“Thank you. Go on, Mr. Harrison.”
“Well, it didn’t work out like we’d hoped. The job fell through and the guy didn’t want us all staying in his apartment. Kathy and me were arguing—we had no money, no place to live, didn’t know what to do. She wanted us to take the kids to her parents’ place in Wayne County till we got on our feet again, and I took that hard. A man wants to feel he can provide for his family without relying on charity.”
Pete glanced over at the jury. Most looked sympathetic; one or two were nodding.
“Anyway, the next night, things . . . things came to a head.”
“This would be the night of July thirteenth?”
“Yes sir. Ron—the guy we were staying with—he told us over dinner that we’d have to be gone the next morning. Said he was going on a trip. Well, I didn’t believe him—I thought it was a story to get rid of us. Told him I thought it was a lousy thing to do, turning away a guy who needed help. Putting a man and his family on the street.”
He sighed, ran a hand through his hair.
“Things got a little heated and I wound up saying that we’d leave there and then, that we wouldn’t sleep another night under his roof. I got my pride.”
Pete looked over at the jury again. More of them were nodding now.
This is going to work, Pete thought. He looked at Ruth, willing her to turn to him. He wanted to see her face when she realized that things were beginning to go her way.
This is going to work and it will all be worth it.
“My wife was crying. She went into the guest bedroom where we were all sleeping, and lay down on the bed. She said I should go back out and make my peace with him. I told her it was too late and . . . well, we had words. With all the noise, the kids woke up and Mary started crying too, and I just . . . I had to get out. So I took a long walk. To cool down. Then I came back and told Kathy to call her parents. Said we’d go and stay there after all. Seemed like we were fresh out of options.
“Ron had gone out by then, so Kathy and I had coffee, talked things over some more. I took a shower and then we got packed up. I loaded up the car while she got the kids ready, and then I came back to help her with them, and we left.”
“Was the car parked in front of the apartment?”
“We hadn’t been able to get a space there. I parked it on Main Street, just around the corner.”
Pete saw Devlin lean forward in his seat, his face tense.
“What time was it when you left Ron’s house, Mr. Harrison?”
“Well, we didn’t eat dinner till around nine, and with everything that was going on . . . I was out for an hour, maybe more, so it was a little after two when we left. I took a quick look around the room to make sure we hadn’t left anything behind and I noticed the clock. I remember thinking it would be awful late to wake Kathy’s folks.”
“So you and your wife took the children outside: were you carrying them?”
“My wife was carrying Mary—she was fast asleep. I started out carrying Robert, but he wanted to be with his momma. Guess he was still upset at all the fighting earlier. I let him down and he ran back and held her hand till we were almost at the car, and then he came and caught up with me again.”
Pete listened, afraid that Harrison would slip up, that he’d get something wrong. It had taken Pete hours to come up with all this detail, to type it all out. The man who called himself Clyde Harrison had looked over the closely typed pages, shaken his head.
“Going to take me a while to learn all of this. I’ll be earning that money all right.”
Now Scott turned to face the jury.
“You heard from the previous witness, Mrs. Gobek, that she saw a man and a woman with two children on Main Street in the early morning of July fourteenth, nineteen sixty-five. She identified that woman as the defendant.”
He looked back at Harrison.
“Now, Mr. Harrison, can you confirm for the jury that at that time, shortly after two a.m. on the morning of July fourteenth, you were on Main Street with your wife and your two young children?”
“Yes sir, I was.”
Scott nodded at him, took a moment, then turned to the judge.
“No further questions, Your Honor.”
Pete glanced at Frank, who was frowning, like he didn’t understand the significance of what Harrison was saying, and then looked over at Ruth. She was leaning forward, her hands clasped as though in prayer. He gazed at her profile, at the way her cheekbones gleamed through her skin.
Hirsch leapt to his feet, launched straight into battle.
“Mr. Harrison, the events you’ve described took place over eighteen months ago, yet you’ve given us an uncommonly detailed account of that night. You must have an excellent memory. An exceptional memory, even.”
Harrison ducked his head and said, “Thank you, sir.”
Pete wanted to applaud. But Hirsch wasn’t through.