I don’t have to, though; his visit to our table is mercifully brief. He hustles across the room toward the jury box, all the while pointing backward at Buck.

“Judge Nolan will instruct you that this man is guilty of first-degree murder if he acted with malice aforethought. And this-”

Stanley bangs the top of the TV, and a few of the jurors jump yet again.

“-is malice aforethought.”

He flips off the lights and simultaneously presses his remote control.

Harry and I both leap up in the dark.

“Hold on.” My voice is so loud it startles me. My word choice is somewhat surprising as well. It wasn’t whoa, but it wasn’t much better. Even in the dark, I know Beatrice isn’t happy.

“Hold on?” She’s more than unhappy. Maybe whoa would have been better.

Harry’s already at the bench, way ahead of me. The outline of his silhouette joins Stanley’s in the glow from the screen. Mutt and Jeff.

“He’s already run the videotape twice, Judge. He doesn’t get a third shot.” Harry flips off the TV set as he speaks. Now everyone’s invisible.

“Says who?” Beatrice’s voice booms from the blackness above the bench.

“This was decided during pretrial motions, Judge. There’s an order.”

“Whose order?”

“Judge Long’s.”

Silence.

“Judge Long no longer presides over this trial, Attorney Madigan. Perhaps you hadn’t noticed.” Beatrice’s diction is its best yet when she utters Harry’s name.

Stanley flips the TV back on.

Harry turns it off again. “It doesn’t matter who presides over this trial, Judge.”

“Doesn’t matter?” Beatrice doesn’t like being told she doesn’t matter.

“No. This issue was decided on motion-before trial. The defendant relied on the court’s ruling. And he had every right to rely on it. It doesn’t matter which judge signed the order.”

“Tell me, Counsel, what difference does it make?”

I can’t see Beatrice at all, but I’m confident she’s enjoying this.

“What difference?” Harry’s baffled.

“What would you have done differently, Counsel? Changed your strategy somehow?”

“That’s not the point, Judge. The issue here is prejudicial impact. Probative value versus prejudicial impact.”

“Your partner used photographs during her closing.” Beatrice says the words partner and her as if both have lascivious connotations.

“But this videotape was the subject of a pretrial motion, Judge. There’s an order.”

“I’ll vacate it.”

“You’ll what?”

“You heard me, Counsel. The order is vacated.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I just did. The prosecutor is entitled to use demonstrative evidence during closing, Counsel. Just as your partner did.”

Again, partner sounds lewd.

Stanley hits the button and the blue glow from the screen illuminates his satisfied smirk. He shoos Harry away.

Harry gives up, and he should. Fighting too long about this won’t sit well with the jury. He returns to our table, drops into his chair, and shrugs an apology toward Buck.

“It doesn’t matter,” Buck whispers. “They’ve already seen it. They won’t see anything this time they haven’t seen before.”

I hope he’s right.

Stanley stops the videotape soon after it starts. Buck isn’t even on-screen yet.

“One can only assume,” Stanley says, “that Mr. Hammond was in the throes of what his lawyers now call temporary insanity at this point in time, a minute or so before he shot and killed Mr. Hector Monteros.”

Stanley retrieves the long stick from his table and points its white rubber tip at the hangar’s shadow. “And what was Mr. Hammond doing at this particular moment? Acting insane, perhaps? Ranting like a lunatic?”

Stanley’s footsteps move toward the jury box. “Why no, not at all. He was hiding, lying in wait. Quietly. Patiently. Sound insane to you?”

Stanley hiccups again, just barely. “Sounds like a plan to me. A calculated plan. The plan of a man thinking clearly.”

He presses the button and the screen comes back to life. He points his stick at the lower right corner and freezes the action again when Buck steps into view.

“And what have we here? Ah, it’s Mr. Hammond. Acting insane yet? No, not at all. He’s moving into position to take a clear shot, aligning himself-and his weapon-with his prey.” Stanley’s footsteps start up again, back toward the TV. “Sound insane to you?”

He hits the remote control, hits it again when Buck raises his hunting rifle. “And here’s Mr. Hammond again, taking aim. Perfect aim, don’t forget. See any sign of insanity here? I don’t. Not a trace.”

Stanley plants himself beside the TV, its screen frozen, and he faces the panel. It seems he intends to deliver his entire closing argument in the dark.

“Let’s be candid, ladies and gentlemen. We’re all horrified by what happened to this man’s son. That murder was an ungodly act.”

Stanley hits another button and the sound kicks in, the single shot heard ’round the Commonwealth.

“And so was this one.”

No one moves-or breathes, for that matter-while Hector Monteros dies yet again. Stanley waits until a good-sized pool of blood collects on the runway, then he freezes the scene.

“What will happen, ladies and gentlemen, if you accept this man’s temporary insanity claim? He’ll go home, that’s what. He’ll be a free man.”

Stanley moves slowly and deliberately toward the jury box. “And what will happen then?”

He stands still and waits, as if he expects one of them to volunteer. “I’ll tell you what will happen. Someone else will set him off, send him into a rage. Maybe next week. Maybe next year. I can’t tell you when. But I can tell you it will happen. I guarantee it.”

Stanley turns on one heel and looks through the darkness in our direction. “And what then? Well, that’s easy. Mr. Hammond told us himself. He told us exactly what will happen. He’ll hunt down the person who enrages him. He’ll hunt him down and kill him.”

Stanley’s footsteps tell me he’s pacing slowly in front of the jury box. I wish he’d turn on the damned lights.

“I must tell you,” he continues, “I wondered about Mr. Hammond’s mental state today. One has to wonder about a man who would utter those words in a court of law. But his mental state today isn’t my concern. His mental state most days isn’t my concern. It isn’t yours either.

“Your concern is this moment.” Stanley extends his pointer toward the bloody scene on the TV.

“Frankly, I don’t care if you think Mr. Hammond was insane on every other day of his life, today included. It doesn’t matter.”

He moves closer to the TV, taps his pointer on the glass. “Because this fragment of time is the only one that matters. And in this moment, Mr. Hammond was in control. At this moment, he was methodical. At this moment, he was purposeful.”

Stanley bangs the tip of his pointer against the pool of Monteros’s blood.

“We all know, ladies and gentlemen, that at this moment, William Francis Hammond was sane. Maybe-just maybe-it was a moment of temporary sanity.”