The prosecution had nothing.

By contrast, Judge Salter had a lot. He had a multi-photo-op hot-potato case of the very first order, hand-delivered to his courtroom by his good friend and political crony Dean Powell. He had an indictment by the grand jury that had brought things to this pass. He was privy to the backstage maneuverings of the attorneys, the motions here in his chambers, the lies of the defendant. He also had social relations with Federal Judge Harold Draper, Graham’s old boss – not quite enough to compel him to recuse himself from the case for conflict, although Hardy would make that argument should it come to an appeal.

None of these were matters of law. All of them, taken together, mattered more than the law.

Hardy had no doubt that one day Salter would leave the bench to pursue a political career. He had the bland good looks, the social connections, the inoffensive public personality. He was unfailingly polite, even friendly in an impersonal way.

Now he had finished reading Hardy’s motion and he took off his glasses, squared the pages on his desk, and laid them there. The frown that meant ‘I’m in deep thought’ gave way to the smile that said, ‘We’re friends here.’

‘Gentlemen,’ He motioned the other attorneys over, then gave his attention to Hardy. ‘This is one hell of a well-written motion, Diz. I mean it. You make a very colorable argument.’

Colorable, Hardy thought. Uh-oh. He exchanged a look with Freeman, who shrugged. It was expected, and it was over.

But Salter was observing the niceties. ‘Do you want to add any oral argument?’

‘They’ve failed to prove anything, Judge. Certainly not robbery, which is why we’ve got the specials. There’s no causal relation between the money and the death. There’s no paper showing when Graham got the money or the cards. The boy was taking care of his dad. He loved him.’

Out of the corner of his eyes Hardy could see that Soma was moved to comment, but Drysdale laid a hand on his sleeve, cutting him off before he began.

Salter let a small silence build. It wouldn’t do to reject such a well-written, colorable motion out of hand. An important ruling such as this one, although almost foreordained by its very nature, demanded at least some minutes of cogitation.

La politesse.

‘I don’t know, though,’ Salter finally admitted. ‘I’m still very concerned about all the lies.’

‘I think I’ve covered them, Judge. He panicked and then had to backfill.’

‘But why did he panic if he had done nothing?’

‘Homicide coming to his door. He freaked. It happens all the time.’

This was all pablum, totally irrelevant, and everybody knew it. Salter was going to turn him down because Hardy didn’t have enough to compel him not to. He didn’t have the murderer. He didn’t have Strout saying it was definitely a suicide. Anything less wouldn’t get it done.

Salter paused again, then drew in a lungful of air and let it out. Another smile among friends. ‘I think we’re going to have to let the jury decide, Diz. I’m going to deny the motion.’

‘I want you to visualize something,’ Freeman said. They were waiting for Salter to enter the courtroom. Graham sat between them at their defense table. Behind them the gallery was its usual din before court was called to order, although the noise was so familiar by now that no one noticed it. ‘No, I mean it. Close your eyes.’

‘If I close my eyes I will be asleep when the judge comes in. I guarantee it. I’ve done experiments.’

Graham looked back and forth between them, settled on Hardy. ‘Better what Yoda says do. Otherwise he use Force. You die.’

Part of Hardy was relieved by Graham’s tendency to keep things light. He rolled his eyes, then closed them. ‘See, what did I tell you? I’m asleep.’

‘You’re talking,’ Graham said.

‘In my sleep. Happens all the time.’

‘Diz.’ He heard Freeman’s voice. ‘You’re on a diving board, a high one. You’re going to try a one and a half forward flip. You with me?’

‘I’m there,’ Hardy said.

Freeman kept on. ‘Think the dive through. Commit to it. You’re going all the way around and then halfway around again, a long time in the air. All right?’

‘Ready.’

‘Think it!’

Hardy forced the image.

‘All right, now jump! Tuck hard, spin, you feel it? Don’t pull out. Don’t pull out.’

Hardy rolled with the dive. It was a long way around, but he held his tuck, entered the water cleanly, opened his eyes. ‘Okay.’

‘You get around?’

‘No splash,’ Hardy said. ‘Cut it like a knife.’

Graham looked from one to the other again. ‘You guys are crazy,’ he said.

But Freeman had a valid point. This morning Hardy would open the case-in-chief for the defense. He would be calling his defense witnesses, and this was where their strategy could not waver. It would seem that they were hanging in the air, spinning, for a good deal of the time.

They weren’t going to try to get the judge to instruct on lesser included offenses; the jury would have no option to convict Graham of manslaughter as a compromise. Graham wouldn’t take the stand to appear sympathetic and likable. There was going to be no chance for a couple of years in prison and a life resumed. It was to be murder or nothing – life or freedom.

This was the agonizing crux of it. As it stood now, some members of the jury might still believe that Graham had had no part in his father’s death. After Hardy presented his case-in-chief, however, no one would doubt Graham had done it, an ‘it’ that the law defined as murder: the deliberate taking of a human life. What the defense needed to do was to polarize the jury to convince them that if they did not believe Graham had killed his father for money, then they should acquit rather than convict on a lesser offense.

The prosecution had emphasized the financial motive for the killing to bolster their charges of a first-degree murder conviction. Hardy’s gambit was going to make the game winner take all -first or nothing.

This course was fraught with tremendous risk, although they all agreed that it was their best chance for acquittal.

But it would destroy the defense if Hardy forgot even for a moment and began to pull out of the spin before he reached the end. He could not allow himself the luxury of bringing up his possible ‘other dudes.’ He had one and only one story and he had to commit to it now, before he began, or they would lose.

Dr Russ Cutler was the young man Hardy had met and questioned for the first time at the Little Shamrock. Back then he’d been unshaven and exhausted, draped in his medical scrubs and his guilt over not having come forward about prescribing the morphine. Now he had finished his residency and gone into private practice. He had also spent a good deal of time rehearsing his proposed testimony with Freeman and Hardy.

In a tan linen suit and maroon tie, well rested and confident, he took the stand and swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but.

‘Dr Cutler, would you please tell the court your relationship to Graham?’

‘We play softball together on the same team. I consider myself his friend. I was his father’s doctor.’

At these last words the white noise in the courtroom went away. Hardy’s voice cut into the silence. ‘Now, Doctor, as Sal Russo’s physician, did you examine him in the last six months before his death?’

‘Yes, I did. Graham told me that he had a sick father, and asked if I would look at him.’

‘And would you tell the jury what you found?’

Cutler was happy to. Hardy thought him the perfect witness for his male-dominated jury. First, he was a guy himself, neither too young nor too old. He was dressed neatly enough for authority, but not much more. With solid features, he wasn’t quite handsome, though he showed a lot of teeth when he smiled. Easy and approachable, that’s what Cutler was.