Chapter 49

In today’s assignment I make another error. Not error so much, it is simply that I didn’t see all there was to be seen.

Our clients are a married couple, a man and his woman. They are accused of Internet fraud, that they lie on computer and make others to give their money for nothing.

The man I can read; he speaks very strongly, but what he says are lies and more lies. I know this, and when Linda and Irving take me to other room and ask I tell them this.

It is the woman who confuses me. I was never so good with women as I am with men, and this one is enigma to me. She is very nervous, she is never still, and there is about her a sense of something close to hysteria. And I can’t read whether she speaks true or not that she does not know of anything wrong that they do.

In my mind M’kamba tells me don’t try so hard, sit and watch and listen and truth will come. I do as best I can, but this time truth doesn’t come. I feel that I have failed, and I tell this to Linda and Irving, but I cannot say if this woman lies or says true. There is too much in her mind, too much extra, too many layers and I can’t reach through to base where truth lies.

Irving says is all right, he does not expect perfection, but I am unhappy with myself. Even when Linda tells me the same as we drive to home I remain displeased.

Only in the night when I am nearly asleep do I suddenly understand. Of course this woman does not lie! I feel very foolish that I have not seen this before. She fears for her man, her husband. She did not know of the crime that he has done, she only wishes to protect him, and she feels she should not say this for that reason. It makes deep conflict in her. I hear again her voice, the words she says, I see in my mind her movements and how she holds herself, and I am sure.

Again I rise in night, and go to other room, living room. There I go over again and again in my mind. Yes, I am sure, I know this to be so; I should have known this then, I should have said.

I berate myself for this when Linda comes again as she did before when I could not sleep.

“You OK, darling?” she asks in sleepy voice.

“Yes, I’m fine,” I tell her. “I finally know about the woman today, it takes me very long and I am sorry but now I know. Go back to bed, tomorrow is soon enough.”

But she is suddenly awake, I see. “Oh, no, don’t tease me, say,” she commands, her voice fully alert. She goes to sit down beside me on the couch.

“She tells the truth, she does not know what they do is illegal,” I say. “The confusion is because she doesn’t want to say that. She is very fearful for her man, her husband, and she thinks it may go worse for him if she is ignorant. I think he directs her to say it, and she isn’t happy but she obeys.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. Irving and I were sure they were in it together.”

“No. He protected her. Now she wants to protect him, but she can find no way to do it. Would it help him if she did know about the crime?”

Linda laughs. “Hell, no, it’d just put them both in prison. And they have a couple of kids, it’s probably why she went along with claiming innocent-spouse, the kids would likely wind up in foster care and that’s a fate I wouldn’t wish on a dog.”