Defending Jacob(25)

Patz sighed.

“Just one more time, Lenny. I don’t want to get the wrong guy.”

“It’s Leonard.” He rubbed his eyes. “All right. I was in the park. I walk there every morning. But I was nowhere near where the kid got killed. I never go that way, I never walk in that part. I didn’t see anything, I didn’t hear anything”—he began to count these points on his fingers—“I don’t know the kid, I never saw the kid, I never heard of the kid.”

“All right, calm down, Lenny.”

“I am calm.” A glance into the camera.

“And you didn’t see anyone that morning?”

“No.”

“No one saw you leave your apartment or come back?”

“How should I know?”

“You didn’t see anyone in the park who looked suspicious, anyone who didn’t belong there, who we should know about?”

“No.”

“All right, let’s take a quick break, okay? You stay here. We’ll be back in a few minutes. We’ll just have a few more questions and then that’ll be it.”

“What about my lawyer?”

“Haven’t heard from him yet.”

“You’ll tell me when he gets here?”

“Sure, Lenny.”

The two detectives got up to leave.

“I’ve never hurt anyone,” Patz said. “You remember that. I never hurt anyone. Ever.”

“Okay,” Duffy reassured him, “I believe you.”

The detectives crossed in front of the camera and stepped through the door directly into the room where they had been only distant images in the computer monitor.

Duffy shook his head. “I’ve got nothing. He’s used to dealing with cops. I just don’t have anything to challenge him with. I’d like to let him sit there awhile and cool off, but I don’t think we’ll have time. His lawyer’s on the way. What do you want to do, Andy?”

“You’ve been going like this for how long?”

“A couple hours maybe. Something like that.”

“Just like this? Deny, deny, deny?”

“Yeah. It’s useless.”

“Do it again.”

“Do it again? Are you kidding? How long have you been watching?”

“I just got here, Duff, but what else can we do? He’s our only real suspect. A little boy is dead; this guy likes little boys. He’s already given you the fact he was in the park that morning. He knows the area. He’s there every morning, so he knows the routine, he knows kids walk through those woods every morning. He’s certainly big enough to overpower the victim. That’s motive, means, and opportunity. So I say stay with it till he gives you something.”

Duffy’s eyes flicked to the other cops in the room then back to me. “His lawyer’s about to shut it down anyway, Andy.”

“Then there’s no time to waste, is there? Get back in there. Get me a confession and I’ll take it to the grand jury this afternoon.”

“Just get you a confession? Just like that?”

“That’s why you get the big bucks, pal.”

“What about the kids at the school? I thought that’s where we were headed.”

“We’ll keep looking at it, Duff, but what do we have, really? A bunch of freaked-out kids running their mouths on Facebook? So what? Look at this guy. Just look at him. Name me a better suspect. We don’t have one.”

“You really believe that, Andy? This is the guy, you think?”

“Yes. Maybe. Maybe. But we need something real to prove it. Get me a confession, Duff. Get me the knife. Get me anything. We need something.”

“Okay, then.” Duffy looked resolutely at the Newton detective who was his partner on this case. “We do it again. Like the man says.”

The cop hesitated, appealing to Duffy with his eyes. Why waste time?

“We do it again,” Duffy repeated. “Like the man says.”

Mr. Logiudice: They never got the chance, did they? The detectives never got back into the interrogation room with Leonard Patz that day.

Witness: No, they did not. Not that day or any other day.

Mr. Logiudice: How did you feel about that?

Witness: I thought it was a mistake. Based on what we knew at the time, it was a mistake to turn away from Patz as a suspect so early in the investigation. He was our best suspect by far.

Mr. Logiudice: You still believe that?

Witness: Without a doubt. We should have stayed on Patz.

Mr. Logiudice: Why?

Witness: Because that’s where the evidence was pointing.

Mr. Logiudice: Not all the evidence.

Witness: All? You never have all the evidence pointing in one direction, not in a tough case like this one. That’s precisely the problem. You don’t have enough information, the data is incomplete. There is no clear pattern, no obvious answer. So detectives do what all people do: they form a narrative in their head, a theory, and then they go looking in the data for evidence to support it. They pick a suspect first, then they look for the evidence to convict him. And they stop noticing evidence that points at other suspects.

Mr. Logiudice: Like Leonard Patz.

Witness: Like Leonard Patz.

Mr. Logiudice: Are you suggesting that’s what happened here?