15 | Playing Detective
At the Starbucks in Newton Centre, Sarah Groehl had plugged herself into a MacBook. Seeing me, she disengaged herself from the computer, canting her head left then right to remove her earphones, just as women do when they take off earrings. She looked at me sleepily, blinking, rousing herself from a Web-trance.
“Hi, Sarah. Am I disturbing you?”
“No, I was just … I don’t know.”
“Can I talk to you?”
“About what?
I gave her a look: Come on. “We can go somewhere else if you want.”
She did not immediately answer. The tables were crowded together, and people pretended not to be listening, obeying the etiquette of coffee shops. But the ordinary awkwardness of having a conversation within others’ hearing was multiplied by my family’s infamy and by Sarah’s own awkwardness. She was embarrassed to be seen with me. She may have been afraid of me too, after all she had heard. With so much to consider, she seemed unable to answer. I suggested we sit on the park bench across the street, where I figured she would feel safe in the sight of others yet out of hearing range, and she made a sweeping motion with her head to swing her bangs off her forehead, away from her eyes, and said okay.
“Can I buy you another coffee?”
“I don’t drink coffee.”
We sat side by side on the green-slatted bench across the street. Sarah held herself royally erect. She was not fat, but she was not thin enough for the tight T-shirt she wore. A little roll of flesh blossomed over her shorts—a “muffin top,” the kids called it without embarrassment. I thought she might be a nice girl for Jacob when all this was over.
I held my Starbucks paper cup. I’d lost interest in it but there was no place to dump it now. I turned it in my hands.
“Sarah, I’m trying to find out what really happened to Ben Rifkin. I need to find the guy who really did this.”
She gave me a skeptical sidelong gaze. “What do you mean, ‘the guy who really did this’?”
“Jacob didn’t do it. They have the wrong guy.”
“I thought that wasn’t your job anymore. You’re playing detective?”
“It’s my job as a father now.”
“O-kay.” She smirked and shook her head.
“Does that sound crazy, to say he’s innocent?”
“No. I guess not.”
“I think maybe you know Jacob is innocent too. The things you said …”
“I never said that.”
“Sarah, you know we adults don’t really have any idea what’s going on in your lives. How could we? But somebody has to open up to us a little bit. Some of you kids have to help.”
“We have.”
“Not enough. Don’t you see, Sarah? A friend of yours is going to go to prison for a murder he didn’t commit.”
“How do I know he didn’t commit it? Isn’t that, like, the whole thing? It’s like, how would anyone know that? Including you.”
“Well, do you think he’s guilty?”
“I don’t know.”
“So you have doubts.”
“I just said, I don’t know.”
“I do know, Sarah. Okay? I’ve been doing this for a long time and I know: Jacob did not do it. I promise you. He didn’t do it. He’s completely innocent.”
“Of course you think that. You’re his father.”
“I am, it’s true. But I’m not just his father. There’s evidence, Sarah. You haven’t seen it but I have.”
She looked at me with a beneficent little smile, and briefly she was the adult and I was a foolish child. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Mr. Barber. What do I know? It’s not like I was tight with either one of them, Jacob or Ben.”
“Sarah, you were the one who told me to look on Facebook.”
“I did not.”
“Okay, well, let’s just say if—if you were the one who told me to look on Facebook. Why did you do that? What did you want me to find?”
“Okay, I’m not saying it was me that told you anything, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Because I don’t want to be, like, involved, okay?”
“Okay.”
“It was just, you know, there were these rumors going around and I thought you should know what kids were saying. ’Cause nobody seemed to know, you know? Like, nobody who was in charge. No offense, but you all seemed kind of clueless. Kids knew. Kids were saying Jacob had a knife, and Jake and Ben had a fight. But you guys were running around totally clueless. Actually Ben had been kind of a bully to Jake for a long time, you know? It wasn’t like that makes anyone a murderer, all right? But it was just kind of something I thought you guys should know.”
“What was Ben bullying Jake about?”
“Why don’t you just ask Jake? He’s your kid.”
“I have. He never mentioned anything about Ben bullying him. All he tells me is everything was just fine, he had no problems with Ben or anyone else.”
“Okay, then maybe—I don’t know, I mean, maybe I’m just wrong.”
“Come on, you don’t think you’re wrong, Sarah. What was Jake being bullied about?”
She shrugged. “Look, it’s not like it’s such a big deal. Everyone gets bullied. Well, not bullied—teased, okay? I see how your eyes light up when I say ‘bullied,’ like it’s some big thing. Adults love to talk about bullying. We’ve had all these training classes in bullying and all that.” She shook her head.
“Okay, so not bullied—teased. What about? What were they getting on him about?”
“The usual stuff: he’s gay, he’s a geek, he’s a loser.”
“Who was saying that?”
“Just kids. Everyone. It was not a big thing. It happens for a while, then it moves on to the next kid.”
“Was Ben teasing Jacob?”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t, like, only Ben. Don’t take this the wrong way, but Jacob isn’t exactly in the cool crowd.”
“No? What crowd is he in?”
“I don’t know. He’s not really in a crowd. He’s just kind of nothing. It’s hard to explain. Jacob’s kind of like a cool geek, I’d say, only there kind of isn’t really such a thing. Does that make sense?”
“No.”
“Well, it’s like there’s jocks? He definitely isn’t one of those. And there’s smart kids? Only he isn’t really smart enough to be one of them either. I mean, he’s smart, okay?, but he isn’t like that smart. It’s like you need to have a thing, you know? You need to play an instrument or be on a team or be in a play or whatever, or like be ethnic or lesbian or retarded or something—not that there’s anything wrong with those things. It’s just, like, if you don’t have any of those things then you’re just kind of one of those kids, you know? Like just a regular kid, and nobody knows what to call you—you’re nothing, but not in a bad way. And that’s kind of like what Jacob was, you know? He was just like a regular kid. Does that make sense?”
“Perfect sense.”
“Really?”
“Yes. What are you, Sarah? What’s your ‘thing’?”
“I don’t have one. Same as Jacob. I’m nothing.”
“But not in a bad way.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I don’t want to get all Cliff Huxtable here, but I don’t think you’re nothing.”
“Who’s Cliff Huxtable?”
“Never mind.”
Across the street, people stole glances at us as they went in and out of Starbucks, though it was not clear if they recognized me. Maybe I was being paranoid.
“I just want to say, like”—she searched around for the words—“I think it’s really cool what you’re trying to do? Like trying to prove Jacob innocent and all? You seem like a really good dad. Only Jacob isn’t like you. You know that, don’t you?”
“No? Why?”
“Just, like, his manner? He’s kind of quiet? He’s really shy? I’m not saying he’s a bad kid. I mean, not at all. But he doesn’t have a lot of friends, y’know? He has, like, his little circle? Like Derek and that kid Josh? (That kid is totally weird, by the way. I mean, like, totally random.) But Jacob doesn’t really have a lot of friends in, like, his network. I mean, I guess he likes it that way, y’know? Which is okay, it’s totally fine. I’m not saying anything. It’s just like, there must be a lot going on inside there, in his—y’know, inside. I just, I don’t know if he’s happy.”
“Does he seem unhappy to you, Sarah?”
“Yeah, a little. But I mean, everyone’s unhappy, right? I mean sometimes?”
I didn’t answer.
“You need to talk to Derek. Derek Yoo? He knows more about all this than I do.”
“Right now I’m talking to you, Sarah.”
“No, go talk to Derek. I don’t want to get in the middle of it, you know? Derek and Jacob have been really tight, like, since they were little kids. I’m sure Derek can tell you more than I can. I mean, I’m sure he’ll want to help Jacob. He’s like Jacob’s best friend.”
“Why don’t you want to help Jacob, Sarah?”
“I do want to. I just, I don’t really know. I don’t know enough about it. But Derek does.”
I wanted to pat her on the hand or the shoulder or something, but that sort of fatherly contact has been drummed out of us. So I tipped my paper cup toward her in a sort of toast, and I said, “There’s something we always asked when we ended an interview in my old job: is there anything you think I ought to know that I didn’t ask about? Anything at all?”
“No. Not that I can think of.”
“You’re sure?”
She held up her pinkie. “Promise.”
“Okay, Sarah, thank you. I know Jacob’s probably not the most popular kid right now, and I think it’s very brave of you to talk to me like this.”
“It’s not brave. If it was brave, I wouldn’t do it. I’m not a brave person. It’s more like, I like Jake. I mean, I don’t know about the case and all that? But I used to like Jake, you know, like before. He was a good kid.”
“Is. Is a good kid.”
“Is. Right.”
“Thanks.”
“You know what, Mr. Barber? I bet you had like a really good father. Because, you know, you’re like a really good father, so I bet you had a good father who kind of taught you. Am I right?”
Jesus, didn’t this kid read the papers?
“Not exactly,” I said.
“Not exactly but close?”
“I didn’t have a father.”
“Stepfather?”
I shook my head.
“Everybody has a father, Mr. Barber. Except, like, God or something.”
“Not me, Sarah.”
“Oh. Well, then, maybe that’s kind of a good thing. Just, like, take fathers totally out of the equation.”
“Maybe. I’m probably not the best guy to ask.”