Acosta is paging through them, ignoring me for all intents. He looks to Nelson for opposing argument. The DA makes a half-baked effort, conceding by his body language and lack of enthusiasm that he will lose the vast number of these. He is finished.

The judge looks at me for the first time in this colloquy as if to emphasize what is to follow.

“Defendant’s objection is overruled,” he says. The entire bundle of photographs will go to the jury. Such is the discretion of the court, and its lesson in abuse.

There’s a trace of alarm registered in Coop’s expression. It shows itself in subtle but wide-eyed interest, as if now he is seeing for the first time the effect of the revelations in Eli Walker’s column, not on the jury so much as on this judge.

The pictures are marked for identification. They are making their way through the jury. Like wind rustling through a corn field, the photos leave their impression.

“Doctor.”

Nelson is back to him now.

“In your professional opinion, is it possible that a woman of the physical stature of the defendant, Talia Potter, could wield a shotgun in such a fashion as to inflict the massive head wound evidenced in this case?”

“Yes.” He says this without reservation.

Nelson is moving toward a roll, gaining his rhythm.

“In your opinion, and assuming that she had help from an accomplice, would it have been physically possible for a woman of the size and strength of this defendant to have inflicted the mortal wound, moved the body some distance, propped the victim in that chair, put the shotgun in his mouth, and fired it?”

“Certainly,” he says, “but your assumption is unnecessary.”

Nelson has his back to him and is moving away from the witness box when this comes. So I can see the expression on his face. Irritation, a little disbelief.

“Excuse me?”

“It is possible for the defendant to have done all of those things, without the assistance of an accomplice,” says Coop.

There is stirring in the courtroom. Those following the case have read for weeks the press speculation about a secret lover, an accomplice who aided and abetted Talia in murder. Now they are hearing for the first time from the state’s own medical expert that this may not be the case.

Jurors put the pictures down, aware that something important has been said, bringing their attention back to the witness.

“It is physically possible that a woman of the size and strength of the defendant could have committed this crime alone,” says Coop. He emphasizes the last word, for those jurors who may have been lost in the scenes of horror still wending their way through the box.

Nelson looks at him, his jaw slacked, clearly miffed by this departure from the script. They have gone over this testimony. Coop has crossed him, thrown him a curve.

“Yes, but surely, doctor”-Nelson pumps up his most ingratiating smile to extract a little concession from the witness-“surely it’s more plausible that the defendant would have had assistance in doing this?” He gropes. Maybe Coop has missed the signal.

“Is that a question?”

“Yes.”

“Then my answer would have to be no,” he says. “There is no physical evidence that I could find during my examination of the victim that would indicate the presence of more than one assailant in the commission of this crime.”

Nelson is looking at the table, at Meeks, for assistance. There is a motionless shrug from the hired help, a psychic “I dunno” from Meeks.

“I think maybe there’s some confusion here, doctor. Perhaps I’m not making myself clear.” Nelson does everything but genuflect in front of the witness box, his theory of conspiracy going up in smoke.

“The defendant is a woman who weighs what, one hundred fifteen, one hundred twenty pounds?”

“I wouldn’t know,” says Cooper. “I’ve never weighed her.” Some laughter from the audience. Acosta is on them with his gavel.

“So that we can be perfectly clear, you’re not telling this jury that a woman the size of the defendant could have shot the victim, a man over six feet in height, approaching two hundred pounds in weight, that she could then have moved the body by herself, transporting it from wherever he was killed to the office, that she then could have placed him in that chair and shot him with a shotgun, and done all of this by herself, without help from some other person?”

“It seems you have outdated notions of the fairer sex,” says Coop. “That is precisely what I am saying. It is entirely possible that a woman alone could have committed this crime.”

Nelson is clearly troubled by this. The theory of the weak female has been, from the beginning, at the heart of his case. Logic tells him that no reasonable jury will accept the notion that a lone woman, much less one who looks like Talia, could have carried out this grisly crime by herself.

Some jurors are taking notes. Cooper is shameless, sitting there in the box, paradox written on his face. Nelson and Meeks confer in a flurry of panic at the prosecution’s table. There is a little deja vu in this for me, the shoe on the other foot, a witness they cannot control.

And yet through all of this, I know what Coop is about. He is throwing me a bone, driving a stake through Nelson’s theory of an accomplice. If they later charge me or anyone else with this crime, the state will be faced with the testimony of their own witness, inscribed in stone, on the record. It is Coop neutralizing my affair with Talia, granting his own unique form of clemency. I get a glance from him, oblique, from the corner of one eye, as he sits there in silence.

It is clear that Acosta does not find this amusing. “Would you like some time, Mr. Nelson? Perhaps a recess?” he says. I would object, but it would do no good. Acosta would order an immediate break to let Nelson regroup, to have his way with Cooper in some back room.

“Just a moment, You Honor.” Nelson’s not interested in prolonging this. To recess is to emphasize it in the jury’s collective psyche, a mistake. He must deal with it now, quickly, or run the risk that it will be indelibly ingrained, an accepted truth, that if Talia did this, she acted alone. A theory that in the minds of these jurors, Nelson knows, may be a non sequitur.

“No, Your Honor, we’re ready.” He moves back toward the witness box.

“Doctor Cooper, could you explain to the jury how a woman the size of the defendant would begin to move a body more than half again as heavy as her own?”

“There are ways,” he says, “that this could have been done.”

“Such as?”

“During my examination of the body, I discovered mild abrasions on both arms in identical locations on each, and across the chest of the victim. These abrasions were in a straight line, just below the nipples on the chest, between the elbows and shoulders on the arms.”

“Abrasions?” says Nelson. “Like rope burns?”

“No, like a strap, broad, approximately two inches across from top to bottom.”

Nelson is looking at Meeks again.

“Doctor, why didn’t you tell us about this during your testimony in the preliminary hearing?”

“No one asked,” he says.

He is right; Cheetam was too busy being reamed by the witness, and Nelson wasn’t interested in any revelations beyond the minimum necessary to bind Talia over.

But the prosecution doesn’t ask the other obvious question, why Coop didn’t tell them about this during the hours of preparation for trial. He has clearly sandbagged them. And Nelson is now tongue-tied. It wouldn’t do to emphasize before the jury the fact that the state’s witnesses have gone through hours of grueling rehearsal. Jurors are funny in this respect-they like to think that testimony in open court is spontaneous.

“These strap marks,” says Nelson, “when did you first discover them?”

“During the autopsy.”

“They weren’t in your notes, why?”