A World of Possibility

  * * *

  The prosecutor slammed his fist on the table.

  Nodding jurors shot upright. Judge Bowden looked over the top of his glasses and glared at Harvey Wilson but refrained from saying anything. He disliked theatrics and the prosecutors and lawyers who entered his court knew this. A look was usually enough to bring them back into line. He knew why Wilson had done it. The trial, now into the third day, had driven the jury to the brink of distraction. Wilson had a high pitched monotonous whine of a voice. His painfully slow questioning of expert witnesses would put a hyperactive child to sleep. But the time had now come when the judge knew Wilson wanted the jury to concentrate.

  Ruth Deverett was on the stand.

  “Mrs Deverett, you say you lay on the floor until you were certain your husband had left the room. How much time passed? A minute, two minutes, five minutes?”

  “I’m not certain. Not more than five, I wouldn’t think.” Ruth Deverett’s voice was barely audible. Wilson had asked her a number of times to speak up. His eyes swung towards the jury. They looked attentive enough. He assessed they could hear her answers.

  “What were you thinking as you lay there? Were you angry?”

  Ruth shook her head.

  “Understandable if you were.”

  “No. I was shaken. Frightened, but not angry.”

  “The anger came later?” Wilson prompted.

  “No. I didn’t get angry.”

  Wilson regarded Ruth Deverett for a few seconds, then turned to the jury. He shook his head. Judge Bowden frowned. Ruth Deverett was obviously lying. He hated these trials. After years on the bench, the battered wives irritated him the most. He considered them stupid bitches. Why the hell didn’t they just leave? They always stayed. They deserved everything they got.

  “Mrs Deverett,” the prosecutor continued. “You have just explained to the court how your husband allegedly brutalized you and now you tell us that this did not anger you?”

  Ruth nodded.

  Wilson paused for effect. He pretended to be fiddling with papers on the table but it was a ploy he used when he wanted a point made. He would let the jurors think on it for a moment. Actions from anger might be understood and even gain sympathy, but without the anger any action would be deemed, callous, premeditated. Ruth Deverett had just made his job a little easier. He could feel Bowdens’ eyes boring into him like a slow speed dental drill. Wilson knew Bowden had grown impatient and he wanted the trial over, but Wilson wasn’t about to be intimidated by any Judge.

  “What happened next, Mrs Deverett?” Wilson asked, finally looking up.