“Youaskingme?”
I’m trying not to lose it. One lit fuse in a room is enough.“A T-shirt!”I say, matching his volume.“Dark! Black! Maybe navy!”
“Did he have sideburns?”
“I didn’t see the side of him. I told you, all I saw was a piece of his face because I had the chain on.”
Now he’s screaming. “You saw him! What are you not telling me? What are you hiding?”
He rushes toward me like a mad dog. Amber jumps between us and pulls him away. Does she think he’s going to hit me? Has he ever done that to her? She’s crying now, and he’s sweating and breathing heavily. I’m hoping this is the end of it.
No such luck. He has more questions. Round two.
“Let’s start from the beginning,” he says. “You saw a car drive up.”
“Not saw. Heard. I heard the gravel in the—”
“And you looked out the window.”
“Yes. Then the doorbell rang.”
“And you opened the door.”
“She looked through the peephole first,” Amber says, remembering what I told her earlier.
“Shut up!” Ben says to her. To me, he says, “You opened the door to a stranger. Then what?”
“How many times does she have to tell you, she didn’t open—”
“AndItoldyouto shut the [expletive] up!” he screams at Amber. I can see veins popping up on his forehead.
“It wasn’t open!” I shout. “I had the chain on!”
“He could have pushed right through that!”
“But he didn’t.”
“And then?”
“And then the dogs showed up and started growling.”
“Huh. The dogs are smarter than you are,” he says. “And then?”
“I told you. He asked where Ben was. Then he said, ‘Tell him a friend stopped by.’”
“Did he think you were my wife?”
(Objection, Your Honor. The defendant can’t presume to know what someone else was thinking.) “I don’t know,” I say.
“And then you watched him walk to his car?”
“Yes.” Knowing his next question, I give him a full description of the car—well, as full as I can, given what I could see.
“But you didn’t see the license.”
“No. I’m nearsighted.”
“You don’t wear distance glasses?”
