Defending Jacob(24)

“Well, it’s the truth.”

“Why would you—”

“Andy,” his mother cut in, “he’s a teenager. That’s why.”

“Laurie, he doesn’t need help.”

Laurie explained, “Teenagers do stupid things sometimes.” She turned to Jacob. “Even smart teenagers do stupid things.”

“Jacob, I need to ask you, for my own peace of mind: is this the knife they’re looking for?”

“No! Are you crazy?”

“Do you know anything about what happened to Ben Rifkin? Anything you heard from your friends? Anything at all you can tell me?”

“No. Of course not.” He looked at me evenly, meeting my gaze with his own. It only lasted a moment but it was unmistakably a challenge—the sort of eye-f*ck a defiant witness will flip you on the stand. Once he had outfaced me, his point made, he became a petulant kid again: “I can’t believe you’re asking me this stuff, Dad. It’s like, I get home from school and suddenly I get all these questions. I just can’t believe this. I can’t believe you actually think these things about me.”

“I don’t think anything about you, Jacob. All I know is you brought that knife into my house and I’d like to know why.”

“Who told you to look for it?”

“Never mind who told me.”

“One of the kids at school, obviously. Someone you interviewed yesterday. Just tell me who.”

“It doesn’t matter who. This isn’t about what other kids did. You’re not the victim here.”

“Andy,” Laurie warned. She had told me not to confront or cross-examine him, not to accuse. Just talk to him, Andy. This is a family. We talk to each other.

I looked away. Deep breath. “Jacob, if I submit that knife for testing, for blood or any other evidence, would you object?”

“No. Go ahead, do whatever tests you want. I don’t care.”

I considered for a moment. “Okay. I believe you. I believe you.”

“Do I get my knife back?”

“Absolutely not.”

“It’s my knife. You have no right to take it.”

“I’m your father. That gives me the right.”

“You’re also with the cops.”

“Are you worried about the cops for some reason, Jake?”

“No.”

“Then what are you talking about your rights for?”

“What if I don’t let you take it?”

“Try.”

He stood there looking at the knife on the table and at me, weighing the risk and reward. “This is so wrong,” he said, and he frowned at the injustice.

“Jake, your father’s just doing what he thinks is best because he loves you.”

“What about what I think is best? That doesn’t matter, I suppose.”

“No,” I said. “It doesn’t.”


By the time I got to the Newton police station that same afternoon, they had Patz in the interview room, where he sat as still as an Easter Island head, staring into a camera that was hidden in the face of a schoolhouse clock. Patz knew the camera was there. The detectives were required to inform him and get his consent to record the interview. The camera was hidden anyway in the hope that suspects would stop thinking about it.

Patz’s image was piped to a small computer screen in the detective bureau, right outside the interview room, where a half dozen Newton and CPAC detectives stood watching. So far it had not been much of a show, apparently. The cops wore flat expressions, not seeing much, not expecting to see much.

I came into the detective bureau and joined them. “He say anything?”

“Nothing. He’s Sergeant Schultz.”

Onscreen, Patz’s image filled the frame. He sat at the head of a long wood table. Behind him was a bare white wall. Patz was a big man. According to his probation officer he was six foot three and two hundred sixty pounds. Even seated behind a table, he looked massive. But his body was soft. His sides, belly, and tits all sagged against his black polo shirt, as if he had been poured and bagged up inside this black sack cinched shut at the neck.

“Jesus,” I said, “this guy could use a little exercise.”

One of the CPAC guys said, “How about jerking off to kiddie porn?”

We all sniggered.

In the interview room, on one side of Patz was Paul Duffy from CPAC, on the other a Newton detective, Nils Peterson. The cops were visible onscreen only now and then, when they leaned forward into the camera frame.

Duffy was leading the Q&A. “Okay, take me through it one more time. Tell me what you remember from that morning.”

“I already told you.”

“One more time. You’d be surprised the things that come back to people when they go back over the story.”

“I don’t want to talk anymore. I’m getting tired.”

“Hey, Lenny, do yourself a favor, all right? I’m trying to exclude you here. I already told you: I’m trying to rule you out. This is in your interest.”

“It’s Leonard.”

“A witness puts you in Cold Spring Park that morning.”

That was a fib.

Onscreen, Duffy said, “You know I have to check that out. With your record, that’s just the way it is. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t.”