“Correct.”

“Were you able to identify any of your remaining seven latents?”

“Actually, we identified four of them because they were in the criminal database, which is our primary tool.”

“So there were three that remained unidentifiable, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now, Ms. Cunningham”-Hardy closing in on it-“have you had a recent opportunity to revisit the fingerprints you originally lifted at Mr. Preslee’s home?”

“Yes, I have.”

“And when was that?”

“Just this morning.”

Hardy felt some sonic energy begin to shoot through the gallery, but he spoke over it. “And how did that come about?”

“Lieutenant Glitsky of homicide reached me at home this morning and asked me if I would come in early and go back to the unidentified fingerprints and compare them to a specific other single set of fingerprints from another database to see if there was a match.”

“And was there a match?”

“Yes, there was.”

“You mean there was a specific individual who had left his fingerprints in Mr. Preslee’s home and whom this investigation had not discovered until just this morning, is that right?”

“That’s correct, yes.”

Braun gaveled down the now nearly constant, if low-pitched, hum of the gallery. After silence had been restored, Hardy came back at the witness. “Ms. Cunningham, did Lieutenant Glitsky ask you to review any other fingerprint findings this morning?”

“Yes.”

“And what were they?”

“There was a partial fingerprint on the brass bullet casing that was picked up at the scene of the Vogler murder.”

“A partial print? What does that mean?”

“Actually, most prints are partial prints. It’s rare on a forensic sample to get an entire fingerprint from somebody. But this print was a smaller section even than most.”

“And can that be useful for purposes of identity?”

“Often not.”

“And why is that?”

“Because it’s incomplete. Certainly a computer can’t read it, so you have to have the known prints of an individual, you have to do a manual comparison, and you have to find enough points of identification on the forensic sample to compare to your known prints.”

“Now, Lieutenant Glitsky asked you to run a manual test against the known fingerprint of a single individual whose prints were in Levon Preslee’s home, did he not?”

“Yes.”

“Did you find a match?”

“I’m sorry. The testing is not completed. As I said, it’s a very small sample and I just haven’t had enough time yet.”

Hardy would have given his left arm to know the final results of this test. But this was it. If he was going to spring this trap, it was going to happen right now before anyone got wind of what he was up to. He had to press ahead. “All right. So now, Ms. Cunningham, can you give us the name whose fingerprint you identified in Mr. Preslee’s home?”

“Yes, I can.”

“And whose fingerprint was it?”

“One of your investigators, Mr. Hardy. A Craig Chiurco.”

While the bailiff went to get the next witness, Stier asked Braun if counsel could approach, and at her impatient bidding both attorneys got up and walked to the bench.

“What do you want now, Mr. Stier?” Braun asked, clearly at the limit of her forbearance.

“Your Honor,” Stier began, “I haven’t got a clue as to what Mr. Hardy is up to. This seems irrelevant, immaterial, and just plain a waste of time.”

“I’m going to wrap this up, Your Honor, within the hour. Two more witnesses and I’m done.” Turning, and hoping to provoke an already rattled Stier, Hardy smiled sweetly. “I have to give you the discovery, Counselor. I don’t have to explain it to you.”

“That’s enough, you two!” Braun snapped, nearly loud enough for the jury to hear. “I’m tired of this bickering. Mr. Hardy, you’re going to call your witnesses and we’re going to get this thing done. Return to your counsel tables.”

Hardy wasted no time calling his second witness, and by now, as he approached the witness seat, his fatigue had dissipated. Jennifer Foreman had been another one of the USF cheerleaders-friends of Maya and Dylan back in the day-that Stier had originally put on his witness list and then elected not to call for direct testimony.

Late last night Wyatt Hunt had worked his magic and, in spite of the hour, had persuaded her to talk to him. Now, on the stand, and obviously dealing with a serious case of nerves, she appeared not to have had a great deal of luck getting back to sleep in the intervening hours. Or maybe it was the fact that Hardy and Hunt had asked that she check in upstairs, then wait at Lou the Greek’s, accompanied by Gina Roake, so that she wouldn’t come into contact with any other witnesses until she was called to the stand.

Still, she came across as poised, well dressed, competent and, always a plus, very attractive, as these ex-cheerleaders tended to be. A good, solid witness if Hardy could direct her where he needed to go. Hardy stood five feet in front of her and gave her a reassuring smile. “Mrs. Foreman,” he began, “you were a classmate of the defendant, Maya Townshend, at USF in the mid-nineties, were you not?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Were you in the same class?”

“No, I was a couple of years ahead of her.”

“But you were friends, were you not?”

“Yes, I thought so. We were cheerleaders together.”

“And during the time you were cheerleaders, did you also spend time with both of the victims in this case, Dylan Vogler and Levon Preslee?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Did you ever personally witness them smoking marijuana?”

“Your Honor!” Stier was standing up. “Mr. Hardy has promised us that he has new evidence, but this is all old news and irrelevant.”

But by now, after the previous witness, Braun was fully engaged and inclined to let Hardy go on, even without a strict evidentiary base. He’d already presented compelling fingerprint evidence that Stier hadn’t been able to supply, and even if the meaning of that was still questionable, there was no doubt about its possible relevance. “The objection is overruled, Counselor. Go ahead, Mr. Hardy.”

“Thank you, Your Honor. Now, Mrs. Foreman, should I repeat the question?”

“No. Did I ever witness Dylan and Levon smoking dope? Yes, of course.”

“Many times?”

Here Mrs. Foreman broke a small chuckle. “Pretty much all the time.”

Hardy let the moment of levity run its short course. “Mrs. Foreman, how did you meet Dylan and Levon?”

“We had a mutual friend in my class who everybody called Paco. He turned me on to them.” She shrugged and added to the jury, “If you’ll pardon the phrase. He was kind of the leader of the other, younger guys.”

“And this Paco, to your personal knowledge, this friend and leader of Dylan and Levon, was also a regular user of marijuana, was he not?”

“Yes.”

“Mrs. Foreman, you’ve said that everybody called this person by the name of Paco. But was that his real name?”

“No. It was just like a street name, something he thought was cool.”

“And you also knew him by his real name, did you not?”

“Yes.”

“And what name was that?”

“Craig Chiurco.”

Again, Hardy let the considerable tumult recede before he filled his lungs with air, glanced one last time at the assembled crowd in the gallery, and threw a look over to Stier.

Who looked as though the roof had fallen on him. Now he clearly knew what was going to happen, but didn’t know how to stop it, or even if he should try.

Hardy turned to the bench. “The defense calls Craig Chiurco, Your Honor.”

Braun scowled for a second, wondering about the decorum in her courtroom, but eventually raised her eyes to the back of the gallery. “Bailiff, call the witness,” she said to the officer standing just inside the closed back door, and she opened it and disappeared out into the hallway.