“I don’t know that I can make that conclusion.”

“But you can sit here and draw the conclusion-make the quantum leap-that this strand of hair was caught in the breech and pulled from the head of the defendant when she supposedly used the shotgun to kill her husband?”

To this Johnson offers no response. I play the odds with him.

“Officer Johnson, if I were to reach up right now and pluck a single strand of hair from my head, would you expect that hair to have the telogen root attached when you examined it under the microscope?”

He’s looking at me, no response.

“Officer, if you want, we can bring our own expert, a physician if you like, to obtain the answer to this question.”

“No,” he says. “I wouldn’t expect the root to be attached.”

“Why is that?”

“Because in most cases the hair would fragment, it would break off above the root.”

“Thank you.”

Johnson starts to get up.

“I’m not finished.”

He settles back in the chair.

“In your earlier testimony, officer, you stated that this strand of hair was lodged in the locking breech of this firearm. Is that correct?”

He makes a face, close enough. “Yes.”

“Do you want to look at the picture again, to refresh your recollection?”

“It’s not necessary.”

“Would you look at the picture, Officer Johnson?”

He studies it again.

“Was any portion of the hair actually in the breech of the firearm, from your observations when you removed it?”

“Yes,” he says. This is hard to deny, it is there in living color, an inch and a half of hair littering the open breech.

“So a portion of this strand would have been in the area directly behind or around the cartridge, in the breech?”

He nods, emitting more of an educated grunt than a response, the sign of a witness keeping his options open.

“When you examined the gun, were there cartridges in both barrels?”

“There was one fired cartridge. The other barrel was empty. At that range, in the mouth,” he says, “you only need one.”

There are a few morbid chuckles from the audience.

“So the shotgun apparently had not been unloaded after it was fired?”

“No,” he says.

“We’ve already established that this strand of hair was in good condition. I take it then that there was no singeing of this hair, no scorching, that it was not burned at any point?”

He looks again at the photograph, the pristine strand of hair, magnified a hundred times, almost translucent in its sheen on the page.

“No,” he says.

“There was no evidence of scorching or burning?”

“No.”

I can see from his eyes that he now senses where I am going.

“You’ve established earlier that you are qualified as a firearms expert. Based on your expertise, isn’t it true that when a shotgun is discharged it emits super-heated gases, and that these gases would flood the breech of the weapon?”

There’s a long sigh. “That’s true.”

“Then, Officer Johnson, how do you explain the lack of burning or singeing on that sample of hair?”

There is a long pause, the kind that catches a juror’s attention.

“I don’t know,” he says. He seems clearly puzzled by this, probably angry with himself that he has not considered it before.

“Isn’t one possible explanation that perhaps the hair wasn’t there when the weapon was fired, but was placed there later?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re the expert, officer, isn’t that one possible explanation?”

“Yes,” he says. “It’s possible.”

“Thank you.” Now I am finished.

I’m ecstatic, trying to hold myself on the floor as I return to the counsel table. Harry is struggling to hold back a moonbeam smile.

Talia has already failed, clutching my arm as I get to the chair.

Nelson is getting hammered; he cannot leave it like this. He knows that unless the momentum shifts he may not weather a motion to dismiss at the close of his case in chief. There’s a heady conference at the prosecution table, Meeks and Nelson.

“Redirect?” says Acosta.

Nelson gets up and approaches the witness box.

“Officer Johnson, according to your testimony only one chamber of the shotgun was found to be loaded, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then isn’t it possible that the strand of hair in question might have found its way into the empty chamber, and that this might explain why it was not singed or scorched?”

Johnson looks pained, as if under the burden of one who has just seen a friend fall.

“I don’t think so,” he says.

There is the stark expression of certain trouble in Nelson’s eyes. In desperation he has violated the cardinal rule: Never ask a question unless you know the answer. But it is too late to stop. The jury is waiting for the follow-up.

“Why not?” he says.

“The shotgun in question was an over-and-under, two barrels one on top of the other, not a side-by-side double barrel. It was the top chamber that was fired.”

Nelson’s dilemma is painfully obvious to anyone who has been following this little exchange. The strand of hair could not have reached the empty bottom chamber without a portion of it passing through the hot chamber on top. They cannot explain why this hair is not singed, fried like some crisp Chinese noodle.

CHAPTER 31

The phone is ringing. Saturday morning, rolling alone in the sheets. I’m in a half-daze as the cheerless gray dawn creeps through the white gauze that Nikki called drapes and hung on our bedroom window.

I reach for the receiver in a stupor, wiping sleep from my eyes.

“Hello,” I say.

“Have you seen the paper?” A female voice, hostile and cold, like a debt collector with her fangs in some deadbeat. It’s Nikki.

“What time is it?”

“After nine,” she says. “Have you seen today’s paper?”

“No.”

“You’d better take a look,” she says. Then she hangs up, hard in my ear.

I roll over and replace the phone on the cradle.

Saturday morning, gimme a break. Groaning, I start to get up.

Before I can find my slippers, it’s the doorbell. The cheap Westminster chimes, sans a few of the tones. Something else that needs repair.

There are a lot of foul words as I make my way down the hall, fastening my robe around me, barefoot, to the front door, stepping on dirty underwear and abandoned shoes. Wash day, I think. I check the peephole before opening, a little caution, a criminal lawyer’s due.

George Cooper, his head a distorted oval with a pointy hat, stands in a light drizzle on the stoop. I turn the bolt and open.

“Coop, sonofabitch,” I say. A counterfeit smile on my face like I’m happy to see him at this hour on a Saturday morning.

“A bad time?” he says. “I can come back.”

I’m yawning, stretching in his face. “Don’t be silly,” I say. I’m out on the step with him now, looking for the morning paper. It’s nowhere in sight. Wet and raining-chances are the boy threw it in the bushes again. Whenever it is wet and raining, he does this. I’ve been charitable, not complaining, assuming that the little plastic wrapper spoils his aim.

“I thought you might want this,” he says. Coop’s packing a large envelope under his arm inside his raincoat, sheltered from the elements. He squeezes it open like some fish’s mouth. There are scraps of paper inside, the size of ticker tape in a parade. I had hoped for a little more organization.

“For the taxes?” I say.

He nods.

I turn, heading for the kitchen.

“Come on,” I tell him, “close the door.”

Coop knows he’s not supposed to be here. A key witness for the prosecution. If Nelson knew, he would have Coop’s ass. We’ve had to suspend our infrequent lunches, meetings two or three times a month at a Mexican restaurant we call the ‘57 Chevy, Naugahyde booths carved with knives and stained by hot sauce and melted cheese.

I remind him of this, the fact that we are not meeting.