“Brian, how long have you been deaf?”
“A long time.”
Jack nodded. It was a true answer, but an evasive one as well. The medical file that Brian’s grandfather had shared with Jack had laid out all the details, putting Brian’s deafness in an entirely new light. In fact, it wasn’t until Jack learned the true cause of Brian’s hearing loss that he came to see the case against Lindsey so very differently, which made it seem like the right place to start his cross-examination.
“How did you lose your hearing?” asked Jack.
The boy dipped a shoulder, as if embarrassed to answer.
Jack said, “All you have to do is tell the truth. That’s all we want to hear. Just tell us the truth.”
“It was an accident,” said Brian.
“An accident,” said Jack. “How did it happen?”
“I did it myself.”
“You made yourself deaf?”
He nodded.
“How did you do that?”
Brian looked away. “Headphones.”
“You were listening to loud music, isn’t that right, Brian?”
“Yes.”
“Over a period of many months, you put on the headphones, and you kept turning up the volume louder and louder. Right?”
Again he nodded.
“Each time you did it, you damaged your hearing a little more. By the time you were five years old, you were profoundly deaf.”
Brian didn’t answer, but Jack was saying it for the jury’s benefit anyway. “Isn’t that right, Brian?”
“Yes.”
Jack moved closer. He was pretty sure he knew the answer, but he had to ask the question. It was time to test his theory, and he couldn’t have been more sorry that it had to come at Brian’s expense. “Why did you do that to yourself, Brian?”
The boy shook his head.
“Brian, did your mother and father argue a lot?”
He waited for the interpreter, then said, “Yes. All the time.”
“Did your father ever hit your mother?”
Again he paused. He scanned the courtroom, seeming to search for help. Finally he answered, “Yes.”
“Did she cry?”
He nodded.
“Did she scream?”
“Yes.”
“How did it make you feel to hear your mother screaming and crying?”
“Not good.”
“Bad?”
“Terrible.”
“Bad enough so that you didn’t want to hear anymore?” asked Jack.
“Yes.”
“Bad enough to make yourself deaf?”
The prosecutor was on his feet. “Judge, I hated to call the defendant’s son to the stand, but at least I kept it short. This is way beyond the scope of direct.”
“Overruled. But, Mr. Swyteck, be sensitive.”
Be sensitive, thought Jack. If he only knew. “Yes, Your Honor.” Jack squared himself to the witness and said, “Brian, did you ever feel angry toward your father?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did your father and mother have a fight on the night he died?”
“Yes.”
“Was she screaming?”
“I couldn’t hear it.”
“But you saw them fighting, didn’t you?” said Jack.
“Yes.”
“Could you hear it in your head?”
A pained expression came over the boy’s face. “Yes.”
“So even though you’re deaf, you still heard your mother’s screams. In your head?”
He nodded.
“Did your father hit your mother that night?”
“I don’t remember.”
Jack sensed that he was lying. Then again, there were no bruises noted on Lindsey after the police came to the house and found Oscar’s dead body. “Did your father do anything at all to your mother that night? Anything that made you mad?”
He began to tremble. “He made her do things. Like he always did.”
“What kind of things?”
“With Lieutenant Johnson.”
Jack drew a breath. He had to carry this line of questioning through to its conclusion, but he wasn’t sure he could. “Brian,” he said, his voice tightening. “Did you see the things that your father and Lieutenant Johnson did?”
“I know what they were doing.”
“How do you know?”
“Because they took my mother in the bedroom. And they locked the door.”
“Did you see them go into the bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“How many times did you watch this happen? How many different nights?”
The child shrugged.
“More than once?”
“Yes.”
“More than five times?”
“Yes.”
“More than ten times?”
“Yes.”
“This happened many times over a long period of time, didn’t it, Brian?”
He nodded.
Jack was trying to be the good lawyer and stick to his cross-examination. But it was only human for him to empathize with a boy who had essentially lost his mother. Jack had felt that same anger, the way his own mother was taken from him. He often wished that there had been someone he could blame, someone who could be the object of his anger. In that sense, Brian had an advantage. He knew who had come between him and his mother. He knew exactly who to hold accountable.
The judge said, “Mr. Swyteck, do you have any further questions?”
Jack composed himself, brought himself back to the task at hand. Brian had already denied shooting his father, so there was no percentage in rehashing that ground. Jack, however, had another angle, good lawyer that he was. “Brian,” he asked in a serious voice, “were there ever times you wished that your father was dead?”
Brian stared at Jack, then at the woman who was repeating the question in sign. He was just ten years old, but he seemed to know a trap when he saw one. Jack watched him squirm, watched him mull over in his mind the question that seemed to split him in two, the side that wanted to answer and the side that didn’t.
Jack was dying inside, but he had to push it. “Brian, please answer me. Were there times you wished that your
