“Objection.”
“Sustained. Save it for the summation, Mr. Herrera.”
“Sorry. Mr. Jagoda, you estimated the time you and the robber were in each other’s presence as between two and fifteen minutes, closer to fifteen. During how much of that time were you actually looking at his face?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Let’s start with the time before he pulled the gun. When he asked directions and you answered him. Were you looking at his face throughout that time?”
“Well — I suppose so. What else would I have looked at?”
Vekt scribbled something. Herrera threw it a stony glance and took an audible breath before continuing.
“Was he, for example, holding anything in his hand?”
Jagoda hesitated. “Ye-es. A bit of paper. I assumed the address he wanted was on it.”
“You assumed — so you didn’t actually see it?”
“I tried to, but it was out of reach.”
“You tried to. So then, for part of that time, were you not looking at the paper rather than at the man’s face?”
Jagoda was silent.
“Please answer.”
“I would have to say yes.”
“Now — let’s get to the rest of the time, after the gun was displayed. How did you react when you first saw the gun?”
“I was horrified — paralyzed.”
“Where were your eyes? What were you looking at?”
Jagoda sighed and closed his eyes. “The gun, mostly.”
“And when you were putting your valuables into the briefcase, what were you looking at?”
“The items I was handling, and the gun, and his face.”
“When he turned his attention to your wife, what were you looking at?”
“Primarily the gun. It was jabbed into her side. I was terrified that it would go off.”
“So, would it not be accurate to say that for most of the duration of this event you were looking at the gun, not at the perpetrator’s face?”
Jagoda’s gaze left the attorney’s face and swept out a semicircle across the floor, coming to rest on a far wall. Barely audible, he said, “Perhaps. I can’t be sure.”
Herrera nodded gently, as though he and the witness had arrived at an understanding. Then he moved a few steps closer to him. “Now, sir, is it correct to say that you identified the defendant first from pictures shown you by the police, and then from a lineup of six people?”
“Yes.”
“What did Detective Swayze say to you as you prepared to view the lineup?”
“Objection. Your Honor, you’ve already ruled that the speaker is the best source—”
“In this instance,” Herrera interrupted with a touch of indignation, “the speaker has already said he doesn’t remember.”
Judge Quinn looked from Herrera to Johnson to Jagoda, then pursed his lips and said, “Overruled. The witness may answer.”
Jagoda nodded. “He instructed me to view each of the men carefully and select the assailant.”
“‘Select the assailant.’ Were those his exact words?”
“I don’t believe so, but—”
“Let me put it another way. Did he say, in effect, ‘Is it one of them?’ or did he say ‘Which of them is it?’”
“The latter is closer.”
“Let’s clarify that. He asked not if one of them did it, he asked which of them did it. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Now, Mr. Jagoda, you said that shortly after your first sight of Mr. Vekt’s picture you suddenly remembered that the robber’s hair had seemed to shift as your wife pulled it. Why did you not say this in your first statement to the police, when you described the person as having shoulder-length blond hair?”
“I didn’t remember it at the time. You must realize, I was in a state of shock.”
“Yes,” Herrera said softly, “tell us about that.” Vekt looked up at him, puzzled.
Jagoda, focused inward, continued. “The police had found me sitting on the ground, in a complete daze, with Annabelle in my arms. I didn’t realize that I had also been shot. They took me to the emergency room, where my arm was treated, then to the intensive-care unit to see her.
“As we entered I heard a doctor say to the detectives, ‘She’s still alive, barely. Frankly, with that wound, we don’t know why.’
“I looked through a glass partition at a mass of technology: tubes, machines, all attached to this papier-mâché creature; yellowish-gray skin, concave cheeks — surely not my Annabelle.”
Vekt stared at Herrera. Why was he permitting, even encouraging, this ploy for sympathy?
He drew a huge question mark on the yellow pad, but Herrera either failed or chose not to see it.
“The doctor was explaining to me,” Jagoda was saying, “that all of her functions were being mechanically supported, but his words floated by me, carrying their meaning away. The electronic beeps speeded up, and there was a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing, but then the sound changed to an unmodulated signal, and everyone suddenly stopped moving. The doctor looked at his watch and” — Jagoda inhaled deeply — “pronounced Annabelle dead, at two-forty-six a.m.”
“Very soon afterward, the police took my statement. So you can see why I might have left something out.”
Herrera sighed, as though moved. “So what you mean to tell us, Mr. Jagoda, is that because of trauma you had forgotten about seeing the hairline shift, but that on a later occasion you suddenly recalled it?”
“Yes.”
Two correction officers escorted Vekt to the defense table at 10:15 a.m.; everyone else, except the judge, was in place.
Herrera looked at him. Vekt straightened his tie. “How are you?” the lawyer asked.
“Slept lousy. That tear-jerking stuff — the jury ate it up. How come you let him go on like that?”
“Because it makes a very bad impression if you negate the victim’s suffering.” Vekt raised his eyebrows. “And,” Herrera continued coldly, “we shall probably make use of it later in the trial.”
Vekt opened his mouth, but just then Judge Quinn entered. “Remain seated, please. Mr. Johnson, have you any more witnesses?” “One bit of redirect for Mr. Jagoda, Your Honor.”
Morris Jagoda seemed to have lost weight since just the day before. Johnson asked him one question. “What was there about Mr. Vekt’s picture that drew your attention to it despite the fact that the hair looked different?”
“The eyes and the shape of the mouth are rather unusual.”
Vekt reflexively touched the betraying features. Herrera also had one more question for Jagoda: “What time was it when this person first approached you?”
“I can’t say exactly. But we’d left the restaurant at about ten-oh-five and walked slowly, because Annabelle was wearing high heels. Probably ten-twenty or so.”
“Ten-twenty. Thank you, Mr. Jagoda.”
Vekt followed Jagoda’s stiff descent from the witness chair and saw him take a seat at the end of the first row, next to a couple in their fifties who’d been there every day of the trial.
“What’s he doing there?” he hissed. “I thought he wasn’t allowed in.”
“That was before he testified. Now it doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me!”
Herrera’s cheek muscles twitched. “His wife was murdered.”
“Yeah.”
The first witness for the defense was Harold’s mother. “Mrs. Vekt, where, to your knowledge, was your son on the evening of March twenty-first?”
“He came to my place for dinner.”
“Where do you live?”
“In Yonkers.”
“Do you remember what time he left?”
“About ten minutes to ten.”
“How do you know that?”