“I don’t know. You mean you can’t, Andy? You can’t even imagine it?”
“No, I can’t. This is our son we’re talking about.”
She pulled back from me visibly, cautiously. “I don’t know. I guess I can’t imagine it either. But then I think: when I woke up this morning, I could not have imagined that knife.”
8
Sunday, April 22, 2007, ten days after the murder.
On a raw, drizzly morning, hundreds of volunteers turned out to sweep Cold Spring Park for the missing knife. They were a cross-section of the town. Kids from the McCormick, some who had been friends with Ben Rifkin, some who were clearly from other school tribes-jocks, geeks, kittenish good girls. There were lots of young mothers and fathers. A few of the activist macher s who were constantly organizing community efforts of one kind or another. All these assembled in the morning damp, listened to instructions from Paul Duffy about how the search would proceed, then in teams they tromped off across the spongy wet ground to search their assigned quadrants of the woods for the knife. There was a determined mood to the whole adventure. It was a relief for everyone to do something finally, to be admitted into the investigation. Soon, they were sure, the whole thing would be resolved. It was the waiting, the uncertainty that was wearing them down. The knife would end all that. It would bear fingerprints or blood or some other morsel that would unlock the mystery, and the town would finally be able to exhale. Mr. Logiudice: You didn’t take part in the search, did you? Witness: No, I did not. Mr. Logiudice: Because you knew it was a fool’s errand. The knife they were looking for had already been found in Jacob’s dresser drawer. And you had already dumped it for him. Witness: No. I knew that was not the knife they were looking for. There was no doubt in my mind. Zero. Mr. Logiudice: Then why didn’t you join the search? Witness: A prosecutor never takes part in his own searches. I couldn’t risk becoming a witness in my own case. Think about it: if I were the one to find the murder weapon, I’d have become an essential witness. I’d be forced to cross the courtroom and take the stand. I’d have to give up the case. That’s why a good prosecutor always hangs back. He waits at the police station or out on the street while a search warrant is executed, he watches from the next room while a detective conducts an interrogation. That is Prosecution 101, Neal. It’s standard procedure. It’s exactly what I taught you, once upon a time. Maybe you weren’t listening. Mr. Logiudice: So it was for technical reasons? Witness: Neal, no one wanted the search to succeed as much as I did. I wanted my son to be proven innocent. Finding the real knife would have accomplished that. Mr. Logiudice: You’re not the least bit troubled by the way you disposed of Jacob’s knife? Even now, knowing what happened? Witness: I did what I thought was right. Jake was innocent. It was the wrong knife. Mr. Logiudice: Of course you weren’t willing to test that theory, were you? You didn’t submit the knife for forensic testing, for fingerprints or blood or fiber traces, as you threatened Jacob you might? Witness: It was the wrong knife. I did not need a test to confirm that for me. Mr. Logiudice: You already knew. Witness: I already knew. Mr. Logiudice: What was it-what made you so sure? Witness: I knew my son. Mr. Logiudice: That’s it? You knew your son? Witness: I did what any father would do. I tried to protect him from his own stupidity. Mr. Logiudice: Okay. We’ll leave it. All right, so while the others searched in Cold Spring Park that morning, you waited where? Witness: In the parking lot at the entrance to the park. Mr. Logiudice: And at some point Mr. Rifkin, the victim’s father, appeared? Witness: Yes. When I first saw him, he was coming from the direction of the woods. There are playing fields at the front of the park there, soccer fields, baseball. That morning the fields were empty. It was just a huge flat open grassy expanse. And he was making his way across it toward me.
This will always be my lasting image of Dan Rifkin alone in his misery: a small figure meandering across this massive green space, head bowed, arms thrust down into his coat pockets. The wind kept blustering him off course. He zigzagged like a little boat tacking upwind.
I went out onto the fields to meet him, but we were some distance apart and the crossing took time. For an awkward interval we watched each other approach. What must we have looked like from above? Two tiny forms inching across an empty green field toward a meeting somewhere in the center.
As he drew close, I waved. But Rifkin did not return the gesture. Thinking he was upset by accidentally running across the search, I made a churlish note to ream out the victim advocate who had forgotten to warn Rifkin away from the park that day.
“Hey, Dan,” I said in a wary tone.
He wore aviator sunglasses, though the weather was gray, and his eyes showed dimly through the lenses. He stared up at me, his eyes behind those lenses as huge and inexpressive as a fly’s. Angry, apparently.
“Are you okay, Dan? What are you doing here?”
“I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Yeah? Why is that? Where else would I be?”
He snorted.
“What is it, Dan?”
“You know”-his tone going philosophical-“I’ve had the strangest feeling lately, like I’m onstage and all the people around me are actors. Everyone in the world, every single person rushing around me on the sidewalk, they march around with their noses up in the air pretending like nothing has happened, and I’m the only one who knows the truth. I’m the only one who knows Everything Has Changed.”
I nodded, benign, indulging him.
“They’re false. You know what I mean, Andy? They’re pretending.”
“I can only imagine how you must feel, Dan.”
“I think maybe you’re an actor too.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I think you’re false.” Rifkin took off his sunglasses, folded them carefully, and stowed them in an inside pocket of his jacket. The bags under his eyes had darkened since I saw him last. His olive skin had taken on a grayish pallor. “I hear you’re being taken off the case.”
“What? You heard that from who?”
“Doesn’t matter who. I just want you to know: I want another DA.”
“Okay, well, that’s something we can talk about, certainly.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. It’s already done. Go call your boss. You need to talk to your own people. I told you, I want another DA. Someone who won’t just sit on the case. And that’s going to happen now.”
“Sit on the case? Dan, what the hell are you talking about?”
“You said everything was being done. What was being done, exactly?”
“Look, it’s been a hard case, I acknowledge-”
“No, no, it’s more than that and you know it. Why haven’t you pressed those kids? Still, to this day? I mean, really put the screws to them? That’s what I want to know.”
“I have talked to them.”
“Including your own kid, Andy?”
My mouth fell open. I extended my hand toward him, to touch his arm, to connect, but he raised his arm as if to backhand it away.
“You’ve been lying to me, Andy. All along you’ve been lying.”
He looked off toward the trees. “Do you know what bothers me, Andy? About being here, in this place? It’s that for a while-for a few minutes, maybe just a few seconds, I don’t know how long-but for some amount of time my son was alive here. He was out there lying in some fucking wet leaves, bleeding to death. And I wasn’t here with him. I was supposed to be here to help him. That’s what a father does. But I didn’t know. I was off somewhere, in the car, in my office, talking on the phone, whatever it was I was doing. Do you understand that, Andy? Do you have any idea how that feels? Can you even imagine it? I saw him get born, I saw him take his first steps and… and learn to ride a bike. I took him to his first day of school. But I wasn’t here to help him when he died. Can you imagine how that feels?”
“Dan,” I said weakly, “why don’t I get a cruiser down here to drive you home? I don’t think it’s good for you to be here. You should be with your family.”
