Jimmy Lama has his own problems. Off on a suspension without pay, Lama has all the attention he can handle from internal affairs. Nelson has dropped him from the DA’s unit, and Acosta is demanding a stiff sanction for Lama’s meddling in the trial. It seems the tip to Eli Walker will cost him. And Eli is back, his head firmly wedged in a new bottle, doing exposes on legislative corruption, a topic no one much cares to read about.

Nikki and I are talking about her moving back in with me, at the house. Sarah is throwing little parties over this thought. A four-year-old’s picture of heaven is life with Mommie and Daddy. Nikki and I have a lot to work out. We are trying to put the pieces of our lives back together. When I look at Coop and his misery, I know that as long as there is life there is hope.

Ben once told me that experience had taught him that juries neither convict nor acquit. They merely lend their certitude to a particular version of the facts before them. It is the skill of the lawyer that is the difference, he told me. In this case he was right. The jury did not acquit Talia so much as convict Tony, and they did it for all the wrong reasons. In the end, Ben’s words seem to possess the ring of prophecy. As he said, the law is no instrument for divining the truth.