before last,” said Keller.
“Where were your two apartments, in relationship to one another?”
“I lived directly beneath them.”
“And what was it that first made you concerned for Teddy’s welfare?”
“Both apartments had windows on the street, and side windows opening onto an air shaft towards the rear. When it’s nice out, you can’t help but learn a great deal about the neighbors. I’d seen Teddy in the stairwell with his mother often enough. We spoke occasionally. I knew his name, how old he was.”
“And what was Teddy’s age at that time?”
“He was a few months past two,” said Keller. “That’s one reason I worried when I heard him getting screamed at within the space of a week or so.”
“Could you tell who was screaming at him?”
“Certainly. Albert Williams.”
It was Galloway who objected this time. Hetzler didn’t so much as twitch.
“Your Honor,” said Galloway, “I’m not sure how Ms. Keller could have distinguished one voice from another in the general din of a crowded air shaft.”
Keller couldn’t see the judge from where she was sitting, so she addressed Bost. “May I answer that?”
“Please do,” said Bost.
Keller turned toward Galloway. “I recognized Albert Williams’s voice for two reasons: he has a slight lisp, and among the residents of all five apartments in our building, there was no one else named Teddy.”
“It wasn’t just screaming that worried you, though, was it?” asked Bost.
“I worked as an emergency-room nurse for twenty years, Ms. Bost. I had a good idea what I was hearing, sadly.”
“As a nurse, were you expected to act as what’s known as a mandated reporter?”
Keller said she was, and they discussed further reporting details.
“Can you tell us what, exactly, you told the hotline?”
Keller pulled a small notebook from the side pocket of her dress. “I’d like to refer to this for specific dates, if I may?”
“Please,” said Bost. “By all means.”
Keller opened the little book and held it up before her face. “On August twenty-third, I heard Albert Underhill berating the child for not finishing his dinner. I heard the sound of several slaps, and I believe he then smashed Teddy’s plate against a wall in the kitchen.”
She turned the page. “Two weeks later—September sixth—
Williams was upset because Teddy had left a toy on the floor. The child had a black eye the following morning. His mother told me that he’d run into a corner of the couch.”
She looked up at Bost. “I’m sorry to say that I was gone from the building for the next two weeks after that. When I returned, I saw Teddy and his mother in the front entry. The boy was limping, trying to walk on a swollen ankle.”
A broken ankle. Bone grinding on bone.
My stomach lurched and contracted. I climbed over Cate and burst out the door for the hallway, hoping like hell I’d make it to the ladies’ room in time.
52
The ladies’ room was less stuffy than the courtroom and my nausea went away, but I still felt light-headed and dizzy, with little dark flea-spots crowding in at the edge of my vision.
I had to be coming down with something. Stephanie Keller’s testimony had hardly been uplifting, but I’d heard worse details from Skwarecki and the pathologist.
I looked into the mirror above the row of sinks, noting the dark puffiness beneath my eyes, my winter-greenish pale skin. If hardly Astrid’s equal in looks, I matched her on all the earmarks of sheer exhaustion.
The room smelled of damp paper towels and cheap pink liquid soap, and for a moment I wished it actually were a “restroom,” with a chaise longue or even an army cot I could’ve curled up on for a few minutes. The trial would be breaking for lunch soon, but the thought of food made me queasy.
Grinding bones.
The phrase roiled my stomach further. I didn’t want to go back into the courtroom, but I had to find someplace to sit down. I left the bathroom and shuffled slowly down the hallway, but didn’t see anywhere to sit except for some benches downstairs, in the front lobby.
I chose one alongside a wall so I’d see Cate when they broke for lunch.
I closed my eyes and leaned back, hot and flushed now, my upper lip damp.
Great. Probably flu.
I stayed like that for maybe ten minutes, listening to footsteps and voices moving past me, feeling the occasional blast of cold air as people came inside with a breath of winter as chaser.
“Miss Dare? Are you all right?” A woman’s voice. “I saw you through the window.”
I felt