Defending Jacob(94)

Judge French blew out a long, droll sigh. He arched his eyebrows and removed his glasses. “Mr. Klein, I take it you have no questions?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“I didn’t think so.”

Things did not improve much for Logiudice the rest of that day. He had organized his witnesses into logical groups, and today was devoted to the civilian witnesses. They were passersby. None had seen anything especially damning from Jacob’s point of view. But then, it was a weak case, and Logiudice was right to throw everything he had into the pot. So we heard from two more people, a man and a woman, who each testified they saw Jacob in the park, albeit not near the murder scene. Another witness saw a figure running from the general area of the murder. She could not say anything about this person’s age or identity, but the clothes roughly matched what Jacob was wearing that day, even if jeans and a light jacket were not exactly a distinctive uniform, especially in a park filled with kids walking to school.

Logiudice did end on a harrowing note. His last witness was a man named Sam Studnitzer who was walking his dog through the park that morning. Studnitzer had a very short haircut, narrow shoulders, a gentle manner.

“Where were you going?” Logiudice asked.

“There is a field where dogs can run around off the leash. I take my dog most mornings.”

“What kind of dog is he?”

“A black Lab. His name is Bo.”

“What time was it?”

“Around eight-twenty. I’m usually earlier.”

“Where in the park were you and Bo?”

“We were on one of the paths through the woods. The dog had gone on ahead, sniffing around.”

“And what happened?”

Studnitzer hesitated.

The Rifkins were in the courtroom, on the front bench behind the prosecution table.

“I heard a little boy’s voice.”

“What did the little boy say?”

“He said, ‘Stop, you’re hurting me.’ ”

“Did he say anything else?”

Studnitzer slumped, frowned. Quietly: “No.”

“Just ‘Stop, you’re hurting me’?”

Studnitzer did not answer, but clamped fingers over his temples, covering his eyes.

Logiudice waited.

The courtroom was so dead quiet, Studnitzer’s sniffly breathing was clearly audible. He took his hand away from his face. “No. That’s all I heard.”

“Did you see anyone else around you?”

“No. I couldn’t see very far. The sight lines are limited. That part of the park is hilly. The trees grow thick. We were coming down a little slope. I couldn’t see anyone.”

“Could you tell which direction the cry came from?”

“No.”

“Did you look around, did you investigate? Did you try to help the little boy in any way?”

“No. I didn’t know. I thought it was just kids. I didn’t know. I didn’t think anything of it. There are so many kids in that park every morning, laughing, fooling around. It sounded like just … roughhousing.” His eyes fell.

“What did the boy’s voice sound like?”

“Like he was hurt. He was in pain.”

“Were there any other sounds after the cry? Pushing, sounds of a struggle, anything at all?”

“No. I didn’t hear anything like that.”

“What happened next?”

“The dog was alert, hyper, strange. I didn’t know what his problem was. I kind of pushed him along, and we kept on walking through the park.”

“Did you see anyone as you were walking?”

“No.”

“Did you observe anything else unusual that morning?”

“No, not until after, when I heard the sirens and cops started streaming into the park. That’s when I found out what happened.”

Logiudice sat down.

Everyone in the courtroom was hearing those words in a loop in their heads: Stop, you’re hurting me. Stop, you’re hurting me. I have not gotten them out of my head yet. I doubt I ever will. But the truth is, even this detail did not point to Jacob.

To underscore that fact, Jonathan stood up on cross to ask a single perfunctory question: “Mr. Studnitzer, you never saw this boy, Jacob Barber, in the park that morning, did you?”

“No.”

Jonathan took a moment to shake his head in front of the jury and say, “Terrible, terrible,” to demonstrate that we too were on the side of the angels.

There it stood. Despite everything—Dr. Vogel’s awful diagnosis and Laurie’s shell shock and the hauntingly ordinary words of the boy as he was stabbed—after three days we were still up, way up. If this were a Little League game, we might be talking about the mercy rule. As it turned out, it was our last good day.

Mr. Logiudice: Let me stop you there for just a moment. I understand your wife was upset.

Witness: We were all upset.

Mr. Logiudice: But Laurie in particular was struggling.

Witness: Yes, she was having a hard time handling the pressure.

Mr. Logiudice: More than that. She was clearly having her doubts about Jacob’s innocence, especially after you all spoke with Dr. Vogel and got the full diagnosis in some detail. She even asked you point-blank what you two ought to do if he was guilty, didn’t she?