Even so, Newcomb’s report isn’t going to be that much help. In it, Jacob comes off sounding like an automaton. The truth is, jurors might want to be fair, but their gut instinct about a defendant has a great deal to do with the verdict rendered. Which means that I’d better stack the odds to make Jacob look as sympathetic as possible, since I have no intention of letting him actually testify. With his flat affect, his darting eyes, his nervous tics-well, that would just be a disaster.

A week before the trial begins, I turn my attention to getting Jacob ready for court. When I reach the Hunt household, Thor bolts out of the car and runs to the porch, his tail wagging. He’s gotten pretty attached to Theo, to the point where I sometimes wonder if I ought to just leave him curled up on the kid’s bed overnight, since he seems to have taken up residence there anyway. And God knows Theo needs the company-in the wake of his cross-country journey, he’s been grounded until he’s thirty-although I keep telling him that I can probably find a reason to appeal.

I knock, but no one answers the door. I’ve gotten used to letting myself inside, though, so I walk in and watch Thor trot upstairs. “Hello,” I call out, and Emma steps forward with a smile.

“You’re just in time,” she says.

“For what?”

“Jacob got a hundred on a math test, and as a reward I’m letting him set up a crime scene.”

“That’s macabre.”

“Just another day in my life,” she says.

“Ready!” Jacob calls from upstairs.

I follow Emma, but instead of heading to Jacob’s room, we continue on to the bathroom. When she pushes open the door, I gag, my hand pressed against my mouth.

“What… what is this?” I manage.

There is blood everywhere. It’s like I’ve stepped into the lair of a serial killer. One long line of blood arcs horizontally across the white shell of the shower wall. Facing that, on the mirror, are a series of drops in various elongated shapes.

Even more strange, Emma doesn’t seem to be the least bit upset that the walls of the shower and the mirror and sink are completely drenched with blood. She takes one look at my face and starts laughing. “Relax, Oliver,” she says. “It’s just corn syrup.”

She reaches over to the mirror, dabs her finger to the mess, and holds it up to my lips.

I can’t resist the urge to taste her. And yeah, it is corn syrup, with red dye, I’m guessing.

“Way to contaminate a crime scene, Mom,” Jacob mutters. “So you remember that the tail of the bloodstain usually points in the direction the blood was traveling…”

All of a sudden I can see Jess Ogilvy standing in the shower, and Jacob across from her, standing right where Emma is.

“I’ll give you a hint,” Jacob tells Emma. “The victim was right here.” He points to the bath mat between the shower stall and the mirror over the sink.

I can easily picture Jacob with a bleach solution, wiping down the mirror and the tub at Jess Ogilvy’s place.

“Why the bathroom?” I ask. “What made you choose to set your crime scene here, Jacob?”

Those words are all it takes to make Emma understand why I’m so shaken. “Oh, God,” she says, turning. “I didn’t think… I didn’t realize…”

“Blood spatter’s messy,” Jacob says, confounded. “I thought my mom would be less likely to yell at me if I did it in the bathroom.”

A line from Dr. Newcomb’s report jumps out at me: I was following the rules.

“Clean it up,” I announce, and I walk out.

“New rules,” I say, when the three of us are sitting at the kitchen table. “First and foremost: No more crime scene staging.”

“Why not?” Jacob demands.

“You tell me, Jake. You’re on trial for homicide. You think it’s smart to create a fake murder a week before your trial? You don’t know what neighbors are peeking through your curtains-”

“(A) Our neighbors are too far to see through the windows and (B) that crime scene upstairs was nothing like what was at Jess’s house. This one showed the arterial bleed in the shower and also the cast-off pattern of blood flung from the knife that killed the victim behind her, on the mirror. At Jess’s-”

“I don’t want to hear it,” I interrupt, covering my ears.

Every time I think I have a chance to save Jacob’s ass, he does something like this. Unfortunately, I waver between thinking that behavior like what I’ve just witnessed proves my case (how could he not be considered insane?) and thinking that it’s chillingly off-putting to a jury. After all, Jacob’s not talking to imaginary giant rabbits, he’s pretending to kill someone. That looks pretty fucking deliberate to me. That looks like practice so that, in reality, he might get it perfect.

“Rule number two: you need to do exactly what I tell you in court.”

“I’ve been to court, like, ten times now,” Jacob says. “I think I can figure it out.”

Emma shakes her head. “Listen to him,” she says quietly. “Right now, Oliver’s the boss.”

“I’m going to give you a stack of Post-its every time we walk into that courtroom,” I tell him. “If you need a break, you hand me a note.”

“What kind of note?” Jacob says.

“Any note. But you only do it if you need a break. I’m also going to give you a pad and a pen, and I want you to write stuff down-just like you would if you were watching CrimeBusters.”

“But there’s nothing interesting going on in that courtroom-”

“Jacob,” I tell him flatly, “your life is being decided in there. Rule number three: you can’t talk to anyone. Not even your mother. And you,” I say, turning to Emma, “cannot tell him how he’s supposed to feel, or react, or what he should look like or how he should act. Everything you two pass back and forth is going to be read by the prosecution and the judge. I don’t even want you two discussing the weather, because they’re going to interpret it, and if you do anything suspicious, you’re going to be kicked off that counsel table. You want to write Breathe, that’s fine. Or It’s okay, don’t worry. But that’s as specific as I want you to get.”

Emma touches Jacob’s arm. “You understand?”

“Yes,” he says. “Can I go now? Do you have any idea how hard it is to get corn syrup off a wall once it dries?”

I completely ignore him. “Rule number four: you will wear a button-down shirt and a tie, and I don’t want to hear that you haven’t got the money for it because this isn’t negotiable, Emma-”

“No buttons,” Jacob announces, in a tone that brooks no argument.

“Why not?”

“Because they feel weird on my chest.”

“All right,” I say. “How about a turtleneck?”

“Can’t I wear my lucky green sweatshirt?” Jacob asks. “I wore it when I took my SATs, and I got 800 on the math section.”

“Why don’t we go up to your closet and find something?” Emma suggests, and we all trudge upstairs again, this time to Jacob’s room. I studiously avoid looking into the bathroom as we pass.

Although the police still have his fuming chamber as evidence, Jacob has configured a new one, an overturned planter. It’s not transparent, like his fish tank, but it must be getting the job done, because I can smell the glue. Emma throws open the closet door.

If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it. Chromatically ordered, Jacob’s clothes hang side by side, not quite touching. There are jeans and chinos in the blue area; and a rainbow of long- and short-sleeved tees. And yes, in its correct sequence, the lucky green sweatshirt. It looks like a Gay Pride shrine in there.

There is a fine line between looking insane in court and looking disrespectful. I take a deep breath, wondering how to explain this to a client who cannot think beyond the feeling of a placket of buttons on his skin. “Jacob,” I say, “you have to wear a shirt with a collar. And you have to wear a tie. I’m sorry, but none of this will work.”