I wore a shirt Nico had seen me iron a hundred times. One button was a slightly different color from the others. I had replaced it myself.
Amelia checked that I had eaten. She did not tell me to be brave. She told me to ask for a question to be repeated if I did not understand it, to stop when an objection was made and not to make silence my responsibility.
“They can wait,” she said. “It's their job.”
At the courthouse a woman held up a telephone as we passed. I could see my own face on its screen, smaller than I expected.
Inside, the clerk led us to a waiting room away from the other witnesses. Paloma Rios was testifying first. I did not hear it. Amelia told me later that she authenticated her original translation and explained the missing authorization on the altered version. The words would remain part of the record whether I was there to hear them or not.
I sat with my hands open on my knees.
The clock above the door clicked at each minute. Somebody had put tape over its brand name.
When they came for me, I wanted to ask to use the restroom. I did not need one. I went with the clerk.
Rusk sat in his usual place. Soto was not in the courtroom. The lawyers had argued about the scope of the hearing before I entered; Amelia had made her applications about my interests and the protection of unrelated people's information. The judge explained the limits again. Some names and identifying details would remain in a sealed exhibit. The fact of my own conduct would not become private because it embarrassed me.
I took the oath.
Ward asked my name, occupation, previous surname. Then how I recognized Soto.
I described the voice, the instruction, the changed name. I described three days near the water, not twenty years of knowing a man. I said what I could not be certain of.
“Did you see the person then known as Luis Arce write anything?”
“Yes. He wrote a destination code at the top of the original receipt.”
“Can you identify the copy you provided to investigators?”
The clerk placed it in front of me.
I could see the cough-medicine stain beneath the exhibit label.
“Yes.”
“Whose signature is at the bottom?”
“Mine.”
Ward let me look at it.
“What were you certifying?”
“That twelve people had been received at the place listed.”
“Had you seen them received there?”
“No.”
“Did you know whether they had left the departure point?”
“Some were still there when I signed.”
Someone in the public seats moved. I looked at Ward, not at the sound.
“Why did you sign?”
“I was told my son and I wouldn't leave until I did. I could read the heading. I knew I hadn't verified it. I signed anyway.”
“Did the man make any further representation?”
“That the others would follow. I believed there would be another crossing. I don't know whether he intended one.”
“Did you ask where they would be taken?”
“No.”
“Why?”
I heard Amelia's voice in memory. Don't make a worse answer merely to make it honest.
“I knew asking could stop us leaving. I wanted us on the first boat.”
The clock in this room was digital. It made no sound at all.
Ward showed me the email from Leah. I identified it. My reply. The date. The false denial.
Then she sat down.
Keene stood without taking anything to the lectern. He had learned my answers well enough to ask them barehanded.
“Ms. Duarte, you lied to a woman who was later murdered.”
“Yes.”
“You did not recognize Gabriel Soto when he first appeared in court.”
“No.”
“After hearing his name read before trial, after seeing his face during the trial, after hearing him testify in English—none of those occasions.”
“Correct.”
“Then a phrase on a recording makes you certain.”
“It led to a memory. I reported that I believed I recognized him. I described the basis so it could be checked.”
“You have had many years to think about the man on the pier.”
“Yes.”
“To make him responsible for a decision you regret.”
“He was responsible for his part. I was responsible for signing.”
Keene looked down once. Then back at me.
“You understood, at jury selection, that the court needed to know if your own experience might affect your ability to be fair.”
“Yes.”
“You knew you had kept a document relevant to the subject about which Ms. Nunez contacted you.”
“Yes.”
“Yet you said you did not believe that exchange or your experience would affect you.”
“I said that.”
“Was it true?”
There were ways to answer that would have kept a small part of me upright. I could say I had meant it then. I could say the trial was about a different event. Both things had passed through my mind during selection.
“I wanted to believe I could keep them separate,” I said. “I also didn't want to be asked about the document. I didn't give the court the full answer it needed.”
“So you concealed information to remain on this jury?”
“I concealed information to avoid having to explain myself. Remaining on the jury was what happened.”
“A convenient distinction.”
“It doesn't make the answer right.”
The judge asked him to keep to questions.
He turned toward Rusk, then back.
“You say you wanted a fair trial. At the time you reported your concerns, did you believe my client should go to prison?”
Ward rose. There was argument about the question and its limits. I kept my mouth shut until Saye ruled and narrowed what could be asked. The private details of the other jurors' deliberations were not to be explored through me.
“Did you have a view of Mr. Rusk's conduct,” the judge asked, “independent of the concern you reported?”
“I thought his message to Mr. Soto was an instruction to threaten Leah Nunez. I thought he knew a threat could hurt her.”
“Did that establish, in your view, everything necessary to decide the murder charge?”
“No.”
Saye looked at Keene. He had his answer and did not like all of it.
“You could have brought your document forward before Ms. Nunez was killed,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Before this case reached a jury.”
“Yes.”
“Before the expenditure of public money, before my client's name was put through a murder trial, before twelve other people—”
“Eleven others,” I said.
He stopped.
“There were twelve of us. Eleven others.”
It was a correction I did not need to make. I made it because there were still facts I was responsible for.
Keene put both hands on the lectern.
“You could have spoken earlier.”
“Yes.”
This time I added nothing.