“Why don’t you just turn the hearing aid down until the background noise is bearable?”
“You can’t understand unless you wear them.”
“That really doesn’t answer my question. Help us understand.”
“It’s a very grating noise, even on low volume. The traffic and all. It’s artificial sounding, like static. It irritates me.”
“I should think it would be an important safety issue to have it on.”
“In what respect?” She sounded suspicious. As if he were trying to sell her something. Something she knew better than to buy.
“What if you were crossing the street and there was a car coming?”
“I look both ways.”
“I’m sure you do. But what if a driver was honking his horn and you didn’t hear it?”
“I would hear a blaring horn if it was right on top of me.”
“But you didn’t hear Mr. Velez.”
“No.”
“Do you regret that now? I mean, a man lost his life because you turned off your hearing aids. If it were me, I’d lose quite a bit of sleep over that decision.”
“I’m not sure what you’re getting at,” she said, seeming to draw more deeply into her own skin for safety.
“You’ve made several statements about the inconvenience of the hearing aids when there’s traffic around. I think that’s fallen on my ears in a particular way, and it’s made me want to ask more about it. Mrs. Velez, the widow of the victim, is not here in the courtroom this morning because she gave birth yesterday. But what if she were? What if she were sitting right there beside that gentleman?”
All eyes of the jury, as well as those of the defendant and her two grown children, turned to Raymond. He looked briefly behind himself, but there was no one back there. He was the gentleman in question.
“Don’t you think she might wince inwardly, hearing you talk about your inconvenience? I mean, you keep saying the hearing aids are very irritating. But they would have saved that man’s life. I certainly don’t think you want the jury to get the impression that you’re still thinking of your own convenience after a man lost his life.”
“Objection, Your Honor,” the defense attorney said. He did not struggle to his feet. He did not go on to classify what sort of objection he was raising.
“Counselor,” the judge said, frowning at the prosecuting attorney, “wherever you’re going with this, hurry up and get there.”
“All right, Your Honor. I’ll be extremely direct. Ms. Hatfield. You’ve been out on the street many times since this unfortunate incident occurred, correct?”
“I have.”
“Were your hearing aids on or off?”
“Off.”
“Even after a man lost his life.”
“I had no way of knowing that would happen.”
“But now it has happened. And you know it.”
“It was a freak accident. A once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. It’s not going to happen again.”
“And do you still carry a handgun when you go out?”
“Of course I do. It’s dangerous out there, and this ‘unfortunate incident,’ as you called it, only proves it.”
Raymond looked up from his typing. Looked at the prosecutor’s face. Silence fell over the room. And hovered for a strange length of time.
Then the attorney seemed to pull his thoughts together.
“Are you honestly saying, Ms. Hatfield, that this shooting proves that you are the one in danger on the street? Because I thought it proved that you are the danger.”
“Objection, Your Honor.”
“Withdrawn. One more question for now, Ms. Hatfield, and then I think we’ll be recessing for lunch. It’s a very important question, so I hope you’ll take a moment before answering. Do you feel remorse?”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s a pretty straightforward question. Do you feel remorse over what happened?”
“Well, of course I do. What kind of person do you think I am? Do you think I’m a monster? Well, I’m not a monster! Or course I’m sorry that man is dead, but I made the best decision I could in the heat of the moment.”
“So you still think it was a good decision.”
“I think I did my best.”
“So you don’t regret what you did.”
A pause. Raymond watched the back of the defense attorney’s head. Waited for him to pop up and object. He never did.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve saying that to me. You don’t know what I think or how I feel. How could you even say such a thing to me?”
“Well, if you really want to know, Ms. Hatfield, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you how I arrived at that conjecture. The one time you referred to the victim and said you’re sorry he’s dead, you immediately followed it with the word ‘but.’ Even more to the point, when a person does something she deeply regrets, it tends to bring changes in her behavior. She sees how certain actions on her part led to a certain outcome, and . . . well, it seems it’s human nature to want to make some changes if you really want to be sure you never create that outcome again.”
The defendant sat back with a thump, eyes narrowing. “I resent the implication,” she said.
“I’ll just ask again. Very point-blank, if that’s not a bad choice of phrasing. It probably is, though. Do you feel remorse over what happened to Mr. Velez?”
“I made the best decision I could at the time.”
“Right. Got it. This might be a good time to break for lunch, Your Honor.”
Raymond stood in line at the cafeteria, where he ordered a turkey sandwich. He placed it on his plastic tray, keeping his eyes down. He picked up a stainless steel fork, spoon, and knife, but then he wasn’t sure why. He wouldn’t need them to eat a sandwich. But he felt too embarrassed to put them back.
He paid at the cash register, then stepped away from the line and looked around. There was no place to sit. Not one free table.
He headed for the door, thinking he would find a place to sit outside the cafeteria. In a stairwell, maybe. But a uniformed guard at the door turned him back inside again.
“You can’t take that out of here.”
“I paid for the sandwich.”
“But you didn’t pay for the plate, and the tray. And the silverware. Sorry. You have to sit in here.”