I Took The Witness Stand With Both Hands Empty

Ellen met me outside the federal courthouse in Wheeling. She wasn't the prosecutor, and she wouldn't sit beside me on the stand. She came because I had asked.

“What if I forget a date?” I said.

“Say you don't remember. Ask to see the record.”

“What if he looks at me?”

“He has eyes. You have work to do.”

I left my key tin in her care before I went through security.

For most of the morning, I waited in a small room. I couldn't listen to other witnesses before my own testimony. A clerk brought water. I counted the screws in the door hinge until my name was called.

Silas wore a dark suit. Without his yard keys on his belt, he looked oddly unfinished.

I swore to tell the truth and sat down.

There was a scratch across the rail in front of me. I rested my fingers beside it. At work, I could measure a bad fit, file a little metal, and try again. Here, a wrong word could travel farther than I could follow. I took a breath and waited for the first question.

The prosecutor started with my name and trade. Then we walked through the service forms, one job at a time.

“Who approved the additional keys?”

“Mr. Gant.”

“How?”

“These written authorizations. I received them through his established account email. I confirmed the first request by calling the number already in my file.”

“Who collected them?”

“Curtis Bell. He showed identification and signed each pickup slip.”

The originals appeared on a screen. My handwriting looked huge. So did Curtis's.

Then came the replaced cores and the photographs of their job tags. I explained which parts I had kept and which new locks had received the duplicate keys. I did not let the two get mixed together.

Silas's attorney held up the false inspection certificates.

“This is your signature, isn't it?”

“It's an image of it.”

“You want the jury to accept some signatures but reject others?”

“I can tell them what I signed.”

“You accepted money from Mr. Gant before.”

“For locksmith work.”

“And for your van.”

“A loan I repaid. The bank record is here.”

He asked about the $6,000 check.

“You kept it.”

“I gave it to Investigator Price as evidence.”

“But you wanted his money.”

I thought of the canceled clinic work, the $812 balance, the pan of beans.

“I needed work,” I said. “That wasn't work I could honestly do.”

He paused, then turned back to the cabinet.

“No independent witness watched those bags every hour.”

“No.”

“You could have changed the contents.”

“I didn't.”

I couldn't make that answer longer without making it weaker.

When I was finished, the judge released me from the witness restriction. I sat with Ellen in the gallery for the rest of that day.

Lenora testified about the fire scene and the collection of my materials. She separated what she had observed from what the lab had reported. Other experts gave their own findings. The jury heard why the claimed electrical causes did not fit the three scenes.

When asked whether my old cores proved arson, Lenora said no.

Silas's attorney seemed pleased for a moment.

“They documented service history,” she added. “We tested the fire evidence separately.”

I knew that tone. She used it when a question deserved an exact answer.

Over the following days, I heard about the bank transfers and saw the messages taken from Silas's devices. An examiner showed how the signature on my old estimate had been copied into the certificates. The source files had been recovered during the search.

Curtis testified under his plea agreement. He admitted the money, the keys, the fires, and the false garage call. The jury heard what he hoped to gain by helping the government.

“Why go to Mr. Flaherty?” the prosecutor asked.

“Gant wanted the papers gone,” Curtis said. “I figured those papers were why somebody might believe me.”

He did not look toward Ruth when he described the last fire.

She watched him anyway.

The jury took two days. I went back to work between calls. When the clerk said a verdict was coming, I washed metal dust from my hands and drove downtown.

Guilty. Arson offenses. Fraud. Charges tied to the effort to hide the evidence.

I didn't catch every formal word. Ellen found my hand and pressed it once.

Ruth cried without making a sound.

Afterward, Lenora stood across the courthouse steps. We looked at each other, but there were still reports, sentencing, and duties between us.

At home, I set the tin beside my plate.

My phone rang before I took off my coat.

It was Ruth.

“Will you sit beside me when I tell the judge about Owen?” she asked.