Scott Turow - The Laws of our Fathers

'The truth? There was a lot of lying in that courtroom.'

'Surely not by me,' says Eddgar. 'It was your friend Tuttle who distorted the facts.' He stands somewhat stiffly and returns to the whistling kettle, casting about the kitchen to find a second cup. When he opens the refrigerator for milk, it is largely bare, holding only a dairy carton, a gallon jug of water, and a single green olive and a red pimento, separated and floating in half a jar of greenish juice. 'Is he crazy or melodramatic?' Eddgar asks.

'Hobie? More a performance artist. That's how I think of him. The word as gesture.'

'He's a treacherous person.' Eddgar shakes his head at the thought and places both cups, curling steam, on the table. 'I'm sure you had a good time watching Hobie play with my life. I assume you felt it was appropriate. Because you think I played with yours.'

'Didn't you?'

Eddgar takes his time with that. Across the table, he folds his hands carefully.

'I took advantage of a circumstance, Seth. There were careful plans and they went awry. Someone was arrested, quite accidentally. He started blabbing. So I seized an opportunity, yes I did. Unkind? Probably. Yet I was confident – and correct as it turned out – it would work out for all of us.'

'The greatest good for the greatest number, Eddgar? Including number one?'

'It was a long time ago, Seth.'

'Are you invoking the statute of limitations? I thought there wasn't one on murder.' Eddgar's eyes squeeze shut then and Seth eases forward in the beaten old kitchen chair. The maple table between them is small, stained with berry juice in one place, a relic of many decades' use in Eddgar's household. 'I want you to understand something, Eddgar. I'm as old now as you were then. Older, I guess. And I blame myself. First and foremost. The things I did, I did. Not you. But if I was czar of the universe, or the Lord High Executioner, you'd be punished. You escaped. And it bothers me, man, it kills me. How come everyone suffered but you, Eddgar? Don't you ask yourself? Do you think about them, Eddgar? The lives you took? The ones you ruined?' Seth stabs a finger down on the paper he brought. 'How do you sleep at night, for Godsake?'

Eddgar takes the question with a taut, slightly whimsical expression. Well, he doesn't sleep at night. Seth can read that thought. There is a small window at Eddgar's back and in the early morning light his face is haggard. A day's growth clings to his cheeks, like a sugared topping.

'Do you know people who fought wars, Seth? I fought a war. Yes, there were casualties, and I rue them, I mourn for them. But I certainly didn't turn my back on Michael. That should be obvious.' His face dips toward the paper on the table. ‘I gave him every kind of support imaginable. For years. My wife – and my son – essentially abandoned me to see after him. With my consent.

Yet it wasn't in repentance. Because I don't repent.' Eddgar's face is raised at that characteristic angle of willful invulnerability. But this much no doubt is true. Seth thought about it all night and realized it wasn't charity or grief that motivated Eddgar to care for Michael from this distance all this time. No. Michael was the man Eddgar could not be: to June a lover, to Nile a gentle guiding hand. He was Eddgar's own lost fragment. He could no more let go of Michael than himself. But Eddgar doesn't see that part. His justification, as ever, lies in history.

'I had something to fight against,' says Eddgar, 'and I fought. And the war I fought still makes more sense to me than many of the wars waged in this country: the Indian Wars. The Spanish-American War. The Mexican-American War. Vietnam. I believe – as I believed even then and was afraid to say to myself – I believe I shall be judged. And I don't fear it. But don't you dare think I did not suffer. Then or now. Because I have, I have. I have paid prices you cannot imagine.' Red creeps up to Eddgar's scalp, and he winds himself away in a momentary effort to contain his anguish. 'And don't think I'm speaking about what you and your friend did to me in that courtroom. I care much less than you might suppose for my reputation.'

That wasn't what he thought. June, is what Seth guesses. June was Eddgar's anguish, a whirlwind of torment right up to the terrible end.

'What did we do to you in the courtroom?' Seth asks. 'Oh, please, Seth. I'm old, I'm not addled. You had to have been part of that.' 'Of what?'

'You know this story. You must.' And Eddgar begins to serve out the details as a challenge. You must know, he says. About the dope. The jail. About Nile and Hardcore. 'You must know,' he repeats.

No, Seth says. His reaction – the pallor, the faltering – brings Eddgar up short, and he responds more sparingly as Seth begins to question him. But he answers. The story is told – about sending the DFU money to Michael, about this young girl, Lovinia, and, most despairingly, about Eddgar's confrontations with Hardcore. Only at the end does Eddgar permit his full glance to fall again on Seth. Even in age, his eyes have remained remarkable. Seth does not remember where he developed the impression that wolves have eyes this color, glacial blue, an outward aspect of beauty and tranquility concealing a teeming, unmanaged spirit.

'This was all unknown to you?' Eddgar asks again.

'Unknown,' says Seth.

Still in doubt, Eddgar stands arthritically for a second cup of tea and speaks as he's standing at the stove, describing the game of prisoner's dilemma that Core and whoever advised him played. They were mutual hostages – Nile and Hardcore. When June was killed, Eddgar understood at once that it was not an accident. But what was he to say? The truth would put Nile in the penitentiary. He remained silent, never guessing that the police would be able to build a case on Hardcore, or what Ordell would do as a result. But there was not a lawyer Eddgar spoke to after Core had implicated Nile who did not say the same thing: Nile would do less time for a crime of family passion than for distributing pounds of narcotics in the course of abusing a public trust. Not to mention that Nile stood a chance at trial this way. They were trapped.

'And I've thought about this, naturally,' says Eddgar, 'I've thought at great length about what Hardcore did, and I doubt his motive was to punish Nile – I doubt that entered his mind – or only to minimize his position in a very bad situation. What he wanted, also, was to make a point to me. To let me know I was not the only shrewd operator, that for all my grand proclamations, all my ill-considered threats, I still couldn't protect Nile.' Eddgar glances briefly, balefully toward Seth, before staring down again into his teacup, which bears the blue seal of some state agency. 'Somehow, I had made myself the one true enemy.

'Which is why I told Hobie from the start: Blame me. I actually said that to him. "Blame me." And not as an act of misplaced valor. You know, I see that look in your eye -1 saw it in court -I think you've regarded me for decades as a monster. People – way back when, back in California – people believed I was not self-aware. Perhaps I wasn't. Not sufficiently. But I think, I believe, I see some of myself. And I mean that when I say I am to blame, I am. For thinking I could control what I couldn't control. For bearding Hardcore. For not accepting my child's limitations. For pushing my own wants on him. I saw that. I'd seen that. People, some people, do see these things. Insight isn't everything, you know. You make mistakes anyway.

'And I made those mistakes, and a dozen more. I was pleased that Sonny was the judge. I suppose that was where it really started. Well, this will fit, I thought. I saw the opportunity immediately. I told Turtle that. The first time we spoke. "She never liked me. Blame me. Contrive some other reason Core on his own would want to kill me. She'll believe it." I started this. I know. And Hobie twisted it, of course. He took advantage of me. He said, "Will you say yes if I ask the questions the right way?" I told him, "I won't lie. I just can't. I can't swear an oath to God and lie." But the right questions, the right way – I could say yes. And he told me before it started, he said very little to me, just "Listen to my questions, very carefully, because I'm going to be doing something. You don't have to lie, just be careful," and I agreed to that in advance. I knew he'd use that money, the $10,000 from the DFU, and make it look like that was the money Nile had given Ordell. Because after all, that was the plan. And yes, Nile had cashed the check. And no one had any reason to know where the money actually had gone. And, of course, of course, Hardcore was lying, there never was a $10,000 payment. So what Hobie was doing – it was a lie to combat a lie, and not my lie. And, naturally, I agreed. He's very shrewd about people, your friend Turtle, isn't he?'