David Walton - Superposition

“How many times did you hit him?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Four or five times?”

“Something like that. I’m not sure.”

“You weren’t counting?”

“Of course not.”

“Is it safe to say you were out of control, Mr. Kelley?”

“He attacked my wife!”

“Did he attack her physically?”

“Not exactly. He was saying crude things to her, sexually suggestive things, with an implied threat.”

“So you made sure he knew what would happen if he harmed your wife.”

“I was angry. I hit him.”

“Just a little? Did you bloody his lip and send him off?”

“I don’t understand the question.”

“What were the man’s injuries, Mr. Kelley?”

“He lost consciousness for a short while.”

“Was he not taken to Riddle Hospital by ambulance and treated for a concussion and contusion of the brain?”

“He was taken to the hospital, yes. I don’t know what he was treated for.”

“You told the jury a moment ago that you had never committed a crime. Wouldn’t this be considered assault?”

“No charges were pressed,” I said. “I don’t know what it would be considered.”

“So you knocked a man unconscious for speaking rudely. What would you have done if he actually touched your wife?”

“I can’t say what would have happened.”

“Is it safe to assume you would have reacted even more strongly?”

“I don’t know. It didn’t—”

“What if he threatened her with a loaded gun? What if he fired that gun at her head?”

I nearly lashed out with an angry response, but I caught myself just in time. I saw Terry at the defense table, making frantic, tiny shakes of his head. He had told me a dozen times not to fall prey to the rhythm of the prosecutor’s questions. Take your time. Breathe. Answer at your own pace.

I took a deep breath. I counted to five. “Your questions are hypothetical,” I said calmly. “I can’t possibly tell you what I would have done in a situation that never occurred.”

“I have another one for you. Think back to your time as a competitive boxer in Philadelphia. Do you remember a man named Vinny Russo?”

My muscles clenched. I knew he was baiting me, trying to goad me into a violent reaction. “I remember him,” I said through clenched teeth. “It was a long time ago.”

“He was in a sexual relationship with your mother?”

“Yes.”

“According to the police report, you found him and your mother engaged in intimate relations in your South Philadelphia home.”

“Yes.”

“You walked in on them while they were copulating on the couch?”

“Yes.”

“Did you hurt Mr. Russo?”

He had the police report. There was no point trying to color the truth. “I hit him as hard as I could.”

“Which, as a competitive boxer, was pretty hard.”

“Yes.”

“Did you hit him just once?”

“He got up, so I hit him again.”

“According to the police report, you broke his nose and knocked out three teeth?”

“If they say so.”

“They also say Mr. Russo was so frightened for his safety that he ran outside without his clothes.”

I stifled the sudden smile that came with the memory. “That’s right, he did.”

“But, according to you, you’ve never committed a violent crime.”

“I’ve never been convicted of a crime, no.”

“That’s not quite the same thing, is it, Mr. Kelley?”

“When I need to, I can protect those I love. That’s not the same thing as being violent.”

“Was your mother an unwilling participant? Did she want you to rescue her from this man?” Haviland asked.

“We all knew Vinny,” I said. “He was a jerk. He was taking advantage of her. If either of her brothers had found him instead of me, it would have been worse.”

“It’s safe to say, though, that you take a violent, protective stance about the sexuality of the women in your life.”

“What does that mean?”

“That if you feel the sexuality of your mother or wife or daughters is threatened, you react violently.”

“It’s not a crime to protect the people you love,” I said. “It doesn’t mean I killed anyone.”

“How would you describe Mr. Vanderhall’s romantic relationships?”

The sudden change of topic threw me off. “I’m sorry?”

“His relationships with women. His sex life, if you will. How would you describe them?”

“Varied and short-lived. He always had a woman he was with, sometimes more than one. He liked the excitement of the chase, but didn’t have the patience for an actual relationship. Somehow, women were attracted to him despite this.”

“Did he ever have relationships with married women?”

“Pretty commonly, yes.”

“Were their husbands aware of these relationships?”

“Not usually, no. At least at first. He got into some trouble that way.”

“Did you always know which woman he was with?”

“No. Not even when I was working with him, and certainly not for the past few years.”

“So you wouldn’t necessarily know it if Mr. Vanderhall was conducting an affair with someone you knew. Such as, for instance, Elena, your wife.”

I probably should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. He caught me blindsided, and I stood up in the witness box, seething.

“Mr. Kelley, you must sit down,” Judge Roswell said sternly.

It took me a moment to respond. I was drowning in a sea of rage, not just at Haviland, but at the whole impossible situation: at Brian Vanderhall, at the justice system, at the other Jacob, at the unreasonable absurdity of quantum physics, even at myself. It poured through me, half-blinding me, a torrent in my ears. Finally, I got control and took my seat.

Terry had been objecting loudly, and now that I was seated, the judge listened to his objection that the prosecution was harassing the witness. Roswell agreed. “Unless you are prepared to bring actual evidence that Mrs. Kelley was sleeping with the victim, then you will abandon this line of questioning. I will not tolerate fishing or baiting in my courtroom.”

Haviland apologized, but he didn’t seem sorry. I realized he had gotten just what he wanted out of me: an angry reaction in front of the jury. “Have you ever sought professional help to control violent tendencies, Mr. Kelley?”

“I don’t have violent tendencies.”

“Answer the question, please. Do you need me to repeat it?”

“No,” I said.

“No, you don’t need me to repeat the question, or no, you—”

“No, I’ve never seen a shrink about violence,” I growled. He was intentionally irritating me, and I knew it, but I still couldn’t help being annoyed. He was playing games with my life. I didn’t like his games.

“So just to review,” Haviland said. “You claim that, despite the fact that you were the only person able to enter and leave Mr. Vanderhall’s office, and despite the fact that you were found in possession of the gun that killed him and with his blood on your shoes, you had no involvement whatsoever in his death.”

I put as much honest certainty as I could into my voice. “Yes. I did not kill him.”

“Instead, you expect the jury to believe this fantastic tale of photocopied physicists?”

“It’s the truth.”

“That Mr. Vanderhall was both dead and alive at the same time?”

“Yes.”

“Well, perhaps you know what you’re talking about—you’re a scientist, after all.” This drew a few chuckles. “Tell me, from your experience, have you ever been dead and then walked around the next day?”

“No.”

“Have you ever read a peer-reviewed scientific paper that suggests that it is possible to do so?”