Massachusetts Police

The Massachusetts State Police is the state-level law-enforcement organization involved in the investigation of Ben Rifkin’s murder. Its relevant investigative unit, Crime Prevention and Control (CPAC), works on complex, long-running, or high-profile cases and handles murders across the county. The novel presents the agency not as a single, frictionless authority but as a specialist organization whose work depends on cooperation with local police and the district attorney’s office, and whose findings are interpreted through competing narratives of the crime.

Structure and Jurisdiction

CPAC is a state police unit assigned to the district attorney’s office. Its formal name, Crime Prevention and Control, is described as largely meaningless to those who encounter it; in practice, the unit functions as the district attorney’s detectives. It takes on cases requiring sustained or specialized investigation, including county murders, while local departments contribute their knowledge of the communities where crimes occur.

That division of labor reflects a practical imbalance. Homicides outside Boston are uncommon, especially in smaller towns, and local departments may not develop the same investigative expertise as a unit that handles murders routinely. CPAC’s arrival can therefore provide valuable capacity, but it also raises a jurisdictional and political concern: state investigators must enter a local investigation without making cooperation harder. Its work requires both investigative skill and sensitivity to the authorities whose responsibilities overlap.

Role in the Rifkin Investigation

The state police became involved immediately after Ben Rifkin’s body was discovered on Thursday, April 12, 2007, at about nine in the morning. Andrew Barber recalled receiving a call from CPAC, followed quickly by calls from Newton police and the duty district attorney. He could not be certain of the precise order, but the rapid succession of calls established how quickly the murder drew several law-enforcement offices into a shared response.

Paul Duffy, a state trooper assigned to CPAC, became the most visible connection between the organization and Andrew. Duffy led the unit detailed to the district attorney’s office and worked alongside local police in homicide investigations. His manner was quiet and conciliatory, qualities suited to a role in which state investigators had to coordinate with local authorities while taking a leading part in cases that exceeded the usual experience of smaller departments.

The case also demonstrates that investigative authority did not mean complete command of every relevant setting. Discussion about interviewing McCormick students was delayed by parents’ concerns, questions about whether lawyers should be present, whether investigators could enter the school and its lockers without a warrant, and which students could be interviewed. The limits and conditions placed on access shaped what investigators could learn, illustrating how a homicide inquiry moved through institutional permissions as well as evidence.

Evidence, Interpretation, and the Case Narrative

Andrew’s account of the investigation emphasizes that the available evidence did not point cleanly in one direction. He describes how detectives facing incomplete information form a theory, then search for facts that support it, sometimes ceasing to notice evidence that points toward other suspects. Leonard Patz becomes the example in Andrew’s courtroom explanation of this danger: once investigators settled on Jacob, the alternative possibility represented by Patz could be pushed aside. The critique concerns a general investigative tendency, not a claim that every state or local investigator acted identically.

The novel connects this interpretive problem to the work of advocates. Andrew comes to believe that a defense cannot rely only on arguing that the prosecution has failed to meet its burden; jurors will also want an alternative account of who committed the crime. He sees Patz as the necessary counter-narrative and insists, in retrospect, that this suspicion was correct. That conviction sits beside his admission that his own position as Jacob’s father shaped how he understood the evidence. The state police investigation is thus represented within a larger contest over who can make a convincing story from facts that remain incomplete.

The prosecution’s presentation follows the same narrative logic. Neal Logiudice tells the jury that the case is about a defendant with a lethal temper who eventually “snapped.” Andrew recognizes the rhetorical force of the formulation even as he rejects its account. The contrast between a concise prosecutorial theme and the investigative uncertainties surrounding the case shows how official evidence can be arranged into rival explanations, each asking the jury to see a different pattern.

Institutional Boundaries and Narrative Form

The state police’s relationship to the local investigation is part of the book’s broader attention to professional boundaries. CPAC works for the district attorney’s office but alongside municipal police; its investigators must exercise specialized authority without disregarding local concerns. The delay over access to McCormick students makes those boundaries concrete, while Andrew’s own position—as a prosecutor, a participant in the case, and Jacob’s father—underscores how personal and institutional roles can overlap.

The organization is also presented through documentary and retrospective forms. The narrative opens in the Grand Jury with Andrew identifying himself as a witness, and later returns to formal questioning about exhibits and investigative decisions. These records coexist with Andrew’s recollections of calls, colleagues, and the development of theories. The result is not an omniscient institutional account: the reader encounters the investigation through testimony and through a narrator who acknowledges that evidence is incomplete and that his own perspective is implicated.

The Massachusetts State Police therefore matters both as an investigative body and as part of the novel’s examination of how criminal knowledge is produced. Its expertise makes the state unit central to a murder inquiry that local authorities alone might rarely encounter, but cooperation, access, and interpretation place limits on what that expertise can settle. The distinction between gathering evidence and deciding what story it tells remains unresolved at the heart of the case.