Defending Jacob(17)
“Well, tell me about this place, this school. Start with that. Tell me something about McCormick that I don’t know. What’s it like to go to school here? What’s funny about this place? What’s strange about it?”
No response.
“Sarah, we want to help, you know, but we need some of you kids to help us.”
She shifted around in her seat.
“You owe that much to Ben, don’t you think? If he was your friend?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have anything to say, I guess. I don’t know anything.”
“Sarah, whoever did this, he’s still out there. You know that, don’t you? If you can help, then you have a responsibility. A real responsibility. Otherwise this same thing is going to happen again to some other kid. Then it would be on you. If you didn’t do everything—absolutely everything you could—to make it stop, then the next one would be on you, wouldn’t it? How would that make you feel?”
“You’re trying to guilt me. It won’t work. My mom does that too.”
“I’m not trying to guilt you. I’m just telling you the truth.”
No response.
Bang! Duffy smacked the table with his open palm. Some papers drifted with the breeze he created. “Jesus! This is bullshit, Andy. Just put a subpoena on these kids already, would you? Put ’em in the grand jury, swear ’em in, and if they don’t want to say anything, just lock ’em up for contempt. This is a waste of time. For Christ’s sake!”
The girl’s eyes dilated.
Duffy took his cell phone from a holster on his belt and looked at it, though it had not rung. “I have to make a call,” he announced. “I’ll be right back,” and out he marched.
The kid said, “Is he supposed to be the bad cop?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s not very good at it.”
“You jumped. I saw you.”
“Only ’cause he startled me. He banged the table.”
“He’s right, you know. If you kids don’t start helping us out, we’ll have to do this another way.”
“I thought we didn’t have to say anything if we didn’t want to.”
“That’s true today. Tomorrow, maybe not.”
She thought it over.
“Sarah, it’s true, what you said before. I’m a DA. But I’m also a dad, okay? So I’m not going to just let this thing go. Because I keep thinking of Ben Rifkin’s dad. I keep thinking of how he must be feeling. Can you even imagine how your mom or dad would feel if this happened to you? How devastated they’d be?”
“They’re split up. My dad’s out of the picture. I live with my mom.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s no big deal.”
“Well, Sarah, look, you’re all our kids, you know. All you kids in Jacob’s class, even the ones I don’t know, I care about. All of us parents feel that way.”
She rolled her eyes.
“You don’t believe that?”
“No. You don’t even know me.”
“That’s true. Still, I care what happens to you just the same. I care about this school, this town. I’m not going to just let this happen. This isn’t going away. You understand that?”
“Is anyone talking to Jacob?”
“You mean my son Jacob?”
“Yeah.”
“Of course.”
“Okay.”
“Why do you say that?”
“No reason.”
“There must be a reason. What is it, Sarah?”
The girl studied her lap. “The cop who came to our class said we could tell you things anonymously?”
“That’s right. There’s a tip line.”
“How do we know you won’t try to, like, figure out who gave a tip? I mean, that’s something you’d want to know, right? Who said something?”
“Sarah, come on. What is it you want to say?”
“How do we know it will stay anonymous?”
“You just have to trust us, I guess.”
“Trust who? You?”
“Me. Detective Duffy. There’s a lot of people working on this case.”
“What if I just …” She looked up.
“Look, I’m not going to lie to you, Sarah. If you tell me something here, it’s not anonymous. My job is to catch the guy who did this, but it’s also to try him in court and for that I’ll need witnesses. I’d be lying if I told you any different. I’m trying to be honest with you here.”
“Okay.” She considered. “I really don’t know anything.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes.”
I looked her in the eye just a moment to let her know I wasn’t fooled, then I accepted her lie. I pulled a business card from my wallet. “This is my card. I’m going to write my cell phone number on the back. My personal email too.” I slid the card across the desk. “You can contact me anytime, okay? Anytime. And I’ll do what I can to look out for you.”
“Okay.”
She took the card and stood up. She looked down at her hands, at her fingers. Her fingertips were stained with black ink, imperfectly wiped off. All the students at the school were being fingerprinted that day, “voluntarily,” though there were jokes about the implications of refusing. Sarah frowned at the ink stains, then crossed her arms to hide them and in that awkward posture she said, “Hey, can I ask you something, Mr. Barber? Are you ever the bad cop?”