Guilt By Degrees - [3]

The judge overruled the defense objection, and the deputy district attorney resumed direct examination with the standard nonleading question: “Tell us what you saw.”

The prosecutor looked vaguely familiar, though his name escaped me. He was in his early thirties, and his carefully coiffed brown hair, perfectly tailored navy-blue suit, red power tie, and French cuffs sporting pricey-looking cuff links said that he didn’t have to rely on his civil servant’s salary to pay the rent. Or that he was still getting a free ride with Mommy and Daddy.

The witness, a surfer dude with long, bleached-out hair, stroked his sparse soul patch and licked his lips nervously before answering. “Uh, he reached out toward that lady, and the next thing I knew, he was lying on the ground.”

“And when you saw he was on the ground, what did you do?” the prosecutor asked. “Did you call the police?”

The witness bent his head and hunched over. He looked away from the prosecutor, and his eyes darted between the floor and the top of counsel table for a few long seconds. Finally he sighed and replied in a quiet voice, “No. I, like, I don’t know. I guess I thought he was just drunk or high or something.” The low hum of whispers and shuffled papers suddenly stopped, opening a vacuum of silence around the witness’s last words. The surfer dude reddened, darted another look around the courtroom at all the eyes now fixed on him, and added defensively, “No one else thought it was a big deal either. I mean, no one called…at least, not for a while.”

Every face in the courtroom-with the exception of the prosecutor, who’d been expecting that answer-reflected the ugliness of the mental image those words had painted: of people callously stepping over a man who lay dying on the sidewalk. For me, that image immediately sparked the thought of Cletus, my homeless buddy, who made his bed just south of the courthouse on most Wednesday nights. I’d been bringing him Chinese takeout from the Oolong Café nearly every week for the past couple of years. I imagined Cletus slowly bleeding out onto the cold concrete while people stepped around him as though he were an overturned garbage can. I didn’t know who this victim was, but it didn’t matter. No one should die like that.

“Objection, irrelevant,” the defense attorney said in a bored voice. I recognized him as Walter Schoenfeld, a seasoned public defender. “And no question pending,” he added.

“Sustained,” the judge ruled, his voice equally flat.

It was just a preliminary hearing, so there was no jury and the prosecution only had to show probable cause, not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That meant the objections, while legally proper, didn’t matter much. The judge could winnow the wheat from the chaff.

“So you saw the man fall to the ground and stay there. What happened next?”

“I saw the cops come, and one of them came into the shop and asked if any of us had seen anything-”

“Objection to whatever the cops said,” Walter interjected. “Hearsay.”

“Overruled. ‘Did you see anything?’ It’s a question. Questions aren’t hearsay.”

“Do I keep going?” the witness asked.

“Yes.” The judge sighed. “Overruled means you’re in the clear.”

The witness went on. “And then Keshia, uh, the other counter person that day, told them she saw me out by the homeless guy before he, ahh…”

Gun-shy after the reaction to his last mention of the man he’d abandoned to die on the sidewalk, the witness trailed off.

“And then you told them what you’ve told us here today?”

The witness nodded.

“You have to answer out loud,” the prosecutor instructed. His duh was implied.

“Yeah, yes.”

“Do you see the man in court who stabbed the homeless guy?” asked the deputy district attorney.

“Wait, excuse me,” the judge said, stopping the witness and turning to the prosecutor. “‘The homeless guy’? He had a name, and I’m sure it wasn’t ‘homeless guy.’ Have the People not come up with any identification for him yet?”

“No, Your Honor. The defense refused to waive time, and so far he hasn’t turned up in any database.”

So not only was he left to die on a city sidewalk but we couldn’t even acknowledge his passing with a name. The sheer loneliness of it all was a lead weight in my chest.

The judge cast a disapproving look at the deputy. “Then, Mr. Prosecutor, the appropriate term would be either victim or John Doe-not homeless guy.” He turned to the witness. “Is the person who stabbed the victim here in this courtroom?”

“Uh, well…” The surfer dude nervously looked around the room.

The prosecutor sighed impatiently. Now it was bugging me-I knew I’d seen him around before. What was his name? I mentally scanned the nameplates on the doors in the DA’s office. It took a moment, but I finally had it: Brandon Averill. Though I didn’t know him, I knew the type. He was one of those young Turks who are self-impressed, self-promoting, always on the hunt for fame and glory, and just handsome enough to entice press photographers. Everything about his attitude said this case wasn’t worth his precious time.

After more silence from the witness stand, Averill became visibly irritated. “Try looking over there,” he said, pointing to the defense table.