Thrusting his hands into the pockets of his pants, Mr. Darrow returned to the jury box. “You don’t get a lot of behavior like that up here in Saratoga County, I know. But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. It happens every week in Chicago. Maybe we should ask Dr. Kreizler-who’s a man in a position to know, gentlemen-how many times a day it happens in New York City. Is it ‘fantastic’ there, too? Or just here, because this is a quiet, pleasant little town? The state’s going to tell you that the fact that no one besides my client ever saw hide nor hair of the crazed lunatic means that he didn’t exist. But remember, gentlemen-it was hours before my client was coherent enough to tell anyone exactly what had happened on the Charlton road. More than enough time for such a man to make his way to the train depot and hide aboard a freight car, or to sneak unnoticed into the back of a shipping truck, and find himself the next morning somewhere far from the search parties in Ballston Spa. Maybe he showed up in Chicago. Maybe in New York. He would’ve had time. Maybe he was picked up, raving about some white children he’d shot, by the New York City police, who, after failing to find that any white children had been shot in their jurisdiction, figured he was crazy and sent him over to the famous Bellevue Hospital Insane Pavilion. And maybe Dr. Kreizler-who does a lot of work in that hospital-was called in to, as the alienists say, ‘assess’ the man’s mental condition. Maybe he thought the fellow was having delusions. Maybe the miserable creature’s still there, rotting away in a cell, tortured by dreams of those three children in the wagon…”

By now Mr. Darrow was staring at the floor, and a faraway, wandering tone had come into his voice. His brows then furrowed suddenly over his eyes, and he shook himself. “The point, gentlemen,” he continued, “is that we may never know. This case, and thousands like it every year, go unsolved and become open wounds in the soul of our society. We want to close those wounds-of course we do. Who wants to go through his everyday business with the knowledge that at any moment a lunatic may spring from the roadside and rob him of the things-or, more horribly, the people-he values most? None of us. And so we look for solutions, for safeguards, and every time we find one we tell ourselves that we’re that much closer to being perfectly safe, perfectly secure. But it’s an illusion, gentlemen-an illusion to which I have no intention of seeing my client sacrificed. The state may rest easier, thinking that it has brought the murderer of Thomas and Matthew Hatch to justice, and so may the citizens of this community. But that won’t make these charges any more true, or any more believable to those who have the courage to stand back and look at the thing in the cold light of reason. The state has told you what evidence it will introduce, and what witnesses it will call to prove its allegations. And I tell you now that on every one of these points the defense will enter the testimony of witnesses-expert and otherwise-that will refute the prosecution point by point.”

Lifting a heavy finger and pointing it in Mr. Picton’s direction, Mr. Darrow started to pound away: “They’ll tell you that they have physical evidence, supported by ‘experts,’ that the gun used to shoot the Hatch children belonged to their father, and was fired by their mother. But that entire theory is based on forensic ‘science,’ which, as the defense’s expert witnesses will explain to you, isn’t worthy of the name. The prosecution will then tell you that my client had financial and romantic reasons for wanting her children dead. But, gentlemen-household gossip is not evidence!” His blood getting hot, Mr. Darrow spun round to look at the galleries, the first really quick movement he’d made. “Finally, they’ll tell you that my client is sane, and that, being sane, she deserves to be taken to a terrible little room in the state penitentiary and strapped into a chair that would’ve had more place in the dungeon of some blood-crazed medieval tyrant than it does in the United States, and that she should then be assaulted by the vicious power of electricity until she’s dead-all so that the state can declare the case closed and its citizens can have their ‘peace’ restored!”

Stopping himself suddenly and catching his breath, Mr. Darrow dropped his hands helplessly. “Well, that’s really the point, isn’t it, gentlemen? Yes, my client’s sane. And in the days to come you’ll hear, from people who have a long experience with these matters, that no sane woman could or would commit such violence against her own children. Oh, the prosecution will give you precedents-they’ll tell you a lot of ghastly tales about women who’ve committed such crimes in the past, and were found sane by courts of law, and were locked away forever or hanged as punishment. But, gentlemen-prior injustices should not make you feel any better about committing an injustice here. Yes, there have been such women. But you will hear-again, from people who’ve studied these matters carefully-that those women, too, were suffering from terrible mental disorders, and that they were sacrificed to the same craving that drives the state in this case. The craving, not for justice, but for revenge-revenge and, even more urgently, an end to the uneasiness, the fear, that is engendered by a horrible crime that admits of no solution.”

Wandering in front of the jury box, Mr. Darrow went back to work on his neck again. “Gentlemen, I can’t tell you why this happened. I can’t tell you a lot of things. I can’t tell you why babies are born dead and deformed, why lightning and cyclones destroy lives and homes in an instant and without warning, or why disease eats away at some good but unfortunate souls, while letting others lead long and useless lives. But I know that these things happen. And I wonder… if a bolt of lightning had flashed down out of the sky that night and put an end to those three poor children-just as the prosecution now seeks to put an end to their mother-would the district attorney’s office have tried to coax an explanation out of the sky, so that the citizens of this county and this state could rest easier? Because in the end, that’s the only place you’re probably going to get an explanation for what happened out on the Charlton road on May the thirty-first, 1894-from above. If you try to provide an answer here, in this courtroom, you will only compound the horror. And for that you-yes, you, and I, and the state’s attorney, and everyone else involved-will bear the responsibility. Chance terror killed Mrs. Hatch’s children, but her death would be something very different. Something very different, indeed…”

With that Mr. Darrow wandered solemnly back over to his table and sat down. He never turned to Libby Hatch, but she did glance at him; and in her eyes was a light of hope, one what quickly became a frightening gleam of triumph when she looked beyond Mr. Darrow to all of us who were sitting behind Mr. Picton. It was pretty plain that she figured she was going to get off; and as I looked around at the faces of the jury and the people in the galleries, I couldn’t honestly say that I thought she was mistaken. Strange, the effect what that thought had on me: suddenly all I could think of was of the little Linares girl and Kat, and what would happen to them both if Libby was allowed to walk out of that court house a free woman-a possibility what had never seemed so likely before.

To judge by the looks on both the Doctor’s and Mr. Picton’s faces, they also realized how much damage had been done. The jury and the crowd, who likely would have bought even a poor defense of Libby Hatch, had taken Mr. Darrow’s cagy, expert, and passionate words straight to heart. The evidence and the testimony, now more than ever, were our only hope. And that afternoon, the process of introducing them started with a bang, when Clara Hatch was called to the stand.