Rourke described a crowded courthouse, an unclear photograph, and instructions he believed required locating a woman who might avoid her hearing. He said my assertion that I was a judge sounded like an attempt to intimidate him.
“I had encountered false claims of authority before,” he said.
His lawyer asked what he thought when I moved toward the desk. He said I appeared to be leaving the area and might have been reaching for something inside the briefcase.
I kept my eyes on the witness stand. My case had remained at my side until the slap, a fact visible from more than one angle, but Rourke's explanation relied on what he claimed to fear rather than what actually emerged from it.
Cross waited until he completed the account. Then she asked him to identify the instruction directing him to arrest Kara Benton.
He acknowledged there was none on the assignment sheet. He said his broader responsibility allowed him to investigate suspicious conduct, and she asked what conduct made Kara suspicious before he approached me.
The answer returned to the photograph and her expected location. Cross displayed the note telling officers to verify with the clerk, then the log placing Kara in the consultation room before my elevator reached the fourth floor.
“Did you ask the clerk where Ms. Benton was?”
“Not before contact.”
“Did you ask anyone in 4B?”
“No.”
He explained that events moved quickly. Cross played the approach from the overhead camera and asked him to identify the point at which he lost the opportunity to ask a question.
There was no theatrical silence. He answered that he exercised judgment in the moment, and she moved to his reports.
The first said I refused identification. The later version acknowledged that I gave a name and title, which he chose not to believe; Cross asked why he omitted that information initially.
“I considered the claim irrelevant because it was unverified.”
“Your report was supposed to describe the encounter, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Including relevant statements made during it?”
“Yes.”
She then asked about his fear of the briefcase and his own instruction that I open it. He said he intended to control the movement, although neither recording showed him explaining how I should proceed before taking my arm.
Finally, Cross played Simone's recording. My hand moved toward his wrist, his hand crossed my face, and the briefcase fell.
Rourke watched himself. He said the camera did not convey everything he perceived, which was true in the broad sense that cameras do not contain a person's mind.
The difficult question was whether his perception justified the act and whether his report described it truthfully. Those questions belonged to the jury, guided by the judge's instructions rather than my private certainty.
The defense called a training witness who explained general principles about controlling hands and maintaining distance. Under questioning, the witness acknowledged that a technique's name did not make every use of it appropriate and that a person holding a case was not automatically presenting a weapon.
I listened without wanting the witness humiliated. A fair trial required room for an explanation even if the explanation did not survive the facts.
During a recess, I walked to a window overlooking the loading area and watched workers move boxes through a service door. The sight reminded me of how many lives continued around a trial without becoming part of it. I had been one of those people once, passing a witness in the hallway while thinking about my next hearing. I hoped I would remember that perspective when the attention eventually moved away from me.
When the evidence closed, I felt oddly empty. Months of appointments and preparation had brought us to a point where neither my work nor my anxiety could add anything useful.
Outside, Aaron asked what I thought. I said I understood Rourke's explanation now more clearly than before.
“Does that help?”
I considered the question. “It helps me stop imagining that there is a missing sentence that would make it right.”
We went home before the evening news began. The case had reached the people appointed to decide it, and I needed to let the night be a night rather than another hearing conducted in my head.
The jury deliberated through one afternoon and most of the next morning. I stayed at home rather than pacing courthouse corridors, keeping the phone near me while trying to complete administrative work that did not require difficult decisions.
I read the same paragraph three times. Eventually, I admitted that the work was a disguise for waiting and put it aside.