“Puerto Rican?” I thought on that a moment, turned to Beth, who simply shrugged, and then I remembered. “You’re referring to Juan Gonzalez, isn’t that right?”

“Yeah, right. I heard she got mixed up with him somehow, and I hated to hear it.”

“You rejected Guy Forrest as a suitable husband for your niece, without ever meeting or talking to him, and you were against her other Puerto Rican lover, so my question, Mr. Cutlip, is this: Of which of your niece’s boyfriends did you ever approve?”

“Objection, Your Honor,” said Troy Jefferson. “This is pretty far afield.”

“It goes to bias, Your Honor. It goes to credibility. The People opened this door in direct, opened a lot of doors in direct. It is not for Mr. Jefferson now to object when I walk through them.”

“I think that’s right, Mr. Jefferson. You did open the door. Go ahead, Mr. Carl, but very carefully.”

“I’ll repeat the question, Mr. Cutlip: Of which of your niece’s boyfriends did you ever approve?”

“None of your damn business.”

“Oh, I think it is. Answer the question, please, or I’ll ask the judge to compel you to answer it.”

Cutlip turned to look at Judge Tifaro, who was peering down at him through her half glasses like a librarian from hell.

“There was some, I suppose,” he answered.

“Who? Tell us.”

“Well, there was the football player, that Ricky Bronson she was with her last years in high school. I didn’t mind him so much.”

“Is that because, as you so wittily told me, he was more interested in standing over the center than he was in being with her?”

“Maybe. And he wasn’t even the quarterback.” He slapped the rail and laughed, his little staccato laugh, and some joined in, which made him laugh even harder.

“What about Grady Pritchett? You didn’t like him much, did you?”

“Oh, I didn’t mind old Grady.”

“You went after him with a shotgun, didn’t you? Want me to bring him up here from West Virginia to tell the court how you went after him with a shotgun?”

“He was hanging around too damn much. He was older than her and arrogant and like the rest of them only interested in one damn thing.”

“What was that, Mr. Cutlip?”

“Now you’re being cute. You know damn well what boys want in a girl like that.”

“And men, too.”

“Hell yes.”

“What about Jesse Sterrett? Did you approve of your niece’s relationship with Jesse Sterrett?”

“They was just friends, not boyfriend-girlfriend or anything like that.”

“Oh, they were more than just friends, weren’t they, Mr. Cutlip? They were out-and-out lovers, weren’t they?”

“No. You’re wrong. He was, maybe, less than a man, from what I heard. From what I heard, I’d more expect him to be interested in that Bronson boy than in her.” That same staccato laugh, but this time no one joined in.

“They were lovers and they wanted to spend their lives together and you hated that, didn’t you, just like you hated the idea of Hailey’s marrying Guy Forrest?”

“You’re flat-assed wrong about that.”

“I’d like this marked Defense Exhibit Ten,” I said, dropping a photocopy before Troy Jefferson and taking the original up to be marked by the court reporter. When it was marked, I handed it to Cutlip. “You recognize what that is?”

“No, I sure as hell don’t.”

“It’s a letter from Jesse Sterrett to your niece Hailey. Why don’t you start reading it out loud to the jury?”

“Objection. There’s no foundation for this letter to be entered into evidence or to be read to the jury. He said he couldn’t identify it.”

“I’ll link it up, Judge.”

“Will the purported author, this Jesse Sterrett, be testifying?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“Then how will you link it up?”

“I ask for some leeway here, Judge. I believe I can lay the foundation for this document, but I’d like to do it in the order of my choosing. Remember, Your Honor, Mr. Jefferson chose to call this witness and have him point the finger of blame at my client.”

“Let me see the letter.” Judge Tifaro examined it and then examined my face to see if she could figure out what in the world I was trying to do. “How is this Jesse Sterrett relevant to this case?”

“You’ll see, Your Honor, but he surely is.”

“All right, Mr. Carl, pending a ruling later as to relevance and as to proper foundation, I’ll allow your examination to continue for now.”

“But, Judge-”

“That’ll do, Mr. Jefferson. You took enough liberties with this witness, I think it only fair I give Mr. Carl the same opportunity.”

“We take exception.”

“Exception noted. Go ahead, Mr. Carl.”

“Thank you, Judge. Mr. Cutlip, read the letter please.”

“Let me put on my glasses, then.” He fumbled in his shirt pocket and pulled out a set of reading glasses.

“Mr. Cutlip,” said the judge, “you didn’t put on your glasses when you were examining the photographs yesterday, did you?”

“Didn’t need them for that.”

“That’s encouraging. Go ahead, Mr. Carl.”

“Read the beginning of the letter out loud for the jury,” I said.

“’I am flying,’ it says, ‘I am floating through the air and I don’t never want to come down. Never.’ I told you he was like that, a sissy boy like that.”

“Who?”

“The Sterrett boy who wrote this.”

“Fine.” I glanced up at the judge, who smiled slightly at the admission as to authorship. “Now, go to the end, Mr. Cutlip, and read the last sentence, read that one to the jury.”

“Here it is: ‘I can’t wait to go to sleep tonight so I can wake up tomorrow and see your face and then after school and after practice run to the quarry so I can cover you in kisses till it’s dark and we have to go home and then do it all again the day after and then again and then again.”’

“And it is signed ‘J’ for Jesse Sterrett, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“And the quarry in Pierce, where you lived, is where the teenagers go to neck, or spoon, or make out, or whatever the word is now, isn’t that right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Is it still your testimony that Jesse Sterrett and your niece weren’t lovers, that they weren’t in love?”

“He might of been but she wasn’t. I know for damn sure she wasn’t.”

“If she wasn’t, why would she have kept this letter for fifteen years?”

“Objection.”

“Sustained.”

“All right, Mr. Cutlip. What happened to Jesse Sterrett?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes you do,” I said. “Tell the jury what happened to Jesse Sterrett, who loved your niece and couldn’t wait to go to sleep because it meant he was closer to waking and seeing her again and covering her again with his kisses? Tell them what happened to Jesse Sterrett sixteen years ago.”

Cutlip stretched his neck as if his collar were too tight. “He died.”

“Objection, Your Honor. This is too much. Counsel is dredging up something that happened years ago in another state. There is no evidence of a connection and so no relevance to this testimony.”

The judge peered down at Cutlip as he squirmed in the witness chair. “Where did this boy die?” asked the judge.

“In that there quarry.”

“How?”

“He slipped and fell and died in the quarry, and that was all.”

“His head was smashed in, wasn’t it?” I said.

“From the fall.” Cutlip stretched his neck again. “That’s what the coroner, he said.”

“Your poker buddy, Doc Robinson, your drinking and poker buddy, he was the coroner, right?”

“He said it was an accident.”

“And a few days later you left Pierce, West Virginia.”

“One had nothing to do with the other.”

“A few days after your niece’s lover Jesse Sterrett’s head was smashed in at the quarry, you left Pierce, West Virigina, didn’t you? You left your home, your nieces, your sister, you left and never came back again, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I left.”

“And you left because they found Jesse Sterrett dead. Isn’t that why you left?”