Paul Hickory’s face reddened. He was about to rise, but Hester raised a hand.
“Maybe you don’t see scum, Mr. Hickory, I don’t know. That doesn’t matter. Richard Levine probably didn’t see scum either. He saw something much worse. Richard’s grandfather was a Holocaust survivor. The Americans rescued him in Auschwitz. Half starved. Near dead. But they were too late to save his family. His mother, his father, even his baby sister—all died in Auschwitz. They were murdered. Gassed. I want you to think about that for a moment.”
Hester moved toward the screen with Lars Corbett on it.
“Now I want you to imagine something. Imagine a man breaks into your home and kills your entire family. All of them. He tells you that’s what he’s going to do, and then he does it. He kills all those you hold dear and promises that he will come back and kill you too. He makes it clear that your death is his ultimate goal. A few years pass. You make a new family. And now that man is back in your house. He is coming up the stairs. He has something that looks like a gun in his hand.”
Hester gave it a moment, letting the room fall totally silent, before adding: “Do you give that monster the benefit of the doubt?
“Mr. Hickory”—her point now is angry, accusing—“keeps saying that this isn’t self-defense, that Lars Corbett made no threat of bodily harm. Is he joking? Is Mr. Hickory disingenuous or, well, dumb? Lars Corbett was the leader of a Nazi militia group in this country. His message of hate had thousands of social media followers. Nazis aren’t subtle, ladies and gentlemen. They made the goal clear: Kill. Slaughter. Exterminate certain people, including my friend Richard. Is anyone na?ve enough to believe otherwise? That’s why Lars Corbett was marching that day—to rally his troops to murder and gas good people like Richard and his three children and his twin grandchildren.”
Hester’s voice was louder now, trembling.
“Now Mr. Hickory will tell you that Lars Corbett had the ‘right’”—again the air quotation marks—“to talk about throwing you in the gas chamber and butchering your entire family, just as Corbett’s Nazi forefathers did to my client’s. But put yourself in Richard’s shoes and ask yourself—what would you do? Do you sit at home and wait for Nazis to rise again and murder more? Do you have to wait until you’re pushed into the gas chamber before you defend yourself? We know what Corbett’s goal was. He and his filth state it very clearly. So you, as a concerned citizen, as an empathetic human being, as a loving father and doting grandfather leading an exemplary life, go to Washington Square Park to hear the hate these murderers are spewing. Of course, you’re scared. Of course, your heart is thundering in your chest. And then this evil man, this man who has sworn to kill you, this man who everyone knows owns tons of guns and rifles, starts raising his hand with something black and metallic in it and…”
Hester’s voice petered out now, broke down in a semi-sob, her eyes welling. She lowered her head and closed her eyes.
“Of course this is self-defense.”
Hester let one tear slide down her cheek.
“It is the most clear-cut case of self-defense any of us could ever imagine. It is not only rooted in the moment, but the roots of his defense have traveled seventy years and across an ocean. The self-defense is in Mr. Levine’s DNA. It is in your DNA and my DNA too. This…” Hester pointed again to Lars Corbett in front of the swastika flag. “This man,” she said, spitting out the word, “wants to kill you and your loved ones. He has something black in his hand. He raises it toward you and all of that—all of the horrible past, the concentration camps, the gas chambers, all of the ugliness and blood and death Corbett wanted to resurrect—it reaches up from the grave to grab you and those you love.”
Hester moved back to the defense table, back behind her client, and once again she put her hands on Richard Levine’s shoulders. “I don’t ask why Richard pulled the trigger.”
Hester closed her eyes, let one more tear leak out—then she opened them and stared hard at the jury.
“I ask, ‘Who wouldn’t have?’”
*
As the judge gave his final instructions, Hester spotted her grandson Matthew standing alone against the back wall. Hester felt a flutter in her heart. This couldn’t be good news. The last time Matthew had surprised her at work, a classmate had gone missing and he’d come to her for help.
Why was he here this time?
Matthew was a freshman at the University of Michigan. Or at least, he had been. If he was back in the area, Hester assumed the school year was over. It was May. Was that when school ended? She didn’t know. She didn’t know that he was back either, which disturbed her. Neither Matthew nor his mother, Laila, had told her that her grandson was back. Laila was Hester’s daughter-in-law. Or would the correct terminology be former daughter-in-law?