Scott Turow - Identical

“Well, Your Honor, before you rule, we’re also seeking alternative relief.”

“Which is?”

“We would like enforcement of the subpoenas which were stayed pending your ruling on the DNA motion. Once you ruled, those subpoenas became enforceable and we’d like the evidence produced.”

This time Horgan succeeded in butting in.

“Judge, that’s ridiculous. If there’s no lawsuit, there are no subpoenas.”

The judge took a second.

“No,” he said in reply to Horgan. “I get what he’s arguing. It’s timing. The subpoenas were enforceable before your motion for dismissal. What evidence are we talking about?”

Tooley had a list. First, there was the subpoena to Paul to produce a DNA specimen; second, to Cass to produce fingerprints; third, to the state police to produce all physical evidence in their possession, most of which had been collected at the crime scene, including the blood spatters by the French door and the blood standards taken from various people. There was a similar subpoena to Greenwood County, in case anything had been missed in the production they’d already made.

Ray interjected. “Judge, they’re just trying to do the same test on their own.”

Du Bois cracked the slightest smile at the caginess of the ploy.

“Again, Mr. Horgan. It’s just balls and strikes to me. What does the law require? All I want to do is answer that question. That’s why I get the big bucks.” In a world where some of the lawyers who appeared before the bench made multiple millions, judges frequently offered ironic remarks about their salaries, which seemed picayune by comparison.

Du Bois sat a second longer as he pondered.

“OK, here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to finish up this lawsuit. But not today. If you gentlemen look behind you, you will see that there’s a courtroom full of lawyers here for my Thursday motion call. And many of those attorneys have clients who are paying them to sit here. So we’re not wasting any more of other people’s time or money. We’re going to set this over for a week. I want all of the addressees of those subpoenas, or their representatives, in court, with the evidence Mr. Kronon is seeking. And I want simultaneous briefs from plaintiff and defendant on the issue of whether those subpoenas can be enforced as a matter of law. And we’ll thrash all of that out next Thursday. If the subpoenas, any of them, remain valid, the evidence will be handed over right here. And then, Mr. Tooley and Mr. Horgan, much as I have enjoyed visiting with both of you, we are all going to be done with this lawsuit, and I will look forward to seeing you both on other occasions.”

The judge banged his gavel and told his clerk to call the next case.

Shirley Wilhite,” said the voice on Tim’s cell phone, the next morning. “Bet you thought I forgot about you.” It was about 11 a.m., and Tim was settled in the sun-room, reading more of his book on the Greek myths, while Kai Winding tooted along from the phonograph. His first thought was that Shirley had to be another widow-they phoned all the time with every imaginable angle, anything from a casserole too delicious not to share or women who claimed they were returning his call. “They took forever getting those records from storage. Everybody thinks they have too much to do. That’s what’s wrong with this country, if you ask me.”

He talked to her another second, feeling, as he often did, that he was playing from behind. Then it came to him: She was from the ring company in Utah.

“Lucky we were still using paper back then,” said Shirley Wilhite. “Five years later, we had everything on floppy disks. Remember them? Try finding somebody who can make sense of those things. Easton College, right? What was your nephew’s name?”

“Gianis.” He spelled it. In Utah, Paul’s name meant nothing. “Not really my nephew, by the way. I just call him that.”

“Oh sure. I’m Auntie Shirley to half my neighbors’ kids.”

“Exactly.”

“OK.” She took a second. “We got two of them.”

“Twin boys. I’m looking for Paul.”

“OK. All right, well, he bought two rings.”

“Two?”

“Let me look here. Yeah. One a man’s, one a woman’s. Same model. The J46 with emblem. Now I need the catalog.” He heard her clattering around. “No, we don’t make it any more. I think the K106 might look the most like it. I’m going to send you pictures. You use a computer?”

“Some.”

“Well, the current catalog is online. But I’ll send you copies of the old catalog, so you know what he had. Got a fax number?”

“Can you give me pictures of the woman’s ring, also? Maybe he’ll want to replace both. And if it’s not too much trouble, send the order form, too. Maybe he’ll want to make a claim for insurance.”

“Not a problem. Happy to help.”

Two rings? He considered that. Late in the afternoon, he was on his way into Center City to pick up the faxes, which he’d directed to ZP. He passed Georgia Lazopoulos’s house and on impulse parked and rang the bell.

She stared at him through the storm door. Her dark raccoony eyes and the rest of her heavy face instantly took on a glum reproachful weight.

“You said you wouldn’t bother me again.” Her voice was muffled by the glass, but clear. She was dressed as she had been when they’d been here last time, in pink stretch pants and a dowdy ruffled top.

“I just need to ask you one question about that class ring Paul wore.”

“Paul didn’t wear a class ring,” she answered, and closed the door.

She had been a sweet-natured young woman, at least as much as Tim had seen of her. It was a wonder sometimes what life did to people. He started down the stoop, then reconsidered, and climbed back up and rang again. Nothing to lose.

“You told us he wore a class ring,” he said, as soon as the door opened.

“No, I didn’t. And frankly I wish I hadn’t told you anything. You made a fool out of me, you and that woman who was with you. There isn’t a person around here that doesn’t think I was crazy to let you make that tape. I sound like a vengeful old witch.”

“I don’t think that’s fair,” said Tim, “not to us. Or to you for that matter.”

“Everybody’s mad at me. They think I went out of my way to do Paul dirty. Even Cass showed up here to give me a piece of his mind.”

“Cass did?” It was the first Tim had heard of anybody seeing Cass since the day he’d left prison. “When did that happen?”

“Oh, I don’t know. A few days after the ad went on television. He wanted me to talk to their lawyers, and I said I wasn’t making that mistake twice. He just stood where you’re standing and said, ‘There’s nothing for him to say, Georgia, except that he’s sorry you’re still so hurt.’ He made me feel this small.” Her hand came up for a second.

“But he didn’t say anything on that commercial was untrue, did he?”

She didn’t answer, but brooded. Her fingers had never left the knob to her front door and now she started to close it again.

“Wait,” said Tim. “I don’t understand about the ring.” He was afraid the confrontation with Cass had turned her around. She would disavow everything she’d told them before. “I know he bought one.”

“That’s what you asked me-did Paul buy a ring like Cass? And I said he did.”

“Seems he bought two, actually. I thought he must have given you the other one, because the second was for a woman.”

“No, that was Lidia’s. She’d always sworn her sons were going to be educated, even though there wasn’t anybody in her family or Mickey’s who’d been to college. She never made any secret that she wished she’d gone. So the twins thought it would be sweet to get her a class ring. They knew their mom. I think Lidia showed the damn thing to every person she met for the next ten years.”