What is this feeling? Something between disappointment and derision.

"You know," I say, "there was a time when I thought Raymond Horgan and Larren Lyttle were heroes."

"With justification. They did many heroic things, Rusty. Many."

"And what about Molto? Did you ever hear anything about him?"

Stern shakes his head no.

"He was unsuspecting, as far as I know. It is difficult to believe that was really the case. Perhaps he was exposed to others' suspicions and refused to believe them. It is my understanding that he himself was somewhat in Carolyn's thrall. A lapdog. A devotee. I am sure she was able to manipulate him. In Latin America, one sees-or saw, when I was a young man-I have no idea of what transpires now-but when I was young I frequently met women of Carolyn's type, women who used their sensuality with what we might call an aggressive twist. In this day and age, there is something more troubling about a woman with such an old-fashioned and oblique approach to the avenues of power. It seems more sinister. But she was very skillful."

"She was a lot of things," I say. Ah, Carolyn, I suddenly think, with unbearable sadness. What was it that I wanted with you, Carolyn? Something in the moment makes me think that Stern has not quite got her right. Perhaps it is the past ordeal and its extraordinary end today; maybe it's amnesty week in Kindle County-no one may be blamed; perhaps it is only more of the same debased obsession-yet for whatever reason, even after all of it-all of it-as I sit here amid the cigar smoke and soft furniture, I still feel for her, and feel most of all now sympathy. It is possible that I misjudged Carolyn entirely. Perhaps she suffered from some birth defect, like a new-born come into the world with certain organs missing. Perhaps the feeling parts were absent in her, or subject to some congenital atrophy. But I do not believe that. She was, I think, like so many of the hurt and maimed who have passed before me: the synapses and receptors were in working order on her heart and feelings-but they were overloaded by the need to give solace to herself. Her pain. Her pain! She was like a spider caught in her own web. In the end, in her own monumental way, she must have been in torment. Surely that was no accident. I can only guess about the causes; what forge of cruelty produced her, I do not know. But there was some form of abuse, some long-practiced meanness from which she clearly meant to escape. She sought to re-create herself. She took on every lustrous role. A moll. A star. A person of causes. A conquistadora of wayward passion. A clever, hard-nosed prosecutrix, determined to master and punish those lesser types who could not contain ugly and violent impulse. But no disguise could change her. The heredity of abuse is so often more abuse. Whatever cruelty made her, she took in and, with self-delusion, wild excuses, but always, I would think, some staining residuum of pain, turned it back out into the world.

"And so," asks Stern. "Are you better satisfied?"

"About Larren?"

"What else?" He has apparently misinterpreted my moment of reflection.

"I'm hardly satisfied, Sandy. He had no business presiding over this case. He should have excused himself the minute it was assigned to him."

"Perhaps that is so, Rusty, but let me remind you that Judge Lyttle had no idea when this case began that that file-the B file, as you call it-was going to be an element of your defense."

"You did."

"Me?" Stern waves at some of the smoke and passes a remark in Spanish that I do not understand. "Am I, too, the target of complaint? Certainly you do not think that I planned to focus on that file at the threshold? And even then, Rusty, was I to make a motion for Judge Lyttle to excuse himself? How would you have framed it? The defendant asks the court to recuse itself because the alleged victim was once Your Honor's lover and partner in crime? Some matters are not for courtroom pleading. Really, Rusty. I do not mean to appear the cynic. And I share your concern for professional standards. But I suggest again that you are reacting to the shock of events. This punctiliousness, under the circumstances, is a bit surprising."

"I don't mean to be a prig. If I am, I apologize. But I'm not concerned about form or technicalities. I have the feeling things were bent well out of shape."

Stern draws back, removing his cigar. It is a long, slow motion meant to show surprise. But it is no longer opening night. I have seen all, of Sandy Stern's best moves a number of times and I don't buy this one.

"Sandy, I've been thinking hard about things in the last few hours. Larren Lyttle's career was over if the circumstances of the B file were fully explored. And you used every opportunity to tell him that you intended to do just that."

"Really, Rusty. You must know things that I do not. I saw nothing to indicate that Judge Lyttle fully understood the import of that file. You must remember that its contents were never even in the courtroom."

"Sandy, would you be offended if I told you that I still don't think you're sharing everything with me?"

"Ah," says Stern. "We have been too long together on this case. You begin, Rusty, to sound something like Clara." He smiles, but I again refuse to be dissuaded.

"Sandy, it took a long time for this to sink in. I admit that. For a while I thought that it was just a bizarre coincidence. You know, I thought it was just lucky that your harping on that file took advantage of Larren's vulnerability. But, I realize now, that's not possible. You meant to catch the judge's attention. There was no other reason for you to keep referring to that file. The last time you did it-when Lip was on the stand?-we were way past the point where you needed to raise doubts about Tommy. By then, you knew all about Kumagai You knew you were gong to blow Molto away with that. But you went out of your way again to tell the judge we were going to offer proof about the file the first chance we got. You must have told him that, one way or the other, half a dozen times. You wanted Larren to believe that we were hell-bent on turning that file inside out in public. That's why you mentioned that whole business of a frame-up while Horgan was on cross. You wanted to create a record in which Larren would think he had no proper way to keep you from going ahead. And yet when you sat down with me to talk about a defense, you didn't mention word one about the file. We had nothing to offer."

Stern is silent. "You are a fine investigator, Rusty," he says at last. "And you're very flattering. Actually, I've had the feeling lately that I was fairly dull. There are still a lot of things I haven't figured out. Like what you mentioned a second ago. How did you know that Larren would realize that the B file concerned a case where he'd been dirty? What else is there to the story?"

Stern and I stare at each other for a moment. His look is deeper and more complex than ever. If he is disconcerted, it is well concealed.

"There is no more to tell, Rusty," he says at last. "I made certain assumptions, particularly when I saw the judge's reactions with Horgan on the witness stand. They are very close, of course, and as I say, it is my understanding that Raymond would have been quite sensitive to the implications of that file. It seemed likely to me that he and Larren must have communicated about it sometime in the past. But I have no special knowledge. Just a lawyer's intuition."

Horgan. That was what I missed. Raymond had to have told Larren about that file long ago. Stern is correct. For a moment I spin out the further calculations that follow. But that is not for now. I want to clear the books first with Stern.

"So let me see if I get it," I tell him. "You wouldn't dream of directly threatening the judge,with exposure. That could be counterproductive, even disastrous. And it's simply not Stern's style. You had to find your own perfect and subtle way of doing things. You wanted Larren to worry about the file, but to believe that he alone perceived his problem. And so, at all moments you made it appear that the defense was in pursuit of Tommy Molto. You acted as if you thought he was the bad guy the file would expose. And the judge bought it. He did his best to steer us in the wrong direction. He did everything he could to make Tommy's zeal look sinister. Larren derided Molto's character. He held him in contempt. Accused him of manufacturing evidence, of signaling witnesses. But that was a double edge. The worse Tommy looked, the stronger your argument for going into the B file became, because it began to seem like this really was a frame-up, engineered by Molto to keep Sabich from discovering Tommy's twisted past. And so it was more and more important for Larren to end the trial. He could never take the chance of letting you go into that file, as you kept saying you wanted to do. Larren didn't know what would come out, but the worst thing, of course, was the truth. He could bet the ranch that whatever Tommy knew about the bad old past in the North Branch, he wouldn't keep it to himself. Molto might hold back to protect Carolyn and her memory-but not to save Larren's ass, at the cost of his own. And so, without so much as a motion from us, Judge Lyttle declares a TKO and sends me home. And, Sandy, there was one man in the courtroom who knew that was what had to happen. You figured it was coming all along."