Presumed Innocent Read Free Page B

murmur something to Raymond and push down the row toward my seat at the end, between two sizable floral arrangements on pedestals. For an instant I am certain that this lightheaded moment of shock has passed, but as an unexpectedly bold tone forges from the organ immediately behind me, and the reverend speaks his first words of address, my amazement deepens, ripples, and somehow takes on the infected hurt of real sorrow. I did not know. I feel a sort of shimmering incomprehension. It does not seem plausible that she could have kept a fact like this to herself. The husband I had long ago surmised, but she never made mention of a child, let alone one nearby, and I must stifle an immediate instinct to leave, to remove myself from this theater darkness for the sobering effect of strong light. As a matter of will, I urge myself, after a few moments, to attend to what is present.
    Raymond has arrived at the podium; there has been no formal introduction. Others — the Reverend Mr. Hiller, Rita Worth from the Women's Bar Association — have spoken briefly, but now a sudden gravity and portentousness comes into the air, a current strong enough to wrest me from my sense of grievance. The hundreds here grow stiller. Raymond Horgan has his shortcomings as a politician, but he is a consummate public man, a speaker, a presence. Balding, growing stout, standing there in his fine blue suit, he broadcasts his anguish and his power like a beaconed emission.
    His remarks are anecdotal. He recalls Carolyn's hiring over the objections of more hard-bitten prosecutors who regarded probation officers as social workers. He celebrates her toughness and her flint. He remembers cases that she won, judges she defied, archaic rules she took pleasure in seeing broken. From Raymond, these stories have a soulful wit, a sweet melancholy for Carolyn and all of her lost courage. He really has no equal in a setting like this, just talking to people about what he thinks and feels.
    For me, though, there is no quick recovery from the disorder of the moments before. I find all of it — the hurt, the shock, the piercing force of Raymond's words, my deep, my unspeakable sorrow — welling up, pushing at the limits of tolerance and a composure I desperately need to maintain. I bargain with myself. I will not go to the interment. There is work to do, and the office will be represented. The secretaries and clerks, the older ladies who always criticized Carolyn's airs and are here now, crying in the front rows, will be pressed close at the graveside, weeping over one more of life's endless desolations. I will let them observe Carolyn's disappearance into open ground.
    Raymond finishes. The impressive register of his performance, witnessed by so many who regard him as beleaguered, sets a palpable stir in the auditorium as he strides toward his seat. The reverend recites the details of the burial, but I let that pass. I am resolved: I will go back to the office. As Raymond wishes, I will resume the search for Carolyn's killer. Nobody will mind — least of all, I think, Carolyn herself. I have already paid her my respects. Too much so, she might say. Too often. She knows, I know, that I have already done my grieving over Carolyn Polhemus.
     
2
     
    The office has the bizarre air of calamity, of things badly out of place. The halls are empty, but the phones are pealing in wearying succession. Two secretaries, the only ones who stayed behind, are sprinting up and down the corridors putting callers on hold.
    Even in the best of times, the Office of the Kindle County Prosecuting Attorney has a dismal aspect. Most deputies work two to an office in a space of Dickensian grimness. The Kindle County Building was erected in 1897 in the emerging institutional style of factories and high schools. It is a solid red-brick block dressed up with a few Doric columns to let everybody know it is a public place. Inside, there are transoms over the doors and dour casement windows. The