Drabble nodded. “I see. Did you reach any conclusions regarding time of death in this case?”

“Absolutely.”

“So the time of death would be…”

“Eleven p.m. Eleven-fifteen at the latest.”

Drabble nodded thoughtfully. “The defendant has suggested that the beating took place at another location at around 9 P.M.-just after Tony Barovick left the club-and was over by 9:30.”

“No. Not possible. The beating might have begun then, but the killing stroke-the death of Tony Barovick-came later.” She was adamant, and with good reason, Christina knew. Johnny was with fraternity brothers who could alibi him from about 9:30 to 10:45. Wilson was placing the murder at a time when Johnny was alone, before he rejoined his friends at Remote Control.

Christina watched carefully as several of the jurors shifted around in their chairs. They’d been hoping medical science could tell them with certainty who was lying. And that was what they were getting now-or so they thought.

“And you’re sure of this?”

“Beyond a doubt. To a medical certainty.”

“Thank you, Doctor. Your witness, Ms. McCall.”

Christina slowly made her way to the podium. She hated experts. Cross was bad enough with normal people-it was all but unbearable with someone who was only on the stand because it was an accepted fact that she knew more about the matter at hand than you did.

“First, Dr. Wilson, I’d like to talk about the cause of death.”

“Very well,” she said, all forthright and chipper. Christina knew that wouldn’t last long.

“I appreciate your honesty in telling the jury that you really don’t have the slightest idea what the cause of death was. Very forthcoming of you.”

“Ye-ess,” Wilson said, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I was troubled, though, by your assertion that the death must’ve come as a result of the beating by Johnny Christensen and Brett Mathers. Since you don’t know what the cause of death was, how can you pretend to know who caused it?”

“I believe he has admitted beating the boy-”

“Yes, but not to killing him.”

“And I saw the results of the beating. Given the severe trauma of the body, it would be ridiculous to suggest that anything else could’ve caused the death.”

Was that a challenge, Doctor? “My point is that you don’t know exactly what Johnny did. The killing stroke-to use your own words-could have come from another person.”

Wilson shook her head. “Even if it was his fraternity friend-”

“But what if it was another person altogether? A third person.”

“I’ve heard no evidence of a third person.”

“But you can’t rule out the possibility.”

“When we have two self-confessed perpetrators who conducted an extensive torture and beating, it seems absurd-”

“Dr. Wilson, could Tony Barovick have been strangled?”

Christina’s sudden switch threw the coroner off balance. “Uh-strangled?”

“Sure. You said he died of oxygen deprivation to the brain. You hypothesized that a jaw or neck injury might’ve caused asphyxiation. Wouldn’t a simpler explanation be that someone strangled him?”

Wilson hesitated. “I haven’t heard anything about any strangling…”

“And that’s the problem, isn’t it? You don’t want to attribute the death to strangulation-because Johnny never confessed to any strangling. You want to attribute death to one of the things he did confess to. But that doesn’t make it the cause of death. Especially if a third person was involved.”

Wilson was beginning to squirm. “I think it’s pointless to speculate when we know the victim endured a hideous assault.”

“You’ve read the transcript of Johnny Christensen’s so-called confession, haven’t you?”

“Of course.”

“So let me ask you, Doctor-is it possible that a person could have endured all that Johnny described and still live?”

“Oh, anything’s possible, but-”

“In fact, judging from Johnny’s description, the beating-although horrible, to be sure-did not involve anything that would absolutely, positively cause death, right?”

“I assume the defendant downplayed the intensity-”

“Well, now assume he told the absolute to-the-letter truth. Despite the severity of the injuries, those wounds were not necessarily fatal, right?”

“I agree that survival was possible. But given that he didn’t-survive, that is-and that we know this horrible assault occurred, to speculate about third parties and intervening causes is just indulging in fantasy.”

“Were there contusions on Tony Barovick’s neck?”

Again, the switch caught her flat-footed-which, of course, was exactly what Christina wanted. “It’s true, there were abrasions on the anterior neck, but-”

“And streaking arethema on the lateral aspect of zone one?”

Wilson did a double take. “Ye-esss…”

“And the cartilaginous tracheal rings were crushed?”

Wilson sighed. “Been doing some reading, Ms. McCall?”

“I try to stay informed. All of those factors are possible indicators of strangulation, aren’t they?”

“True. But just the same,” Wilson continued, “with a body so severely tortured and mutilated, those injuries could have been caused by any number of things.”

“Including strangulation by a third person?”

Wilson’s frustration was mounting. “This whole speculation about a third person is useless.”

“Useless to the prosecution, yes. You don’t want to suggest strangulation as a possible cause of death, because in his confession Johnny didn’t say anything about strangulation. You want to pin it on something he confessed to doing.”

“No, that isn’t-”

“Nonetheless, simple strangulation, subsequent in time to the beating, is a possible cause of death. Correct?”

Wilson took a deep breath. “As I testified, the time of death was shortly before the body was found. There wasn’t time-”

“Well, let’s talk about that,” Christina said, flipping a page in her notebook. “You say the time of death was about 11:15-and in no case earlier than 11:00.”

“That’s correct.”

“And you base this conclusion on the body’s decomposition, which you tell us is steady and predictable.”

“Absolutely.”

Christina snapped her fingers. “Come to think of it, what you actually said was that absent extraordinary circumstances, the rate was steady and predictable. What would some of those extraordinary circumstances be, Doctor?”

“They are all wildly improbable.”

“Try me.”

“If the body was exposed to radiation-which it wasn’t. If he’d been feverish at the time of death-which he wasn’t.”

“What about if he’d been refrigerated?”

“Excuse me?”

“Refrigerated. What if?”

“But the body wasn’t refrigerated. It was found in a fraternity house.”

“Was it terribly cold in that fraternity house?”

She looked at Christina as if she’d asked to see her knickers. “Not that I recall.”

“Think harder, Doctor. When I visited your office last week, you mentioned that the room was cold. And Officer Montgomery told us it was so chilly he sent his partner after his coat.”

“If you say so.”

“But it was you who said so, Dr. Wilson. And you were right. Do you know how cold it was? When the doors and windows in the room were shut? Before the police arrived?”

“I couldn’t possibly know. No one could.”

“Well, actually, Doctor-I could.” From the defendant’s table, Vicki passed her a photo that had already been admitted into evidence. “The crime scene technicians photographed and videotaped the entire room where the body was found-including the north wall, which is where the thermostat is located. I took the liberty of having that section of the photo enlarged.” She slid it across the witness stand. “Let me ask you again, Doctor-what was the temperature in that room?”

Wilson frowned. “Sixty degrees.”

“Sixty? Now that’s pretty cold, especially in a small room with all the doors and windows shut. Wouldn’t have taken long to cool to that temperature.”