Innocent Page 38

  On the ride, Nat peppers Sandy with questions about his father's future. Will Rusty get his pension? Can he go back on the bench? Nat alone seems unable to recognize what is patent to everybody else in the car, that Rusty's release on these terms, the ultimate in technicalities, will only go to make him more of a pariah. Since the DNA results became public in late June, the media talkers have often painted Rusty as a vicious schemer who committed two murders and manipulated a system he knew intimately to escape with minimal punishment. Now they will howl that he has escaped with no punishment at all.

  Stern, however, is patient with Nat, explaining that his father will regain his pension, but that his status on the bench is far more complicated.

  "The conviction is void, Nat, and since your father was automatically removed from office when he pleaded guilty, he will be reinstated. But Rusty admitted in open court that he obstructed justice, and he can hardly take that back. Not to mention everything he acknowledged at trial--improperly disclosing a decision of his court to Mr. Harnason, engaging in ex parte contact. The Courts Commission would be hard-pressed to ignore all of that. So they are bound to try to remove him.

  "Overall, Nat, subject to your father's wishes, I would regard it as a very satisfactory outcome if we can barter your father's hasty resignation from the bench for an agreement that Bar Admissions and Discipline will take no action--or very limited action--against him. I would like to make sure that he will be able to return to practicing law eventually." For a second, the difficulties of Rusty's future, with no job, few friends, and next to nothing in the way of public respect, confound all of us and bring silence to the car.

  We are at the institution nearly an hour early and spend time in an all-night truck stop, coffeeing ourselves to stay awake and lingering over the pictures of Marta's kids that she has stored on her phone. Finally, at two forty-five, we drive through the tiny town to approach the institution. The work farm stands on the formerly empty portion of the grounds of the state's lone maximum-security prison for women. The camp itself is a series of Quonset-like barracks and a central administration building of brick, where Rusty is housed on the top floor. The only substantial structure, it is surrounded by barns and two vast fields full of ripe beans and corn plants, which are high enough in August to look like graceful figures when their leaves bob on the breeze. Although the camp is a minimum-security facility, the neighboring institution requires a chain-link fence topped in whorls of razor wire and, within, brick walls nearly twenty feet high, with guard towers rising every couple hundred yards.

  To further confuse the press, Stern and the warden agreed that Rusty will be released through the transport gate on the west side of the institution, where inmates are bused in and out. We park there in the gravel drive, outside the massive steel doors.

  A few minutes before three, we hear voices in the still night, and then, without ceremony, one of the huge doors squeals and parts no more than a yard. Rusty Sabich steps into the beam of Marta's headlights, shielding his eyes with a manila envelope. He is wearing the same blue suit he had on when he was sentenced, with no tie, and his hair has grown amazingly long, more of a surprise to me than the whitish beard Nat has described after his visits. He is also quite a bit thinner. Nat and he walk toward each other and finally fall into each other's arms. Although we all stand at least twenty feet away, in the still night, you can hear the sounds of both men weeping.

  Finally, they break apart, dabbing their eyes, and walk arm in arm toward the rest of us. Stern has used his cane to come to his feet, and Rusty embraces both his lawyers at length, then gives me a quick hug. In the drama of the moment, I have not noticed that another car has pulled up behind us, and I am briefly alarmed until Sandy explains that this is a photographer, Felix Lugon, formerly of the Trib, whom Stern notified. He wanted a picture for his walls, he says, but will also be able to use the photo as a way to bargain for a page-one story spinning Rusty's side of things in the next couple of days, if that proves advisable. The Sterns and Nat and Rusty link arms and pose for a couple of shots, then Lugon snaps away as Rusty gets into the front seat of Marta's SUV. Marta has already triggered the ignition when another figure emerges from the gate and trots toward us. It turns out to be a guard in uniform. Rusty opens the window and shakes hands with him, jabbering in Spanish, then after a final wave, the window is raised and we drive off through the heavy dust that Lugon's car raised, finally on the way to bring Rusty Sabich home.

  The trip back always seems faster. Marta cruises along at more than eighty, eager to get Rusty on his way. After seeing Rusty, Sandy has scotched the idea of publishing his photo. Rusty's appearance is so different that he will have virtual anonymity, assuming we can avoid the press outside his house.

  The former prisoner is quiet for some time, watching the landscape whiz past from the passenger's seat and grunting faintly now and then, as if to say, Oh, yes, I forgot open space, what it looks and feels like. He unseals the envelope he was carrying, which contains his belongings. He takes all the cards out of his wallet and looks them over one by one, as if to remind himself what they are for. And he seems inexpressibly delighted to find that his cell phone still works, although it blinks out after a second, in need of a charge.

  "Can you explain this to me?" Rusty finally says when we have been on the road some time.

  "Explain what?" asks Stern, to whom the question was directed, from the backseat.

  "Why Tommy did this."

  "I've already told you what he said, Rusty. The computer was not secured the night before it was turned on in court. Game, set, match. They cannot establish a chain."

  "But they must know more than that. Don't you think? Why would Tommy admit that at this stage?"

  "Because he is supposed to. Tommy is not the old Tommy. Everyone in the Tri-Cities will tell you that. Besides, what else could they know?"

  Rusty does not answer, but after a minute he describes a visit that Tommy Molto made to him two days ago in the prison, where Tommy told him that some people in his office believe Rusty pleaded guilty to a crime he did not commit. Even the famously unflappable Sandy Stern cannot keep from jolting visibly.

  "Forgive me," Stern says, "I am only the poor lawyer, but it might have been wise to let us know that."

  "I'm sorry, Sandy. I realize this sounds ridiculous, but I took it as a private conversation."

  "I see," says Stern. Rusty has turned to see Sandy in the rear seat, and behind his back Marta soundlessly mimes banging the heel of her palm against her forehead. In the rear seat between Nat and Sandy, I feel Nat's grip tighten on my hand, as he silently ticks his head back and forth. None of us is ever going to understand.

  We are in Nearing a few minutes after four. The neighborhood is quiet. In the driveway, there is another round of hugs. Nat and I transfer the groceries from my car to Rusty's in the garage, and we stand aside to wave him on his way to Skageon. Instead, the ignition on Rusty's Camry gives one polite cough, a little like the sound Sandy keeps making, and goes utterly silent. Dead.

  "The best laid plans," says Rusty as he climbs out. I offer my car, but Nat reminds me that I have a dep tomorrow in Greenwood County. For a second, the five of us debate alternatives. Marta is eager to get her father home in order not to deplete him further, but she has a set of jumper cables at her house, which is nearby. Male bulk will be required to move the two seventy-pound bags of fertilizer that are blocking the cabinet. If the car won't start after the jump, then we'll try to figure a way for Rusty to rent or borrow a ride.

  I get into my car to drive Nat over, but he comes around to my side and whispers through the open window, "Don't leave him alone, not now."

  I stare at him for just a second, then hand over the keys. Nat is already behind the wheel when he leans out to whisper again.

  "See if he wants breakfast, maybe? Do you mind?"

  Rusty has already gone inside the house alone when I follow through the garage with two bags of groceries. He has plugged in his c
ell phone and is at the kitchen window, peeking through the curtains.

  "Reporters?" I ask.

  "No, no. I thought I might have seen a light next door. The Gregoriuses always have a car or two nobody is driving."

  The truth is that he seems far better than I would have hoped. During the trial and the months leading up to it, he had become a man as different in a short space of time as anybody I have ever known. Stern seemed less depleted by mortal illness. Rusty was ruined and empty, a sunken ship. Sometimes when we were with him, I watched him greet people he knew on the street. He still remembered what to say. He would stick out his hand at the right moment, but it was almost as if he were afraid to occupy his space on earth. I was never sure Nat noticed any of this. He was so busy trying to come to terms with his father, he did not seem to realize that the guy he'd known had largely fled. But now he's back. And it is not freedom to thank. I know that instantly. It is having been punished, paying a price.

  "Nat thought you might want some breakfast," I say.

  He takes a step closer to peek into the bags. "Is there any fresh fruit in there? I never thought the first thing I'd long for after prison is a strawberry."

  A close observer always of both his parents, Nat had bought blueberries and strawberries, and I start to wash and cut.

  As the tap runs, Rusty says behind me, "Barbara always wanted to redo this kitchen. She just hated the idea of having workmen in here all the time."

  I look around. He's right. The place is dated and small. The cherry cabinets are still beautiful, but everything else is out of style. Still, the mention of Barbara is odd. As occurs often, the ghostly way Barbara haunted this household moves through me, the intensity of the passion she felt for her son and the persisting depths of her unhappiness. She was one of those people who needed courage to live.

  "I didn't kill her," he says. I glance back very briefly to see him seated at the cherry kitchen table, with its old-fashioned scalloped edge, staring to observe my reaction.

  "I know," I say. "Were you afraid I doubted that?"

  My response is honest, but it ignores the months it took for me to feel comfortable with that conclusion. My problem, much as I have never wanted to judge the proof, is my own preloaded software. I stitch together evidence like some lady who quilts obsessively. It's why I was destined for the legal profession, the canny girl who was looking out for her mother and herself from an early age, searching the world for signs and putting them together. So there was no way for me not to ponder the most uncomfortable things I knew--that Rusty went to consult Prima Dana forty-eight hours after I told him I was going to start seeing Nat or the savage look with which he left the Dulcimer that day, a man smelting in the heat of his own rage. Worst of all, I remembered the read receipts that seemed to indicate that Barbara had gone through my e-mails to Rusty. She had betrayed nothing the night Nat and I had come to Nearing, but I often imagined that there had finally been a shattering scene between Rusty and her after we left.

  Yet I could never make myself envision murder. My time with Rusty is far behind me. Yet I saw enough of his essence in those few months to be sure he is not a killer.

  "At moments," he answers now.

  "Is that why you thought I'd fiddled with your computer? I mean, Tommy's right, isn't he? You pleaded guilty to something you didn't do." I have thought of this before, but the exchange with Stern in the SUV clinched it for me.

  "I didn't know what to think, Anna. I knew I didn't do it. I was never completely confident in the so-called experts, but they kept insisting that the computer was fully sealed when it was brought to court, so that ruled out someone in Molto's office--which by the way has got to be the answer. Don't you think? Tommy can say whatever he wants for public consumption. He knows somebody who works for him got around the seals and added the card in order to sucker-punch us."

  That point has not been quite as clear in my mind until he says it, but I realize he is right. I have never forgotten Molto fooled around with the evidence decades ago, and I feel a little embarrassed I did not recognize this before. We will never know what turned the PA around now. Probably fear of exposure, for some reason.

  "Anyway," he says, "back in June, I thought the only people who could have done it were Nat or you. Or the two of you together. The experts never seemed to focus on that, the possibility the two of you could have worked in concert to put the card on there. The last thing I wanted was for the whole inquiry to go on long enough for that thought to finally dawn on Tommy and Gorvetich.

  "But I couldn't ever make sense of why either of you would have done something like that. A thousand things went through my mind. And made sense for a couple of seconds. But one of them was that you believed I was guilty and tried to get me out of it because you blamed yourself for me killing Barbara, thinking I did it so I could get you back."

  I am sweeping the last of the berries into a bowl, and I avoid turning to him for a second. The very worst moment I had in the last two years was when those read receipts turned up on my computer, and next worst was the day Nat called me from the courthouse to say, 'She knew. My mom knew.' The banker had just testified, and Nat had taken one of his familiar breaks to cry. I love the fact that he cries. I have realized in the last year that I have waited all my life for a man who never claims to be immune to the pain of life, unlike that great fake I have for a mother.

  'Knew?' I asked. 'What did she know?' Because of everything that emerged in court I realize that Barbara was putting on an act for Nat's sake the night before she died, but in the moment she had been convincing, and there were times in the last year when I harbored a faint hope that the read receipts were triggered by something else, like the scrubbing program run on Rusty's PC, and that Barbara had died unknowing. Now I crashed into my own despair. I have been stabbed at so often by guilt and apprehension that it was hard to believe they could cut sharper or deeper, yet I felt then as if I were being dissected. Generally speaking, I have been good throughout my life at faking my way along, especially when I am suffering. But my difficulty in understanding myself sometimes paralyzes me. Why did I ever want Rusty? And what seems like the greatest mystery of all--why didn't I ever give a fig about Barbara? In the past two months, there has been a parade of moments when I have nearly been knocked cold by the recognition of the monumental pain I caused her in the last week of her life. Why didn't I see the stakes for her when I was throwing myself at her husband? Who was I? It's like trying to understand why I once jumped off a rock forty feet above the Kindle while I was in high school and nearly killed myself when I lost consciousness for a second with the impact. Why did I think that was fun?

  In my own defense, I really didn't know how edgy Barbara was. Before we became intimate, Rusty always presented her as difficult rather than crazy, speaking of Barbara much the way the Indians do the Pakistanis, or the Greeks talk about the Turks, traditional enemies at peace along an uneasy border. At the time, I took that only as an opening, an opportunity. I never considered the harm to her. Because, as is always true of people who do the wrong thing, I was certain we would never be caught.

  I place the berries on the table in front of him and hand over a fork.

  "You having any?" he asks.

  "No appetite." I smile weakly. "Did you?"

  "What?"

  "Still want me back when Barbara died?"

  "No. Not really. Not by then."

  I have a dozen excuses for what went on with Rusty. The law seemed such a grand point of arrival for me, a destiny I was so long headed toward. I wanted to absorb everything, do everything. It was like standing before a temple. And I knew how much longing rested unexpressed inside him. You could almost hear it from him, like a brake grinding on a drum. I believed, stupidly, I would be good for him. And I knew that whatever the open sesame was with men, I hadn't found it yet, and this was another key to try. But in the end, I was using him, and I realized that. I desperately wanted somebody like him, somebody important, to want me, as if
I would somehow possess everything the world had poured on him, if he was willing to forsake it all for me. It made sense. That's all I can say. In the irrational internal way the heart and mind can mesh. It made sense then and makes no sense now. At moments, I feel like begging, Take me back, put me back there so I can figure out who that girl was two years ago. It would not matter, anyway. I will always have to live with the regret.

  "I didn't think so," I say. "That night Nat and I were here, the night before she died? You seemed to have let go of it. It's one more reason I never thought you killed her. I just didn't know why you'd gotten to that point so quickly."

  "Because it turned out I wanted my son more than I wanted you. Is that too blunt?"

  "No."

  "It helped me put things in perspective. Not that it wasn't an awful situation. It still is, I suppose."

  I don't think he means to accuse me, but of course, I am guilty enough to feel accused anyway.

  "You are in love with him, right?" Rusty asks.

  "Madly. Insanely. Do you mind my saying that?"

  "It's what I want to hear."

  Just uttering this little about Nat, I feel my heart swell, and tears forcing themselves to my eyes.

  "He is the sweetest man in the world. Brilliant and funny. But so sweet. So kind." Why did it take me so long to see that was what I needed, someone who wants my care and can return it?

  "A lot more than I am," Rusty says.

  We both know that's true. "He had nicer parents," I answer.

  Rusty looks away. "And he still has no clue?"

  I shrug. How do we ever know what's in someone else's heart or mind? If we are always a mystery to ourselves, then what is the chance of fully understanding anybody else? None, really.

  "I don't think so. I've started to tell him a thousand times, but I always stop myself."

  "I think that's right," Rusty says. "Nothing to gain."