Defending Jacob

30

Trial day four.

Paul Duffy on the stand. He wore a blue blazer, rep tie, and gray flannel pants, which was about as formal as he ever managed to dress. Like Jonathan, he was one of those men it is easy to imagine as boys, men whose appearance almost forces you to see the boy inside. It was nothing particular about his physical features, but a boyish quality in his manner. Maybe it was just the effect of my long friendship with him. To me, Paul remained twenty-seven years old forever, his age when I met him.

For Logiudice, of course, that friendship made Duffy a slippery witness. At the start, Logiudice’s manner was tentative, his questions overly cautious. If he had asked, I could have told him that Paul Duffy was not going to lie, even for me. It just wasn’t in him. (I would have told him also to put down his ridiculous yellow pad. He looked like a goddamn amateur.)

“Would you state your name for the record, please?”

“Paul Michael Duffy.”

“What do you do for work?”

“I’m a lieutenant detective with the Massachusetts State Police.”

“How long have you been employed by the state police?”

“Twenty-six years.”

“And what is your current assignment?”

“I am in a public relations unit.”

“Directing your attention to April 12, 2007, what was your assignment on that date?”

“I was in charge of a special unit of detectives assigned to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office. The unit is called CPAC, for Crime Prevention and Control. It consists of fifteen to twenty detectives at any given time, all with the special training and experience required to assist the ADAs and local departments in the investigation and prosecution of complex cases of various kinds, particularly homicides.” Duffy recited this little speech in a drone, from rote memory.

“And had you participated in many homicide investigations prior to April 12, 2007?”

“Yes.”

“Approximately how many?”

“Over a hundred, though I was not in charge of all of them.”

“Okay, on April 12, 2007, did you receive a phone call about a murder in Newton?”

“Yes. Around nine-fifteen A.M. I got a call from a Lieutenant Foley in Newton informing me there had been a homicide involving a child in Cold Spring Park.”

“And what was the first thing you did?”

“I called the district attorney’s office to inform them.”

“Is that standard procedure?”

“Yes. The local department is required by law to inform the state police of all homicides or unnatural deaths, then we inform the DA immediately.”

“Who specifically did you call?”

“Andy Barber.”

“Why Andy Barber?”

“He was the First Assistant, which means he was the second in command to the district attorney herself.”

“What was your understanding about what Mr. Barber would do with that information?”

“He would assign an ADA to run the investigation for their office.”

“Might he keep the case for himself?”

“He might. He handled a lot of homicides himself.”

“Did you have any expectations that morning as to whether Mr. Barber would keep the case for himself?”

Jonathan lifted his butt six inches from his chair. “Objection.”

“Overruled.”

“Detective Duffy, what did you think Mr. Barber would do with the case at that point?”

“I did not know. I suppose I figured he might keep it. It looked like it might be a big case right from the get-go. He kept those sorts of cases a lot. But if he put someone else on it, that would not have surprised me either. There were other good people there besides Mr. Barber. To be honest, I did not really think about it much. I had my own job to do. I let him worry about the DA’s office. My job was to run CPAC.”

“Do you know whether the district attorney, Lynn Canavan, was informed right away?”

“I don’t know. I presume so.”

“All right, after telephoning Mr. Barber, what did you do next?”

“I went to the location.”

“What time did you arrive there?”

“Nine thirty-five in the morning.”

“Describe the scene when you first arrived.”

“The entrance to Cold Spring Park is on Beacon Street. There is a parking lot at the front of the park. Behind that there are tennis courts and playing fields. Then behind the fields it is all woods, and there are trails leading off into the woods. There were a lot of police vehicles in the parking lot and on the street out front. Lots of cops around.”

“What did you do?”

“I parked on Beacon Street and approached the location on foot. I was met by Detective Peterson of the Newton Police and by Mr. Barber.”

“Again, was there anything unusual about Mr. Barber’s presence at the homicide scene?”

“No. He lived pretty close to the location, and he generally went to homicide scenes even if he didn’t intend to keep the case.”

“How did you know Mr. Barber lived near Cold Spring Park?”

“Because I’ve known him for years.”

“In fact, you two are personal friends.”

“Yes.”

“Close friends?”

“Yes. We were.”

“And now?”

There was a hitch before he answered. “I can’t speak for him. I still consider him a friend.”

“Do you two still see each other socially?”

“No. Not since Jacob was indicted.”

“When was the last time you and Mr. Barber spoke?”

“Before the indictment.”

A lie, but a white lie. The truth would have been misleading to the jury. It would have suggested, wrongly, that Duffy could not be trusted. Duffy was biased but honest about the big questions. He did not flinch as he delivered the statement. I did not flinch at it either. The point of a trial is to reach the right result, which requires constant recalibration along the way, like a sailboat tacking upwind.

“All right, you get to the park, you meet Detective Peterson and Mr. Barber. What happens next?”

“They explained the basic situation to me, that the victim had already been identified as Benjamin Rifkin, and they walked me through the park to the actual scene of the homicide.”

“What did you see when you got there?”

“The perimeter of the area was already taped off. The M.E. and crime-scene-services technicians had not arrived at the location yet. There was a photographer from the local police there taking pictures. The victim was still lying on the ground, the body, with nothing much around it. Basically they froze the scene when they got there, to preserve it.”

“Could you actually see the body?”

“Yes.”

“Could you describe the position of the body when you first saw it?”

“The victim was lying on a hill with the head at the lower end and the feet farther up the hill. It was twisted so the head was looking up toward the sky and the bottom half of the body and the legs were on its side.”

“What did you do next?”

“I approached the body with Detective Peterson and Mr. Barber. Detective Peterson was showing me details about the scene.”

“What was he showing you?”

“At the top of the hill, near the trail there was a good deal of blood on the ground, cast-off blood. I saw a number of droplets that were quite small, less than an inch in diameter. There were also a few larger stains that appeared to be what is called contact smears. These were on the leaves.”

“What is a contact smear?”

“It’s when a surface with wet blood contacts another surface and the blood transfers. It leaves a stain.”

“Describe the contact smears.”

“They were farther down the hill. There were several. They were several inches long at first, and as you went farther down the hill they became thicker and longer, more blood.”

“Now, I understand that you are not a criminalist, but did you form any impressions at the time, or theories, about what this blood evidence suggested?”

“Yes, I did. It looked like the homicide had taken place near the trail, where there were blood drops that had fallen, then the body fell or was pushed down the side of the hill, causing it to slide on its stomach, leaving the long contact smears of blood on the leaves.”

“All right, so having formed this theory, what did you do next?”

“I went down and inspected the body.”

“What did you see?”

“It had three wounds across the chest. It was a little difficult to see because the front of the body was soaked in blood, the victim’s shirt. There was also quite a bit of blood around the body where it had apparently been draining out of these wounds.”

“Was there anything unusual about those bloodstains, the pooled blood around the body?”

“Yes. There were some molded prints, shoe prints and other impressions, in the blood, meaning someone had stepped in the wet blood and left a print in it, like a mold.”

“What did you conclude from those molded shoe prints?”

“Obviously someone had stood or knelt beside the body soon after the murder, while the blood was still wet enough to take the impression.”

“Were you aware of the jogger, Paula Giannetto, who discovered the body?”

“Yes, I was.”

“How did that figure in your thinking about the molded prints?”

“I thought she might have left them, but I could not be sure.”

“What else did you conclude?”

“Well, there was quite a bit of blood that had been cast off during the attack. It had sprayed and also been smeared. I did not know how the attacker might have been standing, but I figured from the position of the wounds on the victim’s chest that he was probably standing right in front of him. So I figured the person we were looking for might have some blood on him. He might also have a weapon, although a knife is small and pretty easy to dispose of. But the blood was the big thing. It was a reasonably messy scene.”

“Did you make any other observations about the victim, particularly about his hands?”

“Yes, they were not cut or injured.”

“What did that suggest to you?”

“The absence of defensive wounds suggested he did not struggle or fight back against his assailant, which suggested he was either surprised or never saw the attack coming and did not have a chance to get his hands up to block the blows.”

“Suggesting he may have known his assailant?”

Jonathan levitated his butt a few inches above his chair again. “Objection. Speculation.”

“Sustained.”

“All right, what did you do next?”

“Well, the murder was still relatively fresh. The park had been sealed, and we immediately searched it to ascertain if there were any individuals in it. That search had begun before I got there.”

“And did you find anyone?”

“We found a few people who were pretty far away from the scene. No one seemed particularly suspicious. There was no indication that any of them were connected with the homicide in any way.”

“No blood on them?”

“No.”

“No knives?”

“No.”

“So it’s fair to say that in the early hours of the investigation you had no obvious suspects?”

“We had no suspects at all.”

“And over the next few days, how many suspects were you able to identify and develop?”

“None.”

“What did you do next? How did you continue the investigation?”

“Well, we interviewed everyone we could who had any information. The victim’s family and friends, anyone who might have seen anything the morning of the murder.”

“Did this include the victim’s classmates?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“There was some delay in getting into the school. The parents in the town were concerned about us interviewing the kids. There was some discussion about whether the kids needed to have a lawyer present at the interviews and whether we could go into the school without a warrant, into the lockers and things. There was also some discussion about whether it was appropriate to use the school building for the interviews and which students we would be allowed to interview.”

“What was your reaction to all this delay?”

“Objection.”

“Overruled.”

“I was angry, to be honest. The colder a case gets, the harder it is to solve.”

“And who was running the case with you for the district attorney’s office?”

“Mr. Barber.”

“Andrew Barber, the defendant’s father?”

“Yes.”

“Did it strike you by this time that there was something inappropriate about Andy Barber working this case when his son’s school was involved?”

“Not really. I mean, I was aware of it. But it wasn’t like a Columbine thing: we didn’t necessarily have a kid-on-kid murder. We did not have any real reason to believe any of the kids at the school were involved, let alone Jacob.”

“So you never questioned Mr. Barber’s judgment in this regard, even in your own mind?”

“No, never.”

“Did you ever discuss it with him?”

“Once.”

“And would you describe that conversation?”

“I just said to Andy that, you know, just to cover your… derriere, you might want to pass this one off.”

“Because you saw a conflict of interest?”

“I saw that his kid’s school might be involved, and you never know. Why not just keep your distance?”

“And what did he say?”

“He said there was no conflict, because if his kid was ever in danger from a murderer, then that was all the more reason he would want to see the case solved. Plus, he said he felt some responsibility because he lived in the town and there weren’t many homicides there, so he figured people would be especially upset. He wanted to do the right thing for them.”

Logiudice paused at that last phrase and glared at Duffy for just an instant.

“Did Mr. Barber, the defendant’s father, ever suggest that you pursue a theory that one of Ben Rifkin’s classmates might have murdered him?”

“No. He never suggested that or ruled it out.”

“But he did not actively pursue a theory that Ben was killed by a classmate?”

“No. But you don’t ‘actively pursue’-”

“Did he try to steer the investigation in any other direction?”

“I don’t understand, ‘steer’ it?”

“Did he have any other suspects in mind?”

“Yes. There was a man named Leonard Patz who lived near the park, and there was some circumstantial indication he might be involved. Andy wanted to pursue that suspect.”

“In fact, wasn’t Andy Barber the only one pushing Patz as a suspect?”

“Objection. Leading.”

“Sustained. This is your witness, Mr. Logiudice.”

“Withdraw the question. You did ultimately interview the children, Ben’s classmates at the McCormick School?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you learn?”

“Well, we learned at some length-because the kids were not very forthcoming-that there was an ongoing beef between Ben and the defendant, between Ben and Jacob. Ben had been bullying Jacob. That led us to begin considering Jacob as a suspect.”

“Even while his father ran the investigation?”

“Certain aspects of the investigation had to be carried out without Mr. Barber knowing.”

This came as a hammer blow to me. I had not heard it before. I had assumed something like it, but not that Duffy himself was involved. He must have seen my face fall, because a helpless look crossed his face.

“And how did this come about? Was another assistant DA appointed to investigate the case without Mr. Barber’s knowledge?”

“Yes. You.”

“And this was done on whose approval?”

“The district attorney, Lynn Canavan.”

“And what did this investigation reveal?”

“Evidence developed against the defendant to the effect that he had a knife consistent with the wounds, he had sufficient motive, and most important he had stated his intention to defend himself with the knife if the victim continued to bully him. The defendant had also come to school with a small amount of blood on his right hand that morning, blood drops. We learned these things from the defendant’s friend, Derek Yoo.”

“The defendant had blood on his right hand?”

“According to his friend Derek Yoo, yes.”

“And he had announced his intention to use the knife on Ben Rifkin?”

“That’s what Derek Yoo informed us.”

“At some point did you become aware of a story on a website called the Cutting Room?”

“Yes. Derek Yoo described that to us as well.”

“And did you investigate this website, the Cutting Room?”

“Yes. It is a site where people post fantasy stories that are mostly about sex and violence, including some very disturbing-”

“Objection.”

“Sustained.”

“Did you find a story on the Cutting Room website that related to this case?”

“Yes, we did. We found a story that described the murder essentially from the murderer’s point of view. The names were changed and some of the details were a little off, but the situation was the same. It was obviously the same case.”

“Who wrote that story?”

“The defendant did.”

“How do you know that?”

“Derek Yoo informed us the defendant had told him.”

“Were you able to confirm that in any other way?”

“No. We were able to determine the ISP of the computer the story was originally uploaded from, which is like a fingerprint identifying where the computer is located. It came back to the Peet’s coffee shop in Newton Centre.”

“Were you able to identify the actual machine that was used to upload the story?”

“No. It was someone who linked to the coffee shop’s wireless network. That was as far as we could trace it. Peet’s does not keep records of which computers jump on and off that network, and it does not require users to sign on to the network with a name or a credit card or anything. So we could not trace it any further.”

“But you had Derek Yoo’s word that the defendant had admitted writing it?”

“Correct.”

“And what was it about the story that made it so compelling, that convinced you only the murderer could have written it?”

“Every detail was there. The clincher for me was that it described the angle of the knife wounds. The story said the stabs were planned to enter the chest at an angle that would allow the knife blade to penetrate between the ribs to maximize the damage to internal organs. I didn’t think anyone would know about the knife angle. It wasn’t public information. And it would not be an easy detail to guess because it requires the attacker hold the knife at an unnatural angle, horizontally, so it slips between the ribs. Also the level of detail, the planning-it was essentially a written confession. I knew we had probable cause to arrest at that point.”

“But you did not arrest the defendant immediately?”

“No. We still wanted to find the knife and any other evidence that the defendant might have hidden in the house.”

“So what did you do?”

“We got the warrant and hit the house.”

“And what did you find?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you take the defendant’s computer?”

“Yes.”

“What sort of computer was it?”

“It was an Apple laptop, white in color.”

“And did you have the computer searched by specialists trained in uncovering material from hard drives of this kind?”

“Yes. They were not able to find anything directly incriminating.”

“Did they find anything at all that was relevant to the case?”

“They found a software program called Disk Scraper. The program erases from the hard drive traces of old or deleted documents or programs. Jacob is very good with computers. So it’s still possible the story was deleted from the computer even though we couldn’t find it.”

“Objection. Speculation.”

“Sustained. The jury is instructed to disregard the last sentence.”

Logiudice: “Were they able to find pornography?”

“Objection.”

“Overruled.”

“Were they able to find pornography?”

“Yes.”

“Any other violent stories or anything connected to the murder?”

“No.”

“Were you able to corroborate Derek Yoo’s claim that Jacob had a knife in any way? Was there any paperwork from the purchase of the knife, for example?”

“No.”

“Was the actual murder weapon ever found?”

“No.”

“But a knife was found in Cold Spring Park at some point?”

“Yes. We continued to search the park for some time after the murder. We felt that the perpetrator must have ditched the knife somewhere in the park to avoid detection. We did finally find a knife in a shallow pond. The knife was about the right size, but subsequent forensic analysis showed it was not the knife used in the murder.”

“How was that determined?”

“The blade of this knife was larger than the wounds would indicate, and it did not have a serrated blade consistent with the torn edges of the victim’s wounds.”

“So what did you conclude from the fact that the knife had been thrown in the pond there?”

“I thought it was put there to throw us off, to send us down the wrong path. Probably by someone who did not have access to the forensic reports describing the wounds and the likely characteristics of the weapon.”

“Any guesses about who might have planted that knife?”

“Objection. Calls for speculation.”

“Sustained.”

Logiudice considered a moment. He took a deep, satisfied breath, relieved finally to have a professional witness to work with. That Duffy knew and liked me-that he was somewhat biased in Jacob’s favor and visibly conflicted about being on the stand-only made his testimony the more damning. Finally, Logiudice evidently felt, finally.

“No further questions,” he said.

Jonathan bounced up and went to a spot at the far end of the jury box, where he leaned against the rail. If he could have climbed into the jury box itself to ask his questions, he would have.

“Or the knife might have just been dropped there for no reason at all?” he said.

“It’s possible.”

“Because things are tossed away in parks all the time?”

“True.”

“So when you say the knife may have been planted there to deceive you, that’s a guess, isn’t it?”

“An educated guess, yes.”

“A wild guess, I’d say.”

“Objection.”

“Sustained.”

“Let’s go back a little, Lieutenant. You testified that there was a lot of blood found at the scene, cast-off blood, spatters, contact smears, and of course the victim’s shirt was soaked in blood.”

“Yes.”

“There was so much blood, in fact, you testified that when you went off to search the park for suspects, you were looking for someone with blood on him. Isn’t that what you said?”

“Looking for someone who might have blood on him, yes.”

“A lot of blood on him?”

“I was not certain of that.”

“Oh, come on now. You testified that, based on the pattern of the wounds, Ben Rifkin’s attacker was probably standing right in front of him, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you testified there was cast-off blood.”

“Yes.”

“ ‘Cast-off’ meaning it was thrown, projected, it shot out?”

“Yes, but-”

“In fact, in a case with so much blood, with wounds this grievous, you would have to think the attacker would have quite a bit of blood on him because the wounds would spurt?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Not necessarily but very likely, isn’t it, Detective?”

“It’s likely.”

“And of course in a stabbing, the attacker has to stand quite close to the victim, within arm’s length, obviously?”

“Yes.”

“Where it would be impossible to avoid the spray?”

“I didn’t use the word spray.”

“Where it would be impossible to avoid the cast-off blood?”

“I can’t say that for sure.”

“And the description of Jacob with blood on him as he arrived at school that morning-you heard this from his friend Derek Yoo, isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“And what Derek Yoo described was that Jacob had some small amounts of blood on his right hand, isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“None on his clothes?”

“No.”

“None on his face or anywhere else on his body?”

“No.”

“On his shoes?”

“No.”

“All of which is perfectly consistent with the explanation Jacob gave his friend Derek Yoo, isn’t it, that he discovered the body after the attack and then he touched it with his right hand?”

“It is consistent, yes, but not the only possible explanation.”

“And of course Jacob did go to school that morning?”

“Yes.”

“He was in school just minutes after the murder, we know that, right?”

“Yes.”

“When does school start at the McCormick?”

“Eight thirty-five.”

“And when was the time of the murder, according to the M.E., if you know?”

“Sometime between eight and eight-thirty.”

“But Jacob was in his seat in school at eight thirty-five with no blood on him at all?”

“Yes.”

“And if I were to suggest to you, hypothetically, that the story Jacob wrote that impressed you so much-that you described as virtually a written confession-if I were to show you evidence that Jacob did not make up the facts in that story, that all the details in the story were already well known among the students at the McCormick School, would that affect your thinking about how important it was as evidence?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, of course!”

Duffy looked at him poker-faced. His job here was to say as little as possible, to pare away every extra word. Volunteering details could only help the defense.

“Now, on this question of Andy Barber’s role in the investigation, are you suggesting that your friend Andy did anything wrong or inappropriate here?”

“No.”

“Can you point to any errors or suspicious decisions he made?”

“No.”

“Anything you questioned then or now?”

“No.”

“There was some mention of this man Leonard Patz. Even knowing what we know now, does it seem inappropriate to you that Patz was once considered a legitimate suspect?”

“No.”

“No, because in the early stages of an investigation, you pursue every reasonable lead, you cast your net as wide as possible, isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“In fact, if I told you that Andy Barber still believes that Patz was the real killer in this case, would that surprise you, Lieutenant?”

Duffy made a little frown. “No. That’s what he always believed.”

“Isn’t it also true that you were the detective who brought Leonard Patz to Mr. Barber’s attention in the first place?”

“Yes, but-”

“And was Andy Barber’s judgment about homicide investigations generally reliable?”

“Yes.”

“Did it seem odd to you in any way that Andy Barber wanted to pursue an investigation of Leonard Patz for Ben Rifkin’s murder?”

“Odd? No. It made sense, based on the limited information we had at the time.”

“And yet the investigation of Patz was never seriously pursued, was it?”

“It was stopped once the decision was made to indict Jacob Barber, yes.”

“And who made that decision, to stop focusing on Patz?”

“The district attorney, Lynn Canavan.”

“Did she make that decision alone?”

“No, I believe she was advised by Mr. Logiudice.”

“Was there any evidence at the time that excluded Leonard Patz as a suspect?”

“No.”

“Has any evidence ever come up that clears him directly?”

“No.”

“No. Because that angle was simply dropped, wasn’t it?”

“I suppose.”

“It was dropped because Mr. Logiudice wanted it dropped, no?”

“There was a discussion among all the investigators, including the district attorney and Mr. Logiudice-”

“It was dropped because in that discussion Mr. Logiudice pushed to have it dropped, isn’t that right?”

“Well, we’re here now, so obviously yes.” There was a trace of exasperation in Duffy’s voice.

“So, even knowing what we know now, do you have any doubts about your friend Andrew Barber’s integrity?”

“No.” Duffy thought about it, or pretended to. “No, I don’t think Andy ever had any suspicions about Jacob.”

“You don’t think Andy suspected anything?”

“No.”

“The boy’s own father, who lived with him his whole life? He did not know anything?”

Duffy shrugged. “I can’t say for sure. But I don’t think so.”

“How is it possible to live with a child for fourteen years and know so little about him?”

“I can’t say for sure.”

“No. In fact, you’ve known Jacob all his life too, haven’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And initially you had no suspicions about Jacob either, did you?”

“No.”

“In all those years, it never seemed to you there was anything dangerous about Jacob? You had no reason to suspect him, did you?”

“No.”

“No, of course not.”

“Objection. Request that Mr. Klein not add his own commentary to the witness’s answers.”

“Sustained.”

“My apologies,” Jonathan said with a great show of insincerity. “Nothing further.”

The judge: “Mr. Logiudice. Redirect?”

Logiudice considered. He might have left it there. Certainly he had enough to argue to the jury that I was crooked and had hijacked the investigation to cover for my crazy kid. Hell, he did not even have to argue it; the jury had heard it intimated several times in testimony. In any event, I was not the one on trial here. He could have just taken his winnings and moved on. But he was puffed up from his newfound momentum. You could see in his face that he felt himself in the grip of a grand inspiration. He seemed to believe the kill shot was right there within reach. Another little boy in a grown-up’s body, unable to resist the cookie jar in front of him.

“Yes, Your Honor,” he said, and went to a spot directly in front of the witness stand.

A little rustle in the courtroom.

“Detective Duffy, you say you have no reservations at all about the way Andrew Barber conducted this case?”

“That’s right.”

“Because he didn’t know anything, isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“Objection. Leading. This is a prosecution witness.”

“He can have it.”

“And how long would you say you’ve known Andy Barber, how many years?”

“Objection. Relevance.”

“Overruled.”

“I guess I’ve known Andy over twenty years.”

“So you know him pretty well?”

“Yes.”

“Inside and out?”

“Sure.”

“When did you learn that his father is a murderer?” Boom.

Jonathan and I both shot out of our seats, jostling the table. “Objection!”

“Sustained! The witness is instructed not to answer that question and the jury is to disregard it! Give it no weight. Treat the question as if it was never asked.” Judge French turned to the lawyers. “I’ll see counsel at sidebar right now.”

I did not go with Jonathan to the sidebar conference so, again, I am quoting the judge’s whispered comments from the trial transcript. But I did watch the judge as he spoke, and I can tell you he was obviously furious. Red-faced, he put his hands on the edge of the judge’s bench and leaned over to hiss at Logiudice.

“I am shocked, I’m stunned you did that. I explicitly told you in no uncertain terms not to go there or I would declare a mistrial. What do you have to say, Mr. Logiudice?”

“It was defense counsel who chose to cross on this question of the character of the defendant’s father and the integrity of the investigation. If he chooses to make that an issue, the prosecution is perfectly entitled to argue its side of the case. I was just following up on Mr. Klein’s line of questioning. He specifically raised the issue of whether the defendant’s father had any reason to suspect his son.”

“Mr. Klein, I presume you are going to move for a mistrial.”

“Yup.”

“Step back.”

The lawyers went back to their respective tables.

Judge French remained standing to address the jury, as was his habit. He even unzipped his robe a bit and gripped the edge of its collar as if he were posing for a statue. “Ladies and gentlemen, I am instructing you to ignore that last question. Strike it from your minds entirely. There is a saying in the law that ‘you cannot unring the bell,’ but I’m going to ask you to do just that. The question was improper and the prosecutor should not have asked it, and I want you to be aware of that. Now, I am going to dismiss you for the day while the court attends to other business. The sequestration order remains in place. I remind you not to talk about this case with anybody at all. Do not listen to media reports about it or read about it in the newspapers. Turn off your radios and TVs. Block yourself off from it entirely. All right, the jury is dismissed. We’ll see you tomorrow morning, nine o’clock sharp.”

The jury filed out, exchanging looks with each other. A few of them stole glances at Logiudice.

When they were gone, the judge said, “Mr. Klein.”

Jonathan stood. “Your Honor, the defendant moves for a mistrial. This issue was the subject of extensive pretrial discussion, the upshot of which was that the issue is so volatile and so prejudicial that mentioning it would result in a mistrial. This was the third rail that the prosecution was explicitly told not to touch. Now he has.”

The judge massaged his forehead.

Jonathan continued, “If the court is not inclined to declare a mistrial, the defendant will move to expand its witness list by two: Leonard Patz and William Barber.”

“William Barber is the defendant’s grandfather?”

“Correct. I may need a governor’s warrant to get him transported here. But if the prosecution insists on this bizarre insinuation that the defendant somehow is guilty by inheritance, that he is a member of a criminal family, born a murderer, then we have a right to rebut that.”

The judge stood there a moment, grinding his molars. “I’ll take it under advisement. I’ll give you my decision in the morning. Court is adjourned till nine o’clock tomorrow.” Mr. Logiudice: Before we move on, Mr. Barber, about that knife, the one that was thrown in the lake to throw off the investigators. Do you have any idea who might have planted that knife? Witness: Of course. I knew from the start. Mr. Logiudice: Did you? And how’s that? Witness: The knife was missing from our kitchen. Mr. Logiudice: An identical knife? Witness: A knife that matched the description I’d been given. I’ve since seen the knife that was recovered from the pond, when we were shown the state’s evidence. It’s our knife. It was old, pretty distinctive. It did not match the set. I recognized it. Mr. Logiudice: Then it was thrown in the pond by someone in your family? Witness: Of course. Mr. Logiudice: Jacob? To deflect any inference of guilt from the actual knife he owned? Witness: No. Jake was too smart for that. And I was too. I knew what the wounds looked like; I’d talked to the forensics people. I knew that knife couldn’t have made Ben Rifkin’s wounds. Mr. Logiudice: Laurie, then? Why? Witness: Because we believed in our son. He told us he didn’t do it. We didn’t want to see his life ruined just because he’d been foolish enough to buy a knife. We knew people would see that knife and jump to the wrong conclusion. We talked about the danger of it. So Laurie decided to give the cops another knife. The only problem was, she was the least sophisticated among the three of us about these things and she was also the most upset. She was not careful enough. She chose the wrong sort of knife. She left a loose end. Mr. Logiudice: Did she talk to you before she did this? Witness: Before, no. Mr. Logiudice: After, then? Witness: I confronted her. She did not deny it. Mr. Logiudice: And what did you say to this person who’d just interfered with a homicide investigation? Witness: What did I say? I said I wished she’d talked to me first. I would have given her the right knife to throw. Mr. Logiudice: Is that really how you feel now, Andy? That this is all a joke? Do you really have so little respect for what we do here? Witness: When I said that to my wife, I assure you I wasn’t joking. Let’s leave it at that. Mr. Logiudice: All right. Continue with your story.

When we got back to our car in the garage a block from the courthouse, there was a white piece of paper tucked under the windshield wiper. It was quarter-folded. Opening it, I read, JUDGMENT DAY IS COMING MURDERER, YOU DIE

Jonathan was still with us, making it a group of four. He frowned at the note and slipped it into his briefcase. “I’ll take care of this. I’ll file a report with the Cambridge police. You all go home.”

Laurie said, “That’s all we can do?”

“We should let the Newton police know too, just in case,” I suggested. “Maybe it’s time we had a cruiser camped out by our house. The world’s full of lunatics.”

I was distracted by a figure standing in the corner of the garage, quite a distance away but obviously watching us. He was an older man, near seventy probably. He wore a jacket, golf shirt, and scally cap. Looked like a million guys around Boston. Some old mick tough. He was lighting a cigarette-it was the flare of his lighter that caught my eye-and the glowing tip of the cigarette linked him with the car that had been parked outside our house a few nights before, the interior blacked out except for the little glowing firefly of a cigarette tip in the car window. And wasn’t he just the sort of dinosaur to drive a Lincoln frickin’ Town Car?

Our eyes met for a moment. He thrust his lighter into his pants pocket and continued walking, out through a doorway to a staircase, and he was gone. Had he been walking before I saw him? He seemed to have been standing and staring, but I had only just glanced over. Maybe he had just stopped a moment before to light the cigarette.

“Did you see that guy?”

Jonathan: “What guy?”

“That guy who was just over there looking at us.”

“Didn’t see him. Who was he?”

“I don’t know. Never seen him before.”

“You think he had something to do with the note?”

“Don’t know. I don’t even know if he was looking at us. But he seemed to be, you know?”

“Come on,” Jonathan encouraged us toward the car, “there are a lot of people looking at us lately. It’ll be over soon.”