It did not mention that I gave my name and title before he grabbed me. It did not mention my offer to confirm my identity at the clerk's station, and it described the contact with his wrist as a blow aimed at his upper body.
I read the last sentence twice. The language was familiar from hundreds of documents I had encountered as a lawyer and judge, but familiarity did nothing to soften its effect when it described me.
“He says I hit him first.”
“Yes,” Denise said. “The statement must be tested against the record.”
I wanted to write corrections in the margin immediately. Denise gave me a separate sheet and asked me to distinguish what I remembered from what I could infer or had learned afterward.
The exercise slowed me down. I remembered brushing his wrist, not his chest; I remembered the briefcase in my right hand, and I remembered his left hand holding my arm.
But I could not swear which foot moved backward first. I had not measured the distance between us, and I could not remember whether his radio sounded before or after the insult.
I left those things uncertain. The facts I knew were strong enough without borrowing precision from anger.
Denise then explained that courthouse surveillance had captured two useful views. One showed the approach from above the elevator lobby, while another showed the encounter beside the staircase from farther down the hall.
Neither camera recorded sound. A directory sign obscured part of one view, and the other lost my lower body behind a passing man, but together they showed more of the exchange than Simone's phone alone.
“Have you watched them?” I asked.
“With the investigators. You should give any further memory account before we review what you are entitled to see.”
I understood the reason. Every replay could become another layer between my original memory and the words I would later say under oath.
Morgan met us the next morning. I clarified my account without watching the footage first, then answered questions about the report's description of a chest strike.
“I did not punch him,” I said. “I moved his wrist because he was reaching toward me again.”
“Did your hand touch any other part of his body?”
“I don't know. Not intentionally.”
That answer felt dangerously open. Denise nodded slightly, reminding me that honesty was not an invitation I had to close with absolute language.
Later, we watched the overhead recording. I saw myself looking toward the clerk's station, the briefcase held low, and Rourke closing the gap between us.
His hand seized my arm. My free hand rose toward his wrist, and the slap followed while my briefcase remained at my side.
The camera did not make the moment less violent. Distance made it worse in another way: I could see how little space existed between the ordinary morning and the act that ended it.
I asked to pause the recording. My cheek had healed enough that makeup covered most of the bruise, but my body responded as though his hand were still in the air.
Morgan waited. Nobody told me the image proved I should feel relieved.
Denise asked whether I wanted to stop for the day. I said I wanted a few minutes, which was different, and she accepted the distinction. We sat without discussing strategy while I held a glass of water. I had spent years measuring pauses in hearings by the patience of everyone waiting; this pause belonged to me, and nobody needed to turn it into evidence that I was either stronger or weaker than the woman on the screen.
When we resumed, the briefcase fell and papers opened across the floor like a white fan. Keene entered the frame, moved between us, and Rourke's posture changed before any court camera could have recorded his words.
The difference was visible without a title on the screen. I sat still until the recording ended, then asked Denise to keep my written corrections with the exact version of the report we had reviewed.
An account should not be allowed to improve itself quietly after the evidence arrived.
Someone called Simone at work the following week. The caller identified himself as a colleague of Rourke's and said he wanted to make sure she understood the consequences of giving a misleading statement about a police encounter.
I learned of it from Denise after Simone reported the call to Morgan. There was no recording of the full conversation, only the incoming number, Simone's notes made afterward, and a coworker who heard the end when Simone switched to speaker.