Presumed Innocent (56 page)

In response he makes his sound.

"I don't know," I say again. "I believe two things. She did it. And she was sorry. I'll always believe she was sorry." I straighten up. "And anyway, it never would have done me any good to tell."

"Speakin of tellin, did you let your lawyers know, at least?"

"Nope. Neither one. Right at the end I had this idea Sandy might have figured it out. He talked to me one night about putting Barbara on the stand — and I got a clear feeling he didn't have the slightest interest in really doing it. And the kid, Kemp, had some notion, too. He knew something was out of whack with the phone records. But I'd never have put either one of them in that position, having to choose between my wife and me. I didn't want to be defended that way. Like I said, I couldn't see taking his mother from my son. And besides, it would never wash. If Barbara really figured all this out, Lip, then she knew that, too. Nico had a beautiful argument if I got up there and accused her. He would have said this was the perfect crime. An unhappy marriage. A prosecutor who knows the system inside out. A guy who's become a misogynist. He despises Carolyn. He hates his wife. But he loves the boy. If he and his wife split, he'll never get custody. He'd have said I planned it this way. Made it look like her set-up. Right down to getting her fingerprint on the glass or injecting the spermicide. Maybe he'd say I was using Barbara as a fail-safe, the person I'd like to see nabbed in case the whole house of cards fell in on me. There are plenty of juries that might buy that."

"But it isn't true," says Lip.

I look at him. I can tell that I have left him out there again, floating uneasily in the ether regions of disbelief.

"No," I tell him, "that isn't true."

But there is that flicker there, the brief light of an idle doubt. What is harder? Knowing the truth or finding it, telling it or being believed?

When Raymond called, I told him the idea was absurd
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"
Instant rehabilitation," he said
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"
It is impossible," I answered
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"
Rusty," he said, "give a guilty conscience a chance." I was not sure if he was referring to himself or everyone in Kindle County. But he insisted it could happen, and at last I told him that if everything could be arranged I would think seriously about it
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In January, as a result of the petition drive the City Council authorized a recall election. Bolcarro could have prevented it, but he displayed a marked neutrality toward Della Guardia. Nico campaigned actively to retain his office and he nearly pulled it out. He fired Tommy Molto with about two weeks left, but various civic leaders, including Raymond, Larren, and Judge Mumphrey, came out against him, and Della Guardia was recalled with a margin of about 2,000 votes. He has not given up. He is going to run for City Council from the South End, and I expect him to win
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Bolcarro formed a citizens' commission to make recommendations on the new P.A. Raymond was a member. That was what led him to call me. Rumor has it that Mac was the first choice, but she refused to leave the bench. Raymond promised me that the papers had been sounded and that I would receive universal support. I could not think of a good reason to say no. On March 28, four days short of the anniversary of Carolyn Polhemus's murder, I became the acting Kindle County prosecuting attorney
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I took the position with the understanding that I will not run for re-election. The mayor has told me a couple of times he thinks I'll make a fine judge, but he has not put that on paper. Right now I enjoy the job I have. The news stories refer to me as 'the caretaker P.A.' My relations with lots of people have all kinds of peculiar strains and edges, but it is no worse at work than when I walk down from my apartment to buy a dozen eggs. I accepted that this would be the case when I did not leave Kindle County. It is not that I am brave, or even stubborn. I just don't think the problems of a new life somewhere else would be any easier than dealing with what is here. I will always be a kind of museum piece. Rusty Sabich. The biggest bullshit thing you've ever seen. Set up, no question about it, and then Della Guardia covered Molto. Really pathetic, the whole business. The guy is not quite the same
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The murder of Carolyn Polhemus, of course, remains unsolved. No one talks about pursuing it, surely not with me, and it's a practical impossibility anyway to try two people for the same crime. A few months ago they had some jailhouse crank who was trying to confess. I sent Lipranzer over to take his statement. Lip quickly reported to the department his judgment that it was a bunch of crap
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I go to Detroit on many weekends. With this job, it is harder than I planned, but when I cannot make it, Barbara sends Nathaniel down. On my second trip up there, Barbara suggested I stay with them. One thing led to another and we have, in a sort of half-ass way, been reconciled. She is not likely to come back here. Her job has worked out well, and the truth, I think, is that she enjoys the distance from me and the reminders. Neither of us expects the present arrangement to last. Sooner or later the swelling will recede and one of us will meet somebody else. When I think about that, I hope it's a woman a few years younger. I would like to have another child. But that's the kind of thing no one can plan. For the present, Nat seems to take comfort from the fact that his mother and I are still married, not divorced
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At times, I admit, I still think of Carolyn. There is none of that crazy longing left, none of the bizarre fixation. I guess she has finally found her place of rest for me. But I puzzle on the experience now and then. What was it, I still think. What was it I wanted with her? What seemed so imperative about it all? In the end, it must have had something to do with my sense of the torment, the agonies which drove her. That legacy of pain was openly displayed — in her hard-shell manner, her hipped-up weariness, her ardent courtroom spokesmanship for the likes of Wendell McGaffen, the assailed and woebegone. She was herself someone who had suffered vastly — and who claimed in every visible aspect of her being to have triumphed over it all. That was not true. She could no more leave the horrible weight of her past behind than those Greek heroes could fly close to the sun. But does that mean it is impossible for all of us?

I reached for Carolyn. In a part of me, I knew my gesture was ill-fated. I must have recognized her troubled vanity, the poverty of feeling that reduced her soul. I must have known that what she offered was only the grandest of illusions. But still I fell for that legend she had made up about herself. The glory. The glamour. The courage. All her determined grace. To fly above this obscure world of anguish, this black universe of pain! For me there will always be that struggle to escape the darkness. I reached for Carolyn. I adored her, as the faith healer is adored by the halt and lame. But I wanted with wild, wild abandon, with a surging, defiant, emboldened desire, I wanted the extreme — the exultation, the passion and the moment, the fire, the light. I reached for Carolyn. In hope. Hope. Everlasting hope
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THE BURDEN OF PROOF (1990)

PLEADING GUILTY (1993)

THE LAWS OF OUR FATHERS (1996)