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?”
The bailiff passed back the paper and pen, and Mrs. Gobek made another mark.
“Will the record note that Mrs. Gobek has indicated an apartment approximately one hundred and eighty feet from hers.”
Again, the piece of paper was handed to the jury. They seemed to have little interest in it this time: every gaze was fixed on Mrs. Gobek.
“If your friend speaks to you—in a normal voice . . .”
Mrs. Gobek nodded. “Yes. Yes. A normal voice.”
“If your friend speaks to you in a normal voice, and you are in your apartment, you can hear her from one hundred and eighty feet away?”
He managed to make his tone incredulous, but this only seemed to provoke her. She leaned forward into the microphone, her eyes fixed on Scott.
“Of course I can hear her. My hearing is perfect. My eyesight, perfect.”
Scott looked at her for a long moment while Pete leaned forward, silently urging him to keep going. There must be something he could do, another angle he could push.
But Scott simply walked back to his seat, saying quietly, “No further questions, Your Honor.”
Hirsch was on his feet before Scott had reached the defense table. As Mrs. Gobek struggled with the gate to the witness stand, Hirsch was there to help her down.
“How was I? How did I do?”
He took her arm. “Beautiful. It was beautiful.”
And for a moment, her flushed and triumphant face was indeed beautiful. As the judge adjourned for the day and Ruth was taken down, Mrs. Gobek’s smile was like a wash of sunlight in the dim courtroom.
19
That night Pete sat on the floor of his room, surrounded by piles of notes and interview transcripts. Was this how defeat came: in the shape of a plump woman with badly dyed hair, in the memory of a dim room, curtains closed against the sun?
Pete dug the heel of his hand into his brow. There had to be something he could do. If only he could find another witness. Someone to counter Mrs. Gobek’s testimony.