Ben felt his body tense. This was of critical importance.

“As far as I know.”

Ben blinked. The prosecution was helping Todd establish his alibi?

“Would you know if he left?”

“Not necessarily. We were in informal session. People were running all over the place. Aides moved in and out, shuttling drafts and revisions. We were working on some proposed legislation on the government pensions problem.”

“And you never saw Senator Glancy leave?”

“No. I don’t worry much about what the Democrats are doing. Long as there are more of us than there are of them.”

Another burst of laughter, enough to inspire Judge Herndon to rap his gavel and give everyone a stern look. This is as good as it could possibly get from this witness, Ben thought. If only Padolino would leave it alone and move on to something else. And to his great surprise, Padolino did.

Padolino held up a photograph of an attractive middle-aged woman with short-cropped brown hair and a long, angular face. “Sir, do you now or have you ever known a woman named Delia Collins?”

Ben shot to his feet. “Objection!”

Padolino was ready. “Your honor, this testimony is for the purpose of establishing a pattern on the part of the defendant.”

“A pattern of what?” Judge Herndon asked.

Padolino arched an eyebrow. “Three guesses.”

“Your honor,” Ben said, moving rapidly toward the bench, “we briefed this issue in our motion in limine. It’s in your file. You haven’t ruled on it.” Marshall had tipped Ben off about this possible problem in advance.

Herndon shuffled the paper around on his desk. “Oh, yes. Now I recall. Delia Collins.”

“Then you must also know why this testimony is not relevant to any issue at bar, but could be extremely prejudicial to my client. I strongly urge the court to suppress any testimony regarding-”

“Nah.” Herndon waved a hand in the air. “Sounds to me like the prosecutor can get it in as legitimate evidence of a habit or pattern of behavior such as might have been displayed on the day of the murder. I’ll allow it, subject to subsequent reconsideration.”

“But, sir, if we hear it in open court, it will be too late-”

“And if I find ultimately that the evidence is not relevant to the case, I will instruct the jury to disregard it.”

A fat lot of good that will do, Ben thought bitterly as he returned to his table. Once this cat was out of the bag, it wasn’t ever going back.

“Let me repeat the question,” Padolino said. “Do you know a woman named Delia Collins?”

“Yes,” MacReady answered. “She was a witness who gave testimony before the committee something like seven years ago on the MacReady-Friedman bill. That was the one that, among other things, would have invalidated the ‘unproven or experimental techniques’ clause from American health insurance policies in certain cases regarding terminally ill patients. Would have required insurance companies to pay for medical treatments even if said treatments were not yet FDA- or AMA-approved.”

“Did you favor this bill?”

“I wrote it and co-sponsored it. Most of the men in my party supported it. But oddly enough, even though it seemed like something the liberals would embrace with both arms, Senator Glancy did not. And he was the chair of the committee at the time. And his people toed his line. The bill died in committee.”

“Why was Ms. Collins testifying?”

MacReady acquired a more serious expression. “Regretfully, Ms. Collins herself was suffering from a terminal illness. Ovarian cancer, if I recall correctly. She wanted a new treatment developed by a medical researcher in Mexico City, a new drug cocktail that had shown some promise in fighting the disease. But it was new and experimental and expensive, unapproved by the FDA, and her insurance company refused to pay for it. She was not a wealthy woman, so she had no other means of obtaining the treatment. Her very dramatic testimony illustrated how serious the need for the MacReady-Friedman bill was. As far as she was concerned, when her insurance company said no, they effectively signed her death certificate.” He stopped, sighed. “But as I said, the bill didn’t get out of committee. And I believe I heard the poor woman died a few months later.”

Ben could see the jury was mystified. This was all very interesting-but what did it have to do with the murder case? Unfortunately, he knew they would find out all too soon.

“Was that the last time you saw Delia Collins? The day she testified before the committee?”

MacReady cleared his throat. “Uh, no.”

“Really. When did you see her again?”

“A few days later. Before the final committee vote was taken.”

“And where did you see her?”

“In Senator Glancy’s private office.”

“Please describe the circumstances of this encounter to the jury.”

MacReady frowned, shifted his weight, began to look uncomfortable. Ben suspected he was probably actually looking forward to this, but he didn’t want it to show. That would be crass.

“I’d gone into Senator Glancy’s office late at night. It was well past usual working hours, but the congressional clerk told me he hadn’t left the premises. I wanted to take one last stab at persuading him to support the bill. I was even prepared to offer a little pork, let him slip in some appropriations money for another Oklahoma lake or whatever. Hazel-that’s his receptionist, has been for years-wasn’t at her desk. I suppose she’d gone home for the evening. So I just walked into the man’s office. Door was shut, but so what? I never expected-” He stopped, coughed into his hand. “Well, I never expected what I saw.”

“And what did you see?” Padolino prodded.

“The two of them were behind his desk. She was just visible on the right side. He was lying down and she was straddling him. His pants were pulled down and she wasn’t wearing much, just some lacy understuff kind of like-” He gestured toward the television set, still in the courtroom from the viewing of the video. “You know. Like the other girl.”

Ben glanced at the jury. Expressions ranged from small frowns to utter disgust.

“And were these two people engaged in… sexual relations?”

“Well,” he replied, “I suppose that depends on whether you subscribe to the Clintonian definition of sex or the one we use back home in Arkansas.”

“Can you… be a little more specific?”

“In my book, when a woman goes down on a man, that’s sex.”

Several members of the jury gasped-literally gasped. Marie Glancy covered her face with her hands.

“I… see,” Padolino said. He was also wearing his strained expression of disgust, as if he were fighting to mask his revulsion. “They were engaged in fellatio?”

“I think that’s the word for it, yeah. Like in that video. ’Cept he didn’t appear to have forced himself on her.”

“Objection,” Ben shouted. Beside him, Glancy was maintaining a cool, expressionless demeanor. In their pretrial discussions, he had denied the incident ever happened. Even so, Ben was pretty sure he wasn’t enjoying listening to this.

“Sustained,” Herndon said calmly. “The jury will disregard the witness’s last statement.”

“Did they see you?” Padolino asked.

“Oh yes. Or she did, anyway. She made a feeble attempt to cover herself with her hands. He didn’t move, didn’t even get up. I think he was pretty… you know. Wrapped up in what they were doing.”

“Were you surprised by what you saw?”

“Well, yes and no.”

“Can you explain?”

“I knew she’d been in to see Glancy several times, presumably to persuade him to change his vote. I assume she went in that night for the same reason I did-to give it one last shot. Only he demanded a special quid pro quo from her.”

“Objection,” Ben said, even more forcefully than before. “Pure speculation. Slanderous and totally unjustified.”

“The objection will be sustained and the jury will disregard.” The judge turned and looked sternly into the witness box. “You know the rules, Congressman. As I recall, you were once a trial lawyer yourself. One more trick like that and I’ll find you in contempt and have your entire testimony stricken.”