Presumed innocent

Chapter 36

Turmoil. My wife. My lawyers. Reporters. Onlookers, I do not know. They all wish to touch me. Barbara is the first. The feeling of her arms around me so firmly, her breasts girdled against me, her pelvis squeezed against mine is astonishingly stimulating. Perhaps this is the first sign of the regeneration of my life.

"I am so glad." She kisses me. "I am so glad for you, Rusty." She turns from me and hugs Stern.

Today, I elect to make my once-only exit through the heating plant. I do not wish to face the press's disordered melee. I gather Barbara, Stern, and Kemp toward the end of the lobby and then we drop out of sight. But of course there is no escaping. Another gaggle is waiting when we reach Stern's building. We make our way upstairs with little comment. From somewhere a luncheon has appeared in the conference room, but there is no opportunity to eat. The phones ring. And the secretaries soon report that the reception room is a mob scene, with reporters spilling out into the halls. The hungry monster must be fed. I cannot deny Stern this moment. He deserves it, and the consequences of this kind of success in a celebrated case, in terms of both economics and professional stature, will enlarge Stern's career for years to come. He is now a lawyer of national standing.

And so, after half a corned-beef sandwich, we all descend to the lobby of the building to again confront the jostling, shouting crowd of reporters, the microphones, the recorders, the brilliant lights that rise up around me like a dozen new suns. Stern speaks first, then me. "I don't think that anybody, under these circumstances, can say anything adequate, especially in a short period of time. I am very relieved that this is over. I will never fully understand how it happened in the first place. I am grateful that I was represented by the best lawyer on the face of the earth." I dodge the questions about Della Guardia. I am still not settled in my own mind. There is already a large part of me that is content with the idea that he was merely doing his job. No. one asks about Larren, and I do not mention his name. In spite of my gratitude, I doubt that after last night I could bring myself to praise him.

Back upstairs, there is now champagne, the same vintage as Kemp popped the night before. Was Stern preparing for victory, or does he always keep a case on ice? There are still many visitors in the offices. I stand among them with Kemp and Stern and drink toasts to Sandy. Clara is here, Sandy's wife. Mac arrives. She weeps as she embraces me in her chair.

"I never had any doubt," she says.

Barbara finds me to say that she is going to leave. She has some hope that Nat's return can be advanced one day. Perhaps the camp director can arrange a seat on the DC-3 that flies back and forth from Skageon. This will require many phone calls. I see her out through the lobby. She embraces me again. "I am so relieved," she says, "so, so glad it turned out this way." But something between us is impenetrably sad. I cannot, right now, imagine Barbara's inner states, but I think that even in this moment of rapturous gratefulness and relief she recognizes that something suspended still remains. In the aftermath of all of this, to go beyond our old troubles will require a treacherous journey across nearly unspannable chasms to grace and forgiveness.

In Stern's offices people keep arriving. A number of cops are here, lawyers around town who have come to congratulate Sandy and me. I feel ill at ease among the many outsiders, so few of whom I know. And my initial euphoria is long past, given way to a suppressed melancholy. At first I believe I am exhausted, and full of pity for myself. But eventually I recognize that my disturbance seems to arise, like black oil percolating from the earth, from something more particular, an idea that seems to demand time for contemplation, and quietly as I can, I leave. I do not say that I am going. I slip out with the excuse that I am finding the head. Then I drift out of the building. It is late afternoon. The shadows are longer and off the river a breeze is up that is rich and full of summer.

The night editions of the papers are on the stands. The Tribune head is half a page: JUDGE FREES SABICH. And the kicker: Calls Prosecution 'A Disgrace.' I pay my quarter. "Decrying a 'disgrace to the cause of justice' Kindle Country Superior Court Judge Larren Lyttle today dismissed murder charges against Rozat K. Sabich, former Chief Deputy in the Kindle County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, ending Sabich's eight-day-old trial. Judge Lyttle sharply criticized the case presented by the Kindle County Prosecuting Attorney Nico Della Guardia and stated at one point that he believed some of the evidence against Sabich, a former political rival of Della Guardia's, was manufactured by the prosecution." Both papers play it the same way. Nico takes it in the chops. A made-up case against a past political opponent. Ugly stuff. It will run coast to coast. My friend Nico will be doing the hurt dance for a long time to come. The press, blind as ever to half tones or grays, makes no mention of Nico's final gesture of decency in dismissing the case.

I go down to the river. The city is strangely quiet tonight. A new place with outdoor tables on the riverbank is open and I have two beers and a sandwich. I hold the sports page up before me, a way to avoid responding to the lingering gazes of occasional passersby, but for the most part I am engaged in a kind of numb reflection. I call Barbara near six, but there is no answer. I hope she is on the way to the airport. I want to get home to see Nat. But before that there is one stop I have to make.

The front door is open when I return to Stern's office, but the suite is almost deserted. I hear only one voice, which I know just by its word-blank rumble to be Stern's. I follow the sound to Sandy's rich office. From what I hear in the hallway, I take it that he is discussing another lawsuit. The lawyer's life, I think, as I catch sight of him there. This morning Sandy Stern won the best-known case of his career; tonight he is working. There is a brief open before him while he talks on the phone. Copies of the afternoon editions of both papers have been tossed aside onto the sofa. "Ah yes," he says, "Rusty has just come in now. Yes. No later than ten tomorrow morning. I promise." He replaces the receiver. "A client," he says. "So, I see you returned."

"I'm sorry I ran out."

Sandy raises a hand. No explanation is needed.

"But I wanted to see you," I tell him.

"That happens," says Stern. "I have clients, after trials such as this, very intense experiences, who are coming back for days, weeks really. It is very difficult to believe it is over."

"That's sort of what I'd like to talk about," I say. "May I?" I take one of Sandy's cigars, which he has often offered. He joins me and selects one as I hold his humidor. We smoke, lawyer and client. "I wanted to thank you."

Sandy raises his hand the same way he did before. I tell him how much I admired his defense of me, how seldom I was inclined to second-guess. You are, I say, the very best. This praise appears to run over Sandy with the soothing effect of a bath of warm milk. With this last compliment he does little more than laugh and tip his cigar, one of his courtly gestures, helpless before the truth.

"I also have been thinking about things, and I'd like to know what happened in that courtroom today."

"Today?" asks Sandy. "Today you were acquitted of serious charges."

"No, no," I say. "I want to know what really happened. Yesterday you explained to me why Larren would have to let the case go to the jury. And today he acquitted me, without so much as a motion from the defense."

"Rusty, I made an estimate of what the judge might think. What lawyer do you know who possesses the ability to always correctly predict judicial inclinations? Judge Lyttle decided not to expose you to the risk of an unsupported jury verdict, which might have increased the pressure on him away from what he thought was right. We should both be grateful to him for his perspicacity and his fortitude."

"Last night your estimate was that the state's case was good enough to go to the jury."

"Rusty, I am by nature pessimistic. Certainly you cannot take me to task for my discipline. If I had predicted victory and the result were otherwise, I could understand your concern. This I do not."

"Don't you?"

"We both know that the prosecution's case was not strong to start and that it weakened as it progressed. Some rulings were favorable. Some witnesses balked. Some cross-examinations succeeded. One piece of evidence was unaccounted for. Another was clearly mischaracterized. The state case failed. We have each seen that happen before on many occasions. And matters went from bad to worse for them today. Consider Dr. Robinson's testimony this morning. That was very telling."

"You really think so? I didn't tell him I killed Carolyn. So what? I'm a lawyer. A prosecutor. I know better than to confess to anyone."

"But to visit a psychiatrist two days after the murder, to have the advantage of this most intimate of professional relationships and to make no culpable statement of any kind-Rusty, this was significant proof, elicited by the prosecution, no less. Perhaps if I had known of it, I would have not made the prediction which I did last night." Sandy frowns somewhat; his eyes are slightly averted. "At a moment like this, Rusty, of such sudden change, I have seen persons react strangely. You should not allow your thoughts about events themselves to cloud your appraisal of matters."

Very diplomatic. Don't let the fact that you killed her influence your judgment as a lawyer. This mild betrayal of me, subtle though it is, is so much out of character that I am now certain I am right.

"I've been in these courtrooms a dozen years now, Sandy. Something is wrong."

Stern smiles. He puts down his cigar. He clasps his hands.

"There is nothing wrong here. You are acquitted. The system so operates. Go home to your wife. Is Nathaniel back yet? That should be a marvelous reunion for all, of you."

I refuse to be distracted. "Sandy, what accounts for what happened today?"

"The evidence. Your lawyer. The lawyers on the other side. Your own good character, which was well known to the judge. Rusty, what else is it that you think I can tell you?"

"I think you know what I know," I tell him.

"Which, Rusty, is what?"

"About the B file. About Larren and Carolyn. About the fact that she used to carry money to him."

Shock-acute surprise-is not in Sandy Stern's emotional range. His faith in his own worldliness is such that he would never allow anything to so affect him. But his expression now gathers intensity. His mouth draws. And he turns his cigar toward him and considers the ash before he looks back at me.

"Rusty, with all respect, you have been through a great deal. I am your friend. But I am also your lawyer. Lawyer. I keep your secrets. But I do not tell you mine."

"I can handle the facts, Sandy. I assure you I can. I've dealt with a lot the last few months. And as you told me last night, I'm very good at keeping a secret. I just have this bizarre commitment to learning the truth. I'd like my sense of irony complete."

I wait and Stern at last gets to his feet.

"I see the problem. You worry about the judge's integrity."

"With cause, wouldn't you say?"

"No, I would not agree." Stern perches on the sofa arm, a white nubby fabric. He takes a moment to loosen his tie. "Rusty, what I say to you I know. How I know is not a concern for you. I have had many clients. Persons worry. They seek a lawyer's advice at times. That is all. And we speak now tonight and these things are never spoken again by either of us. For my part, I tell you now, I have never said any of these things. Understood?"

"Very well."

"You doubt Larren's character. You must forgive me, Rusty, a moment of philosophy, but not all human misbehavior is the result of gross defects of character. Circumstances matter, too. Temptation, if you will allow an old-fashioned word. I have known Larren throughout my career and I tell you that he was not himself. His divorce left him in a state of disorder. He was drinking much too heavily. I understood he was gambling. He had fallen into this relationship with a beautiful and self-seeking woman. And his professional life was shattered. He had given up his practice when it was at its zenith, both in terms of his prominence and its financial rewards. I am sure he meant by this change to make up for the reversals in his personal life, and instead he found himself confined as an act of political vengeance in a judicial dumping zone, adjudicating matters of picayune importance which had no relation to what had attracted him to the bench at the outset. Larren is a powerful mind, able, and he heard for years about nothing but traffic tickets, tavern brawls, sexual interludes in the Forest-matters at the periphery of public justice. All of these cases end the same way, with the defendant discharged. It is only a question of labels: Case dismissed. Pre-trial supervision. Post-trial probation. The defendant in any event returns home. And Larren was in an environment whose thoroughgoing corruption was always one of this city's most distressing secrets. The bondsmen. The policemen. The probation officers. The lawyers. The North Branch was a beehive of illicit dealing. Do you think, Rusty, that Larren Lyttle was the first judge in the North Branch courthouse to fall by the wayside?"

"You can't be apologizing for him," I say, and Stern's look becomes tormented-severe.

"Not for a moment," he says strongly. "Not for a moment. I do not for a moment condone what we speak of. It is a disgrace. Our public institutions crumble from such conduct. If such matters had been the object of proper accusation and proof, and were I the judge before whom they were tried, the prison sentences would be lengthy. Probably lifelong. Whatever my affinities or affections.

"But what happened happened in the past. Long in the past. Judge Lyttle, I tell you, would rather die-I mean this sincerely-die rather than corrupt his office in the Superior Court. This judgment is heartfelt and not merely a lawyer's sanctimony about a judge."

"My experience as a prosecutor, Sandy, was that people aren't usually just a little corrupt. It's a progressive disease."

"This is an episode in the past, Rusty."

"You're confident it's over?"

"Very."

"Is that another story, too? How it ended?"

"Rusty, you must understand that I do not have a historian's knowledge. I heard personalized accounts from certain individuals."

"How did it end, Sandy?"

He looks down at me from the vantage of the sofa arm. His hands are on his knees. His face is without humor. Confidences are the core of Sandy Stern's professional life. To him these are intimate and sacred matters.

"My understanding," he says finally, "is that Raymond Horgan became knowledgeable of what was occurring and demanded that it cease. Some police in the 32nd District began to assemble evidence. Other persons with knowledge of that had deep fears that any probing of corruption in the North Branch would ultimately prove the undoing of many persons besides Judge Lyttle. It was frankly from one or two of these concerned persons that I heard this account. At any rate, they determined that the P.A. should properly be advised of an ensuing investigation." Stern looks off for a moment. "Perhaps," he says, with the most remote of smiles, "that was their lawyer's advice. Privately, I'm sure, it was calculated that Horgan would naturally inform his old friend of the perils to which he was exposed and counsel him at all costs to stop. I believe that is what occurred. I emphasize that I do not know whether or not I am correct. As you no doubt perceive, I am most uncomfortable with this kind of conversation, and I have never made any effort to confirm this information."

I should have figured that Horgan was in the middle of this somehow. I take a minute. What is this feeling? Something between disappointment and derision.

"You know," I say, "there was a time when I thought Raymond Horgan and Larren Lyttle were heroes."

"With justification. They did many heroic things, Rusty. Many."

"And what about Molto? Did you ever hear anything about him?"

Stern shakes his head no.

"He was unsuspecting, as far as I know. It is difficult to believe that was really the case. Perhaps he was exposed to others' suspicions and refused to believe them. It is my understanding that he himself was somewhat in Carolyn's thrall. A lapdog. A devotee. I am sure she was able to manipulate him. In Latin America, one sees-or saw, when I was a young man-I have no idea of what transpires now-but when I was young I frequently met women of Carolyn's type, women who used their sensuality with what we might call an aggressive twist. In this day and age, there is something more troubling about a woman with such an old-fashioned and oblique approach to the avenues of power. It seems more sinister. But she was very skillful."

"She was a lot of things," I say. Ah, Carolyn, I suddenly think, with unbearable sadness. What was it that I wanted with you, Carolyn? Something in the moment makes me think that Stern has not quite got her right. Perhaps it is the past ordeal and its extraordinary end today; maybe it's amnesty week in Kindle County-no one may be blamed; perhaps it is only more of the same debased obsession-yet for whatever reason, even after all of it-all of it-as I sit here amid the cigar smoke and soft furniture, I still feel for her, and feel most of all now sympathy. It is possible that I misjudged Carolyn entirely. Perhaps she suffered from some birth defect, like a new-born come into the world with certain organs missing. Perhaps the feeling parts were absent in her, or subject to some congenital atrophy. But I do not believe that. She was, I think, like so many of the hurt and maimed who have passed before me: the synapses and receptors were in working order on her heart and feelings-but they were overloaded by the need to give solace to herself. Her pain. Her pain! She was like a spider caught in her own web. In the end, in her own monumental way, she must have been in torment. Surely that was no accident. I can only guess about the causes; what forge of cruelty produced her, I do not know. But there was some form of abuse, some long-practiced meanness from which she clearly meant to escape. She sought to re-create herself. She took on every lustrous role. A moll. A star. A person of causes. A conquistadora of wayward passion. A clever, hard-nosed prosecutrix, determined to master and punish those lesser types who could not contain ugly and violent impulse. But no disguise could change her. The heredity of abuse is so often more abuse. Whatever cruelty made her, she took in and, with self-delusion, wild excuses, but always, I would think, some staining residuum of pain, turned it back out into the world.

"And so," asks Stern. "Are you better satisfied?"

"About Larren?"

"What else?" He has apparently misinterpreted my moment of reflection.

"I'm hardly satisfied, Sandy. He had no business presiding over this case. He should have excused himself the minute it was assigned to him."

"Perhaps that is so, Rusty, but let me remind you that Judge Lyttle had no idea when this case began that that file-the B file, as you call it-was going to be an element of your defense."

"You did."

"Me?" Stern waves at some of the smoke and passes a remark in Spanish that I do not understand. "Am I, too, the target of complaint? Certainly you do not think that I planned to focus on that file at the threshold? And even then, Rusty, was I to make a motion for Judge Lyttle to excuse himself? How would you have framed it? The defendant asks the court to recuse itself because the alleged victim was once Your Honor's lover and partner in crime? Some matters are not for courtroom pleading. Really, Rusty. I do not mean to appear the cynic. And I share your concern for professional standards. But I suggest again that you are reacting to the shock of events. This punctiliousness, under the circumstances, is a bit surprising."

"I don't mean to be a prig. If I am, I apologize. But I'm not concerned about form or technicalities. I have the feeling things were bent well out of shape."

Stern draws back, removing his cigar. It is a long, slow motion meant to show surprise. But it is no longer opening night. I have seen all, of Sandy Stern's best moves a number of times and I don't buy this one.

"Sandy, I've been thinking hard about things in the last few hours. Larren Lyttle's career was over if the circumstances of the B file were fully explored. And you used every opportunity to tell him that you intended to do just that."

"Really, Rusty. You must know things that I do not. I saw nothing to indicate that Judge Lyttle fully understood the import of that file. You must remember that its contents were never even in the courtroom."

"Sandy, would you be offended if I told you that I still don't think you're sharing everything with me?"

"Ah," says Stern. "We have been too long together on this case. You begin, Rusty, to sound something like Clara." He smiles, but I again refuse to be dissuaded.

"Sandy, it took a long time for this to sink in. I admit that. For a while I thought that it was just a bizarre coincidence. You know, I thought it was just lucky that your harping on that file took advantage of Larren's vulnerability. But, I realize now, that's not possible. You meant to catch the judge's attention. There was no other reason for you to keep referring to that file. The last time you did it-when Lip was on the stand?-we were way past the point where you needed to raise doubts about Tommy. By then, you knew all about Kumagai You knew you were gong to blow Molto away with that. But you went out of your way again to tell the judge we were going to offer proof about the file the first chance we got. You must have told him that, one way or the other, half a dozen times. You wanted Larren to believe that we were hell-bent on turning that file inside out in public. That's why you mentioned that whole business of a frame-up while Horgan was on cross. You wanted to create a record in which Larren would think he had no proper way to keep you from going ahead. And yet when you sat down with me to talk about a defense, you didn't mention word one about the file. We had nothing to offer."

Stern is silent. "You are a fine investigator, Rusty," he says at last. "And you're very flattering. Actually, I've had the feeling lately that I was fairly dull. There are still a lot of things I haven't figured out. Like what you mentioned a second ago. How did you know that Larren would realize that the B file concerned a case where he'd been dirty? What else is there to the story?"

Stern and I stare at each other for a moment. His look is deeper and more complex than ever. If he is disconcerted, it is well concealed.

"There is no more to tell, Rusty," he says at last. "I made certain assumptions, particularly when I saw the judge's reactions with Horgan on the witness stand. They are very close, of course, and as I say, it is my understanding that Raymond would have been quite sensitive to the implications of that file. It seemed likely to me that he and Larren must have communicated about it sometime in the past. But I have no special knowledge. Just a lawyer's intuition."

Horgan. That was what I missed. Raymond had to have told Larren about that file long ago. Stern is correct. For a moment I spin out the further calculations that follow. But that is not for now. I want to clear the books first with Stern.

"So let me see if I get it," I tell him. "You wouldn't dream of directly threatening the judge,with exposure. That could be counterproductive, even disastrous. And it's simply not Stern's style. You had to find your own perfect and subtle way of doing things. You wanted Larren to worry about the file, but to believe that he alone perceived his problem. And so, at all moments you made it appear that the defense was in pursuit of Tommy Molto. You acted as if you thought he was the bad guy the file would expose. And the judge bought it. He did his best to steer us in the wrong direction. He did everything he could to make Tommy's zeal look sinister. Larren derided Molto's character. He held him in contempt. Accused him of manufacturing evidence, of signaling witnesses. But that was a double edge. The worse Tommy looked, the stronger your argument for going into the B file became, because it began to seem like this really was a frame-up, engineered by Molto to keep Sabich from discovering Tommy's twisted past. And so it was more and more important for Larren to end the trial. He could never take the chance of letting you go into that file, as you kept saying you wanted to do. Larren didn't know what would come out, but the worst thing, of course, was the truth. He could bet the ranch that whatever Tommy knew about the bad old past in the North Branch, he wouldn't keep it to himself. Molto might hold back to protect Carolyn and her memory-but not to save Larren's ass, at the cost of his own. And so, without so much as a motion from us, Judge Lyttle declares a TKO and sends me home. And, Sandy, there was one man in the courtroom who knew that was what had to happen. You figured it was coming all along."

Stern's eyes are large and clear and somberly brown.

"Do you judge me so harshly, Rusty?"

"No. I share the Stern outlook. No one is above temptation.

Sandy smiles at that, somewhat sadly.

"Just so," he tells me.

"But tolerance doesn't require an absence of standards. I know I sound like a world-class ingrate, but I have to tell you-I don't approve."

"I did not act for my own benefit, Rusty." He looks at me in that familiar way, lowering his chin so he can observe me from beneath his drawn brow. "It was a situation in which I-in which we-found ourselves. I did not create it. My own recollection of some of the matters you refer to was refreshed as we proceeded. I dwelt on Molto initially because he was so much easier a target than Della Guardia. It was necessary to develop this theme of past rivalries, somehow. When certain other matters came to mind, it was convenient to continue in the fashion that you have described. But I did not mean to coerce the judge. It was for that reason that I made Molto our straw culprit, so that Judge Lyttle would not feel impelled to do something rash. Was I aware that this might create certain subterranean pressures on Larren as well?" Stern gestures-he nearly smiles. Again there is that mysterious Latin look, used this time as the most reluctant, if philosophical, form of acquiescence. "As you put it, I assessed a point of vulnerability. But I think overall, in your analysis, you credit me with an intricacy of mind that no human being-certainly not I-possesses. I made certain judgments, instantaneously. This was not a charted course. It remained a matter of intuition and estimation throughout."

"I'll always wonder, you know. About the outcome."

"That would be inappropriate, Rusty. I understand your concern now. But I would hesitate before I accepted your view of the judge's ultimate ruling. His handling of this case was, I believe, evenhanded on the whole. Certainly, if he was seeking a convenient way to terminate the proceedings, he could have prohibited the prosecution from offering their fingerprint testimony, in the absence of the glass. Even Della Guardia, disappointed as he was, conceded that Larren's decision today was within the realm of the judge's legitimate discretion. Do you think Nico would have made that handsome gesture of dismissing the case if he believed Larren's assessment was unfounded? Judge Lyttle entered a proper decision, and had he not, I am confident you would have been acquitted. Isn't that what the jurors told the press?"

That is indeed what the papers reported. Three jurors told the media on the courthouse steps that they would not have voted to convict. But Sandy and I both know that the seat-of-the-pants impressions of three laymen who have learned that the judge on the case called it a loser are worth very little-and are hardly determinative of what nine other people would have done, in any event.

Stern continues.

"As I say, I made judgments. If, in retrospect, either one of us regards them as questionable, then that should be a burden on my conscience, not yours. Your role is to accept your good fortune on its face, without further reflection. This is the legal significance of an acquittal. This matter is now entirely disposed of. I urge you to move forward. You will overcome this shadow on your career. You are a gifted lawyer, Rusty. I always regarded you as one of the finest of Horgan's prosecutors, probably the best. I was quite disappointed that Raymond did not have the sense to step aside last year and attempt to make the appropriate political arrangements so that you could have succeeded him."

With that I smile. Now I know that the worst is really over. I have not heard that old saw in many months.

"I believe you are going to be all right, Rusty. I sense that." For my part, I sense that Stern is about to say something regrettable; even, perhaps, that I have profited from this experience. I spare him the chance. I pick up my briefcase, which had been left here. Stern sees me to the door. We stand at the threshold, shaking hands, promising to speak, knowing that, whatever else, in the future we will have very little to say to one another.