Free Anatomy of Fear by Jonathan Santlofer Page A

hundred-percent Spanish. “And call me Nathan.”
    “A beautiful name.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “My grandmother loves it. So, here’s what I want you to do, Adele. First, get comfortable, sit back and take a deep breath.”
    Adele Rubenstein inhaled deeply and sagged into her plastic-covered couch.
    We were in the living room of the brownstone she and her husband, Sam, the blind man, had been living in since 1950, and itlooked it. Danish-modern coffee table, chipped; faded, overstuffed ultra-suede armchairs; a Formica dinette set with red vinyl-covered chairs.
    “Okay, Nathan,” she said. “I’m ready.”
    I opened my pad. “So you were on the street—”
    “With Sam. It was our evening shpatzir, a walk. It’s good for Sam, the fresh air. The man is a hermit. He’d sit home and watch TV all day if I didn’t make him go out. I say to him, ‘Sam, you’re blind, what can you be watching?’ It doesn’t matter to him, he says, he likes to listen. He watches the old shows, which he remembers from before he went blind, kaynahorah. He says he can picture them, but I’m not so sure. His favorite is that one about the men in the war camp, Hogan’s something or other. To think they made a show about such a thing.” She shook her head and I took it as my chance to break in.
    “So you said you saw a man leaning over the victim, the man who was shot.”
    “Oh, such a terrible thing. Right there, on the street, in our neighborhood.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “The man who was shot, he was colored, but a nice man. I’d seen him before and he always smiled and said hello. And good-looking, you shouldn’t know from it, like Sidney Poitier. You know Sidney Poitier? He’s before your time. A wonderful actor. He won the Oscar. Lilies of the…Valley, the movie was called, or something like that. The first colored man to win. I know they don’t like that term, colored. But I don’t understand it. When I was growing up I had plenty of friends who were colored, and they didn’t mind being called colored. They ate in my house, everything. To my mother a person was a person. You know what I’m saying, Nathan?”
    “Yes. I know exactly what you mean.” I took a deep breath. This was not going to be so easy.

    Russo was smiling, enjoying herself a little at my expense.
    “Close your eyes and try to picture exactly what you saw. I’ll ask you questions and you try to answer with two or three words. You think you can do that, Adele?”
    “Why not?”
    “Good. First question. Did you hear anything? A shot, maybe?”
    “I don’t think so, but this is Brooklyn, and the traffic, I don’t have to tell you, it keeps me up half the night. I said to Sam just the other day, Sam—”
    “Just a few words, Adele, remember?”
    “Oh, of course. No shot. I didn’t hear a shot. Is that short enough, Nathan?”
    “Perfect. So the first thing you saw was one man leaning over another, is that right?”
    “Not exactly. He wasn’t leaning. He was just standing there. And I said to Sam, ‘Sam, I think someone is hurt.’”
    “Why did you say that?”
    “Nathan, forgive me. This will be more than two words, but it was obvious. There was a man lying on the ground and he wasn’t moving. What would you say?”
    “You’re right, Adele. So, the man who was standing, was he a big man?”
    “It’s hard to say.” Adele pursed her lips. “He had on a coat, a long coat.”
    I glanced over at Terri and we exchanged a look. “That’s great.” I went back to the sketch I’d made after talking with the last victim’s wife and asked her to picture what she’d seen.
     

     

    “We were walking, like I said, and I looked down the street and I saw them. I couldn’t understand it,” she said. “One man standing while the other one is lying on the ground, not moving. But then, when we got closer and I saw…” She clasped a hand to her cheek and rocked her head. “Oy vey iz mir. Terrible. That poor man. I could see he