Scott Turow - Limitations

“To me, it doesn’t fit,” he tells the Chief. “But the only way we’ll ever know for sure is if the cops scoop up those kids and see whether they have any connection to Latinos Reyes. And I wouldn’t bet a lot on that happening. My car’s probably been peddled or chopped and those kids are high on the money.”

“Probably,” Rusty agrees.

By noon, the last of his visitors seem to have paid their respects. George is closing his door in hopes of getting some work done, but hearing it scrape over the carpet, Dineesha abruptly stands. Her hands folded across her plump middle, she faces him with an expectant look. She is handsome, if matronly, with a large globe hairdo, a seventies remnant she never abandoned. He motions her in with a leaden heart. He has seen her hangdog expression a thousand times before and knows just what’s coming. There is only one cause.

“Zeke says the police talked to him, Judge, wanting to know where he was Friday. And he was in St. Louis, Judge. I’m sure. We had his dog while he was gone. And he says he had papers showing he went.”

“I don’t think anyone doubts that, Dineesha.”

“The thing is, Judge, this is a good job for him. But if the police call the company, Judge. Well-” Her hands are still clasped in front of her waist. There’s no point in asking whether Zeke truthfully answered the question on the employment application about whether he’d ever been convicted of a felony. For a guy like Zeke, it’s all a circle anyway. Do it the right way and you’ll never get your foot through the door.

“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he tells her. She sighs and smiles. “But one thing that bothered the police is that they thought you told Zeke to expect them.”

Her mouth forms a dark O.

“It wasn’t like that, Judge. I just had it out with him, Thursday night. I wasn’t trying to warn him, just give him a piece of my mind. Judge, he says he wouldn’t ever do you any harm. I believe it, Judge.”

That’s the problem, of course. His mother will always believe Zeke. No other sane person should.

“Dineesha, you don’t really believe he and his pal were up here to use the bathroom, do you?”

She wilts with the question and takes a seat in the same straight-backed chair by the door that she found the other day in order to weep out of sight about her oldest child.

“No, Judge. I don’t think that.”

“So what were they doing? Were they here to steal something?”

She manages a quick, sharp laugh. “No, Judge. Just the opposite. They were putting something back.”

“From my chambers?”

“From my purse. Zeke had been by that morning, Judge. Because of the dog. And he’d grabbed hold of my keys out of my purse.”

“And why was that?”

She presses her finger to the center of her lips, determined not to cry again.

“He wanted to get into our shed. We stored his things when he went off, Judge.” Prison is what she means. “And I don’t know how exactly, but Reggie found two guns in there, and when Zeke came out, his father wouldn’t let him have them. You know, he can’t own firearms.”

It’s both a federal and a state crime for a felon even to hold a gun.

“And Reggie and Zeke, they go around about those guns every couple of months. Zeke says all he wants is just to sell them, that they’re worth good money. So he took my keys and got them. That boy Khaleel, he has the guns now, but I guess they made a deal, Khaleel was supposed to walk in and put the keys on my desk when I got up for a second, and if anybody saw that, he’d just say he’d found them in the hall, right outside the door.”

She has her face in both hands.

“Judge, if he could just get himself going in the right direction, he’d really be all right. I truly believe that.”

There is no divorcing your children, George thinks. For Dineesha, hope is eternal. And thus, so is the heartbreak.

“I mean, Judge, I don’t have any right-”

“I’ll keep it to myself, Dineesha.” She stands, still under the weight of it.

Ten minutes later she knocks again. No more, George thinks. Even for Dineesha. But when she opens the door, he can see she has regathered herself. This is business.

“Murph’s on the phone, Judge,” she says. “Area Two picked up two boys. They want you for a lineup.”

Area 2 headquarters is a fortress, a limestone redoubt built near the turn of the century. It is frequently shot by TV and movie crews when they need an exterior that appears utterly impregnable. Entering, you confront a much newer cinder-block wall, interrupted only by a small window of bulletproof glass, behind which the desk officer sits. Years ago there was a little metal teller’s tray at the bottom so bondsmen or relatives could pass bail money, but that was before some gangster stuck a sawed-off in the slot and seriously wounded three officers. These days everybody passes first through a metal detector.

Cobberly, the red-faced detective who enjoyed giving it to George last night, is on the other side.

“So what do we know about these fine young lads, Philly?” Abel asks him. On the way over, Abel said that the younger boy had been grabbed in a nod in George’s Lexus, which was parked on a North End street. An hour later, the older one strolled up with the car key and a sack of burgers.

According to Phil Cobberly, the two are brothers, the last of four.

“Nice family,” the detective says. “Dad was always in and out of the joint, but now there’s sort of a family reunion. Older two boys are in Rudyard with him. I just love happy endings,” he adds.

“Bangers?” George asks.

“Natch.”

“Latinos Reyes?”

“Nope. Over where they’re from in Kewahnee, that’s Two-Six turf.” Twenty-sixth Street Locos.

“So no connection to Corazon?”

“Can’t say that. Two-Six and Latinos Reyes make their deals.”

Abel asks if the boys gave any statements.

“Usual speeches,” says Cobberly, “don’t know nothin’, but we didn’t take it down. They’re juvie.”

Juveniles may not be questioned outside the presence of their parents, who, in Area 2, do not tend to answer when the police come knocking. In their absence, a youth officer must attend the interview. The State Defender assigned to the station was summoned too, since both boys will be charged as adults. He, in turn, called for his supervisor. George suspects he is the reason a higher-up was needed. The State Defenders want to tread carefully with a judge, especially one on the appellate court who sides with them occasionally.

When the supervisor arrives, it turns out to be Gina Devore, who oversaw the S.D. s in George’s courtroom during the two years he sat at the trial level in the Central Branch. She was famous in the courthouse for punching out one of her clients in the lockup when he grabbed her breast. Five feet in her heels, Gina knocked the guy cold.

“The best and brightest,” George greets her. She surprises him a bit with a quick hug despite being on duty. Married to a police lieutenant in Nearing, she gives him a one-sentence rundown on both of her kids.

“How’s the arm, Judge? I heard about you on TV.”

“It’s all right, but I don’t think I’ll be sending your clients a thank-you note.”

“Judge,” she says, “I bet when you get a look, you’ll realize they’ve got the wrong kids.” She is utterly stone-faced making that remark, although both George and she know that not only were these boys arrested in the judge’s car, but each kid’s clothing-and the guns discovered under the front seats-matched his descriptions.

The boys’ defense, if it goes according to the book, will be that they found the Lexus abandoned with the key in the ignition. It’s farfetched at best. But if George makes the IDs, the case becomes a lock. No jury will disbelieve a judge in these circumstances.