Defending Jacob(32)

When the search stretched into its second hour, we retreated to the back of the house and sat on the deck. There Laurie cried softly, gathered herself, cried again.

At some point Detective Duffy came around back and climbed the stairs to the deck. “Andy, just so you know, we found a knife this morning in the park. It was in the muck next to a lake.”

“I knew it. I knew it would show up. Are there any prints, blood, anything on it?”

“Nothing obvious. It’s at the lab. There was this dried algae all over it, like green powder.”

“It’s Patz’s.”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“What kind of knife was it?”

“Just, like, a regular kitchen knife.”

Laurie said, “A kitchen knife?”

“Yeah. You guys got all yours?”

I said, “Come on, Duff, be serious. What are you asking a question like that for?”

“All right, sorry. It’s my job to ask.”

Laurie glared.

“You guys heard from Jacob yet, Andy?”

“No. We can’t find him. We’ve been calling everyone.”

Duffy stifled a skeptical look.

“He’s a kid,” I said, “he disappears sometimes. When he gets here, Paul, I don’t want anyone talking to him. No questions. He’s a minor. He has a right to have a parent or guardian present. Don’t try and pull anything.”

“Jesus, Andy, nobody’s going to pull anything. We would like to talk to him, though, obviously.”

“Forget it.”

“Andy, it might help him.”

“Forget it. He’s got nothing to say. Not one word.”

In the middle of the yard, something caught our eyes and all three of us turned. A rabbit, tree-bark gray, sniffed the air, twitched its head, alerted, relaxed. It hopped a few feet, stopped. Motionless, it blended into the grass and the gloomy light. I almost lost sight of it until it hopped a little more, a gray ripple.

Duffy turned back to Laurie. Only a few Saturdays before, we had all gone out to a restaurant for dinner, Duffy and his wife and Laurie and I. It seemed like another lifetime. “We’re just about done here, Laurie. We’ll be out of here soon.”

She nodded, too pissed off and heartbroken and betrayed to tell him it was all right.

“Paul,” I told him, “he did not do it. I want to say that to you in case I don’t get another chance. You and I aren’t going to talk for a while, probably, so I want you to hear it right from me, okay? He did not do it. He did not do it.”

“Okay. I hear you.” He turned to go.

“He’s innocent. As innocent as your kid.”

“Okay,” he said, and he left.

Over by the arbor vitae, the rabbit hunched, jaws munching.

We waited until after dark for Jacob, until the cops and the voyeurs had all drifted away. He never came.



He had been hiding for hours, mostly in the woods of Cold Spring Park, in backyards, and in the play structure behind the elementary school he had once attended, which is where the cops found him at around eight o’clock.

He submitted to the handcuffs without complaint, the police report said. He did not run. He greeted the cop by saying “I’m the one you’re looking for” and “I didn’t do it.” When the cop said dismissively, “Then how did your fingerprint get on the body?,” Jacob blurted—foolishly or cannily, I am still not sure—“I found him. He was already lying there. I tried to pick him up so I could help him. Then I saw he was dead, and I got scared and ran.” It was the only statement Jacob ever gave the police. He must have realized, belatedly, that it was risky to blurt out confessions like that one, and he never said another word. Jacob knew, as few boys do, the full value of the Fifth Amendment. Later, there would be speculation about why Jacob made this singular statement, how complete and self-serving it was. There were intimations he had crafted the statement beforehand and conveniently let it slip—he was gaming the case, launching his defense as early as possible. All I know for sure is that Jacob was never as smart or as cunning as he was described in the media.

In any case, after that, the only thing Jacob told the cop, over and over, was “I want my dad.”

He could not be bailed that night. He was held in the lockup in Newton, just a mile or two from our house.

Laurie and I were allowed to see him only briefly, in a little windowless visiting room.

Jacob was obviously shaken. His eyes were watery and red-rimmed. His face was flushed, a single horizontal slash of red across each cheek, like war paint. He was obviously scared shitless. At the same time he was trying to stay composed. His manner was clenched, rigid, mechanical. A boy imitating manliness, at least an adolescent’s conception of manliness. That was the part that broke my heart, I think, the way he struggled to hold it together, to keep that storm of emotion—panic, anger, sorrow—all siloed up inside himself. He would not be able to do it much longer, I thought. He was burning fuel fast.

“Jacob,” Laurie said in a wobbly voice, “are you all right?”

“No! Obviously not.” He gestured at the room around him, the situation he was in, and made a sardonic face. “I’m dead.”

“Jake—”

“They’re saying I killed Ben? No way. No way. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe this.”