“Hey, now,” says Polansky, a little defensive. “Nothing personal, Rich. I’m just doing the job.”

“Oh, I know it,” says Garvey, hitting the defense attorney’s shoulder. “I got no complaint.”

But Doan is not so easily mollified. Walking back to his office with Garvey, he issues a few choice epithets for his worthy adversary.

The hairs, the Newports-that was smoke, the raw material of any good defense attorney. Smoke is the theory that says: When you don’t want to argue the state’s evidence, create your own. No doubt Robert Frazier is ready to take the stand and declare that Vincent Booker buys Newports.

Garvey knows the cigarette pack could be a problem and he apologizes to Doan. “I’m sure I dealt with it out at the scene. I just couldn’t remember the specifics, though.”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Doan charitably. “But can we-”

“I’ll check with Jackie or Henrietta right away,” says Garvey, ahead of him. “Larry, I’m sure it was Lena’s cigarettes, but I just don’t remember who told me.”

“Okay,” says Doan. “The bullshit about the hair, I could care less, but he made some points on the cigarettes. We’ve got to shoot that down.”

On the second day of the trial, Larry Doan moves quickly to make up for lost ground.

“Your honor,” says Doan, as court comes to order. “The state at this time will recall Henrietta Lucas for two questions.”

Polansky can see what is coming.

“Miss Lucas,” asks the prosecutor, “were you aware at the time of the death of your mother whether she smoked?”

“Yes,” says Lena’s older daughter.

“Do you know, approximately, when she started smoking?”

“Around the beginning of this year.”

“And,” asks Doan, “whatbrand of cigarettes did she smoke, if you know?”

“Newports.”

Polansky, sitting at the defense table, shakes his head. But he is not quite ready to give in. On the cross, he works hard to suggest that Robert Frazier spent more time with his lover than her grown daughter did and that he would be in a better position to know whether Lena was smoking or not. He tries to suggest that it was oddly coincidental that a forty-year-old woman would start smoking two months before her death. He asks the daughter whether she had discussed her testimony in detail with the prosecutor, suggesting to the jury that she may have been led to her answers. It is a good effort; once again, Polansky earns his money. Still, when Henrietta Lucas leaves the stand after five minutes’ testimony, the cigarette pack is no longer a real threat.

Doan follows her with John Smialek, who describes the autopsy and the nature of the wounds and brings in as evidence a series of black-and-white photos depicting the injuries in detail. More than the scene photos, the antiseptic shots from the overhead camera on Penn Street catch the excess of violence: three gunshot wounds-one with thick powder burns to the left side of the face, one to the chest, one to the left arm; eleven stab wounds to the back, plus superficial cuts to the neck and lower jaw; defense wounds to the palm of the right hand. In the form of ten graphic pictures, admitted over the continuing objection of Robert Frazier’s attorney, Lena Lucas is allowed her day in court.

But the morning’s testimony is merely prelude to the real battle-a war of credibility that begins later in the day when a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl, obviously terrified, walks past Robert Frazier and takes the stand.

Romaine Jackson is literally shaking as she takes the oath; the jurors can see that. She sits demurely, hands in her lap, face locked on Doan, eyes unwilling to acknowledge the tall, dark man at the defendant’s table. In Doan’s worst nightmare, he sees this witness-this essential witness-collapsing from fear. He sees her unable to answer, unable to tell the truth about what she saw from her window on Gilmor Street that night, unable to recall the things that they had talked about in the pretrial interviews. All of which would be understandable, even forgivable: The state of Maryland will not allow her to cast a vote or buy a beer, but the state’s attorney will nonetheless ask her to identify a murder suspect in open court.

“My name is Romaine Jackson,” she says softly, responding to the clerk’s questions. “I live at Sixteen-o-six West Pratt Street.”

“Miss Jackson,” says Doan soothingly, “try to keep your voice up so the ladies and gentlemen of the jury can hear you.”

“Yes, sir.”

As slowly, as calmly as possible, Doan takes her through the foundation questions and back to that night on Gilmor Street, back to the moment when she happened to be looking out of that third-floor window before falling off to sleep. The girl’s answers are close to monosyllabic; the court clerk reminds her once again to speak into the microphone.

“At some point, did you have an occasion to see your neighbor Charlene Lucas outside of your apartment?” asks Doan.

“Yes.”

“Would you tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury approximately what time it was when you saw her?”

“Eleven o’clock going onto twelve.”

“Was she by herself or with someone else?”

“Yes,” says the girl. “A man.”

“Do you see that individual in court today?”

“Yes, sir,” says the girl.

“Would you point that individual out?”

Romaine Jackson’s eyes break from the prosecutor for half a second, just long enough to follow her right hand in the direction of Robert Frazier.

“Him,” she says quietly, her eyes once again riveted on Doan.

The prosecutor moves forward slowly. “Would you describe what the defendant looked like on that evening?”

“Tall, dark and slim,” she says.

“What was he wearing that evening?”

“A black coat. A black jacket like this one.”

“Was he wearing anything on his head?”

“A hat.”

“What color was it?”

“A white hat,” she says, a hand to her forehead, “with a snap on it.”

She is crying now, just enough for it to show, not enough for Doan to think of stopping. Following the prosecutor’s lead, she tells the court about how Lena and the tall man walked toward Lena’s rowhouse next door and then disappeared from her view, how she fell asleep to the sound of an argument coming from a lower floor of the adjacent house, how she later heard about the murder.

“Miss Jackson,” asks Doan, “after you discovered or learned that Charlene Lucas had been murdered, did you go to the police with the information you had?”

“No,” she says, crying again.

“Why was that, ma’am?”

Polansky objects.

“Overruled,” says Gordy.

“Scared,” the girl says. “I didn’t want to get involved.”

“Are you still scared?”

“Yes,” she says, her voice little more than a whisper.

Frightened but firm, Romaine Jackson holds to her testimony throughout Polansky’s cross. The defense attorney works the edges of her story: the lighting on the street that night; the time that she was looking out the window; her reasons for looking out the window; her ability to hear the argument in the house next door. Polansky can’t run roughshod over this young girl; even if harsh tactics could rattle her story, the jury would resent such treatment. Instead, he can only suggest that she is mistaken, that perhaps she cannot be sure she saw Robert Frazier when she says she saw him. Polansky works the corners of the girl’s testimony for half an hour, prolonging her agony but doing little to change the essentials of her story. By the time she leaves the stand in the late afternoon, Romaine Jackson’s quiet embrace of the truth is a powerful force.

“Whoa… Romaine, honey,” says Garvey, catching her as she races out the rear doors of the courtroom. “Hey, now, tell the truth. That wasn’t all that bad now, was it?”

“Yes,” she says, now crying and laughing in the same breath. “It was.”