Scott Turow - The Laws of our Fathers

Gwen opens every box. I admire each item, even though we both know I wouldn't wear most of the exotic clothing if it were given to me free. We are long accustomed to our differences, which I alternately cherish or, in some moods, tolerate with the self-conscious discipline of one who at the age of forty-seven still feels she is learning how to be a friend. I've never had a full complement of close relationships. My mother, always battling landlords and principals, jumped from apartment to apartment, enrolling me in a different grade school every fall; and as a grown-up, I've taken my own bumpy twisting path, forever leaving folks behind as I've gone through my changes. Naturally, there are colleagues and acquaintances. I think I'm regarded as amiable, candid, maybe even charming. I'm welcome in lots of places. Judicial power, like a beacon, draws invitations to zillions of functions, bar affairs, political dinners, law-school dos. And although I was an only child, I have a semblance of family life, through my cousin Eddie, the oldest son of my Aunt Hen and Uncle Moosh, who has always treated me as an honorary sib. I talk to him or his wife, Gretchen, every week, and Nikki and I are with them and their five kids for every holiday.

But, admittedly, it's been hard for me to connect. For this reason, I have found the alliances of motherhood a sweet relief. Is it only my imagination, or are women better to each other at this point in life? It seems as if we all learned some crucial secret in the delivery room about nurturance and kindness. My neighbor Marta Stern, Sandy's daughter and a lawyer herself, who is now at home with two young daughters, has become a special friend. There are a couple of others.

But I go back in time only with Gwen, whom I have known since high school. She was upbeat, alert, one of those loud, effusive, laughing girls I so admired, someone who seemed to have a promising relationship with every person at East Kewahnee High. I felt greatly honored by her friendship, and for years contrived not to notice that I was never invited to her home. Eventually, through other kids who were her neighbors, I learned that her mother was in the final stages of M S. There were a few occasions, after we started to drive, when I'd borrowed my uncle's Valiant and dropped Gwen off, that I glimpsed Mrs Ries through the window. She was enfeebled by disease, with stricken hands and dirty matted hair and a harrowed look as she sat in her chair, a blanket folded precisely over her knees. The contrast with Gwendolyn was extraordinary. And I can remember taking note of Gwen's slow stride across the lawn as she approached her home, a girl inclined to run on most occasions. I could see her posture take on the weight of knowing that at the center of her world lay trouble no one else could share and which she could not escape. And I remember seeing exactly what we had in common, since during those years I hoped, always – secretly and eternally – no one would know I was the daughter of Zora Klonsky, gadfly and loudmouth, a person whom only I understood, a woman notorious in the early sixties in the Tri-Cities for her conduct at a city council meeting where she had punched a right-wing city councilman opposed to water fluoridation.

'Shit,' says Gwen now, as we near the end of our meal. From beneath the brightly striped flap of her vest, she grabs her beeper off her belt and makes a face at the readout. The hospital. She disappears to find a phone. We have spent most of lunch, as always, gabbing about our kids. We're the two oldest moms in U. Lab Lower School and both on our own. Nikki is a kindergartner; Avi's in second grade. I worry that Mrs Loughery, a benign soul who talks to grown-ups in the same braindead singsong in which she speaks to the children, is not challenging enough for Nikki. She was born just on the wrong side of the deadline and seems a little ahead of herself, able to read simple sentences, to add sums in her head. Gwen told me to ease up, Nikki and Virginia Loughery both are doing well, advice I'm somberly pondering when I'm drawn to voices on the other side of the panel at my right: two men who, I realize quite suddenly, are talking about my case. One just said distinctly, 'Molto.'

'Why's it wrong?' the first asks.

'It's wrong. I'm telling you it's wrong. This bird, around the courthouse they call him Mold-o. I'm not kidding. Talk about a guy who walked through the metal detector too often.'

'He's doing all right,' the first man says. 'He did all right yesterday.' The voices are familiar. Lawyers, I guess. It has to be. I think the first one, who I've heard often, tried a case before me. A good guy. Very good. A flush of positive feeling is the sole retrieval when I send the summons to memory.

'Eh,' says the second one. 'Room temperature IQ. Molto -Jesus, he was nearly disbarred back in the eighties. Were you ever around here when Nico Delia Guardia was the PA? Molto was sitting at the right hand of God then. I think he used to write Nico's papers in high school. So when Nico wins, Tommy gets to be Queen for a Day. And the two of them fucked up some murder case to a fare-thee-well. God, I can't even remember what it was.' I hear knuckles rapping on the table. 'Sabich,' the man says.

'Who?'

'Too hard to explain. But there was this implication they'd doctored the evidence. So, you know, the baying hounds of the press ran Nico out of office. With help. Plenty of help. He'd gotten crosswise of the Mayor in the meantime. And Molto they sent out for hanging with BAD. Bar Admissions and Discipline. And it's a typical BAD investigation. Four months, six months, eight months, ten months. Two years. Nothing happens. So he's still here. Still a deputy P A. Poor mutt. What else is the son of a bitch gonna do for a living? His name is shit on the street. All he can do is keep cashing that green check. That's Molto. Now you tell me. Is this the guy you send to court to win one for the Gipper? I think not. He's sleepwalking up there. He's a beaten dog. I checked my file. He hasn't tried a case in three years. He's just a bitter little man waiting to collect a county pension.'

'So what are you saying?'

'I'm saying it's wired. Didn't you hear that cop today? The PA and his cronies want to see this thing go in the dumper. They sent this poor hump Molto up there cause he'd get lost looking for the men's room.'

'Jesus, Dubinsky,' the first man says. Stew Dubinsky! The Tribune courthouse reporter, the man to whom the prosecution leaked yesterday's story about Eddgar being the murder target. I feel an immediate impulse to leave. I shouldn't listen to discussions of this case, let alone from someone who could turn my eavesdropping into a cause celebre. But I see no unoccupied tables nearby and there's still half a piece of sole on Gwendolyn's plate. Besides, she'd kill me if I left all her new treasures unattended. Instead, I look straight forward with an impassive expression, but the voices, raised in the raucous lunchtime atmosphere, remain disturbingly clear on my side of the panel.

'Jesus,' the first man repeats.' "Wired." Doesn't anybody ever tell you you're paranoid?'

'All the time,' Stew answers. 'That's how come I know they're part of the plot.'

'Christ. Go watch JFK again.' Whoever this is has Stewart's number. He's always snooping around the courthouse and implying in his stories that the true facts have been concealed in an obscure conspiracy of silence. 'How's your salad?' Stew's friend asks.

'Shit,' Dubinsky says. 'This isn't food. Why'd I let you order for me? Spinach and spring water. I feel like I'm a fucking elf.'

'You don't look like an elf, so just keep chewing.' Stew has pretty much lost the battle. His belly has the dimensions of a late-term pregnancy, and his face is swaddled in chin. This has to be an old pal to be freely giving Stew the business about his physique. 'So what'd you think today?' this man asks. 'How'd you like that business at the end about Eddgar?'