Have You Seen Luis Velez?(70)

“Bear with me. Please. I want to ask about something Mr. Adler said yesterday. He said you couldn’t possibly have turned around and seen Mr. Velez holding your wallet and decided he stole it, because there was no time. There was no time for him to steal it. You had your purse clenched under your arm. He said you put it under there tightly after you got the gun out.”

“That’s right.”

“And Mr. Velez had just barely caught up to you enough to reach out.”

“Look, I know what you’re getting at. But I wasn’t lying. I turned around. I saw the wallet in his hand. I call it a purse, but I don’t want to be confusing. I concluded it was a robbery, and I acted accordingly.”

“I think you have the chronology wrong.”

“No,” she said. “I have it exactly right.”

“Turns out, though, there’s evidence to the contrary. Before you turned to face him you had already fired off a shot.”

The woman’s face went slack with surprise.

“That’s a perfectly ridiculous thing to say. How could I have fired a shot before I even turned around?”

“I don’t know,” the prosecutor said. “You tell me.” He walked to the table where his notes and files lay stacked. “Your Honor, I’d like to enter into evidence Exhibits D, E1, and E2.”

He handed two photos and some kind of document to the judge, who scanned them with his gaze, nodded, and handed them back.

He approached the witness with them, and she sat back, away from him and them, as though they might be poisonous.

“The newspaper report of the incident said you fired six bullets into Mr. Velez’s torso, emptying the gun. But that’s not quite right. I have a crime scene photo here of the body that clearly shows five entry wounds. And I also have the medical examiner’s report, which says the same.”

“Well, I don’t know where the other one went. I guess I just missed.”

“Yes. You did. You missed by nearly forty-five degrees. I also have a photo of the spot that took the first bullet. Or what police concluded was the first. It’s in the building that you were passing at the time of the shooting. The building that was on your right before you turned around.”

“So? So, I missed. Like I said. I was upset.”

“But you don’t stand and face a man at point-blank range and then fire a shot forty-five degrees off to your left.”

“So what are you saying happened, then?”

“I’m saying you fired off one shot while you were spinning around.”

“Okay. Fine. I was afraid. So what if I did?”

“If you hadn’t turned around, then you hadn’t seen the wallet in his hand.”

He waited, in case she wanted to say something. She did not. Her face seemed to be growing whiter.

The prosecutor continued, filling the silence.

“A few moments ago you said you turned around, saw your wallet in his hand, concluded it was a robbery, and acted accordingly. But apparently you had your finger so tightly on the trigger of that gun that you fired before you had even turned to face Mr. Velez. Now, I know it was not your intention to try to hurt the building you were walking past. So I can only figure you were quite fearful and all too ready to defend yourself.”

“Yes,” she said. Tentatively. As if it could be a trap. “I was.”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Yes, why. Why were you so afraid? Why had you already concluded it was time to fire the gun in your own defense?”

“I told you. I thought it was a robbery.”

“But we’ve just concluded that you had no reason to think that yet.”

“Of course I did. He was coming closer to me. He was reaching out a hand. He was about to touch me.”

“How did you know?”

“That he was reaching out?”

“Yes.”

“I turned my head partway and saw it out of the corner of my eye. Anyway, what difference does it make what exactly I thought he was going to do in the way of a crime against me? I just knew I didn’t want it, whatever it was.”

She stopped as if out of breath. She had clearly put a great deal of energy and tension into those words. Raymond was aware of himself sitting half off the wooden bench. He could feel the edge of it pressing into his buttocks.

“I see,” the attorney said. “So let’s back up a little. Back when you first took the gun out of your purse . . . what was Mr. Velez doing wrong then?”

A freighted pause.

“Wrong?” she asked. “I don’t understand the question.”

“You said you fired the gun because he was reaching out.”

“Yes.”

“So when you took the gun out of your purse . . . what was he doing?”

“Just . . . walking.”

“So why did you take out your gun?”

“He was getting closer.”

“You mean he walked faster than you did.”

“Yes, but . . . something felt threatening about it.”

“What?”

“I don’t know if I can explain it.”

“Well, I hope you can, Ms. Hatfield. Because I don’t think we live in a society where you get to shoot a man dead without being able to explain what he did to make you feel threatened. At least, I hope we don’t.”