Scott Turow - The Laws of our Fathers

In his chair, Hobie again is taking his time, his lips gummed over each other, staring at Lubitsch once more, puzzling something through.

'Officer, did you figure on testifying in this trial?' he asks suddenly.

'Huh?' answers Lubitsch.

'Did you have it in mind as this trial was coming up that you'd end up as a witness?'

'I don't know. I thought I might.'

'You did?' Hobie pushes through the mess of papers on the table. 'You weren't on the state's witness list.'

Lubitsch has an uncomfortable moment. His eyes briefly close, lizardlike.

'I saw Montague at Area 7 last week. He said the witness might be doing a spin, and if she did, I was going to have to come stand behind my paper.'

'Just a warning.'

'That's all.'

'You didn't go review your reports at that point?'

'No. I kind of live a day at a time, counsel. I woulda thought she was too smart to flip, but you live and learn.' That's meant as a jibe. He's clearly had an earful about how Hobie led the girl astray.

'And how did you find out you were going to have to come testify today?'

'When I come on the job at eight, at roll call, I got a message: phone Montague.'

'You didn't spend the day yesterday getting ready to testify?'

'I'm off Wednesdays. I was putting up sheetrock, if you want to know.'

'And when you reached Montague today, did he explain why you were gonna be needed in court this morning?'

‘I don't know,' says Lubitsch, vamping. 'Sort of.'

'Sort of,' says Hobie. 'Well, at some point today did someone – Molto, Montague, Mr Singh – did one of them explain that Lovinia had testified that in persuading her to change her story, you'd told her what Hardcore had to say?'

'I heard that.'

'And you realized, didn't you, that it would help the state if you could testify that didn't happen?' 'Nobody told me what to say.'

'I understand, Officer. But you've been around a lot of trials, haven't you? And you recognize the significance of your testimony that you didn't tell Bug, don't you?'

Lubitsch's eyes cheat just a trifle in my direction. I get the feeling that in somebody else's courtroom Fred might try a line, a dodge.

‘I have the picture generally.'

'Now, Officer, I want to hand you a copy of your report of September 12, marked as Defendant's Exhibit 1, and I'm gonna ask you to read out loud the part where it says you didn't tell Lovinia Campbell what Hardcore had said.'

Lubitsch sits a minute, staring outward. He has that look again: stop fucking with me. He bothers only with a bare glance at the report, which Hobie has laid on the rail of the witness box. He does not even touch it.

'It's not there.'

'It's not there,' says Hobie. 'So this is just something you remember?'

‘I said it's not my s.o.p.'

'It's not your standard operating procedure to tell one witness what another witness has said, correct?' 'Exactly.'

'And that's why you say you didn't tell Bug?'

'I say I didn't tell her that, cause I don't have any recollection that anything like that ever happened. That's why I say it.'

'Okay,' says Hobie. 'You don't have any recollection.' He's moving around again. By now, I know it's a bad sign for the state when Hobie starts roaming. If I were the prosecutor, preparing a witness for cross, I'd tell him, "Watch out. If Turtle starts moving, that means he has you on a roll." But Lubitsch doesn't know that and sits there, with his bulk and his attitude, still thinking he's doing okay. 'And it's fair to say, isn't it, that you haven't had a lot of time to review the reports or to get it firm in your mind exactly what went on in your interviews of young Miss Lovinia?'

‘I remember what happened, counsel.'

Hobie scratches his cheek. He is doing his best to remain mild, if not genial, in the face of Fred's hostility. Someone – Dubinsky, probably – has told him Lubitsch is a regular here, something of a favorite of mine.

'Well, let's talk about your visit to Bug's hospital room on September 12. You say Montague asked you to go over there because you know her, correct?'

'Not like we're pals. I arrested her twice.'

'But you had a good relationship with her as a result?'

' "Good relationship"? I don't know what that means.' He's reared back, then subsides a bit, aware perhaps of how contrary he's becoming. 'I'm not trying to be cute, counsel, but you'd say we had a professional relationship. She knew I'd be professional with her. The first time where she got cracked, we sort of caught them in the act – I mean, when we, you know Tactical, when we get in the area, this operation of BSD, they're very good at rolling things up. But this time I saw some car tearing off and Bug and me had a little foot race and I grabbed hold of her and I told her how it was and she was co-operative.'

'You "told her how it was"?'

'Usually, when these kids are out selling small stuff, usually they'll keep it up in their mouth. The seams. So they can swallow it if the Man comes on them. It's not enough to kill them. So they swallow. And I grabbed Bug and told her if she tried to swallow I'd have to choke her, or pump her stomach, and for her just to spit it out and she did.'

'And you made friends,' says Hobie. The delivery is droll, not quite disparaging, just enough to bring out the sad ridiculousness of the entire situation. He derives uproarious laughter from everyone, including me. Yet there is a homely truth here. There are probably two hundred kids in T-4 with whom Lubitsch and Wells have this kind of relationship. They know their mommas and cousins, their gang standing, maybe even in a remote way how they're doing in school. They treat them with some feeling. Fred has reason to be riled and he treats Hobie to an acid look.

'I didn't ride her, okay? It was a thousand feet of a housing project. I could have charged her as an adult. I didn't. We did it as a juvie beef, she did some home time, she got out.'

'You were fair.'

‘I try to be,' says Lubitsch and hitches his massive neck. 'And knowing you had been kinda fair to her in the past, Montague asked you to see her in the hospital?' 'That's the picture.'

'And you went with your partner -' Hobie starts through the reports. 'Wells.'

'You and Wells went and you told her to roll, to make a deal, didn't you?'

'That I remember.'

'And she told you what you took for a lie, namely that the shooting of Mrs Eddgar was just a drive-by by a rival street gang.' 'That's what she said.' 'Are there drive-bys in that neighborhood?' 'Plenty.'

'But you were confident she was fibbing?' 'Lying was my impression.'

'Even though this girl was more or less in your debt? Even though she'd been kind of co-operative with you before, you didn't believe her?'

Lubitsch permits himself a slight wise-guy smile. Grow up, he'd like to say.

'I didn't.'

'You remember why in particular?'

Lubitsch looks to the ceiling. 'Didn't hit me right.'

'Could it be,' says Hobie slowly, 'that Montague had already told you what Hardcore had said?' Hobie stops to watch Fred. This is where he wins or loses. Lubitsch takes a breath and once more lets his eyes rise in reverie. He teeters an instant on the brink of denial. But now the events have begun to come back to me. That was the day Wells and he were in my chambers calling the case a doozy. Fred said he was going to General. And he was gloating, because he knew all about it by then. He knew Hardcore had made Nile a suspect. "Fred," I want to say, "for Chrissake, Fred." Instead, with little conscious intention, I clear my throat. His eyes hit mine. The pupils seem to enlarge in that half-instant, he shrinks back in his seat, and it comes to him just as it has come to me. He almost nods, as if his obligation to tell the truth arises as a matter of personal allegiance.