“Come in, Mrs. Hunter,” I heard Mr. Picton call. “Thank you, Henry. I’ll send someone down when we’re finished.”

“You don’t want me to wait?” the guard asked.

Mr. Picton just sighed. “Henry, am I speaking Greek? If I wanted you to wait, I’d ask you to wait. Go back downstairs, and I’ll send someone when we’re finished, thank you very much!”

Looking the way he always did when Mr. Picton gave him a hard time-like some kind of injured animal-the guard glanced at Libby again, and she nodded at him once. Only at that signal did Henry turn around to storm moodily out of the room. As for Libby, she went on in and took a seat before Mr. Picton’s desk next to Mr. Darrow, while Mr. Maxon closed the door on the rest of us.

“All right, Stevie,” Mr. Moore whispered. “Up you go!”

In a quick move I stepped into a cradle what Marcus made with his hands, then grabbed Cyrus’s hands and let him pull me onto his shoulders. Once comfortably seated, with Cyrus holding on to my legs, I carefully moved my face up to the transom, which was open just far enough for me to see all the players in the room, along with a swatch of Mr. Picton’s desk. Whispering down to the others at regular intervals, I witnessed and narrated the following scene:

“Why’ve I been called up here at this hour?” Libby asked softly and sadly. Her expression, what I could only see in profile, looked much more timid than it had in the outer office. “Is it Clara? Has something happened to my baby?”

“Now, now, Mrs. Hatch,” Mr. Maxon said, putting a hand to her arm. “I beg your pardon-Mrs. Hunter. Please, calm yourself.”

“Yes, do spare yourself the effort, Mrs. Hunter,” Mr. Picton said, without any trace of sympathy in his voice. “You’re not in court now, nor are there any members of the press lurking about. Your usual histrionics are not required.”

“Instead of being insulting, Picton,” Mr. Darrow said, crossing one leg over the other and then leaning back in his chair, “you might tell us what the hell it is you want.”

“Yes,” Mr. Picton answered, lighting his pipe with quick little moves of his arms and hands. “I don’t see that there’s any reason to beat around the bush.” Letting out big blasts of smoke, he sat forward. “The raspberry bush, to be precise, Mrs. Hunter-the one behind your family’s barn in Schaghticoke.” He opened his eyes a bit wider. “Or weren’t the bushes there when you were still living at home? No, I don’t suppose they would have been-too difficult to get under them to do all that digging. Still, they grow like weeds, do raspberries-quite tall, now. They almost hide the thing. Almost.”

Libby’s head had frozen, and her hands were clutching tightly at the arms of her chair. I could only see one of the golden eyes, but it had opened wide, wider than I’d ever seen before: wide enough to make me believe that for once she might have been truly surprised and at a loss.

“Picton,” Mr. Darrow said, scratching at his head and looking very annoyed, “have you taken complete leave of your senses, or does all this babbling actually mean something?”

But Mr. Maxon’s face revealed a very different kind of reaction; he may not’ve understood exactly what his opponent was talking about, but he obviously knew that the assistant district attorney didn’t spend a lot of time ranting pointlessly about nothing at all.

“Picton,” Mr. Maxon said quietly, “do you have new information you plan to introduce?”

Mr. Picton didn’t answer either of the questions, just continued to stare at Libby, his gray eyes turning that strange silvery color they did when he was excited. After a few seconds, he started to nod. “Yes, Mrs. Hunter. We’ve found them-your mother, and your brother Elijah. And, more importantly, we’ve found it, and heard the whole story.” This last statement contained a bit of a bluff, I knew-but all good lawyers know the value of a calculated bluff.

Libby continued to say nothing, causing both of her counsels to turn to her in some concern. “What’s he talking about?” Mr. Darrow said, his deep voice sounding like he, too, was beginning to suspect that Mr. Picton might have hold of something real.

Libby just kept staring silently at Mr. Picton; but she seemed to sense that he wasn’t the real cause of her predicament, and soon the golden eyes moved over to fix on the Doctor.

“Who-what in hell are you?” she near whispered, in a voice so icy-mean that it seemed to shock both Mr. Maxon and Mr. Darrow.

For his part, the Doctor just shrugged and stared back at the woman. “Only a man who knows what you are capable of, Mrs. Hunter. Nothing more.”

Growing very uneasy, Mr. Darrow stood up and shoved his hands into his pockets. “All right, look-is somebody going to tell us what’s going on here, or not?”

“It’s fairly simple, Darrow,” Mr. Picton answered, finally looking away from Libby. “Though horrifying, in its simplicity. Ten years ago-I’m afraid I can’t give you an exact date, though we suspect it was in the spring-your client bore a child. An illegitimate child. She murdered it, and buried the body behind her family’s barn in a coffin that also contained the body of her dog. Which, I’m sure, she also killed, to provide a cover for the burial. We’ve seen the grave site, and have corroborating statements from members of her family. We’re prepared to discuss a deal.”

Mr. Darrow’s eyes went wide. “Well, of all the desperate, eleventh-hour tricks-”

He stopped as Libby silently raised a hand to him. “And if we don’t take your deal?” she asked.

“Then,” Mr. Picton replied, smoking again, “we exhume the child’s body, making your mother-who is still, by the way, ignorant of our discovery-fully aware of the crime, and arrest you as soon as the current trial is over. We may also arrest your brother as an accessory-he did, after all, build the coffin and dig the grave-”

“He knew nothing about it!” Libby said without thinking.

Moving automatically, Mr. Darrow put a firm hand to his client’s shoulder. “Say absolutely nothing, Mrs. Hunter.” Satisfied that she would obey him, Mr. Darrow turned to Mr. Picton again. “Are you finished?”

“Yes, just about,” Mr. Picton answered.

Sitting back down and rubbing his furrowed brow, Mr. Darrow studied Libby’s face carefully for what seemed like a long time. There was obviously something there what he didn’t like, something what told him that maybe Mr. Picton wasn’t talking through his hat. “Hypothetically speaking,” Mr. Darrow said slowly, without turning away from Libby. “What kind of a ‘deal’ are you talking about?”

“We will reduce the charge in the current case to second-degree murder if she will change her plea to guilty.”

“And,”the Doctor added carefully, “contact her associates in New York tomorrow morning, and instruct them to release the child Ana Linares into our custody, when we return.”

Mr. Picton nodded. “In return, she receives a life sentence without the possibility of parole.”

Libby seemed like she was about to respond; but Mr. Darrow moved one of his big hands back to her shoulder. “Don’t say anything,”he told her again, even more firmly this time; then he glanced over at Mr. Picton. “Do you suppose Mr. Maxon and I could discuss this privately with our client-maybe have some time to think about it?”

“You can discuss it in this office for the next fifteen minutes,” Mr. Picton answered. “That’s how long the deal’s good for. The Doctor and I will leave you.”

Rising, Mr. Picton nodded to the Doctor, who slowly followed him toward the door. Not wanting to get caught spying, I quickly slipped off Cyrus’s shoulders and jumped to the floor with a bump. When the door opened, I’d just managed to get myself upright again; and as the Doctor came out, he gave me a curious look what said he suspected I’d been up to something. When Mr. Picton closed the door, though, all attention turned to other subjects.