His heart was stable enough for the appearance under his clinicians' guidance, but the long walk through the courthouse had tired him. A court officer found a chair near the witness entrance and waited without making him feel hurried.
Isaiah stood nearby until Miriam reminded him that witnesses would be handled according to the court's instructions. He went where he was directed and let the process continue without trying to supervise every step.
Walter entered alone.
He stated his name, identified the pickup, and explained why he had been outside. The toolbox was empty except for a tape measure and a few loose screws. He had intended to lend it to Louise.
Ward asked about Pike's questions.
Walter repeated what he remembered and said when he could not recall exact words. He described the grip on his shirt and the shove against the door.
“What happened to your breathing?”
“It became difficult.”
“Did you tell the officer?”
“I tried. I don't know what he heard.”
He remembered Isaiah saying Dad. He remembered wanting to answer and being unable to make the words arrive.
After that, his recollection became fragments: the grass, Evelyn's hand, a stranger asking questions he could not finish answering.
Mercer questioned his existing cardiac disease. Walter acknowledged it. His condition had been serious before Pike came to the driveway. The doctors could discuss the medical relationship between stress, force, and the event more accurately than he could.
“Then you cannot tell this jury the officer caused your heart problem,” Mercer said.
“I can tell them I was standing before he shoved me.”
The judge required the questioning to remain within the witness's knowledge. Walter accepted the boundary without treating it as an insult.
The medical witnesses later explained what could and could not be concluded. There was no simple measurement that assigned every part of a cardiac event to one movement. There was evidence of acute distress, a known vulnerability, and a sequence that required careful consideration.
Evelyn testified after lunch.
She described hearing the first raised voices, opening the security application, and taking the tablet to the doorway. She explained that the cameras recorded automatically; she had not needed to start them at the moment she became afraid.
Ward asked why she told Pike to speak with a lawyer.
“Because he wanted the tablet, and my husband was being taken to the hospital. I could not manage both things at once.”
“Did you alter the recording?”
“No.”
“Did you remove any section before giving it to counsel?”
“No.”
Mercer asked whether she had watched the footage repeatedly and whether that could affect her memory.
“Yes,” she said. “That is why I kept my first notes.”
He asked whether her love for Isaiah influenced her account.
“Of course I love him.”
“Then you want to protect him.”
“I wanted that in the driveway too.”
She paused.
“It does not change what the camera recorded.”
When she stepped down, Walter was waiting with a bottle of water. He had opened the cap because her hands were shaking.
They sat together in the permitted waiting area while other witnesses were called. Neither discussed answers. Evelyn leaned her head against his shoulder for a moment, careful not to press where the monitor leads had irritated his skin weeks earlier.
“You still owe Louise the toolbox,” she murmured.
The court accommodated Walter's need for short breaks without treating it as evidence of the officer's guilt. Marlow explained the schedule in neutral terms and kept the medical issue separate from the conclusions the jury had to reach.
Evelyn respected that. She wanted her husband's limitations recognized without becoming an argument he had not chosen to make.
During one break, Walter admitted he could not remember whether he had removed one glove or both before Pike approached. He looked ashamed of the uncertainty.
Evelyn reminded him that no one had asked him to invent an answer. Later, when the question arose, he said he did not remember. The recording could establish what the recording showed.
Outside the witness chair, the admission cost him less than he had expected. He had lived seventy-one years without remembering every movement of his hands. Being harmed had not made him suddenly obligated to do so.
Walter smiled.
“She can collect it herself.”
The joke was ordinary, almost trivial.
After a day spent proving that their family had been harmed, being trivial felt like a form of rest.
Rios wore his uniform to testify because the court had instructed him to appear in his professional capacity. He checked the collar in a courthouse restroom and disliked how much he cared whether it sat straight.