(...until proven...)
"Now Miss, where were you, on the evening of May 24th?" The prosecutor asked. His voice had formed softness that sounded unnatural to him.
"I was at home. I had just had dinner." The witness answered. Maryanne scoffed inaudibly at her. She looked nervously at the prosecutor, mapping his movement around the court. To the witness stand, to his table, to the middle of the well, then worst of all, he would walk by, right in front of the defense table. He would run his fingers along the table top like a running man.
He had, what most would call a warm welcoming scent that surrounded him, but to Maryanne, it fell cold and sharp on her nose. Like an ominous warning.
"So you reported that you saw the defendant, Miss O'Neill, that night." He asked as he retreated from another stroll around the court.
"Yes so, I was going around the house, closing the curtains coz y'know, it was getting dark." She explained, her old shaky voice flowing into the court. "Then as I was closing the living room window, I saw her on the street walking to her house." Maryanne scoffed again, peering sharply at her. Then the prosecutor walked into her gaze approaching her table again.
She lifted her eyes up to his but the wrinkles around them shifted her gaze away.
The way the wrinkles formed around his eyes when he peered at her, then others formed on each side of his nose and carved down to the corners of his mouth, and the way his lips would curve up into a contemptuous smile, sent a tremor down her spine.
His face said 'I will make sure, if it's the last thing I do, that you spend the rest of your miserable life in jail.' And it did every time he looked at her, and every time he got up to go speak, he would throw that glance her way before turning his face up to the front of the court. She could've sworn she heard it echo as he got closer.
His perfume, heavy with a metallic taste, scratched the walls of her throat forming a sick cough.
He passed by once more. The running man leaped and flew right into his pants pocket, then he swung around on his heel and walked towards the stand.
His cologne trailed him, dragging painfully out of her nose and when he was far enough, she managed to drag in one big desperate gulp of air.
"So you saw her walk through the street, past your house, towards hers 30 minutes before the shooting." His voice muffled in through her still clogged ears. "That is all Your Honor." He declared then walked to his table. Before he turned to sit, he threw the glance again at her. Cold and full of contempt that another shudder rippled down her body.
"Mr. Dawkins, do you wish to cross-examine?" The judge asked, turning from following the prosecutor's silver hair to the defense table. Maryanne noticed a shift in it. As it landed on Dawkins, the wrinkles between his eyebrows deepened. The tone in his question was slow and flat. Almost as if he didn't wish to ask it. And his lips twitched impatiently pursed.
Then she heard a faint echo: 'if it was up to me, you would already be behind bars, serving the rest of your miserable life.' She shuddered again at the thought and looked away. To the witness.
"Miss Olkowski. How old are you?" He pressed his voice into a seemingly uncomfortable softness.
"Well a woman never tells her age," she joked, but to a zeroed in audience, "but, I'm seventy three years old." Dawkins hummed, feigning curiosity.
Maryanne's eyes turned to the witness. But right over her bony shoulder, they landed on the bailiff. His eyes were set on the witness, but very swiftly she noticed him peek through to her then back to the witness.
She could see the nervousness, the worry, as he hesitated to blink. His jaw was tight that the ridges below his ears bulged out. He stood squarely towards her with his hand hovered readily above the dull black baton that hung from his belt. She heard the echo, 'I'm gonna love dragging you to prison where you belong' through a sneer.
"And Miss, you mentioned earlier," Dawkins continued "that you own a pair, several pairs, of reading glasses." His tone shifting normal.
"Is that a question?..." she asked.
"What are they for?" He jumped in quickly and loudly.
"For reading."
"Mmm!" He turned to the jury. "That to me just sounds like a way to say you don't have great vision."
"Mr. Dawkins, please confine your questions to relevant matters." The judge said with slight impatience.
"Miss Olkowski, given your age and that your sight isn't as sharp as it once was, how can you be certain that the person you have identified here today or even the one you saw that night is the defendant?" He shouted.
"Objection Your Honor -" the prosecutor screamed from his seat. "argumentative." He said.
A light chatter sparked in the gallery behind her while she stared fixedly at the stand. Beyond it, she caught the bailiff's wince. His head shook slightly, slowly, displeased. Then his hand dropped and gripped the baton's handle tightly.
Perhaps it was his response to the gallery's disruption of the court's silence, but Maryanne felt his anger directed to her. It was like a little win of hers that he did not delight in.
Then she turned to the bench right in front of the judge's bench. To the lady on there, closer to the stand, who Dawkins' co-counsel had told her, was the court reporter.
The whole trial, her face had been buried in the typewriter-like machine with a tiny screen, in front of her, with her fingers constantly on the keys.
However when Dawkins made his rebuttal, the lady hesitated. Her finger slipped off and for the first time, her eyes came off the keys, though only slightly to the side of the machine's screen, they were off it. And Maryanne noticed the uncertainty and reproach in adding Dawkins' words.
'That statement didn't need to be there.' Maryanne saw in her jittery, blinking eyes.
The hate from the gallery had creeped to the front. What once was neutrality in the court officials' eyes had swayed and leaned one side. That of the spectators and of her in-laws.
She turned hopefully to the jury. To the very corner where optimism once sat, agreeing with Dawkins' opening statement.
But there she was, the blonde-haired lady, her face a mix of compassion and reluctance - the same look she saw on the stenographer. Both their hands hovered reluctantly over their pages.
(...guilty).