“Did the defendant request an attorney?”
“Not at that time. She was very willing to explain her version of events. She maintained that she did not touch the infant until he started to code. She also admitted that she and Mr. Bauer did not—how did she put it?—see eye to eye.”
“Then what happened?”
“Well, we wanted to let her know that we were looking out for her. If it was an accident, we said, just tell us, and then the judge would go easy on her and we could straighten out the mess and she could get on with raising her boy. But she clammed up and said she didn’t want to talk anymore.” He shrugs. “I guess itwasn’tan accident.”
“Objection,” Kennedy says.
Judge Thunder winces, trying to pivot toward the court reporter. “Sustained. Strike the witness’s last comment from the record.”
But it hangs in the space between us, like the glow of a neon sign after the plug has been pulled.
I feel negative pressure on my shoulder and realize Kennedy has released me. She stands in front of the detective. “You had a warrant?”
“Yes.”
“Did you call Ruth to tell her you’d be coming? Ask her to come voluntarily to the station?”
“That’s not what we do with murder warrants,” MacDougall says.
“What time was your warrant issued?”
“FiveP.M.or so.”
“And what time did you actually get to Ruth’s house?”
“About threeA.M.”
Kennedy looks at the jury as if to say,Can you believe this?“Any particular reason for the delay?”
“It was fully intentional. One of the tenets of law enforcement is to go when someone is least expecting you. That disarms the suspect and moves the process along.”
“When you knocked on Ruth’s door, then, and she didn’t immediately welcome you with a coffee cake and a big hug, is it possible that was because she was fast asleep at three in the morning?”
“I can’t speak to the defendant’s sleep habits.”
“The cursory search you did…in fact didn’t you actually empty the drawers and cabinets and knock over furniture and otherwise destroy Ms. Jefferson’s home when she was handcuffed and unable to access any weapon?”
“You never know when a weapon might be within someone’s reach, ma’am.”
“Isn’t it also true that you pushed her son to the ground and pulled his arms behind his back to subdue him?”
“That’s standard procedure for officer safety. We didn’t know that was Ms. Jefferson’s son. We saw a large, angry Black youth who was visibly upset.”
“Really?” Kennedy says. “Was he wearing a hoodie too?”
—
JUDGETHUNDER STRIKESthat comment from the record, and when Kennedy sits down, she looks just as surprised by her outburst as I am. “Sorry,” she murmurs. “That just slipped out.” The judge, though, is furious. He calls counsel up for a sidebar. There is a noise machine again that prevents me from hearing what he says, but from the color of his face, and the full-throttle anger as he laces into my lawyer, I know he didn’t ask her up there to praise her.
“That,” Kennedy tells me, a little white around the gills when she returns, “is why you don’t bring up race in a courtroom.”
Judge Thunder decides that his back spasm merits adjournment for the rest of the day.
Because of the snow, it takes us longer to get home. When Edison and I turn the corner on our block, we are damp and exhausted. A man is trying to dig out his car using only his gloved hands. Two neighborhood boys are in the thick of a snowball fight; one missile smacks against Edison’s back.
There is a car sitting in front of our house. It’s a black sedan with a driver, which isn’t something you see very often around here, at least not once you get off the Yale campus. As I approach, the rear door opens and a woman stands up. She is wearing a ski parka and furry boots and is buried under a layer of wool—a hat, a scarf. It takes me a moment to realize that this is Christina.
