Page 85 of The Accomplice
‘Okay, and you live on East 12thStreet between 3rdand 2ndAvenue ?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Major cross streets in New York are a hundred feet wide. This isn’t a major cross street so it’s only what, sixty feet wide ?’
‘Yeah, I would say about that.’
‘And given your elevated position, you were about seventy feet away from the sidewalk outside the Nielsen house that night ?’
‘That’s right,’ said Mrs. Broder, nodding.
Distance established.
Now for light.
‘What time did your movie start that night ?’
‘Oh, around ten, I think.’
‘And what time do you think you saw the couple ?’
‘Maybe ten forty-five, or eleven. Something like that.’
‘It was dark out, right ?’
‘Right. But there’s a streetlight,’ she said.
It’s often around this time the witness gets a sense of where they are being led. They try to push back, get ahead of the game. Only way to handle it is to let them know I’m in control.
‘I didn’t ask you about streetlights, Mrs. Broder. I asked you if it was dark outside. We’ll talk about the streetlight in a second. Let’s just try this again. It was night time. It was dark outside, isn’t that right ?’
She laced her fingers together, nodded, said, ‘Yes, it was dark.’
‘The streetlight you were so keen to mention, how far away is it from the Nielsen house would you say ?’
Mrs. Broder struggled trying to estimate distance. A lot of people have the same problem. They can’t think in feet or inches, they just can’t visualize it. My job was to make Mrs. Broder as uncomfortable as possible.
‘Oh, I don’t know really. I can’t think like that. It’s close, though.’
‘How far away is close ?’
‘I don’t know, ten feet ?’
‘Let’s make this easier. Is the streetlight on your side of the street, or the opposite side ?’
‘My side.’
‘Is it outside your apartment ?’
‘No, it’s down a ways.’
‘We’ve already established your apartment is seventy feet away from the sidewalk outside the Nielsen house. That means this street light is not ten feet away from the Nielsen house, is it, Mrs. Broder ?’
She clamped her lips together, raised her hands and shrugged in the way that people do when they just don’t know what to say or what to do.
‘I can see you’re not sure, so let me help. The streetlight isn’t outside your building, it’s between your building and 3rdAvenue, right ?’
Closing her eyes, she tried to visualize the street, said, ‘Right, so if you’re standing facing my apartment, it’s to the left.’
