Thought it all through, beginning to end. It had to be.

It had to be. There was no other option.

And, late though it was, he reached for the telephone.

37

Hardy didn’t know if it was because of her recent, albeit clandestine, interaction with the DA and the chief of police, but for whatever reason, Kathy West with her attendant entourage was back in the first row of the gallery when Hardy entered the courtroom from the holding cell with his client. Sitting between Joel Townshend and Harlen Fisk, she had also brought her trail of reporters, and once again the gallery was filled to overflowing.

In this Friday morning’s paper the mayor had gone public with her suspicions, completely unfounded by any evidence Hardy had seen or heard about-and he’d heard plenty by now from Glitsky-that the Ruiz murder was intimately connected to the events surrounding Maya’s trial and the deaths of Dylan Vogler and Levon Preslee. And this, of course, had ratcheted up the sense that something dramatic was going to take place in the courtroom today. Something, perhaps new evidence, that would remove once and for all the Townshend/Fisk/West family connection from the slanders of the past several months.

And the mayor wanted to be there for it. To show her face for her niece, if for nothing else. Kathy West didn’t believe that Maya had done anything wrong, and she was going to make sure that the jury understood that clearly before they went in to deliberate.

But such was Kathy’s gravity in the city that the mere rumor, much less the actual fact, of her presence again in the courtroom served also to draw in a host of the politically involved, the suddenly interested, the professionally concerned, the simply curious-DA Clarence Jackman, Police Chief Frank Batiste, U.S. attorney Jerry Glass, Glitsky, even the wheelchair-bound Chronicle “CityTalk” columnist Jeffrey Elliot. Gina Roake sat halfway back next to Wyatt Hunt, ashen-faced and presumably as sleep-deprived as Hardy himself. Catching Hardy’s questioning eye, Hunt gave a short and solemn incline of his head. The entire gallery sounded to Hardy’s ear like a race car, loud and thrumming at the pole. The jury, collectively, seemed to be mesmerized by the energy level, the shifting planes of volume, intensity, and nerves playing out in front of them.

At the prosecution table, and since Debra Schiff had already given her witness testimony and it was allowed, Stier had brought her back in as moral support to sit next to him, and the two of them were head-to-head in conversation as Hardy, Maya, and the bailiff crossed in front of them. And then, after a few words of forbidden greeting to her family members in front of the starstruck and forbearing bailiff, Maya was at last in her seat and Hardy was arranging his papers when the clerk entered and, clearing his throat, spoke up loudly. “Ladies and gentlemen, Department Twenty-five of the Superior Court of California is now in session, Judge Marian Braun presiding. All rise!”

Getting three new names approved onto his witness list had entailed another small battle with Braun and Stier this morning in the judge’s chambers, but in the end Hardy argued that he had discovered new evidence that, in the interests of justice, the jury would need to hear in order to reach the correct verdict.

Of course, this announcement had aroused Stier’s deep suspicion and ire, and he’d demanded to know the substance of the prospective testimony. Hardy acknowledged that in the first case-Jessica Cunningham-it was fingerprint evidence; and in the second- Jennifer Foreman-Stier already had had access to everything she might know, since she was on his original witness list. Indeed, she was one of the three uncalled old college friends of Maya.

Finally, Hardy said, “You know Chiurco. He’s one of my investigators. And here’s what he’s going to say.” And he handed the prosecutor Chiurco’s short signed statement. Stier grumbled for a moment that he should have gotten these witnesses at the beginning of the trial, but everybody knew that this was a nonissue. The witnesses would be permitted to testify. But, Braun warned him, Hardy had better be sure he was talking about introducing new evidence and not spending a lot of time rehashing.

But-the bottom line-he was going to be able to get it all in. And now, his palms wet, his mouth dry, Hardy lifted his exhausted body from his chair. “The defense would call Jessica Cunningham.”

The bailiff disappeared out through the back door of the courtroom and returned a moment later with a young woman in a police officer’s uniform. She made her way up the center aisle and into the bullpen, where she took the oath and then moved around to the witness seat.

“Ms. Cunningham,” Hardy began, “will you tell the jury what you do for a living, please?”

“Sure.” She turned to look at the panel. “I’m a technician in the police department’s lab here in the city.”

“In that capacity, do you have a special expertise?”

“I do. I do fingerprint analysis.”

“Identifying people by their fingerprints, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And how long have you been doing that?”

“About six years.”

For a few more moments Hardy established Cunningham’s credentials as an expert in this field. Then he began to bring it closer to home. “Did you have occasion several months ago to analyze the fingerprints found in the home of one of the victims in this case, Levon Preslee?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Can you tell the jury what you found?”

Of course, this testimony had already been cursorily addressed in the testimony of Debra Schiff, but now he had the lab technician herself on the stand, and a completely different approach. Cunningham, enthusiastic and professional, nodded and again spoke directly to the jury. “Well, as in most locations, we found many fingerprints.”

“How many separate prints in all did you locate?”

“Oh, maybe fifteen or so.”

“Could you identify any of them?”

“Yes. Six came back from the victim.”

“Were you able to identify any of the other eight or nine?”

“A few, yes.”

“But not all?”

“No.”

“Is it unusual to find fingerprints at the scene of a crime that you cannot connect to any individual?”

“No.”

“And why is that?”

“Because, first, not everyone has their fingerprints on file. Secondly, sometimes, or really quite often, the fingerprints are not clear enough to match the computerized records. And finally, there are a limited number of databases we typically use to try to get our matches. Most of the time, for example, we’re trying to match a fingerprint to a known suspect, and in that case it’s a simple one-on-one cross-check.”

“Did you compare the defendant’s fingerprints to the remaining unidentified fingerprints at Mr. Preslee’s?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Trying to see if any of those belonged to the defendant?”

“Right.”

“And, just to restate it for the jury, you did not find any of the defendant’s fingerprints at Mr. Preslee’s, did you?”

“No.”

Hardy threw a gratuitous look over his shoulder at Stier’s table, where he and Schiff sat in miserable proximity. “Now, Ms. Cunningham, as far as you knew, back in November when you ran these comparisons, did you compare the unknown prints to anyone’s besides the victim, Mr. Preslee, and the defendant, Maya Townshend?”

“Yes. The other victim, Dylan Vogler, and Mr. Preslee’s friend, Brandon Lawrence.”

“So two more people?”

“Yes.”

“Could you identify any of your unknown prints from the crime scene to any of those?”

“Yes. Two of those fingerprints came back to Brandon Lawrence.”

“Leaving you with seven unidentified prints. Correct?”