“I wanted to ask you that before you read the charge to the jury, if you could one more time talk to the jury foreman to gain some kind of sense as to the real feasibility of a verdict?”

“That’s a fair request,” says Quinn. “Let’s head on back out.”

Eight minutes later the jury is back in the box. Carl is seated between Harry and me.

“The court will come to order,” says Quinn. “Mr. Foreman,” he says.

The jury foreman is back on his feet.

“Let me ask you one more time. If I were to send the jurors back into the jury room for further deliberations do you think they would be able to arrive at a verdict?”

“It’s not likely, Your Honor.” He says essentially the same thing a second time.

Quinn looks out from the bench. “At this time the court is going to declare a mistrial. The defendant is discharged. Mr. Tuchio, you’re free to file new charges.”

“Your Honor! Your Honor!” Tuchio is on his feet, one hand waving behind him at the audience, trying to get them back into their seats. This is like putting the genie back in the bottle. “May I request that the jury be polled?”

“That’s a fair request,” says the judge. “Everybody take your seats. Sit down, please. We’ll be through in just a minute.”

“Am I free?” says Carl.

“You are for now.”

He smiles at me, then turns and looks at his dad, a broad grin.

One by one they stand in the jury box and announce their verdict. Harry is taking notes on the jury sheets, the pages from jury selection, so we will know how they voted.

When they’re finished, Harry doesn’t have to tell us the tally. It is eleven to one for acquittal. The lone holdout, the woman in the jangling jewelry.

You can almost see the relief on Tuchio’s face. He has dodged a bullet by half an inch.

“The defendant is discharged,” says Quinn. “Free to go,” he says.

At least for now, unless Tuchio decides to recharge him. There is no double jeopardy in the case of a hung jury. The prosecution can do it all over again to the same defendant, with the same charges.

“Court is adjourned,” says the judge.

There is pandemonium in the courtroom, reporters leaning over the railing. They want to talk to Carl.

I tell him not to say a word, to keep his mouth shut. Harry takes him by the arm and goes with him back to the lockup and the jail to get his personal items and keep him away from the media.

One wrong word and Tuchio will jump on his back and use it against him in another trial.

At least in terms of a jury, the shock of the Jefferson Letter is past. It is not likely to have the same numbing effect if Tuchio does it over again. He also knows, as I do, that the Jefferson Letter is, without question, a tin-plated phony.

31

Over the phone that night, Harry and I put our heads together and came to the same conclusion, that the magic pill that caused the judge to declare a mistrial was not the declaration of the jury foreman but the whispered message of R2-D2, his clerk, as they huddled behind the judge’s chair in chambers seconds before we came back out.

Quinn had said something to Ruiz as we were first going into chambers to argue over the dynamite instruction. Harry and I will never know, but if we had to guess, the judge had dispatched his clerk to talk to one of the bailiffs who normally usher the jury around. Dirt travels, and people talk. It is not unusual for deputies and bailiffs to pick up smoke signals and drums telling them with some certitude what’s going on behind closed doors.

This is what Ruiz was telling the judge behind the chair. That they were deadlocked eleven to one and that the single holdout had her heels dug in and her position had become a question of pride.

The blond hairs in the envelope presented me with a process of elimination, a question between the two of them, Trisha Scott and Richard Bonguard. If you didn’t think long and hard, you might flip a coin trying to come up with the answer.

I made the long-distance call and left a message with the secretary. Less than an hour later, the secretary called back, a meeting was set. The next day I flew east.

Harry had asked me once what possible reason Bonguard might have to kill the golden goose, his megabucks client Terry Scarborough. Among the theories is that it’s possible he had no choice. He knew Margaret Ginnis. They met at a political function. He thought that Antonin Scalia, the leading edge of the right wing on the Court, was the wit, but he didn’t like his politics. Ginnis held the balance of power on the Court. So when things happened in the islands, who was Margaret to call but her friend, her former agent, her political ally, Richard Bonguard? It was possible that working together, in secret, they could change history. It was possible, but not likely.

The reason, unless I miss my bet, is that there’s no way Bonguard could have known at the time of the murder that the Jefferson Letter was a fraud. And it was this fact that propelled the murder. Unless I’m wrong, Ginnis would never have told his wife what he was doing. The risks were too great. He would not want to put her in jeopardy if things went wrong, risked having her accused of collusion and conspiracy. But there was one person, sufficiently in the shadows and therefore safe, with whom he might share the secret: his trusted former clerk.

That night, as Harry and I flew east toward Miami and south to Curaçao, we must have passed Trisha Scott in the air, jetting the other way. She was in a frantic dash to reach our office, racing to slip the envelope with the Jefferson Letter and a few of her own clipped hairs under our office door. Scott saw what was happening. Reading news reports of the trial, watching the revelations minute by minute on television, she knew that the only way to stop us from looking further, to prevent us from stumbling over what was really happening, was to deliver the evidence and hope that this would draw the attention of the world back to the trial. But she was already too late.

When I called to make the arrangements, I insisted that we meet in a public place. I no longer know who it is I’m dealing with. Here in a crowded room, I feel safer. It is the same Washington restaurant where we first met for dinner.

We spend a couple of minutes in false pleasantries-the weather, politics. I’m not entirely certain if she realizes why I’m here. She is animated, sitting erect in the chair, actually laughing once at something she heard in one of the campaigns. She is also very nervous.

Then I broach the subject. “I take it you do understand that it’s over now?”

She gives me a quizzical expression, then leans in toward the table. “Excuse me?”

“It’s over. All of it,” I tell her.

She makes a perfect oval with her mouth as if she wants to say, What’s over? But as she studies my face, she stops herself. She closes her mouth and doesn’t say a word.

In this instant, Trisha Scott looks as if she’s aged ten years in the seven months that have passed since our last meeting.

“I am not a cop. I’m not a reporter. Under other circumstances I wouldn’t even be here tonight. But I have a client, and he’s still hanging out there on the line, in jeopardy. Do you understand?”

“I read that in the newspapers. I’m sorry to hear it,” she says. “But I’m not sure what that has to do with me.”

“Then let’s cut to the chase,” I tell her. “I left a memorandum on my desk with an e-mail to my partner as well as to the district attorney with your name, phone number, and address on it, just in case something bad were to happen to me during my trip here tonight. I told them to find you and to pluck a few hairs and that all their questions would be answered.”

This seems to freeze her in place.