Attempts to Find Leon

Attempts to Find Leon is Rusty Sabich’s effort to enlist Dan Lipranzer in locating Leon Wells while Rusty is standing trial for Carolyn Polhemus’s murder. The search remains uncertain and repeatedly deferred: Lipranzer has not yet begun, the prosecution has scheduled his testimony late in the trial, and the police department has closed ranks. Its importance lies not in a discovery the search achieves, but in what it shows about Rusty’s dependence on a friend, his willingness to pursue a tenuous lead, and the limited room left for investigation inside the trial’s timetable.

A Search Held Back by the Trial

Rusty watches the prosecution’s order of proof for the point at which Lipranzer will testify. He hopes that testimony will allow the search for Leon to resume, but the list gives him no immediate opening: Lipranzer is scheduled toward the latter part of the case. Rusty has also asked Sandy Stern’s private investigator to look further, but the investigator says there is nothing to do. The search therefore runs alongside the trial rather than ahead of it, held in suspension by the very proceeding whose evidence Rusty is trying to challenge.

The prosecution’s sequence helps explain that pressure. It plans to begin with the murder scene and the collection of evidence, then build toward Rusty’s relationship with Carolyn, his handling of the investigation, and the physical evidence placing him at the scene. That evidence includes fingerprints on a glass, telephone records, fibers, a witness from Nearing, and blood-test results. Rusty understands the case as circumstantial, but its planned accumulation makes time consequential: Lipranzer’s late appearance means Rusty cannot simply turn from the courtroom to the search when he chooses.

Lipranzer Is Asked to Help

When Rusty and Lipranzer speak privately, Lipranzer proposes meeting that night to discuss the matter he had agreed to help with. He offers to drive Rusty home after his shift, which runs from four in the afternoon until midnight, and suggests a meeting at Grand and Kindle at 11:30 in his unmarked Aries. The practical arrangements make the search tangible, even as its purpose remains unsettled: this is not an active investigation with a known lead, but an attempt to decide where to begin.

Lipranzer admits he has not started and does not know where to look. Rusty offers possible avenues, but no specific one is established as promising. The hesitation matters. Lipranzer is not refusing his friend; rather, he sees no clear investigative path and questions whether the search can produce anything useful. The exchange leaves the effort dependent on Rusty’s persistence and Lipranzer’s personal willingness to try despite the lack of a starting point.

A Motive Without a Clear Lead

Asked why finding Leon matters, Rusty says that he wants to find something. When Lipranzer asks whether that means something on Molto, Rusty agrees, while acknowledging how little he can make of the idea. He understands the search as a possible way to uncover information about the prosecutor, not as a lead whose value has already been demonstrated. In Rusty’s own assessment, it may serve as a diversion, a red herring in the broader struggle with the prosecution. The uncertainty is part of the action: he wants a result but cannot confidently specify what that result would be.

Rusty recognizes that this purpose makes the request harder for Lipranzer to accept. Lipranzer’s faith in him is dwindling, and he sees the risks of getting involved. Rusty also knows that the department has closed itself off; Lipranzer warns that colleagues may target Lionel Kenneally for giving Rusty time. Even so, Rusty asks Lipranzer to run a sheet, after learning that Stern’s investigator, Berman, could not obtain a rap sheet from the department. The request narrows the search to a concrete preliminary step, but it does not remove the institutional barrier.

The Search Against the Trial’s Evidence

The effort to locate Leon takes place while the prosecution is presenting a carefully ordered case. At the fingerprint stage, Maurice Dickerman explains how prints are made and demonstrates comparisons between the glass and Rusty’s employee file card. Later, Sandy Stern questions Painless Kumagai about whether Carolyn knew she could not conceive; Kumagai answers no. These courtroom moments show that the evidence is being tested in public, but they do not supply Rusty with a result from the search for Leon. The two lines of action remain distinct: one challenges the prosecution’s proof, while the other seeks information about Molto through a person Rusty cannot yet find.

Rusty’s later account of the physical evidence also gives the search its broader context without resolving its purpose. He argues that traces such as fibers, hair, telephone records, and fingerprints were not anticipated by whoever arranged the scene, and that Molto followed those traces. That account underscores why Rusty wants information beyond the prosecution’s presentation, but it does not establish what Leon might say or whether Lipranzer succeeds in finding him. The search remains an unfinished possibility, shaped by an uncertain objective, a shrinking reserve of trust, and a trial schedule that keeps its most useful intermediary waiting.