She was pushing me toward it, this towering black idea, Jacob the Murderer. I brushed against it, touched the hem of its robe-and I could not go any further. The danger was too great.

I said, “I don’t know.”

“Then you think he might have.”

“I don’t know.”

“But it’s possible, at least.”

“I said I don’t know, Laurie.”

She scrutinized my face, my eyes, searching for something she could trust, for bedrock. I tried to put on a mask of resolve for her, so she would find in my expression whatever it was she needed-reassurance, love, connection, whatever. But the truth? Certainty? I did not have those. They were not mine to give.

A couple of hours later, around one A.M., there was a siren in the distance. This was unusual; in our quiet suburb the cops and fire engines generally do not use them. Flashers only. The siren lasted only five seconds or so, then resonated in the quiet, suspended like a flare. Behind me Laurie was asleep in the same position as before, with her back to me. I went to the window and looked out but there was nothing to see. I would not find out until the next morning what that siren was and how, unknown to us, everything had already changed. We were already in Argentina.

The phone rang at five-thirty the next morning, my cell phone, and I answered it automatically, conditioned over the years to receive these emergency calls at crazy hours. I even answered in my old commanding voice, “Andy Barber!” to convince people that I had not actually been sleeping, no matter what the hour.

When I hung up, Laurie said, “Who was that?”

“Jonathan.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“So what was it?”

I felt a grin spread over my face and a dreamy, bewildered happiness embraced me.

“Andy?”

“It’s over.”

“What do you mean, it’s over?”

“He confessed.”

“What? Who confessed?”

“Patz.”

“What!”

“Jonathan did what he said he would in court: he had him served. Patz got the subpoena and last night he killed himself. He left a note with a full confession. Jonathan said they’ve been at his apartment all night. They confirmed the handwriting; the note is legit. Patz confessed.”

“He confessed? Just like that? Is that possible?”

“It doesn’t seem real, does it?”

“How did he kill himself?”

“Hung himself.”

“Oh my God.”

“Jonathan says he’s going to move for dismissal as soon as court opens.”

Laurie’s hands covered her mouth. She was already crying. We embraced, then we ran into Jacob’s room as if it were Christmas morning-or Easter, given that this miracle was more in the nature of a resurrection-and we shook him awake and hugged him and shared the incredible news.

And everything was different. Just like that, everything was different. We got dressed in our trial clothes and we bided our time till we could drive to the courthouse. We watched the news on TV and checked Boston. com for mention of Patz’s suicide but there was none, so we sat there grinning at one another and shaking our heads in disbelief.

It was better than a not-guilty from the jury. We kept saying this: not guilty is merely a failure of proof. Jacob had actually been proven innocent. It was as if the entire horrific episode was erased. I do not believe in God or miracles, but this was a miracle. I cannot explain the feeling any other way. It felt as if we had been saved by some sort of divine intervention-by a real miracle. The only limit on our joy was the fact we could not quite believe it and we did not want to celebrate until the case was officially dismissed. It was at least conceivable, after all, that Logiudice would continue his prosecution even in the face of Patz’s confession.

In the event, Jonathan did not get the chance to move for dismissal. Before the judge even took the bench, Logiudice filed a nol pros-a nolle prosequi, which announced the government’s decision to drop the charges.

At nine sharp, the judge bounded out to the bench with a little grin. He read over the nol pros with a theatrical flourish and, with a palm-up motion of his hand, he asked Jacob to stand. “Mr. Barber, I see from your face and from your dad’s face that you’ve already heard the news. So let me be the first to tell you the words I’m sure you’ve longed to hear: Jacob Barber, you are a free man.” There was a cheer-a cheer! — and Jacob and I hugged.

The judge banged his gavel but he did so with an indulgent smile. When the courtroom was relatively quiet again, he gestured to the clerk, who read in a monotone-apparently only she was not happy for the result-“Jacob Michael Barber, in the matter of indictment number oh-eight-dash-four-four-oh-seven, the Commonwealth having nolle prosequi the within indictment, it is ordered by the court that you be discharged of this indictment and go without day insofar as this indictment is concerned. The bail previously posted may be returned to the surety. Case dismissed.”

Go without day. The awkward legal formulation that is the defendant’s ticket out. It means, You may go without any more court days scheduled-go and not come back.

Mary rubber-stamped the indictment, slipped the paper into her file, and tossed the file into her out-box with such bureaucratic efficiency that you might have thought she had a stack of cases to get through before lunch.

And it was over.

Or almost over. We made our way through the crowd of reporters, jostling now to congratulate us and get their video in time for the morning shows, and we wound up literally running down Thorndike Street to the garage where we were parked. Running, laughing-free!

We made it to our car and for an awkward moment we were preoccupied with trying to find the words to thank Jonathan, who graciously declined the credit because, he said, truthfully, he had not actually done anything. We thanked him anyway. Thanked him and thanked him. I pumped his arm up and down, and Laurie hugged him. “You would have won,” I told him. “I’m sure of it.”

In all of this, it was Jacob who saw them coming. “Uh-oh,” he said.

There were two of them. Dan Rifkin came first. He was wearing a tan trench coat, fancier than most, over-designed, with a profusion of buttons, pockets, and epaulettes. He still had that doll-like immobile face, so it was impossible to know exactly what he intended. Apologizing to us, perhaps?

A few feet behind him was Father O’Leary, a giant by comparison with Rifkin, ambling along with his hands in his pockets and his scally cap pulled low over his eyes.

We turned slowly to meet them. We must all have had the same expression, puzzled but pleased to see this man who should naturally have been our friend now, despite the pain he had been through, graciously coming to welcome us back into his world, into the real world. But his expression was strange. Hard.

Laurie said, “Dan?”

He did not respond. He took from one of the deep pockets of his trench coat a knife, an ordinary kitchen knife, which I recognized, absurd as this sounds, as a Wusthof Classic steak knife because we have the same set of knives in a knife block on our kitchen counter. But I did not have time to fully fathom the sublime weirdness of being stabbed with such a knife because almost immediately, before Dan Rifkin got within a few feet of us, Father O’Leary grabbed Rifkin by the arm. He banged Rifkin’s hand once on the hood of the car, which caused the knife to clatter down to the concrete garage floor. Then he flipped Rifkin’s arm behind the little man’s back and easily-so easily he might have been manipulating a mannequin-he bent him over the hood of the car. He said to Rifkin, “Easy there, champ.”

He did all this with expert, graceful professionalism. The whole transaction could not have lasted more than a few seconds, and we were left gaping at the two men.