Turow, Scott - Kindle County Legal 10 - Testimony by Turow Scott

Author:Turow, Scott [Turow, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

21.

Back to the Salt Mine

So Ferko is the richest man in town?” I asked Goos when we were under way once more in the small Ford. We were both in a somewhat wounded state and seemed eager to get back to Tuzla to take stock of the day.

As we traveled, we speculated about Ferko, although I offered most of the commentary. Goos’s responses were limited, one-word answers or grunts, his mood expressed principally in the vehemence with which he shifted gears.

Given the fact that Ferko could summon a hood to menace us, he was clearly a person of stature in some organization. Drugs seemed the most likely business—there was said to be a lot of meth, often call ice, in Bosnia. Indulging in ethnic stereotypes, it was also possible that Ferko was boss of a gang of child thieves or beggars, or full-grown pickpockets. One thing was sure, though. The fellow who’d come to glower at us didn’t have the look of anyone attached to a legitimate businessman.

Taking for granted that Ferko was a crook of some kind, I weighed the implications for our investigation. In order to protect his identity, Ferko had never answered the questions routine for virtually every other witness, stuff like ‘Where do you live?’ and ‘What do you do for a living?’ So he hadn’t lied about those matters. But between staging the grave and claiming under oath that his wife was dead—assuming my eyesight was good and she wasn’t—his testimony was worthless, even by the most forgiving standards.

Deepening my dismay was the realization that I was going to have to call Esma. I took it that today’s revelations about Ferko would be news to her, because any trial lawyer puts her entire career in jeopardy by allowing a client to lie under oath. Yet Esma was the only person who might be able to get Ferko to sit down with us again to see if there were any explanations that might help us salvage the investigation. We were facing the law’s version of real tragedy: the murder of four hundred people goes unpunished because the lone witness manufactured a bunch of eccentric lies.

Just outside of town, we pulled over in a spot with cell reception in order to get our bearings. We were at the side of a potholed road, just wide enough to qualify as two-laned by Bosnian standards. Beside us, weeds had already grown up thickly, and a stand of firs stood on the other side. I had just set my navigation app for Tuzla when a car pulled in behind us, a white vehicle with the word POLICIJA appearing amid a band of blue. In the sideview, I saw two policemen alight, one heavy-set, one thin.

I assumed they’d stopped to be sure we didn’t need help, but Goos had another impression.

“Oh, sweet Jesu,” Goos said. “Not again.”

He rolled down the window and tried to chat up the fat cop who’d come to the driver’s side. In the meantime, the wirier one ambled up to my window, leaning on the door to keep an eye on me and make sure I didn’t escape.

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