Jansey threw an agonized glance over at Stier. “I don’t know. I’m not sure. But we did. I’m sure we did.”

The point made, Hardy left it. “One last short reading, if I may. The highlighted section in the middle of page five.”

By this time her voice had shrunk to a near-whisper, but she found her place. “ ‘Did he say what she owed him for?’

“ ‘It wasn’t like we really ever talked about it.’ ”

“It wasn’t like you really ever talked about it. That would be you and Dylan, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Just one more thing, Ms. Ticknor. Tell the jury what the police found in the attic of your home.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean about a quarter million dollars’ worth of marijuana. That’s what I mean.”

“Well, yes, the marijuana was up there.”

“And that’s the marijuana that you have just told us Dylan was selling in Maya’s business?”

“Yes.”

“So naturally, you’ve been arrested and charged with having a very large stash of marijuana growing for sale in your house, haven’t you?”

“Well, of course not.”

“But you’ve just told us you knew it was there?”

“Yes.”

“Growing in your house?”

“Yes.”

“Providing the money that supported, at least in part, you and your child, right?”

“Well, I never took any dope money.”

“But the fact remains, you’ve never been arrested for or charged with possession of any of that sizable stash of marijuana. Did you ever discuss that possibility with the police?”

“Well, yes, they told me I wouldn’t get in any trouble.”

“Let me refresh your recollection, Ms. Ticknor, as to the order in which these conversations took place. First, you told the police you knew very little about what had happened, and nothing about the marijuana upstairs. Correct?”

“Well, that was my first statement.”

“Then, more than a week later, after police told you that you could go to jail for a very long time if they connected you to Dylan’s marijuana business, you recalled information that incriminated Maya Townshend. And then the police told you you wouldn’t be charged for the marijuana upstairs. Isn’t that pretty much the way it went?”

“Well, okay, but it’s not the way you make it sound.”

“Thank you,” Hardy said. “No further questions.”

32

It wasn’t as though the media had lost interest in the trial, and today’s testimony sent the scribes and pundits scurrying from the courtroom to their telephones and keyboards to report on the newly revealed allegations of Maya’s infidelity, her subsequent rejection, and the added motivation this would certainly have given her to have murdered Dylan Vogler.

All this was, for example, on the evening news, which Hardy and his partners, over drinks, were watching on the huge TV they’d had installed in tasteful cabinetry on the back wall of the Solarium. Although as soon as the broadcast was done, Hardy hit the remote and turned the television off. “Never mind that none of it happened,” he said, “though I hate to quibble.”

Farrell, drinking espresso, was more or less back to being his old self, reconnected with his girlfriend, Sam, getting his hair cut with some regularity. Since it was after business hours, Phyllis had gone home, so Wes was comfortable enough coming downstairs with his dog and wearing his T-shirt, which today read “Eternity: Smoking or Nonsmoking.”

“You live to quibble,” he said to Hardy. “Quibbling gives meaning to your life, as anyone who knows you will surely attest.”

Gina Roake sipped her Oban, neat. “Are you sure?” she asked. “None of it happened?”

“Okay, when they were in college. But not since. Sorry, but I believe Maya.”

“So Jansey just perjured herself?” Gina asked.

Hardy, in trial mode, took a pull at his bottle of water and nodded. “All over the place.”

“Why?”

Wes chuckled. “I love when you ask that, Gina. Like perjury’s a surprise.”

“I’m not surprised so much as disappointed it keeps happening. And what’s in it for Jansey is, I guess, what I’m getting at.”

“I think, first, mainly,” Hardy replied, “is she’s in no-man’s-land and this is her ticket out. Early on, Stier or Schiff or somebody probably told her something like, ‘We’re not interested in how much you knew about Dylan’s dope business, or what you got out of it, or if you’re still in it. We’re interested in Maya killing him, and if you can help us out on that, we’ll just conveniently forget about the rest.’ So she’s heavily motivated to give them something. And what better than a bunch of stuff Dylan supposedly said to her, which no one can ever check or even refute? It’s perfect. And she probably thinks Maya did it anyway, that is if Jansey didn’t do it herself…”

“You think that’s possible?” Gina asked.

Hardy shrugged. “Somebody did. Jansey’s alibi’s squishy at best. She’s got a new boyfriend already, probably had him before. She’s one of the best bets to have gotten her hands on the gun. But, though I hate to say it, Maya still doesn’t look too bad for it either.”

“Attaboy.” Farrell had a strong and, it must be admitted, oft-justified prejudice that the client was always guilty. “Don’t wimp out on that now.”

“Don’t worry. I’m pretty secure, although I admit there’s a small chance I could still be swayed.”

“By what?” Farrell asked.

“Oh, I don’t know. A new fact or two.”

“Well,” Farrell said, “that’s not going to happen, not at this stage.”

“Actually, it might,” Hardy said. “In fact, maybe it already did.” He told them about Lori Bradford, new to Stier’s witness list. “I’ve already sent Wyatt out to talk to her, see what she’s got to say.”

“What’s in the police reports?” Gina asked.

A rueful grimace. “It seems they never got around to writing it up.”

“You shock me,” Farrell said.

“I know,” Hardy agreed. “It’s rocked my worldview. But the fact remains, she’s got to have something to say or Stier wouldn’t have made such a fuss about getting her on the witness list. Even if he’s not going to call her. He’s hoping I’m going to let her slide too.” He smiled at his two partners. “But I’m afraid I’m going to let him down on that. At least until I know what she’s got, or not.”

Seven-thirty P.M., killing time until Craig Chiurco’s expected arrival, Hardy sat at his desk. As was his habit, he was reviewing his files, hoping something among this amorphous mass of kindling might spark. The files now ran to four thick black three-ring notebooks, into which he’d crammed, in some semblance of order, forensics reports, police reports, interview transcripts such as those he’d used with Jansey in the courtroom today, photographs, private notes of Schiff and Bracco-the endless accretion of litigation.

At last, having reviewed his notes on Jansey’s testimony-forty-seven pages’ worth-for the second time, he closed the binder and leaned back into his chair. Though part of him yearned to recall her to the stand and pick apart individual strands of her testimony that he’d left unaddressed that afternoon-which was, after all, most of it-he also realized that he’d succeeded in doing his main job, which was discrediting her so that all of her testimony was suspect. Besides, he couldn’t ignore his gut feeling, his pure instinct, that there was nothing in her perjured story that, were the truth known, would likely change any juror’s opinion about Maya’s guilt. The basic facts remained-whether Maya had had an affair with him or not, Vogler had been blackmailing her, she’d been paying the blackmail (which meant she was guilty of something), she’d gone down to BBW and over to Levon’s.

Why? Why? Why?

Jansey was undoubtedly lying, but lying for all of her own, probably very good, reasons. In the end he believed that nothing she said was going to make any real difference.