Little Deaths(81)

The jury was all male, all middle-aged, probably blue collar. Ruth looked at them and they looked right back at her. A row of hard faces. She wrote something on her notepad and pushed it toward Scott.

Pete wondered if she was asking the same question he had asked.

Why are there no women on the jury?

Scott had told him that all the women who could have sat on this jury had been excused. This could have been for any number of reasons: maybe they were too busy. Maybe they just didn’t want to get involved. Maybe they had children and homes to take care of, while their husbands sat here, judging Ruth.

Scott scrawled something back, his eyes on Hirsch, who was speaking to the jury. He sounded fierce now, staccato, like a bulldog barking.

“There’s no room for sympathy in a case like this.”

Ruth leaned in to Scott and whispered something. He bent to listen, still focusing on Hirsch, and her smallness next to him made her seem even more fragile.

Pete hoped she wouldn’t guess the real reason, or worm it out of Scott. Every woman on the prospective jury panel had been released after they had stated they believed she was guilty.

He didn’t want her to learn how it had been that morning in the packed hallways of the courthouse. The swiveling heads, the curious eyes, the pointing fingers. He didn’t want her to know about the harsh voices, bristling with righteous anger, with condemnation.

“I heard she put her face on before she even called the cops.”

“She’s never shed a single tear for those poor children. Not a single one, and that’s a fact.”

“My sister’s husband, his cousin knew them, she said they were the most beautiful kids you ever saw.”

There were women on the public benches who were obsessed with the case, or with her. Women who’d taken three buses to be here, who’d slept in the corridor to ensure their place in line. Who were willing to miss meals, to sit for hours on hard benches and listen to legal arguments, who were willing to abandon their own children to neighbors and friends—all to bear witness to Ruth.

As Scott had told Pete earlier, Ruth had already been judged and pronounced guilty in the beauty parlors, the backyards, and the kitchens of Queens. Everything depended on whether the jury would feel the same way.


The next few days were taken up with cross-examination of the medical experts. By the end of the second afternoon, Pete’s head was aching from trying to make sense of long scientific words he’d never heard before. When the court adjourned for the day, he walked outside and took a long sweet breath of fresh air. Instead of heading straight home, he looked over to the far side of the parking lot, shading his eyes, trying to see if there was somewhere nearby he could get a soda or a sandwich.

And then he noticed them: four men walking in a tight line toward an unremarkable car. Hirsch, his assistant, and a short paunchy guy he’d seen around the courthouse—and between them, stumbling like a man too drunk or too tired to hold himself up: Johnny Salcito.

He watched them for a moment as Salcito climbed unsteadily into the back of the car, Hirsch’s assistant with him. Hirsch shut the door behind them and walked to the back of the car to speak to the short guy. They shook hands, the man got into the driver’s seat, and the car pulled away. Hirsch lit a cigarette and walked back toward the courthouse.

Pete stared after the car, pursed his lips, then shrugged and turned away. It would be another twenty-four hours before he understood the significance of Salcito being driven away by the prosecution team.


The witness stand was fifty paces from where Johnny was sitting, down the center aisle of the courtroom, past the defense table, left past the judge.

He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead. Ruth kept a smile pasted on her face, kept looking at him, kept hoping he’d turn around and wink.

Scott had told her that Johnny’s evidence could save her. So she needed him to do this right. She needed him to look at her and reassure her that it was going to be okay.

He reached the witness stand, took the oath. He answered Scott’s questions as he’d said he would. He’d spoken to Ruth on the night of July thirteenth. She had seemed normal. Everything was as usual.

She had expected to feel relief when he said that, but his voice was too quiet, his demeanor subdued. He looked like a condemned man. As Hirsch rose to cross-examine, she saw the smirk on his face and clutched Scott’s arm. Whispered: “What’s wrong? What’s happening?”

Scott didn’t answer, just shook his head. A tic started up in his eyelid.

It’ll be okay. Johnny loves me. He needs me.

Hirsch smiled at Johnny as though they were old friends, and began to ask him about his relationship with her.

“How many nights would you say you spent with the defendant? In total.”

“Well, it’s difficult to say.”

“Fifty? A hundred?”

“More than fifty.”

“And where did you meet with her?”

“I’m not sure what . . .”

“You took her to dinner? You went to shows together?”

“Yes.”

“And you stayed in motels?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Salcito, did the defendant ever visit your home?”

“She . . . yes.”

“And where was your wife on these occasions, Mr. Salcito? When Mrs. Malone came to your home?”