The doctor found a split lip, bruising along my cheek and upper arm, and symptoms that required monitoring after the strike. She explained what would mean returning urgently, arranged follow-up for my hearing, and gave Aaron written instructions because I kept forgetting the second half of her sentences.
It embarrassed me. I was accustomed to holding several complicated arguments in my head, yet I could not remember when I was supposed to take the next dose of an ordinary pain medicine.
“You don't have to pass an examination here,” she said.
I wanted to answer that I knew. Instead, I let Aaron take the papers.
At home, the rooms looked too peaceful. A cup I had left by the sink still held half an inch of tea, and my robe from the morning lay over the bedroom chair.
I sat on the sofa and called the presiding judge, Malcolm Hensley. He had reassigned the urgent matters and arranged for my remaining calendar to be reviewed rather than canceled indiscriminately.
“Take the time the doctor recommends,” he said. “We will deal with the list.”
“Who is handling the investigation?”
“The state bureau has been requested. Any proceeding involving the incident will be assigned outside your ordinary circle, and we will document the conflicts.”
I appreciated his care with the last sentence. Courthouses were communities as well as institutions, and friendship could contaminate a result even when everyone believed they were helping.
Before we disconnected, I asked him not to describe Rourke as having made an unfortunate mistake. Hensley paused.
“I haven't issued a statement.”
“When you do, please separate the mistaken identity from the force.”
He said he would. I put down the phone, uncertain whether I had been fair or simply afraid of hearing the sentence before it was spoken.
Aaron brought soup and sat opposite me. He had been angry on the drive home but was making an effort not to fill the house with an anger I would then need to manage.
“What do you know about Kara Benton?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
The name stayed between us. Somewhere, a woman had been expected in 4B, and Rourke had decided I was her because I wore a dark coat and stood on the same floor.
“I want to know whether she arrived,” I said.
“Can you ask without getting involved in her case?”
“Through the right person.”
I called my own lawyer before doing anything else. Denise Ward had represented a colleague in a difficult employment matter, and she agreed to meet once I was ready.
She told me that wanting information did not require collecting it personally. She could make appropriate inquiries and ensure I did not accidentally become a witness who had interviewed other witnesses.
The reminder stung because it was necessary. I knew the rules, but being hurt had made me impatient with every boundary that stood between a question and an answer.
Later, Park called to confirm my report number and ask whether a state investigator could contact me the next day. She also said Simone had been able to address her delayed appearance through the clerk.
“Was she penalized for stopping to help?” I asked.
“I am told the delay was explained. Her underlying matter is separate.”
That was all I needed to know. I thanked her and asked her to pass my lawyer's contact information to the outside investigator.
Denise also suggested that I keep a simple record of symptoms and appointments while they were fresh. I found an unused notebook in a kitchen drawer and wrote the date at the top, then paused over what to call the event. Incident sounded too small and assault sounded like a conclusion someone might accuse me of borrowing from my work. Finally, I wrote what I knew without a label: He slapped my face. My ear is ringing. Aaron is here. The page did not need to do more than remember that evening.
At dusk, my cheek had turned a deeper color. I stood before the bathroom mirror, hearing Rourke's sudden change of voice when Keene said my title.
The slap was one injury. The recognition afterward was another kind of knowledge, and I could not put it back where it had been before that morning.
I went downstairs and asked Aaron to turn off the news. He reached for the remote without asking what I had seen, and we spent the evening listening to rain against our own windows.
State Investigator Celeste Morgan arrived two days later, after Denise and I had agreed on a time when I would not be exhausted from the hearing appointment. She brought a printed floor plan, a recorder, and the patience to let me finish an answer before shaping the next question.