"But, your honor-"

Crack! "Mr. Hardy, your representation is noted for the record. What do you expect me to do, drop the charges?"

"I don't think that would be unreasonable, your honor, given the enormity of what you're calling the coincidence. Mr. Mooney and Ms. Wright were both killed by someone connected to Lucas Welding, and there's no such connection with Andrew Bartlett."

"I understand that that's your theory, Mr. Hardy. Now do you have another witness, or is it time that I make a ruling?"

Hardy bit the inside of his mouth hard. Looking down to his right at Andrew, he whispered, "Hang in there," then came back to the judge and said, "We'd like to call Anna Salarco, your honor."

"All right." Johnson looked to his left- Cottrell's standard position in the courtroom- and frowned. He turned in the other direction. "Officer Nelson, would you please go out to the hallway and call the witness? Anna Salarco. And while you're out there, if you see Officer Cottrell, would you ask him if he'd care to join us again in the courtroom?"

There followed some minutes of confusion. Hardy had told Anna Salarco that they'd call her as a witness as soon as the court was called to session, but then they'd all had the meeting in chambers and Hardy's representation to the court. In the interim, evidently, both of the Salarcos had left the hallway to go to the bathroom. Maybe Bailiff Cottrell had gone looking for them. In any event, Cottrell was still missing from the courtroom when Anna Salarco finally, and nervously, took the witness stand.

Hardy walked her through the by-now familiar recital, making sure to memorialize for the record the understanding that the Salarcos thought they had with the police regarding their immigration status, which Hardy believed served as a strong incentive for Juan to refuse to change his story. When they'd finished, Anna's testimony was all Hardy could have wished for. Just before her husband had gone downstairs and discovered the bodies, she had clearly seen the man leaving the house after the door had slammed, and could not identify him as Andrew. Hardy thanked her and turned her over to Brandt for cross-examination.

Much to Hardy's displeasure, Brandt and Anna weren't complete strangers anymore. Wu told him that when the prosecutor had seen her name on the list, he, too, had called the Salarcos, then gone out to visit with them last night himself. This was why Juan was out in the hallway now, waiting for his chance to talk to the court and possibly refute whatever his wife had said first.

So Brandt advanced to the witness box with a relaxed demeanor. "Mrs. Salarco," he began, "how far is it from your window to the sidewalk in front of your house?"

"I don't know exactly."

"Approximately, then."

She shot a glance at Hardy and he nodded with some confidence. This question was not unexpected. "Thirty feet, maybe forty."

"Thirty or forty feet, thank you. That's about the distance from where you're sitting to the back of this courtroom, is that right?"

Hardy turned around to check and saw that Brandt wasn't far off.

"Something like," Mrs. Salarco said. "Yes."

"And you and your husband live on the second floor of your building, do you not?"

"Yes."

"So you were looking down at the person you saw?"

"Yes."

"And he was wearing a cowl?" At her confused expression, he mimicked with his hands, and added, "A sweatshirt with a hood over his head?"

"Sí. Yes."

"Did it cover his whole head?"

Again, she looked at Hardy, and again he nodded. What else could he do? He had to let her tell her story and hope it came out as credible.

She nodded back at Brandt. "Yes. But not his whole face."

"Did it cover part of his face, then?"

She paused. "Yes." Then added. "He looked up."

God bless her, Hardy thought.

But Brandt came right back at her. "What do you mean by that, Mrs. Salarco? That he looked up? Do you mean-"

Hardy stalled to let the witness get composed. "Objection."

"Sustained."

Brandt was ready, though. "At any time, did the hood come off the man's head?"

"No."

"It covered the top of his head and part of his face?"

Hardy stood again, objecting.

"Sustained."

"All right. Let me ask you this, Mrs. Salarco? Was it dark outside at this time? Nighttime?"

"Yes, but-"

"Yes is sufficient, thank you," Brandt said, cutting her off. He must have decided that he'd made enough of his point, and switched gears. "Mrs. Salarco, were you present at the police lineup where your husband identified the person who'd been downstairs at Mr. Mooney's apartment that night?"

"Yes."

"Did you take part in that lineup, too?"

"Yes."

"And you failed to identify anyone in the lineup as the person you saw that night, is that right?"

"Yes."

"You were given a form, and then signed the form, saying you didn't recognize anyone in the lineup, is that right?"

"Yes."

"And Mr. Bartlett, sitting at that table over there"- he turned and pointed-"you did not recognize him?"

"Your honor." Hardy was up again.

"I'm getting to something here, your honor," Brandt said.

"All right." Johnson nodded. "Objection overruled, but get to it."

"Mrs. Salarco, when you did not positively identify anyone in the lineup as the man below your window, did you mean that you didn't know whether it was one of the people in the lineup or not? It might have been or it might not have been. Or did you mean to say that none of those people in the lineup was the man you saw? That is, you could not definitely say that it was Andrew?"

Her eyes by now filled with fear, Anna Salarco looked to Hardy for support, but there was nothing he could do. She came back to Brandt. "I'm sorry. I don't understand."

"Your honor," Brandt said. "May I rephrase?"

"Go ahead."

Brandt gave her a warm smile and stepped a bit closer to her. "Mrs. Salarco," he said, "we are trying to understand exactly what it is that you want to tell the court. At the lineup, you said you could not identify anyone, is that correct?"

"Yes."

"All right. Did you mean that it could not have been Andrew? That it was impossible that it was Andrew down below you thirty or forty feet away, with a hood over his head on a dark night?"

"No. Maybe not impossible, but-"

Brandt rushed her with the follow-up. "So your testimony now is that what you meant to say was that you couldn't positively identify the person as Andrew? Is that right? That you weren't sure enough to swear to it."

"Sí," she said. "I could not swear to it that it was him."

"Ah." Brandt rewarded her with a beaming smile. "Thank you, Mrs. Salarco." He whirled to Hardy. "Redirect."

He wanted to take a short recess, perhaps confer with Wu and give Anna a few minutes to collect herself and perhaps realize what she'd said. But he didn't think he could afford to wait. "Mrs. Salarco," he began. "Is there a streetlight in front of your house?"

"Yes."

"Was it on- that is, lit up- when you saw the man come from the downstairs apartment, turn, and look up at you?"

"Yes."

"And could you see the man's face?"

"Yes."

"And was it Andrew's face?"

She stopped, looked for a long time at the defense table, then finally shook her head. "No," she said. "Was not that boy."

During the lunch recess, Hardy stood out in the back lobby making phone calls, to Glitsky, to his wife, to the office. As he was finishing up the last one, he noticed Wu and Brandt sitting on a bench next to the walkway that led up to the cabins. From his vantage, they appeared to be arguing, but there was something about their body language that set Hardy's alarms jangling. Since there wasn't a jury that might be influenced by seeing the opposing attorneys schmoozing during lunch, their tête-à-tête wasn't the breach in trial decorum it might otherwise have been. But still, especially given the Norths' presence just up the hill in the cabins having lunch with their son, Hardy did not think it presented a picture that would be particularly comforting to the clients.