Page 87 of The Accomplice
‘Fair enough. Mrs. Broder, were you really watching the couple all that time, or were you kind of watching the street and watching your movie ? What did you say it was again ?Predator?’
‘That’s the one, with Arnold,’ she said, with a smile.
‘Do you like Arnold ?’
‘Doesn’t everybody ?’
‘That’s a good movie, I’ll give you that.’
‘One of my favorites.’
‘So, am I right then ? You were kind of watching the movie and looking outside ?’
‘I suppose so, but I saw them standing there.’
‘Would it be fairer to say you’re not sure how long exactly they stood there ? It could’ve been a minute, or less ?’
‘Probably more,’ she said.
One last topic – viewpoint.
‘I take it you can see the street from your armchair ? You didn’t have to get up and look out the window ?’
‘No, I can see it from my chair.’
‘And you had the lights on in the apartment ?’
‘My lamp, beside the TV.’
Now I had a choice. There were several ways to play this. Bloch had told me Mrs. Broder didn’t have an unobstructed view of the street. There was a tree branch cutting her view. If I asked her whether the leaves on the tree outside her apartment obscured her view, she would just say no. Better to make it about the chair, and not the tree.
‘Did you have to move around in your chair to see past the leaves and branches of the tree outside your building ?’
‘A little. I just had to lean forward.’
Time to wrap it up.
‘Mrs. Broder you spoke to a police officer the day after the murders and told them you saw a couple standing outside the house the night before, but the policeman didn’t think it was relevant because they were looking for one man, the Sandman, right ?’
‘Yeah, that’s what I told Mr. White.’
‘It was three days after the murder when the NYPD and FBI released pictures of the Sandman to the media and the manhunt began, do you remember seeing that ?’
‘I suppose so. I don’t know when I saw it, exactly. I saw his picture first.’
‘Two weeks later, right after the grand jury had indicted Carrie Miller, and her picture, alongside her husband’s, was printed on the cover of theNew York Times– that was when you contacted the police again, correct ?’
‘That’s correct.’
‘But you just told this jury you recognized them. Are you saying you didn’t recognize Daniel Miller when you saw his picture on TV seventy-two hours after the murder across the street ?’
‘They told me they were looking for one man. Not a couple.’
‘But you saw his face on the news and you didn’t tell police.’
‘No, I think I did. I’m not sure. I guess I thought they weren’t interested in talking to me.’
I took a breath. Let it go.
