A Map of the World - Jane Hamilton [182]
Robbie more than fulfilled Rafferty’s hopes during the cross-examination. Rafferty stood with his arms bent, his hands clasped at his chest. He asked Robbie ever so gently the most probing, and occasionally indelicate questions. More than once he said, with a lush softness, “You didn’t say that at the preliminary hearing, Rob.” Rafferty only grew more kind as the boy glowered and shouted. My first-rate criminal lawyer displayed the paternal care that had drawn me to him in the first place. For an hour he questioned the boy, repeatedly asking him about the material of his pants, who unbuttoned them, did he have a belt, was there a snap at the waist, and a zipper. Robbie became so irritated part way through that the judge ordered another short break.
Close to the end of the questioning Rafferty said, “Did you have a neighbor when you lived on 372 Main Street, Robbie, in your old house, a kid by the name of Jack Sheridan?”
Robbie said, “So?”
“Jack was a little bit older than you, wasn’t he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Mrs. Sheridan didn’t baby-sit you, I know that, but she looked out for you, didn’t she?”
He shrugged.
“She came to your house once, on May twenty-third, last spring, just before school was out. Do you remember that night?”
Anyone who had watched Robbie before would have known that he was thinking. He didn’t move or blink. It was impossible to say if he was wondering how to respond, or if the question had carried him back in time.
“Mrs. Sheridan came to your door. She asked if Jack was at your house. You wanted her to come in, to see something. You had something to show her.”
Mrs. Mackessy shrank into her chair; it was as if she faded away, as if her lights went out. Her boy came into focus: the dark circles under his eyes, his unnerving stare, his unhealthy complexion, his skin pale and taut as the hide over a drum. There, the jury must see, was a sick boy. The blond beehive of the taller juror was bobbing with her touch of Parkinson’s, and she had such wide, wondering eyes she seemed to be willing herself to stay awake. Mrs. Dirks was objecting loudly and asking for an offer of proof. The two lawyers and Judge Peterson trooped into the inner sanctum. After several minutes they returned, and Rafferty continued his line of questioning.
“Mrs. Sheridan came to your house on May twenty-third, Robbie, and you told her you had something to show her. Is that something that you remember?”
He didn’t answer, which Rafferty noted to the court reporter.
“Is that something that you don’t want to talk about?”
Still no answer.
“It was just getting dark that night, and you said she had to come look in the den. Do you remember that, pal?”
Rafferty quietly asked that it be entered into the record that the witness sat expressionless and refused to respond.
Later he asked, “Wasn’t Mrs. Goodwin’s job, her main job, to give you medicine when you were sick?”
“No.”
“Did Mrs. Goodwin ever give you medicine when you visited her in your office?”
“No.”
“You never got Suprax, that yellow medicine which comes from a bottle and tastes like strawberry syrup? You never got that medicine from Mrs. Goodwin?”
“I said no.”
“Were you scared when you showed Mrs. Sheridan in the den?”
There was no music in the courtroom after all, nothing but dull questions, shouts from Mrs. Dirks, the tired judge paving the way for justice. The one time I looked at Susan Dirks she had her entire bottom lip drawn into her mouth and she looked to be biting down fairly hard. Her pen was between her second and third finger and she was beating it on her notepad.
“Did Mrs. Goodwin give you your medicine with a spoon?”
“Yeah.”
“She gave you that yellow stuff, Suprax, with a spoon?”
“Yeah.”
“So sometimes you went to her office and she gave you your medicine?”
“Stop