“Until he met me.”

“And when was that?”

“About six years ago.”

Hardy had one hand over Maya’s own hand on the table and his other hand firmly holding her arm just above her elbow.

“So they broke off their relationship because of you?”

“Yes.”

Maya leaned over and whispered to Hardy. “Why is she saying this?”

Hardy thought he might know, but this really wasn’t the time to talk about it, so he shook his head very slightly and squeezed her arm tighter.

Braun frowned in their direction.

And Stier went on. “Yet, after this breakup, Mr. Vogler kept working for her at BBW. As his domestic partner, did you know Mr. Vogler’s salary there?”

“Yes. Ninety thousand dollars a year.”

A few gasps from the gallery greeted this intelligence.

“Did your partner share with you why he was paid so handsomely?”

“Your Honor”-Hardy showing some exasperation-“hearsay, relevance, facts not in evidence, conclusory. None of this entire line of questioning is probative.”

“It all goes to motive,” Stier put in, “as will be clear shortly.”

“Very well,” Braun said. “The objections are overruled. Go ahead, Mr. Stier.”

Stier repeated the previous question, and Jansey nodded with some enthusiasm. “She wanted to keep him around because she loved him. She thought she’d get him back.”

“And how did you feel about that?”

“I didn’t like it, of course. I resented it.”

“Did you ask him to quit his job?”

“Several times.”

“What reason did he give you for not quitting?”

“He couldn’t make anywhere near as much anywhere else. Besides, he could sell the marijuana out of BBW without any hassles. He had the perfect situation, he said. He couldn’t be fired. She was paying him just to keep him around.”

“So, to your knowledge, did Mr. Vogler tell you that Defendant knew about the marijuana sold out of her shop?”

“Yes, of course.”

Another whisper from Maya. “That lying bitch!”

Another upper-arm squeeze from Hardy.

Stier paused for a moment. Pure theatricality. “Ms. Ticknor, did anything change between Mr. Vogler and Defendant in the last year?”

“Yes.”

“And what was that?”

“They started up an affair again.”

“And how do you know about this?”

“Dylan wasn’t coming home when he usually did and I called him on it.”

“So he admitted it?”

“Yes.”

“And what did you do?”

“I moved out. In with my parents.”

“When was this?”

“About this time last year. Say six months before-before he was killed.”

“And what happened next?”

“After a couple of weeks, he stopped it-the affair. He told me he’d made a mistake and begged me to come back to him, which I did. Mostly because of Ben. Our child. I wanted our son to have a father.” Jansey ran a fingertip under one of her eyes, then the other.

“Yes, of course,” Stier replied with an admirable sanctimonious-ness. He turned to the jury, including them in his heartfelt emotion. Now, returning to his witness, he cleared his throat. “After this second and most recent rejection of Defendant by Mr. Vogler, did things change at BBW?”

“Yes.”

“In what way?”

“Now she wanted to punish Dylan for dropping her, to fire him, but he couldn’t let her do that. He had too much stuff going on at the store. He couldn’t let it go.”

“So what did he do?”

“Well, mostly he threatened to tell her husband about the affair, and also some of the stuff they’d done in college.”

“In other words, he started blackmailing her.”

“If you want to call it that. Yes.”

“Thank you.” And turning, he said to Hardy. “Your witness.”

In spite of Maya’s outburst both she and Hardy had known the gist of Jansey’s testimony before she’d gone onto the stand-they had heard a similar version of it during the preliminary hearing. Hardy had hoped that much of Jansey’s testimony would never in fact be heard by the jury because so much of it was hearsay.

Well, that would show him.

But against the urge to hope, he was always prepared. Taking some pages from his binder, he walked up to his place in front of Jansey, handing them to her. “Ms. Ticknor,” he began, “do you recognize these pages which I’ve just handed to you?”

She glanced down at them, turned them over. “Yes. They’re transcripts of the talks I had with the inspectors.”

“You’ve had a chance to read them and to compare them to the original tape-recorded statements that you gave police?”

“Yes.”

“And they are a full and complete record of those interviews?”

“Yes, they are.”

“Ms. Ticknor, you’ve just told Mr. Stier that you knew that Mr. Vogler was blackmailing the defendant, right?”

“Correct.”

“And you’re absolutely sure about that?”

“Yes.”

“Now, Ms. Ticknor, I’d like you to turn to page two and read to the jury the highlighted section.” Jansey looked down, found the place, and read in a shaky voice. “If he was blackmailing her, he could have just asked for a raise, and she would have had to give it to him, right?”

“Thank you. For the jury’s benefit, Ms. Ticknor, the him and her you use refer to who?”

“Dylan and Maya.”

“Good. So you were asking the inspectors a question about if Dylan were blackmailing Maya, isn’t that so?”

“I guess so, but-”

Hardy cut her off. “So, Ms. Ticknor, if it is true that you knew at the time that Dylan was blackmailing Maya, why did you have to ask the inspector something that you already knew?”

“Well, I-”

“Let me ask you again. Did you know for a fact that Dylan was blackmailing Maya?”

“Well, I don’t see how he could have-”

“Ms. Ticknor. Excuse me. Yes or no? Did you know for a fact that Dylan was blackmailing Maya?”

“Well, yes, he told me.”

“But is it correct that you have no explanation for that passage in the transcript that you just read?”

“No. I guess I was just confused.”

“Thank you.” Hardy kept right on. “Now you have just testified that Dylan told you that he was not afraid of Maya because he could tell her husband about their affair and she needed him for the marijuana business. Isn’t that right?”

“Well, yes.”

“Thank you. Now I’d like you to read another short excerpt from the transcript of the same interview. Page four, please, the highlighted section.”

Again, the witness found the spot and began to read: “‘You’re right, though, about him not being afraid of her, or of losing the job.’

“ ‘But he never talked about why?’

“ ‘The most he ever said was that she owed him.’ ” She looked back up at Hardy.

“ ‘The most he ever said was that she owed him.’ Are those your words?”

“Yes.”

“And you are referring to Dylan and Maya again, right?”

“Right.”

“So you’re saying that the most Dylan ever said about not being afraid of Maya, or of losing his job, was that she owed him?”

Again, a querulous, uncertain nod. “I guess so.”

“This isn’t a guessing game, Ms. Ticknor. Again. Either that’s what you said or it wasn’t. Which is it?”

“Okay, that’s what I said.”

“The most Dylan said about not being afraid of Maya was that she owed him, is that it?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.” Hardy turned to include the jury. “But you just testified that he said a lot more than that, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You just testified that he said he could blackmail her for two separate reasons. Would you agree that that’s different from that she owed him? Do you agree or not? Yes or no?”

“Well, that’s what I meant.”

“And how often did you have these conversations?”

“A lot of times.” She took her plea directly to the jury. “Just when we talked. It was just stuff he told me.”

“But when?” Hardy persisted. “If you didn’t know about any of this when you spoke to the inspectors, after Dylan was already dead, when could you have talked about it with him?”