When we got back to our car in the garage a block from the courthouse, there was a white piece of paper tucked under the windshield wiper. It was quarter-folded. Opening it, I read, JUDGMENT DAY IS COMING MURDERER, YOU DIE

Jonathan was still with us, making it a group of four. He frowned at the note and slipped it into his briefcase. “I’ll take care of this. I’ll file a report with the Cambridge police. You all go home.”

Laurie said, “That’s all we can do?”

“We should let the Newton police know too, just in case,” I suggested. “Maybe it’s time we had a cruiser camped out by our house. The world’s full of lunatics.”

I was distracted by a figure standing in the corner of the garage, quite a distance away but obviously watching us. He was an older man, near seventy probably. He wore a jacket, golf shirt, and scally cap. Looked like a million guys around Boston. Some old mick tough. He was lighting a cigarette-it was the flare of his lighter that caught my eye-and the glowing tip of the cigarette linked him with the car that had been parked outside our house a few nights before, the interior blacked out except for the little glowing firefly of a cigarette tip in the car window. And wasn’t he just the sort of dinosaur to drive a Lincoln frickin’ Town Car?

Our eyes met for a moment. He thrust his lighter into his pants pocket and continued walking, out through a doorway to a staircase, and he was gone. Had he been walking before I saw him? He seemed to have been standing and staring, but I had only just glanced over. Maybe he had just stopped a moment before to light the cigarette.

“Did you see that guy?”

Jonathan: “What guy?”

“That guy who was just over there looking at us.”

“Didn’t see him. Who was he?”

“I don’t know. Never seen him before.”

“You think he had something to do with the note?”

“Don’t know. I don’t even know if he was looking at us. But he seemed to be, you know?”

“Come on,” Jonathan encouraged us toward the car, “there are a lot of people looking at us lately. It’ll be over soon.”

Around six that night, as the three of us finished our dinner-Jacob and I indulging ourselves in a little cautious optimism, spitting on Logiudice and his desperate tactics; Laurie trying to keep up the appearance of confidence and normalcy, even as she had become vaguely suspicious of the both of us-the phone rang.

I answered. An operator informed me that she had a collect call. Would I accept the charges? It came as a surprise that people still made collect calls. Was this a prank? Were there any phone booths left to make a collect call from? Only in prisons.

“Collect call from who?”

“Bill Barber.”

“Jesus. No, I won’t accept. Wait a minute, hang on.” I held the phone against my chest, as if my heart would speak to him directly. Then: “All right, I’ll accept the charges.”

“Thank you. Please hold while I connect you. Have a nice day.”

A click.

“Hallo?”

“What is it?”

“What is it? I thought you was gonna come down and visit me again.”

“I’ve been a little busy.”

He mimicked me, “ Oh, I been a little busy. Relax, would ya? I’m just shittin’ ya, you dope. Wha’d ya think? Hey, come on down, junior, I’ll take ya out fishin’! I’ll take you fishin’-you know for what? For fishes!” I had no idea what this meant. Some prison slang, presumably. Whatever it meant, the joke was funny to him. He roared into the phone.

“Jesus Christ, you talk a lot.”

“No shit, ’cause I got no one to talk to in this fuckin’ place. My kid never visits me.”

“Was there something you wanted? Or did you just call to chat?”

“I want to know how the kid’s trial is going.”

“What do you care?”

“He’s my grandson. I want to know.”

“His whole life you never even knew his name.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“Yours.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you think that.” A pause.

“I heard my name came up in court today. We’re following the whole thing here. It’s like the World Series for cons.”

“Yeah, your name came up. See, even sitting in prison, you’re still screwing your family over.”

“Oh, junior, don’t be such a pisser. The kid’s gonna get off.”

“You think so? You figure you’re a pretty good lawyer, Mister Life-Without-Parole?”

“I know a few things.”

“You know a few things. Pff. Do me a favor, Clarence Darrow: don’t call here and tell me my business. I’ve already got a lawyer.”

“Nobody’s telling you your business, junior. But when your lawyer talks about bringing me in to testify, that makes it my business, now, don’t it?”

“It isn’t going to happen. That’s all we need is you on the stand. Turn the whole thing into a circus.”

“You got a better strategy?”

“Yeah, we do.”

“What is it?”

“We’re not even going to put on a case. We’ll put the Commonwealth to its burden. They have- What am I even talking to you about this for?”

“Because you want to. When the chips are down, a kid needs his old man.”

“Is that a joke?”

“No! I’m still your father.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m not?”

“No.”

“Then who is?”

“Me.”

“You don’t have a father? What are you, a tree?”

“That’s right, I don’t have one. And I don’t need one now.”

“Everybody needs a father, everybody needs a father. You need me now more than ever. How else are you gonna prove that ‘irresistible impulse’ thing?”

“We don’t need to prove it.”

“No? Why not?”

“Because Logiudice can’t prove his case. That’s obvious. So our defense is simple: Jacob didn’t do it.”

“What if that changes?”

“It won’t.”

“So why’d you come all the way down here and ask me about it? And test my spit? What was that all about?”

“Just covering my bases.”

“Just covering your bases. So the kid didn’t do it but just in case he did.”

“Something like that.”

“So what’s your lawyer want me to say, then?”

“He doesn’t want you to say anything. He shouldn’t have said that in court today. It was a mistake. He was probably thinking he’d run you up there to testify that you never had anything to do with your grandson. But I already told you, you’re not coming anywhere near that courtroom.”

“You better talk with your lawyer about that.”

“Listen to me, Bloody Billy. I’m going to say this for the last time: you don’t exist. You’re just a bad dream I used to have when I was a kid.”

“Hey, junior, you want to hurt my feelings? Kick me in the balls.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means don’t bother calling me names. It don’t bother me. I’m the kid’s grandfather no matter what you say. Nothing you can do about it. You can deny me all you want, pretend I don’t exist. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t change the truth.”

I sat down, suddenly unsteady.

“Who’s this guy Patz your cop friend testified about?”

I was pissed and confused, agitated, so I did not stop to consider. I blurted, “He’s the guy who did it.”

“That killed this kid?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve got a witness.”

“And you’re gonna let my grandson take the hit for it?”

“Let him? No.”

“Then do something, junior. Tell me about this guy Patz.”

“What do you want to know? He likes little boys.”

“He’s a child molester?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of? Either he is or he isn’t. How can you be sort of a child molester?”

“Same way you were a murderer before you actually murdered someone.”

“Oh, stop it, junior. I told you, you can’t hurt my feelings.”

“Would you stop calling me that, ‘junior’?”

“Does it bother ya?”

“Yes.”

“What should I call ya?”

“Don’t call me anything.”

“ Pssh. I got to call you something. How else am I gonna talk to ya?”