Defending Jacob(30)

“Maybe, if you can make a case.”

I shook my head. “No. Let him have it. I insist.”

Logiudice looked away, avoiding my eyes.

“Have you arrested him?”

More eyes darting around the room, avoiding me.

“Lynn, have you arrested my son?”

“No.”

“Are you going to?”

Logiudice cut in, “We don’t have to tell you that.”

Canavan put out her hand to still him. “Yes. We don’t have much choice, in the circumstances.”

“In the circumstances? What circumstances? You think he’s going to take off for Costa Rica?”

She shrugged.

“You already have the warrant?”

“Yes.”

“Lynn, you have my word: he’ll turn himself in. You don’t need to arrest him. He doesn’t belong in a jail, even for one night. He’s no flight risk, you know that. He’s my son. He’s my son, Lynn. I don’t want to see him arrested.”

“Andy,” the district attorney advised, waving away my pleading like smoke, “it’d probably be best for everyone if you stayed away from the courthouse for a while. Let the dust settle. Okay?”

“Lynn, I’m asking you as a friend, as a personal favor: please, don’t arrest him.”

“It’s not a close call, Andy.”

“Why? I don’t understand. Because of a fingerprint? One f*cking fingerprint? That’s all there is? You must have more. Tell me there’s more.”

“Andy, I suggest you go get a lawyer.”

“Get a lawyer? I am a lawyer. Tell me why you’re doing this to my son. You’re destroying my family. I have a right to know why.”

“I’m just reacting to the evidence, that’s all.”

“The evidence points to Patz. I’ve told you that.”

“There’s more than you’re aware of, Andy. Much more.”

It took me a moment to absorb the implications of that. Just a moment, though. I folded my cards and determined that from then on, I would show them nothing.

I stood up. “Okay. Let’s get moving.”

“Just like that?”

“Was there anything else you wanted to say to me? You, Neal?”

Canavan said, “You know, we’re still concerned about you. Whatever your son … may have done, he’s not you. You and I go back a ways, Andy. I don’t forget that.”

I felt my face go hard, as if I was peering through the eye-holes of a stone mask. I looked only at Canavan, my old friend whom I still loved and still, despite everything, trusted. I did not dare glance at Logiudice. There was a wild energy rushing into my right arm. In that moment I felt that if I so much as looked at him, my hand would flash out, snatch up his throat, and crush it.

“Are we done here?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I have to go. I have to find my family right away.”

District Attorney Canavan’s face was wary. “You okay to drive, Andy?”

“I’m fine.”

“All right. These guys will go with you to your office.”

In my office I tossed a few things into a cardboard box, papers and desk-debris, pictures plucked off the wall, the little souvenirs of years of work. An axe handle, evidence from a case I had never been able to push through the grand jury. It all fit into one cardboard box, all the years, the work, the friendships, the respect I had accumulated by little spoonfuls in case after case. All gone now, no matter how Jacob’s case turned out. For even if Jacob was cleared, I would never escape the stain of the accusation. A jury could only declare my son “not guilty,” never “innocent.” The stink would never leave us. I doubted I would ever walk into a courtroom again as a lawyer. But things were racing too fast to linger over the past or future. There was only now.

I was not panicked, oddly. I never did lose my nerve. Jacob’s homicide charge was a grenade—we would all inevitably be destroyed by it; only the details remained to be worked out—but a strange, calm urgency came over me. Surely a search warrant team was already on its way to my home. That may even have been why the DA had brought me all the way down here: to keep me out of that house before it could be searched. It was exactly what I would have done.

I bolted out of the office.

I called Laurie’s cell from the car. No answer. “Laurie, it’s very, very important. Call me back right away, the second you get this message.”

I called Jacob’s cell phone too. No answer.

I got home too late: four Newton cruisers were already parked outside, watching, freezing the house while they waited for the warrant to arrive. I continued around the block and parked.

My house is adjacent to a train stop on the suburban commuter-train line. An eight-foot fence separates the platform from my backyard. I spidered over it easily. There was so much adrenaline in me, I could have clambered up Mount Rushmore.

In my yard, I pushed through the arbor vitae at the edge of the lawn. The leaves flicked and needled across me as I bodied through the bushes.

I ran across my backyard. My neighbor was in his backyard, gardening. He waved to me, and out of neighborly reflex I waved back as I sprinted by.

Inside, I called out quietly for Jacob. To prepare him for what was coming. No one was home.