Defending Jacob Read online

  “Same. I knew him but I didn’t really know him.”

  “Did you like him?”

  “He was okay.”

  “Just okay?”

  “He was a good kid, I guess. Like I said, we weren’t really close.”

  “Okay. So I’ll stop asking stupid questions. Why don’t you just tell us, Sarah? Anything at all that might help us, anything you think we ought to know.”

  She shifted in her seat. “I don’t really know what you—I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “Well, tell me about this place, this school. Start with that. Tell me something about McCormick that I don’t know. What’s it like to go to school here? What’s funny about this place? What’s strange about it?”

  No response.

  “Sarah, we want to help, you know, but we need some of you kids to help us.”

  She shifted around in her seat.

  “You owe that much to Ben, don’t you think? If he was your friend?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have anything to say, I guess. I don’t know anything.”

  “Sarah, whoever did this, he’s still out there. You know that, don’t you? If you can help, then you have a responsibility. A real responsibility. Otherwise this same thing is going to happen again to some other kid. Then it would be on you. If you didn’t do everything—absolutely everything you could—to make it stop, then the next one would be on you, wouldn’t it? How would that make you feel?”

  “You’re trying to guilt me. It won’t work. My mom does that too.”

  “I’m not trying to guilt you. I’m just telling you the truth.”

  No response.

  Bang! Duffy smacked the table with his open palm. Some papers drifted with the breeze he created. “Jesus! This is bullshit, Andy. Just put a subpoena on these kids already, would you? Put ’em in the grand jury, swear ’em in, and if they don’t want to say anything, just lock ’em up for contempt. This is a waste of time. For Christ’s sake!”

  The girl’s eyes dilated.

  Duffy took his cell phone from a holster on his belt and looked at it, though it had not rung. “I have to make a call,” he announced. “I’ll be right back,” and out he marched.

  The kid said, “Is he supposed to be the bad cop?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s not very good at it.”

  “You jumped. I saw you.”

  “Only ’cause he startled me. He banged the table.”

  “He’s right, you know. If you kids don’t start helping us out, we’ll have to do this another way.”

  “I thought we didn’t have to say anything if we didn’t want to.”

  “That’s true today. Tomorrow, maybe not.”

  She thought it over.

  “Sarah, it’s true, what you said before. I’m a DA. But I’m also a dad, okay? So I’m not going to just let this thing go. Because I keep thinking of Ben Rifkin’s dad. I keep thinking of how he must be feeling. Can you even imagine how your mom or dad would feel if this happened to you? How devastated they’d be?”

  “They’re split up. My dad’s out of the picture. I live with my mom.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “It’s no big deal.”

  “Well, Sarah, look, you’re all our kids, you know. All you kids in Jacob’s class, even the ones I don’t know, I care about. All of us parents feel that way.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “You don’t believe that?”

  “No. You don’t even know me.”

  “That’s true. Still, I care what happens to you just the same. I care about this school, this town. I’m not going to just let this happen. This isn’t going away. You understand that?”

  “Is anyone talking to Jacob?”

  “You mean my son Jacob?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Of course.”

  “Okay.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “No reason.”

  “There must be a reason. What is it, Sarah?”

  The girl studied her lap. “The cop who came to our class said we could tell you things anonymously?”

  “That’s right. There’s a tip line.”

  “How do we know you won’t try to, like, figure out who gave a tip? I mean, that’s something you’d want to know, right? Who said something?”

  “Sarah, come on. What is it you want to say?”

  “How do we know it will stay anonymous?”

  “You just have to trust us, I guess.”

  “Trust who? You?”

  “Me. Detective Duffy. There’s a lot of people working on this case.”

  “What if I just …” She looked up.

  “Look, I’m not going to lie to you, Sarah. If you tell me something here, it’s not anonymous. My job is to catch the guy who did this, but it’s also to try him in court and for that I’ll need witnesses. I’d be lying if I told you any different. I’m trying to be honest with you here.”

  “Okay.” She considered. “I really don’t know anything.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yes.”

  I looked her in the eye just a moment to let her know I wasn’t fooled, then I accepted her lie. I pulled a business card from my wallet. “This is my card. I’m going to write my cell phone number on the back. My personal email too.” I slid the card across the desk. “You can contact me anytime, okay? Anytime. And I’ll do what I can to look out for you.”

  “Okay.”

  She took the card and stood up. She looked down at her hands, at her fingers. Her fingertips were stained with black ink, imperfectly wiped off. All the students at the school were being fingerprinted that day, “voluntarily,” though there were jokes about the implications of refusing. Sarah frowned at the ink stains, then crossed her arms to hide them and in that awkward posture she said, “Hey, can I ask you something, Mr. Barber? Are you ever the bad cop?”

  “No, never.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s just not me, I guess.”

  “So how do you do your job, then?”

  “I have a mean streak, deep down. Trust me.”

  “You just hide it?”

  “I just hide it.”

  That night, a little before eleven, I was alone in the kitchen, using my laptop computer which I had set up on the kitchen counter. I was cleaning up some odd bits of work, answering emails mostly. A new message arrived in my inbox. The subject line read—shouted—“RE: BEN RIFKIN >>> README.” It was from a Gmail address, [email protected]. The time stamp read 10:54:27 PM. The message contained a single line, a hyperlink: “Look here.” I clicked the link.

  The link took me to a Facebook group called “ Friends of Ben Rifkin .” The Facebook group was new. It could not have been established more than four days before; the day of the murder, CPAC had looked at Facebook and it was not there.

  We had found the dead boy’s personal Facebook page (almost every kid at the McCormick was on Facebook), but Ben’s page contained no hints about the murder. For what it was worth, in his profile he had been keen to present himself as a free spirit.

  Ben Rifkin

  is out boarding

  Networks: McCormick Middle School ’07

  Newton, MA

  Sex: Male

  Interested in: Women

  Relationship Status: Single

  Birthday: December 3, 1992

  Political Views: Vulcan

  Religious Views: Heathen

  The rest was the usual clutter of digital junk: YouTube videos, games, pictures, a stream of vapid, gossipy messages. Relatively speaking, though, Ben had not been an especially heavy user of Facebook. Much of the activity on his page happened after he was murdered, when messages from Ben’s classmates continued to accumulate in a ghostly way until the page was removed at his parents’ request.

  The new “tribute” page apparently was opened in response, to give kids a place to go on posting messages about the murder. The title, “ Fri
ends of Ben Rifkin ,” seemed to use friends in the Facebook sense: it was open to anyone in the McCormick class of 2007, whether or not they had actually been Ben’s friend.

  At the top of the page was a small photo of Ben, the same one he had used on his personal page. Presumably it had been cut-and-pasted from the dead boy’s old page by whoever launched this group. The picture showed Ben smiling, shirtless, apparently on a beach (the sand and ocean were visible behind him). He was making a “hang loose” gesture with his right hand. Down the right side of the page there was a panel called the Wall, filled with messages in reverse chronological order.

  Jenna Linde (McCormick Middle School) wrote at 9:02pm on April 17th, 2007

  I miss you ben. I remember our talks. i love you forever i love you I love you

  Christa Dufresne (McCormick Middle School) wrote at 8:43pm on April 17th, 2007

  this is the cruelest thing whoever did this. I will never forget you Ben. I think about you every day.

  It is important to note that in 2007 Facebook was still largely a kids’ paradise. Its explosive growth among adults happened in the following couple of years. That was the case in our circle, at least. Most of the parents at the McCormick School looked at Facebook now and then to monitor what their kids were up to, but that was about it. A few of our friends joined, but they rarely used it. There were not enough other parents there yet to make it worthwhile. Personally I had no idea what Jacob and his friends saw in Facebook. I could not grasp why all this information-churning was so compelling. The only explanation, it seemed to me, was that Facebook was where kids went to be away from adults, their secret place where they strutted and flirted and goofed around with the bravado they could never muster in person in the school cafeteria. Jacob, certainly, was much more clever and assertive online than in person, as many shy kids are. Laurie and I saw the danger in allowing Jacob to carry on like this in secret. We insisted he give us his password so we could check up on him, but honestly, Laurie was the only one who ever looked at Jacob’s Facebook page. To me, the kids’ online conversation was even less interesting than the offline version. If I ever looked at Facebook back then, it was because the face in question was in one of my case files. Was I a neglectful parent? In hindsight, obviously yes. But then we all were, all the parents at Jacob’s school. We did not know the stakes were so high.

  There were already several hundred messages on the “ Friends of Ben Rifkin ” page.

  Emily Salzman (McCormick Middle School) wrote at 10:12pm on April 16th, 2007

  I am still totally wigged. who did this? why did you do it? why? what was the point? what did u get out of it? this is just so sick

  Alex Kurzon (McCormick Middle School) wrote at 1:14pm on April 16th, 2007

  at cold sprg pk now. yellow tape still up. nthng to see though. no cops.

  The messages went on like this, unguarded, confessional. The Web created an illusion of intimacy, a byproduct of the kids’ dazed immersion in the “virtual” world. Alas, they were about to learn the Web belonged to grown-ups: I was already thinking of the subpoena duces tecum—the order to produce documents and records—that I would send to Facebook to preserve all these online conversations. In the meantime, avid as an eavesdropper, I went on reading.

  Dylan Feldman (McCormick Middle School) wrote at 9:07pm on April 15th, 2007

  Jacob STFU. if you dont want to read it, go someplace else. you of all people. f*ck off. he considered you a friend. dickhead

  Mike Canin (McCormick Middle School) wrote at 9:01pm on April 15th, 2007

  Have to call you out on that Jake. You’re not the FB police, esp the way things went down. you shd keep your head down & be quiet.

  John Marolla (McCormick Middle School) wrote at 8:51pm on April 15th, 2007

  WTF? JB what are you mouthing off here for? go die. the world would be a better place. go f*ck off & die.

  Julie Kerschner (McCormick Middle School) wrote at 8:48pm on April 15th, 2007

  Not cool, Jacob.

  Jacob Barber (McCormick Middle School) wrote at 7:30pm on April 15th, 2007

  Maybe you all haven’t heard—Ben is dead. Why are we still writing him messages? And why are some people acting like his best friend when you never were? Can we just be real here?

  I stopped at Jacob’s name—at the realization that these last venomous messages were aimed at my Jacob. I was not prepared for the reality of Jacob’s life, the complexity of his relationships, the trials he went through, the brutality of the world he inhabited. Go die. The world would be a better place. How could my son have been told such a thing and never shared it with his family? Never even let on? I was disappointed not in Jacob but in myself. How could I have left my son with the impression I did not care about such things? Or was I being a wimp, overreacting to the exaggerated, hopped-up tone of the Internet?

  I also felt like a fool, honestly. I ought to have known about all this. Laurie and I had talked with Jacob only in the most general way about what he did on the Internet. We knew that when he went off to his room at night, he was able to go online. But we had some software installed on his computer to prevent him from looking at certain websites, porn sites mostly, and we felt that was enough. Facebook never seemed particularly dangerous, certainly. Also, neither of us wanted to spy on him. As a couple, we believed that you raise a child with good values and then you give him space, you trust him to behave responsibly, at least until he gives you reason not to. Modern, enlightened parents, we had not wanted to be Jake’s adversaries, quizzing him about every move, hectoring him. It was a philosophy shared by most of the McCormick parents. What choice did we have? No parent can monitor his kid’s every moment, online or off. In the end, every child leads his own life, largely out of his parents’ sight. Still, when I saw the words Go die, I realized how naive and stupid we had been. Jacob did not need our trust or our respect as much as he needed our protection, and that we had not given him.

  I scrolled through the messages more quickly. There were hundreds, each just a line or two. I could not possibly read them all, and I had no idea what Sarah Groehl wanted me to find. Jacob disappeared from the conversation for a long stretch as the messages got older. The kids consoled one another in maudlin messages (we will never evr be the same) and hard-boiled ones (die young, stay pretty). Over and over they expressed their shock. The girls protested their love and loyalty, the boys their anger. I scoured these endless repetitive messages for some worthwhile detail: i cant believe this … we have to stick together … there are cops everywhere in school …

  Finally, I clicked over to Jacob’s own Facebook page, where a hotter conversation was still simmering, this one from the immediate aftermath of the murder. Again, the messages were displayed in reverse chronological order.

  Marlie Kunitz (McCormick Middle School) wrote at 3:29pm on April 15th, 2007

  D.Y.: Do NOT say things like that here. That is GOSSIP and it could get people HURT. Even if it’s a joke, it’s stupid. Jake, just ignore him.

  Joe O’Connor (McCormick Middle School) wrote at 3:16pm on April 15th, 2007

  Everyone shd all just keep their mouths SHUT if we dont know what we’re talking abt. that means you derek, you tool. this is SERIOUS SHIT here. NFW you shd be talking out of your ass like that.

  Mark Spicer (McCormick Middle School) wrote at 3:07pm on April 15th, 2007

  ANYbody could say ANYthing about ANYbody. maybe YOU have a knife derek? how does it feel when somebody starts a rumor about YOU?

  Then this:

  Derek Yoo (McCormick Middle School) wrote at 2:25pm on April 15th, 2007

  Jake, everyone knows you did it. You have a knife. I’ve seen it.

  I could not move. Could not budge my eyes from the message. I stared at it until the letters broke down into pixels. Derek Yoo was a friend of Jacob’s, a good friend. He had been to our house a hundred times. The two boys had been in kindergarten together. Derek was a good kid.

  I’ve seen it.

  The next morni
ng I let Laurie and Jacob both leave before me. I told them I had a meeting at the Newton police station and did not want to drive back and forth to Cambridge. When they were safely gone, I went up to Jacob’s room and searched.

  The search did not take long. In the top drawer of the bureau, I found something hard, lazily hidden in an old white T-shirt. I unrolled the T-shirt until it spilled onto the bureau a folding knife with a black rubberized handle. I picked it up daintily, tweezed the blade between my thumb and index finger, and pulled it open.

  “Oh my God,” I murmured.

  It might have been a military knife or a hunting knife, but then it seemed too small for that. Unfolded, it was about ten inches long. The handle was black, grippy, shaped to accept four fingers. The blade was hook-shaped, with an intricately serrated cutting edge—a ripping blade—and it came to a lethal gothic point. The flat sides of the blade had been drilled out, presumably to save weight. The knife was sinister and beautiful, the shape of the blade, its curve and taper. It was like one of those lovely deadly things in nature, a lick of flame or the claw of an enormous cat.

  6 | Descent

  One year later.

  TRANSCRIPT OF GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION.

  Mr. Logiudice: When you discovered the knife, what did you do? I presume you reported it immediately.

  Witness: No, I did not.

  Mr. Logiudice: No? You discovered the murder weapon in an ongoing murder investigation and you did not tell anyone? Why not? You made such a pretty speech earlier this morning about how you believed in the system.

  Witness: I did not report it because I did not believe that it was the murder weapon. I certainly did not know it for a fact.

  Mr. Logiudice: You didn’t know it for a fact? Well, how could you? You kept it hidden! You didn’t submit the knife for forensic testing, for blood, fingerprints, comparison with the wound, and so forth. That would be the ordinary procedure, wouldn’t it?

  Witness: It would be if you genuinely suspected it was the weapon.

  Mr. Logiudice: Ah. So you didn’t even suspect it was the weapon?

  Witness: No.

  Mr. Logiudice: The thought never crossed your mind?