Little Deaths(87)

“That is correct.”

“I believe the police interviewed you on August sixth, just over three weeks after the children went missing. Is that also correct?”

“Yes sir.”

“And yet at that first interview, you didn’t mention any of this. Not waking in the night, nor sitting at the window, nor what you saw on the street.”

She looked flustered.

“Could you tell the court why that was? Why you didn’t mention any of this until you wrote to the police a full four months after the crime took place?”

Pete stared at Mrs. Gobek. At her shapeless dress, her dyed hair. And realized: she was the final piece of the puzzle. It was her statement that had finally given Devlin what he needed to arrest Ruth.

Ruth was frowning, leaning forward in her chair, but Scott looked almost resigned, as he listened to Hirsch anticipate the defense’s points before he could make them.

Mrs. Gobek threaded her fingers through the chain of the crucifix she wore around her neck and looked down.

“Well, it was my husband.”

“Your husband told you not to talk to the police?”

“Yes. I said I wanted to speak up, but he said not to get involved. That the police knew their job and they didn’t need me. And that if what I said was true, then someone else would have seen it too. He said, let them report it.”

Hirsch leaned against the witness stand, almost casually, and grinned at the jury. A couple of them smiled back.

“Your husband was reluctant to let you come forward. Understandably so. But what happened, Mrs. Gobek, to make you change your mind?”

“I read in the newspaper about the case. About the police, about how they have made no arrest. I realize that they do not know. That no one else has seen what I have seen.”

She lifted her chin.

“I realize—I tell my husband: I am the only one who has seen this lady, Mrs. Malone, with her children on the night they were murdered.”

Her gaze swept the jury, the public benches, then came to rest on Ruth. Her lip curled.

Hirsch stood back and let her deliver her last line without interruption.

“I realize that I am the only one who can help them catch this killer.”

Hirsch smiled at her.

“Thank you, Mrs. Gobek. Please remain seated.”

He walked away from her, winked at Scott, and said clearly, “Your witness, Counselor.”

Scott rose from the table. He looked exhausted.

“Mrs. Gobek, the people you saw from your window that night—were they speaking loudly? Were they shouting?”

“No, they were speaking in normal voices.”

“And how far from your window were they? When they were under the streetlight, for example?”

She frowned. “Well, I do not know exactly.”

He waved his hand. “Were they, for example, farther than I am from you now? Farther than you are from the jury? From that window?”

She looked around her for a long moment and pointed to the public door of the courtroom.

“I would say they were that far.”

Scott followed her gaze. “Thank you, Mrs. Gobek. So about forty feet.”

She shrugged.

“I would now like to show you Exhibit 16a, a plan of the block where Mrs. Malone’s apartment is located.”

The bailiff handed her a sheet of paper with a diagram printed on it, and the jury scrabbled to find their own copies.

“Mrs. Malone’s apartment is marked with a cross. Can you see that on your copy, Mrs. Gobek?”

She studied the piece of paper and nodded. “Yes. I can see it.”

“And your own apartment is marked with a blue cross. Would you confirm for us that this is your apartment?”

She nodded again. “Yes. Yes, that is our apartment.”

Scott reached in his breast pocket for something and walked toward her, arm outstretched.

“And now I would like you to take this pen and mark where you think those people were on the night of July thirteenth.”

He handed her the pen and waited. She looked at Hirsch, who nodded.

Perhaps encouraged by this, she uncapped the pen and made a mark on the card. Scott took the pen and paper from her, and held the latter up.

“Will the court note that Mrs. Gobek has placed a mark on the plan that is almost two hundred feet from her window, according to the scale given on the card.”

He handed the piece of paper to the nearest member of the jury and they passed it along the row.

Scott turned back to his witness.

“Two hundred feet, Mrs. Gobek.”

Pete leaned back in his seat. Surely this would unsettle her.

But she just looked at Scott and said nothing.

“That’s quite a distance to recognize someone and to hear their conversation.”

She remained silent.

“You have stated that they were speaking at a normal volume. You are claiming that from two hundred feet, you heard them talking in normal tones?”

Her face flushed. “I do not claim. I did hear. And that is normal: when my friend Mrs. Ciszek calls to me from her apartment and asks do I want anything from the store, I hear her from my apartment.”

There was a low ripple of laughter, the tension easing a little.

Scott asked, “Where does your friend Mrs. Ciszek live?”