Anna turned as they entered. Hardy saw her light a smile at her husband, then extinguish it when she saw him. She had a large pot going on the gas burner- olive oil and garlic- and was cutting more vegetables- onions, red and green peppers, tomatoes- on the counter, while Carla, the baby, sat contentedly jailed, spinning the plastic letters on the sides of the playpen.

Salarco picked up the baby, tucking her in his arm. He then kissed his wife, whispering something to her, and went to the refrigerator for a couple of beers. Hardy took his, pulled at it, tried with a grin to break some ice with the wife. "It smells great in here." She nodded politely and went back to her vegetables. Still holding Carla like a football under one arm, Salarco walked over to the table and sat in one of the chairs, indicating that Hardy should take another one. Moving forward, he took his tape recorder from his pants pocket and held it up, getting tacit permission.

Salarco nodded. "So, how can I help you?"

Hardy had been waiting so long to ask that he pushed the record button and was talking before he'd sat down. "Something we really didn't get clear last time that might be important."

Salarco moved the baby to his knee and began bouncing her up and down. "Okay."

"The noise of the gunshot."

"What about it?"

"The last time we talked, and I listened to the tape of our conversation a lot, you were talking about the noises downstairs when the fighting was going on. This is after you'd gone down the first time to ask them to be more quiet. Do you remember?"

"Sí."

"All right. If you don't mind, I'd like to go over those few minutes again with you. From the first noise that woke up Carla again. Do you think you can put yourself back there and try to remember exactly what things sounded like? What you thought at the time?"

"All right."

"We can take a minute," Hardy said. "We're in no hurry. I want you to think back to that night if you can. Carla had a high fever and she'd been crying all night, and then finally you got her to sleep. You and Anna went out to the living room and turned on the television, quietly. Do you remember all that?"

Salarco was concentrating, the perfect witness who wanted to recall the exact truth. And with no one to object if Hardy led him back to the scene, to his state of mind. "Sí," he said. "I am there."

"Okay." Hardy had memorized the sections. "Last time we talked, you said you heard a scream, the girl scream."

"Sí."

"And then the first noise you heard- a bump, you called it- where you said you could feel it in the floor, as though something heavy had dropped downstairs."

Salarco was paying careful attention. He had stopped bouncing Carla, put one of his fingers into her mouth, a pacifier. His face took on a faraway look.

"Is that about right?" Hardy asked. "The first noises, then, were a scream, then a bump?"

A nod.

"Now the next noise, the second one. You said it sounded like something crashing with glass breaking." Anna, Hardy noticed, had stopped cutting her vegetables, although she didn't turn around.

"Yes. I hear that," Salarco said. "The glass breaking. Okay."

Hardy threw another quick glance at Anna. She hadn't moved a muscle. "Finally," he said, "the last one was a boom again. You didn't say it sounded like somebody slamming the front door under you. You said it was the door slamming."

"Sí. Okay."

"You mean yes? That's what it was?"

"Right. Yes."

"So would you now describe any of those sounds- try to remember exactly if you can- would you say any of those sounds could have been a gunshot?"

A spark of surprise, or perhaps it was something else- recognition of a mistake? pure fear?- shot through Salarco's eyes. He licked his lips. The youthful face suddenly aged.

"It's all right," Hardy said. "You've never testified that they were. You've said what you've said, and people assumed. Now I'm asking you. Were they gunshots?" He was sure for a moment that he'd spooked him by springing an unseen trap. And he couldn't afford to lose Salarco's cooperation. If that happened, Andrew would be tried as an adult and probably convicted. Hardy, himself, might never know the truth of what happened downstairs that night.

He had been subliminally aware of the television in the next room- in English- throughout the entire course of his questions so far with Juan. And now, needing to somehow redirect the energy and keep these witnesses talking, he had to take a chance. "Mrs. Salarco?"

Her shoulders tightened; then she sighed and she turned around. "Sí?"

"Wouldn't you say that's about right? The way your husband described the noises? Did any of them sound like gunshots to you?"

She didn't even have to think about it. "No. I never thought about that before, but there was no sound of any shots. Just the other sounds." She turned to her husband. "Cariño? Sí? Es verdad?"

He nodded and seemed to take some strength from her. Taking a breath, he came back to Hardy. "When I sit back and listen, I cannot say any of the noises sounded like shots."

The relief almost made Hardy dizzy. Not only had he gotten the critical admission, but they'd both put it on tape. Now, instead of being the prosecution's star witnesses, the Salarcos' testimony would work if not to exonerate Andrew, then at least in his favor.

Anna came over, picked up the baby and stood holding it, leaning against her husband.

"Your English is very good, Mrs. Salarco," Hardy said.

She wasn't happy or, at the moment, proud of it. "Three years," she said. "Juan and I- me?- we try at home."

"And pick up a little here and there on TV?"

She flashed a glare into the living room, went and placed the baby gently back into her playpen.

Hardy let them get used to the change in the dynamic. He took a sip of his beer, then spoke to both of them. "As I said before, I'm not with the INS. I will do nothing to involve you with them, no matter what you say or do. If they come to me with any questions about you at all, I won't answer them. The only person I'm interested in is Andrew. I'm starting to believe he may not be a killer."

"But I…" Juan stammered. "It was him. I saw him with these eyes."

"Yes, you did," Hardy said. "In fact, you saw him twice. Once when you went downstairs the first time to complain, the second time when he came back after you'd called nine one one. Isn't that right?"

"Yes. But there was also the other time."

Hardy clucked, folded his arms, sat back a moment. He picked up his beer as a prop. He didn't want to risk alienating Salarco for good, but he had another point to drive home, perhaps more critical than the first. And to get to it, he had to expose something much worse than Salarco's gunshot misperception, or lack of precision.

"That other time is what I wanted to talk about," he began. "The time after the door slammed downstairs, when you and Anna jumped up from the couch and looked out the window and saw somebody turn around on the walkway out by the street."

"It wasn't 'somebody,' " Juan said. He pushed back a little from the table, straightened himself in his chair, his back stiff now, and crossed one leg over the other. He'd picked up on Hardy's direction, and didn't like it. "It was the boy. Andrew. I saw him."

Afraid of losing him, Hardy twirled his bottle, took a beat. "I'm not saying you didn't, Juan. If you saw him, you saw him, and that's the end of it."

Salarco nodded, an abrupt bounce of the head. Suddenly impaciente with all this, and equally afraid of where it might go. When he picked up his bottle and drank, Hardy seized the opportunity. "It's just that when we talked the other night… I've got a copy of the tape right here if you'd like to hear it… but I also wrote down exactly what you said." He took the folded sheet of yellow paper from his shirt pocket, opened it, and spread it out in front of them. "Here. Listen: 'Anna goes to this window, here, and I am behind her, and there is the boy running away. He stops under the light there, and turns, and Anna starts to put the window up to… to scream at him I think, but then Carla starts again with crying.' " That's what you said, Juan. Isn't that how you remember it?"