Defending Jacob

The doorbell rang. Game over. I was still breathing heavily.

At the door, none other than Paul Duffy was there to hand me the search warrant. “Sorry, Andy,” he said.

I stared. The troopers in their blue windbreakers, the cruisers with their flashers on, my old friend extending the trifolded warrant toward me-I simply did not know how to react, so I barely reacted at all. I stood there, mute, as he pressed the paper into my hand.

“Andy, I have to ask you to wait outside. You know the drill.”

It took a few seconds to rouse myself, to come back into the moment and accept that this was really happening. But I was determined not to make the amateur’s mistake, not to stumble and give them anything. No dumb statements blurted out under pressure in the critical early moments of the case. That is the mistake that puts people in Walpole.

“Is Jacob here, Andy?”

“No.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“No idea.”

“Okay, come on, buddy, step out, please.” He put his hand gently on my upper arm to encourage me, but he did not pull me out of the house. He seemed willing to wait till I was ready. He leaned in and said confidentially, “Let’s do this the right way.”

“It’s okay, Paul.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Just do your job, okay? Don’t fuck it up.”

“Okay.”

“You dot those i ’s and cross those t ’s, or Logiudice’ll throw you under the bus. He’ll make you look like Barney Fife at the trial, mark my words. He’ll do what he has to do. He won’t protect you like I would.”

“Okay, Andy. It’s all right. Come on out.”

I waited on the sidewalk in front of the house. Gawkers accumulated across the street, drawn by the cruisers out front. I would have preferred to wait in the backyard, out of view, but I had to be there when Laurie or Jacob got home, to comfort them-and to coach them.

Laurie arrived just a few minutes into the search. She wobbled when she heard the news. I steadied her and whispered into her ear not to say anything, not even to show any emotion, not fear or sadness. Give them nothing. She made a scornful sound, then she cried. Her sobbing was honest, uninhibited, as if no one was watching. She did not care what people thought, because no one had ever thought badly of her, not for one moment in her life. I knew better. We stood together in front of the house, I with my arm around her in a protective, possessive way.

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 di

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 i

“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 ca

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 ma

“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.”

I said, “Hey, Jake, it’s a mistake. It’s some kind of horrible misunderstanding. We’ll work it out, okay? I don’t want you to lose hope. This is just the begi

“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it. I’m just, like”-he made an exploding sound and with his hands he sculpted a mushroom cloud-“you know? It’s like, it’s like, who’s that guy? In the story?”