“As I said, the knife might’ve nicked the vein-”

“Come on, Doctor. Isn’t it far more likely that the vein was penetrated by something smaller than a great big chopping knife?”

“There’s no evidence that another weapon was used on the woman.”

“Sure, not now. Not after she’s been ripped to shreds. But isn’t it possible that there was evidence of another weapon before? Evidence that was obliterated by the slashing of her neck?”

“Your honor,” Padolino said, “I must protest. This is idle speculation.”

“An expert witness is allowed to offer an opinion, based upon his expertise,” Herndon answered. Ben was glad to see the judge wasn’t the sort to hold a grudge. “I’ll allow it.”

“All you have,” Bukowsky insisted, “is a tiny, easily dismissed puncture wound-”

“Is that all I have?” Ben flipped through a few more pages in the report. “I read on page twenty-six that there was a cut on her trachea.”

“Now, that could easily have been made by the knife.”

“Yes, it could have. But my medical experts tell me that if her trachea had been cut with a knife while she was still alive, she would’ve aspirated blood.” Now it was Ben’s turn to lean forward. “Isn’t that correct, Doctor?”

The doctor fell silent.

“I didn’t quite get your response, Dr. Bukowsky. If her trachea had been cut while she was still alive, wouldn’t she have aspirated blood?”

“It’s… possible.”

“Possible? It’s a medical certainty! But she didn’t aspirate blood, did she? Were there any traces of blood in her lungs?”

“No,” the doctor said succinctly.

“And that means-” Ben paused, making sure everyone was with him. “At the time this woman was slashed on the throat, she was already dead or dying.”

Bukowsky clearly was not prepared for this line of reasoning. “But-why would anyone cut her if she was already dead or dying?”

“To disguise the real manner in which she was killed, of course. Whatever it was that caused that puncture. The murderer obliterated the killing wound.”

“I can’t agree with that conclusion.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Your honor,” Padolino began.

Ben continued unabated. “Whether you agree or not, Doctor-you can’t rule the possibility out, can you? It is an explanation consistent with the medical evidence. Right?”

His lips pursed. His tongue slowed. “I suppose it is… possible. But-”

“That’s all I wanted to hear. Thank you for your candor, Doctor. No more questions.”

After several failed attempts, Loving finally managed to get her on the phone.

“Lucille?”

“Well, hello there, sugah. Didn’t expect to hear from you again so soon. But I can’t say that I mind. You wanna come-”

“It’s about Amber.”

Her voice took on an instantly sober tone. “Is she okay?”

“I don’t know. I can’t get to her.”

Lucille didn’t hesitate. “What do you need me to do?”

Loving gave her the address. “We’ll meet you out front. And Lucille?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t dress like you normally would. You gotta wear black-like the stuff Amber liked the last few times you saw her. And it needs to be kinda… trashy.”

“Trashy poor, or trashy I-want-you-inside-my-pants-right-now?”

“Uhh… the latter, I think.”

“Can do, sugah. Be there in an hour.” She rang off.

Loving tucked his cell phone into his jacket pocket.

“What was all that about?” Daily asked. “Who was that?”

Loving allowed himself a small smile. “Our ticket inside.”

11

A fter the coroner finished testifying, Padolino filled the day with brief, legally important but essentially uninteresting testimony, and Ben knew why. He wanted the jury fresh when he delivered his big wham-bam slammer. He’d been building up to it since jury selection-before, actually.

The video. Ben unsuccessfully had tried every motion imaginable to get it suppressed. There was no way to convince the judge that it wasn’t relevant-since it so clearly was. To be sure, all but two of the jurors admitted that they had already seen the video-at least the somewhat expurgated televised version-and Ben very much suspected the other two had as well but didn’t want to admit it because they feared it would get them booted. Didn’t matter. To see some lascivious video on television about famous people you don’t know is an event perhaps worthy of comment, but hardly a life-changing event. To see that same video in a court of law, with one of the featured players sitting right before you and the other one dead, is an entirely different matter.

Doing his time-filling belt-and-suspenders routine, Padolino called a barrage of technical experts: two hair techs, a fiber fiend, and a fingerprint specialist. They had all analyzed trace evidence in the hideaway and told the jury the same thing-Veronica Cooper had been killed there, and Todd Glancy had been present, probably on several occasions. Christina handled the crosses and did a fine job; Ben knew from experience that there was nothing on earth harder than crossing an expert. Just when you had them trapped, they hauled out some scientific gobbledygook and slithered to safety. Better to leave the jury confused than admit defeat. Christina kept them all on a short leash, but the only thing she couldn’t do was change the undisputed facts. A clear picture emerged: Glancy arranged a meeting with Cooper in his hideaway to talk about the newly erupted scandal, maybe to pay her off, maybe to buy her silence some other way. When it didn’t work, he killed her. Then he washed up and went back to work. The whole thing could’ve been done in fifteen minutes.

Glancy’s only hope was his alibi. He had been at that committee meeting at the time the coroner claimed the murder occurred. As long as the alibi held, as long as the prosecution couldn’t establish Opportunity, they still got game. But if they lost that, no amount of defense fancy footwork could bail them out.

Padolino called Everett Scott to the witness stand. As the jury soon learned, he was an off-air reporter for C-SPAN and had been for almost eight years.

“Mr. Scott, how did the videotape that has been entered into evidence as Prosecution Exhibit Twenty-three come into your possession?”

“It arrived in the mail.”

“Did you have to sign for it?”

“No. It just showed up in my box with the bills and the advertising flyers.” Scott was a thin man with glasses, long gangly arms, and brownish hair that he combed straight back from his face. A bit of a nebbish, really, Ben thought. But he hadn’t expected a C-SPAN reporter to come off like Tom Cruise.

“Did the envelope bear a return address?”

“It did not.”

“Was there a postmark?”

He hesitated before answering. “It had a DC postmark.”

“An informant, perhaps?”

Scott did not reply.

“Mr. Scott,” Padolino continued, “do you know who sent you the videotape?”

Again the hesitation. “I… do not know for certain who sent me the tape, no.”

“But you have some thoughts about who might have sent it?”

“Objection,” Ben said. “Calls for speculation.”

Judge Herndon batted his pencil on his desk. “Well, I suppose that depends on the amount of evidence the witness has in support of his theory.” He swiveled around to face Scott. “How sure are you that you know who sent it?”

Scott swallowed. “Your honor, I must respectfully decline to answer that question, or any other questions of that nature.”

“You’re pleading the Fifth?”

“I’m pleading a journalist’s First Amendment right to refuse to identify his sources.”

“That right, as I’m sure you know, is not one always recognized by the courts.”

“I do know that.” Scott pressed his hands together, wringing them. “But I won’t reveal my sources.”

“But if you’re not certain-”

“Guessing would be even worse. I would be reduced to identifying numerous potential sources and contacts at the U.S. Senate, which would make it impossible for me to continue to do my job.”