“But-but-” Padolino was sputtering now, never a good sign. “Why would a U.S. senator have an offshore bank account?”

“Objection,” Ben said dutifully. “Not relevant to the charge at bar.”

Judge Herndon considered for a moment. “Although the existence of the account is relevant, it is true that the reasons for having it in the first place may not be.” He inhaled deeply. “But I think I’ll allow it.”

You mean, you just want to hear the poor woman try to explain it to this jury of lower-middle-class taxpayers, Ben thought.

“I haven’t really been involved in the creation of the bank accounts for this family,” Marie said coolly. “But I believe these offshore accounts may have certain tax advantages.”

“More like a tax dodge, isn’t it?”

Marie drew herself up and looked squarely at him, without a hint of embarrassment. “Mr. Padolino, I understood your goal here to be prosecuting someone you genuinely believed to be guilty of murder, not generally slandering someone just for the pleasure of doing so. I’ve allowed you to confirm the existence of the account and the withdrawal. I think that puts an end to the inquiry.”

It wasn’t often in his career that Ben had seen a witness so thoroughly take command of a cross-examination, much less effectively overrule the judge without anyone in the courtroom daring to saying a word about it. He stopped wondering if she might conceivably have political ambitions, and started wondering how long it would be before she was sitting in the Oval Office.

Beads of sweat dripped down the sides of the prosecutor’s face, always pleasurable for a defense attorney to observe. At the same time, Ben knew that when smart men became desperate, they did desperate things. And that certainly proved to be the case.

“Ms. Glancy, you mentioned before that your husband had unusual tastes. I gathered from the context that you were describing his sexual predilections. Would you please explain exactly what you meant?”

Glancy leaned toward Ben. “You’ve got to stop this,” he whispered, but it was unnecessary, because Ben was already on his feet.

“Objection!” Ben said emphatically. “Not relevant.”

The judge disagreed. “I think she opened the door to this. Overruled.”

“Your honor,” Ben insisted, “this is obviously just a prosecutorial ploy to salvage his case by slandering the defendant. There is-”

“I’ve ruled, counsel.”

“Your honor, this is the defendant’s wife!”

“And I said I’ve ruled, Mr. Kincaid!” Herndon rose slightly out of his seat. “That’s my nice way of saying sit down and shut up.”

Ben reluctantly did as he was told.

“So,” Padolino continued, “could you please describe these unusual tastes? And don’t spare us the details.”

For the first time, the jury could see Marie hesitating, gathering her thoughts.

“Damn,” Christina whispered into Ben’s ear. “Why did she have to bring this up in the first place?”

A very good question, Ben thought. It certainly wasn’t in her testimony when they had rehearsed it the night before.

“Well,” she said, drawing in her breath, “you’ve seen the video.”

“We certainly have. Your point?”

“Todd,” she said, sighing heavily. “Todd is very into the whole subjugation-domination thing. He likes-well, you can see it in his whole life, everything he’s ever done. He wants to be in power. He wants to be in control.”

“Like in the video, when he forced himself on Veronica Cooper?”

“Oh, I think that was more playacting than anything else. They were both willing participants. But it was playacting Todd liked.” Her eyes moved downward. “Unfortunately… I didn’t.”

Glancy squeezed Ben’s arm. “You’ve got to shut this down,” he hissed. “Isn’t there any way?”

“I already gave it everything I had,” Ben replied. “More objections now would only remind the jury how badly we want to keep this out.”

Padolino resumed. “Would this subjugation fetish involve… certain positions?”

“Obviously. The woman in any position of powerlessness. Restrained. Bent over a chair.”

“Would it involve violence?”

“Objection!” Ben shouted, genuinely outraged. “This has gone far beyond all reasonable claims of relevance. This is nothing less than a prurient intrusion into a public figure’s private sex life.”

“It’s a character issue,” Padolino answered.

“Well, isn’t that what they always say,” Ben shot back.

“It goes to the likeliness of the affair, or affairs. Which goes directly to motive. And the propensity for sexual violence-well, the relevance of that is obvious.”

“I’ll allow it,” Herndon said. He didn’t even have to think about it. And as painful as it was, Ben knew his decision was correct.

“Pain was-is-a turn-on for Todd,” Marie continued. “But it’s more than that. It’s not just the pain, it’s the… debasement. The sense that he’s reducing the woman to a piece of meat. A plaything. Something that exists only for his pleasure. That’s what he gets off on. I wouldn’t let him do that to me. So he found other women who would.”

“Like an employee who thought she had to please her boss?” Padolino asked.

Marie scoffed. “Like a desperate drug addict who liked sex and lacked the strength to say no.”

Padolino had the sense to know this was as good as it was going to get. He ended on a high note and sat down. Ben declined to redirect.

“What the hell was that?” Ben whispered to Christina. “Her testimony was going brilliantly. Even the cross was going brilliantly. And then, at the very end, she tanks. Destroys her husband’s reputation.”

“Nothing she said proved Todd was a murderer,” Christina noted. “She cast serious doubt on the prosecutor’s theory of motive.”

“Who cares? She made him look so ugly, so perverted, I’ll never be able to generate any sympathy for him in closing. I couldn’t rehabilitate Mother Teresa after testimony like that.” He wiped his hand across his brow. “And it wasn’t necessary. Why would she do that? Why would she do that to him?”

Christina watched Marie carefully as she walked coolly down the nave and out of the courtroom. “A woman scorned,” she said succinctly. “Hell hath no greater fury.”

Peering over the balcony, almost all Loving could see on the inlaid tile floor on the level beneath him was the five-sided star enclosed in a circle-a huge pentagram in the center of the darkened room. The twelve figures surrounding the circle were wearing brown hooded cloaks, like monastic friars of an ancient order, all participating in an uncanny ritual. In the center was a large stone block-the altar, no doubt. A sheet was draped over the top of the altar, but Loving could tell there was something, or someone, under the sheet. Much as he wanted to find Beatrice, he hoped it wasn’t her, because the entire time he’d been in here he’d never once detected the slightest movement under the sheet.

After Loving passed through the rear door of the chapel and a long corridor, he found himself on this balcony. A spiral staircase led to the lower floor, but he decided to stay here where he had a better view, and it would be more difficult for the hoods below to spot him. The low lighting cut both ways: it made it harder for him to detect what was going on down there, but it also made it harder for them to see him watching-which was good, because he was fairly certain they would not be pleased.

The men had been chanting for almost ten minutes. He suspected it was Latin, but he couldn’t really be sure-he hadn’t gone to college and they hadn’t covered this in the truck-driving class he’d taken at the Tulsa Vo-Tech Center. At long last, they fell silent. One man stepped forward, entered the pentagram, and laid his hands upon whatever was under the sheet.

“Let us pray.”

As one, the rest of the men did not bow their heads, but instead raised them, pressing their hands together and lifting them above their hoods.