“I go every week. And I was there for the third or maybe fourth time when Mr. Kennedy was shot. Everyone remembers where they were that day. The whole place was talking about poor Mrs. Kennedy. The blood on her dress. About the man who shot the president from the window.”
“Did you ever meet Mrs. Malone anywhere other than the beauty parlor?”
“Yes, we met in the grocery store. We both did our shopping on Tuesday and Friday afternoons. I often saw her there and said hello.”
Ruth looked startled. She frowned and shook her head.
“Anywhere else?”
“Oh yes. All around the neighborhood. I would see her in the street, or sometimes in the park. Mostly with her children. Very pretty children. Polite.”
“You recognized the children?”
Mrs. Gobek looked over at the blown-up photographs of the children on the wall, and the jury followed her gaze.
“Yes. I know little Frankie and his sister. Mrs. Malone always called her Cin.”
Pete’s eyes flickered to Ruth’s white face.
Hirsch turned back to the jury.
“So you knew Mrs. Malone well, Mrs. Gobek? You got to know her over a period of years?”
“Oh yes. Certainly. I did.”
“Good. Thank you. Let’s turn now to the night of July thirteenth, nineteen sixty-five. Please tell the court what you remember about that night. In your own words.”
Pete watched her settling herself in the chair. Surely she must have read so many words about this case in the newspapers by now, heard so many from the mouths of her family and neighbors, from strangers. How could she find her own?
Her gaze slid from Hirsch to the jury. The judge. Hirsch again.
He nodded, and she began, tentatively at first.
“It was hot that night. Very hot. I could not sleep so I got up to . . . to visit the bathroom. And to get some water.”
“And then what happened?”
Hirsch was leading her gently but Pete could hear impatience in his voice. He wanted her to get to the meat of it. His mouth was almost watering.
“I took my glass into the living room and sat by the window. I was not tired. I thought that I would read until I was ready to sleep. Then I remembered that I left my book in the bedroom and I did not want to get it and wake Paul. He had a cold, he was tired.”
It was the detail that made it real. Pete looked at the faces of the jury and saw that they were in that dark apartment with her.
“So what did you do, Mrs. Gobek?”
“I was in my chair by the window. The window was open and there was a breeze.”
“Which way did your window face?”
“It looked out onto Main Street.”
“What time was this?”
“I looked at the clock when I got up and it was almost two. At first it was quiet, and then I heard voices. So perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes after two.”
“How many voices did you hear, Mrs. Gobek?”
“At first I could not tell. And then they came closer. There were two of them. A man and a woman.”
“Could you hear what they were saying?”
“No. Not then. They were coming toward me. Under the streetlight. I could not hear what they were saying, but I heard her heels.”
Her eyes went to Ruth.
“She always wore heels.”
Scott was on his feet. “Objection!”
The judge was shaking his head before Scott had even spoken.
“Sustained. The jury will ignore Mrs. Gobek’s last remark. Mrs. Gobek, please confine your answers to what happened on that particular night.”
She flushed. Bowed her head.
“Yes sir.”
Looked up at Hirsch.
“I heard her heels that night. And I could hear voices.”
“So you heard the voices of two people. Did they come into view? Did you see them?”
She nodded vigorously. “Oh yes. I saw them on the other side of the street. Under the streetlight. Very clear.”
“Can you describe what you saw?”
“A woman. She was wearing trousers. Her hair was very bright under the streetlamp. And she was carrying the children.”
“Both of them?”
Mrs. Gobek looked over at Ruth. At her slight frame.
“She was carrying the little girl who was . . . perhaps the child was asleep. And pulling the little boy by the hand. The man was walking ahead of her.”
Pete thought again of the newspaper reports he’d read. The accounts he’d written himself. All of these details had been reported in the press.
Hirsch faced the jury.
“On the night of July thirteenth, you saw a woman walking down the street with a man and two children? Is that what you’re saying, Mrs. Gobek?”
“Yes. Yes, it is what I am saying. It is what I saw.”
“What did they do then?”
“She stopped and she . . .” She brought her arms up, cradling air. “She moved the child on her shoulder. As though the little girl was heavy. She let go of the little boy and he ran ahead to the man. Then the man came back and took the child from the woman. He walked to a car that was parked the wrong way on the street. He opened the back door of the car and he threw the child into the backseat.
“She ran over and she said, ‘Don’t do that to her.’ And he looked at her and said, ‘Now you’re sorry?’ And he said something else I could not hear. And she said, ‘Don’t say that. Don’t say that.’ Like that. Twice, like that.”