Witness: He didn’t react at all. He just got up and he walked out on the dock-it was an H-shaped dock; he walked out the right-hand dock-and he dove in.
Mr. Logiudice: Interesting that it was you who told him to wash the bloodstains off his bathing suit.
Witness: I had no idea if they were bloodstains. I still don’t know if that’s true.
Mr. Logiudice: You still don’t know? Really? Then why were you so quick to tell him to jump in the water? Witness: Laurie said something to him about how the bathing suit was expensive and Jacob should take better care of his things. He was so careless, such a slob. I didn’t want him to get in trouble with his mother. We were all having such a good time. That’s all it was.
Mr. Logiudice: But this was why Laurie was upset when Hope Connors first went missing?
Witness: Partly, yes. It was the whole situation, everything we’d been through.
Mr. Logiudice: Laurie wanted to go home immediately, isn’t that right?
Witness: Yes. Mr. Logiudice: But you refused.
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Logiudice: Why?
Witness: Because I knew what people would say: that Jacob was guilty and he was running away before the cops could pick him up. They would call him a killer. I wasn’t going to let anyone say that about him.
Mr. Logiudice: In fact, the authorities in Jamaica did question Jacob, didn’t they?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Logiudice: But they never arrested him?
Witness: No. There was no reason to arrest him. He didn’t do anything.
Mr. Logiudice: Jesus, Andy, how can you be so damn sure? How can you be sure of that?
Witness: How can anyone be sure of anything? I trust my kid. I have to.
Mr. Logiudice: You have to why?
Witness: Because I’m his father. I owe him that.
Mr. Logiudice: That’s it?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Logiudice: What about Hope Connors? What did you owe her?
Witness: Jacob did not kill that girl.
Mr. Logiudice: Kids just kept dying around him, is that it?
Witness: That’s an improper question.
Mr. Logiudice: I’ll withdraw it. Andy, do you honestly think you’re a reliable witness? Do you honestly think you see your son right?
Witness: I think I’m reliable, yes, generally. I don’t think any parent can be completely objective about his kid, I’ll concede that.
Mr. Logiudice: And yet Laurie had no trouble seeing Jacob for what he was, did she?
Witness: You’ll have to ask her.
Mr. Logiudice: Laurie had no trouble believing Jacob had something to do with that girl’s vanishing?
Witness: As I said, Laurie was very shaken by the whole thing. She was not herself. She came to her own conclusions.
Mr. Logiudice: Did she ever discuss her suspicions with you?
Witness: No.
Mr. Logiudice: I’ll repeat the question. Did your wife ever discuss her suspicions about Jacob?
Witness: No, she did not.
Mr. Logiudice: Your own wife never confided in you?
Witness: She did not feel that she could. Not about this. We’d talked about the Rifkin case, of course. I think she knew there were some things I just could not discuss; there were some places I just could not go. Those things she would just have to handle by herself. Mr. Logiudice: So after two weeks in Jamaica? Witness: We came home. Mr. Logiudice: And when you got home, at that point did Laurie finally voice her suspicions about Jacob?
Witness: Not really.
Mr. Logiudice: “Not really”-what does that mean?
Witness: When we got home from Jamaica, Laurie was very, very quiet. She wouldn’t discuss anything at all with me, really. She was very wary, very upset. She was scared. I tried to talk to her, draw her out, but she didn’t trust me, I think.
Mr. Logiudice: Did she ever discuss what you two ought to do, morally, as parents?
Witness: No.
Mr. Logiudice: If she had asked you, what would you have said? What do you think your moral obligation was as parents of a murderer?
Witness: It’s a hypothetical question. I don’t believe we were parents of a murderer.
Mr. Logiudice: All right, hypothetically then: If Jacob was guilty, what should you and your wife have done about it?
Witness: You can ask the question as many ways as you like, Neal. I won’t answer it. It never happened.
What happened then I can honestly say was the most genuine, spontaneous reaction I ever saw out of Neal Logiudice. He flung his yellow pad in frustration. It fluttered like a shotgunned bird tumbling out of the sky, settling in the far corner of the room.
An older woman on the grand jury gasped.
I thought for a moment it was one of Logiudice’s phony gestures-a cue to the jury: Can’t you see he’s lying? — the better because it would not show up in the transcript. But Logiudice just stood there, hands on hips, looking at his shoes, faintly shaking his head.
After a moment he collected himself. He folded his arms and took a deep breath. Back to it. Lure, trap, fuck.
He raised his eyes to me and saw-what? A criminal? A victim? In any event, a disappointment. I rather doubt he had the sense to see the truth: that there are wounds worse than fatal, which the law’s little binary distinctions-guilty/innocent, criminal/victim-cannot fathom, let alone fix. The law is a hammer, not a scalpel.
Mr. Logiudice: You understand this grand jury is investigating your wife, Laurie Barber?
Witness: Of course.
Mr. Logiudice: We’ve been here all day talking about her, about why she did this.
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Logiudice: I don’t give a damn about Jacob.
Witness: If you say so.
Mr. Logiudice: And you know that you’re not under any suspicion, of anything at all?
Witness: If you say so.
Mr. Logiudice: But you are under oath. I don’t need to remind you of that?
Witness: Yes, I know the rules, Neal.
Mr. Logiudice: What your wife did, Andy-I don’t understand why you won’t help us. This was your family.
Witness: Pose a question, Neal. Don’t make speeches.
Mr. Logiudice: What Laurie did-doesn’t it bother y-
Witness: Objection! Pose a proper question!
Mr. Logiudice: She should be indicted!
Witness: Next question.
Mr. Logiudice: She should be indicted and brought to trial and locked up, and you know it!
Witness: Next question!
Mr. Logiudice: On the date of offense, March 19, 2008, did you receive news about the defendant, Laurie Barber?
Witness: Yes.
Mr. Logiudice: How?
Witness: Around nine A.M. the doorbell rang. It was Paul Duffy.
Mr. Logiudice: What did Lieutenant Duffy say?
Witness: He asked if he could come inside and sit down. He said he had terrible news. I told him, Just say it,
