First degree

Kevin and I roll ourselves into the den afterward to go through the Dorsey discovery material. It's basically a chronological biography, and a very positive one at that. Dorsey grew up in Ohio and earned a B.A. in history at Ohio State. He enlisted and served a long hitch in Vietnam, apparently seeing a good deal of combat and earning several commendations for his service. He returned home and moved to Paterson, where he signed up for the police academy. His rise up the department ladder was rapid and relatively uneventful.

Certain little items are left out, nitpicks like his connections to organized crime, the Internal Affairs investigation and subsequent reprimand, as well as his disappearance and real or faked decapitation. Kevin will file our motion to get access to those facts tomorrow, and it's becoming more and more crucial that we win.

As we are finishing, the phone rings and Laurie answers it. I hear her side of the conversation, mostly consisting of how-are-yous? and I'm-okays.

After about thirty seconds of this, Laurie puts down the phone and says to me, "It's Nicole." She is talking about Nicole Carpenter, my wife of twelve years, from whom I was divorced just a few months ago, and to whom I haven't spoken since.

As I move toward the phone, the uniqueness of this situation flashes through my mind. I've just overheard a conversation between my ex-wife, whose father I caused to be convicted of multiple murder, and my current love, who is facing a decapitation-murder charge. I don't remember what my high school yearbook listed as my future goals, but I don't think any of this was foreseen.

"Hello, Nicole" is my clever opening line.

"Hello, Andy. How are you?"

This brilliant conversation goes on for another minute or so, as we both wait for her to get to the point of her call. Finally, she tells me that she needs to talk to me, in person, tomorrow morning, she hopes.

I don't want to meet with her, I don't have time to meet with her, there is no reason for me to meet with her, I can't be forced to meet with her, there is no way I'm going to meet with her, so I tell her I'll meet her at ten at a breakfast place near her house.

TO SEE NICOLE, YOU WOULD NEVER KNOW THE kind of year she has had. She's been shot and severely wounded by people aiming for me, her United States senator father has been convicted and jailed for multiple murder, and she's gone through a divorce. All this happened to a woman whose largest prior disappointment, at least that I am aware of, was when she got bumped out of first class on an overbooked flight to Paris.

She looks wonderful, with such a deep tan that, if she's spending a lot of her time visiting her father, he must be serving his sentence at Oahu State Prison. She gives me a little hug of hello, and we go to our table.

Mercifully, Nicole seems to know that we used up all our meaningless chitchat on the phone last night, because she comes right to the point.

"My father has cancer," she says.

"I'm sorry," I say.

She nods. "Thank you, but he's not sorry at all. Oh, I guess he's sorry that it's not a massive fatal heart attack, but anything that kills him is fine with him."

She's saying that being in prison is so horrible for Philip that he would rather be dead. What she's not saying, but which we both know, is that I put him there. It's a rather large hurdle to scale in reestablishing a friendship, if in fact that is what we are attempting to do.

It's not. Nicole has contacted me about Willie Miller's lawsuit against Victor Markham's estate and her father. His terminal illness gives her an even clearer connection to the suit: Half of whatever money Willie gets will come straight out of her inheritance.

"I'm frightened, Andy. I'm afraid I'm going to lose everything."

"Nicole," I say, "we shouldn't be having this conversation." That is understating the case; it is completely inappropriate and unethical.

"I've lost so much already."

I don't point out to her that her father is astonishingly wealthy, that the most generous jury verdict imaginable for Willie would still leave her with close to two hundred million dollars. She has to know this; she is not a stupid or uninformed woman. But her fear is so powerful that it is completely blinding her.

Her plea presents me with a curious ethical dilemma. The issue isn't whether I will be less vigorous on Willie's behalf; I will not. But Nicole's revealing her frightened mind-set to me presents me with a clear tactical advantage. To know that the opposition is so frightened is to know how far they can be squeezed. Can I wipe that from my mind? Should I?

"Nicole, you're hurting your negotiating position."

She's offended. "Negotiating? Is that what we're doing? After all these years, we're negotiators?"

"Nicole, talk to me through your lawyer. And my advice is to tell him what you've told me. It's a piece of information he should have."

She shakes her head in disagreement. "Andy--"

I cut her off. "I'm sorry, but this conversation is over. One of us is now going to leave. Do you want it to be you or me?"

She doesn't say another word, just gets up and walks out. I wait five minutes, then do the same.

I'm starting to become more comfortable with my personal connection to Laurie's case, and on the way back to the house I'm able to focus on that case as I would any other. I view it as a competitive puzzle, to be played with strategy and discipline and logic. Always logic.

Actually, my type of logical approach is more appropriate here than in any case I've ever had. I view every detail, every piece of the puzzle, as if it had been planned. In my mental world there is no room for coincidence, or even happenstance. Every fact, no matter how small, must be related to the case and significant. Of course, after analysis much turns out to actually be happenstance and/or insignificant, but it helps me attack the case to assume otherwise.

For instance Garcia was set up to be the police's first suspect. I agree with Kevin that Garcia was chosen to make Laurie look even guiltier, and Stynes was sent to draw myself and Laurie into his defense, and for this to work, Garcia had to seem guilty. If, say, he had been at a party or restaurant with a bunch of friends when Dorsey was thought to have been killed, he could not have been charged, and I would not have rushed to his defense. Dorsey had to have known with certainty where Garcia would be; it couldn't have been left to chance.

Since at the time of the murder Garcia was paying off Petrone's men, I have to make the assumption that Petrone or his underlings were part of this conspiracy. Garcia had said that they usually came to him to collect, but that night he had been summoned to them. I believe that if the tape from the supermarket had not surfaced, some other fact would have come up, clearing Garcia and opening the way for Laurie to be charged.

Following this to its logical conclusion, Dorsey and Petrone, or people working for Petrone, were in this together. But why? Dorsey benefits in obvious ways. He gets to safely disappear, while at the same time getting revenge against Laurie. But what does Petrone get out of this? Does he have any reason to hate Laurie? How does he benefit from Dorsey's successful escape?

All cases are a series of questions and answers. Early on there are far more questions, and the answers are few and far between. Eventually, the answers start to come, and the questions get fewer. If I can tip that scale far enough, I solve the puzzle and win the game. First prize is Laurie not having to spend the rest of her life in prison.

As I reach the house, it seems as if the press contingent stationed outside has gotten substantially larger. There are at least two additional camera trucks, which make it difficult for me to enter the driveway. I persist trying until they move, since I know if I relent and park on the street, I'll have given up the driveway for the duration.

As I get out of the car, I am swarmed by the reporters, all asking me if it's true that Laurie claims Dorsey is still alive and has phoned her. I decline to comment and with some difficulty make it through the horde and into the house.

Laurie, Kevin, and Edna are in the den watching television. The few afternoon news programs are having a field day with Laurie's claim of having spoken to Dorsey. Despite the seriousness of the situation, the ridicule has already begun. After pointing out that DNA results have confirmed the charred, headless body to be Dorsey's, one amused newscaster takes mock offense and says, "I thought we were the only talking heads around here."

Laurie is furious at the treatment she is getting, and I can't say I blame her. I have little doubt that Dylan leaked the story, and it's a public relations triumph for him. I should have been the one to take this public. Allowing Dylan to frame the issue has the effect of making Laurie look (a) desperate, (b) crazy, (c) guilty, (d) ridiculous, and (e) all of the above. Since the public is by definition the jury pool, it's not a good position for us to be in.

I can go to Hatchet and complain, and since he's not the most media-friendly judge around, he might sympathize with my position. However, it's beyond his power to erase what the public already knows, so all he could do is issue a gag order on the case from this point on. I'm not ready to advocate that; I still think there's more to be gained than lost in the public relations battle. I'm just not doing a very good job of it.

To that end, I conduct a press conference on the steps of the house. My intent is to openly acknowledge Laurie's claim that Dorsey is alive; at this point there is nothing to be gained by denying it. I point out that we did not try to take advantage of it in any way. We simply went to the police to ask for the investigation it deserved. Instead of focusing on that, they've seen fit to release it to the press.

"The district attorney's office is conducting a search for advantage, not for truth" is how I sum it up.

After my impromptu statement has concluded, I invite questions. The first one is from a woman representing the Newark Star-Ledger. It begins with, "Assuming your client got this phone call--"

I interrupt her. "She got the phone call. She is a truthful person, as you will come to know. What you should already know is that nothing would be gained by our making this up. There was absolutely no possibility the police or prosecution would believe it without adequate and independent proof. We had hoped and expected they would look for such proof, rather than create a media circus designed to make my client look foolish."

I take about five questions, making sure that every one of my answers includes an attack on the prosecution. I'm hoping to defuse the impact of today's revelation on the evening news, and once I've done the best I can in that regard, I go back into the house.

A couple of hours later we sit around the television and find out that my front porch salvo was too little too late. Laurie continues to take hits and ridicule, and while my protestations are included, they are given short shrift.

Laurie and I have been going to bed fairly early each night. For her it seems as if being asleep is considerably less painful than being awake. When we are awake, we don't want to talk only about the case, but there's absolutely nothing else that we can focus on. So we've been in bed by ten, and then, unable to sleep, I've been getting up at midnight or later to strategize and figure out my next steps.

Tonight is slightly different. Tonight we make love for the first time since this nightmare began. Laurie instigates it, and it is one of the most intensely passionate encounters I have ever experienced. There is a "deck of the Titanic" urgency that is at the same time frightening and wonderful. And afterward I do something I didn't think possible.

I sleep through the night.

The most important thing I do when working on a case is ask questions. I ask them of anybody and everybody. Some of the questions are informed or even perceptive, but many are fishing expeditions. I get as many answers as I can and sift through them in my mind. Sometimes this helps me figure out the truth, but at the very least it helps me think of more questions to ask, which is fine.

Our situation in this case is so bad that I can't even come up with people to question. I can't get near Petrone, I can't find Stynes, and on behalf of the FBI, Special Agent Hobbs smiles and gives me nothing.

My plan for today reflects that lack of options. I'm going to go to Oscar Garcia's neighborhood and question some of the people that identified Laurie as having been in the area. I'm certainly not going to shake their stories; Laurie has admitted that she was there, keeping an eye on Garcia. I'm just going to see if they know or saw anything else, something, I hope, that can help my case.

An early phone call changes my plans for the day. It's from a woman who says, "Mr. Carpenter, I know you're very busy, but I saw you on television last night, and I'd like to talk to you about my husband."

"Who is your husband?" I ask.

"Alex Dorsey."

She gives me directions to her apartment, coupled with the disclaimer that she's only lived there for about a month and isn't really sure if the directions are correct. They turn out to be exactly correct, and it takes me about fifteen minutes to get there. It would have been less, but I had Kevin park around the block, and then I sneaked out the back way and took his car. I don't know what Dorsey's wife wants, but I certainly don't want the press or Dylan to know she wants it from me.

Celia Dorsey lives in a small complex of garden apartments. She watches me from the window as I get out of the car, and opens the door before I can ring the bell.

"Thank you for coming, Mr. Carpenter. Please come in."

I enter a one-bedroom apartment a little bigger than your average phone booth. Every square inch of the place is filled with furniture, photographs, and trinkets. She has said she's only lived here for a short time, yet this place already has the meticulously cared-for look of a longtime residence.

She is a petite woman, reserved and quiet. I didn't know Alex Dorsey that well, but I would never have placed them together. He was high-energy, gruff, and dominant in any room he occupied. If you added them up and divided by two, you'd be left with one normal personality. So, on second thought, they'd be perfect together.

She offers me coffee and I accept, mainly because it seems she couldn't handle the disappointment if I said no. Once we're set, coffee cups on coasters and sitting on her couch, she says, "I'm sure you're wondering why I asked you here."

"You said it was about your husband."

She laughs a sad laugh. "I'm not even sure he's still my husband."

"What do you mean?"

"I filed for divorce three months ago. The final papers just came through yesterday, but I don't know if one can divorce a deceased spouse. Of course, now there is very considerable doubt that my spouse is deceased, which seems to complicate things even more."

She starts to cry, softly, as if she's afraid if she lets it out full blast, it would disturb me. Of course, it probably would, so I just wait until she's finished. It only takes a few seconds, and she continues.

"I know the police don't believe your client, but I do. My husband is alive."

"Why do you say that?" I ask.

"Well, for one thing, I simply cannot picture him dead." She smiles. "But you probably are hoping for something more concrete."

"Yes."

"I heard him talking about faking his own death."

Yesss! Finally, a positive development. "When?"

"Two years ago, when he was being investigated by the department."

"Who was he talking to?" I ask.

"I'm not sure. You have to understand, in the last five or so years of our marriage, and perhaps long before that, my husband kept a great many things from me. On some level I was glad he did; I sensed that there were things I wouldn't want to know. But there was one man he spoke to very often, and he got secretive whenever he did. But I overheard things, and one was this conversation with this man."

"How do you know it was a man?"

"Now that you mention it, I can't be sure. But he always called the person 'Lieutenant,' and even though women can certainly rise to that level and higher within the department, I've always assumed it to be a man."

Based on what I know about Dorsey, and the department, the odds are she is correct.

"What exactly did he say?"

"I can't remember exactly, but it was something like 'If they don't back off, they'll never see me again.' And then he laughed and said, 'They'll bury my box, but I won't be in it.'"

"And you never asked him about it?"

She shakes her head. "No, but it was one of the things that changed my perspective on my marriage. It finally helped drive into my thick head what should have been obvious all along: that I had not been an important part of his life for a very long time. I should have left then."

"But you didn't."

"No, and by the time I did he had taken all our money."

"What did he do with it?"

A smile, even sadder this time. "I wish I knew. But if you follow the money, you will find Alex. It's part of what drives him."

"What else drives him?" I ask.

"Power and hatred. And when he can exercise power to get back at those he hates, he is in his glory. I suspect that's what your client is finding out right now."

"Can I ask what drives you?"

"What do you mean?" she asks.

"Why did you call me?"

She pauses a moment to think about this. "Alex took the years of love and loyalty I gave to him and treated them like they meant absolutely nothing at all. He hurt people and I stood by and watched, and then I became one of those people. I'm ashamed of how I've acted, and I can't act that way anymore. If there is any way I can help you, I will."

There is a toughness and resolve in her voice that is impressive. This is a delicate, vulnerable woman that I want to have in the foxhole with me when the war starts.

Before I leave, Celia provides me with whatever financial records she has, so that I can try to follow Dorsey's money trail. To that end, I decide to stop off at my office and visit with the best money follower I know, Sam Willis.

Sam is surprised to see me and expresses his concern about Laurie. He assumes I'm there to see how he's doing with cousin Fred, and he tells me that they've hit it off really well and that I'm soon going to be even richer than I am now. Goody, goody.

"I need you to help me find someone," I say. "Or at least his money."

Sam brightens up immediately. This is his kind of assignment. "Who?"

"Alex Dorsey," I say.

"The dead cop? Or, I mean, the not-dead cop?"

"The very one." I give him the financial records that Celia gave me, and he spends a few minutes looking at them. His expression is that of an orthopedic surgeon looking at a CAT scan, calling on his years of experience to make perfect sense out of what to me is bewildering.

"This guy was a cop?" he asks.

I nod. "Yes."

"This is pretty sophisticated stuff."

He calls Barry Leiter in from the other office, and the two of them eagerly devour the records. Every twenty seconds or so, Barry says, "Wow!"

I'm glad to be able to bring such pleasure into their lives, but I'm getting a little impatient "If he moved his money, can you find out where it went?" I ask.

"To a degree," Sam says. "We can tell you a lot about it, but we won't be able to identify the city."

"Why not?"

He shrugs. "Because each town looks the same to me, the movies and the factory. And every stranger's face I see reminds me that I long to be homeward bound."

It's a sign of my desperation that I'm sitting here relying on a compulsive song-talker. Well, I'm simply not going to be drawn into it. "How long is this going to take you?" I ask.

"I won't be doing it at all. I'm going on vacation tomorrow. Barry will take care of it."

I turn to Barry. "You can do this?"

He smiles. "Sure, Mr. Carpenter. No problem. I'll start tonight on my computer at home. Whole thing should be wrapped up by tomorrow."

Sam notices my slightly worried expression and reassures me that this is definitely within Barry's expertise. Additionally, Sam will call in from his trip to make sure everything is going smoothly.

"Where are you going?" I ask.

"Puerto Rico. Do a little gambling … get some sun …"

I can't help myself. "So you're leaving on a jet plane? You don't know when you'll be back again?"

He smiles. "Oh, babe, I hate to go."

I'M SICK OF STUFFING PETE STANTON'S MOUTH with expensive food, but I do need to talk to him, so I suggest we meet at a Taco Bell. He calls me a "cheap son of a bitch," but since he has a genetic weakness for grilled stuffed burritos, and since I promise him an extra-large Pepsi, he ultimately agrees.

We meet at six o'clock, and I'm finished bringing him up to date on my progress by six-oh-two. He tells me that Sabonis is taking Laurie's report of the phone call seriously and that the investigation into Dorsey's possible whereabouts, as well as the possible misidentification of the body, is proceeding.

"How many lieutenants are there in the department?" I ask.

"Why? You thinking of signing up? You'll have to start a little lower."

"Come on … how many?"

He thinks for a few moments. "Including me … six."

"Are they the same as two years ago, when Dorsey was being investigated?"

He thinks a little longer. "Well, Dorsey was part of the group then. As far as the rest? Almost the same … I think we had five then. I'm pretty sure McReynolds got promoted a while after that. Now you gonna tell me why you want to know?"

I nod. "I have information that Dorsey was working with another lieutenant. They weren't defending the cause of truth and justice. Any idea who it could be?"

"No." His answer is a little too quick, a little defensive. "I don't buy it. Not that group."

"What about Sabonis?" I ask.

He shakes his head firmly. "Nick? Absolutely not possible; Nick's as straight as they come. There's more chance it was me."

Having taken that as far as it can go, I move on. "They identified the body against Dorsey's DNA. Where would they have gotten it from?"

"What do you mean?" he asks.

"Well, I don't keep a bottle of DNA in my medicine cabinet. How would they have Dorsey's?"

"Every cop has to give blood for typing when we join the force," he says. "I assume they used that."

"Where is it kept?" I ask.

He shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe the precinct first-aid room, maybe the lab."

"Could somebody, could a cop, have gotten in there?"

"You mean could Dorsey have gotten in there before he disappeared, and replaced his blood with somebody else's? I don't see why not. Especially if it's in the first-aid room. It's not high-security."

"You think you could find out where the blood is kept?"

"I believe that everybody is put on this good earth for a purpose," he says. "Mine is to carry out whatever assignments you have for me."

"And you're doing a hell of a job."

I get home about eight o'clock, a half hour later than I told Laurie I would. She had dinner prepared, and my being late probably made that difficult, but that isn't the kind of thing that upsets her. She is, however, growing increasingly frustrated that she can't help defend herself, and that frustration translates to isolation. I understand it, but I can't fix it.

Actually, we're living a kind of weird sit-com. Maybe I'll head out to Hollywood and pitch it to some TV executive. "It's about two people who decide to move in together, and they start to get on each other's nerves. But she can't move out, you see, because--get this … she's wearing this ankle bracelet …"

One thing that I've noticed is how bonded Laurie and Tara have become. Tara is constantly at her side, graciously accepting the petting that Laurie seems comforted to give. Tara might even be more inclined to be near Laurie than to be with me. A less secure person than myself would be jealous, but the way I figure it, whenever I have the chance to be stroked by either Laurie's hand or my own, it's a no-brainer to pick Laurie's. Why should I expect a smart dog like Tara to make a different choice?

Laurie and I have settled into a kind of pattern, where after we have dinner, we sit in the living room and I bring her up to date on the events of the day. Very often she knows a lot of it, since my office is operating out of the house. But in this case I tell her about Celia Dorsey and ask her if she can make an educated guess as to the identity of the other lieutenant who was in cahoots with Alex. It seems as improbable to her as it did to Pete.

We're finished talking at about ten o'clock, and we go upstairs to bed. I'm just falling asleep when the phone rings, and I get it.

It's Barry Leiter's voice on the line, a little tentative. "Mr. Carpenter? This is Barry … from Sam's office? I'm sorry to bother you at home, but I found something, and I figured--"

I interrupt. "You traced the money?"

"Part of the way, and then I sort of ran into a road-block. I wanted to talk to you before I went any further."

"What about?"

"These guys are good--I mean really good. I think … well, they were waiting for somebody to try and follow this money."

This isn't terribly surprising news: Once we knew that Dorsey was alive, it became a predictable way to try to follow him. "How do you know that?"

"Believe me, I can tell," he says. "But that's not the strange part. The strange part is they were geared up to trace the tracer. That's what I thought you should know."

"I don't even know what you're talking about," I say.

"I mean they were set up to know who was tracking the money. They know it's me."

Now I'm fully alert and growing uneasy. "Did you give them your name or address?"

He laughs. "Mr. Carpenter, no offense, but this is the twenty-first century. They can get that by pressing a button."

It's amazing how fast unease can turn to panic. "What's your address?"

"Three eighty-three Vreeland Avenue."

"Okay. Barry, lock your doors and turn your lights off. I'm coming right over. Don't let anybody in unless you know it's me."

"Why? What's going on?"

"Just do what I tell you." I hang up the phone and get dressed.

Laurie is asleep, and I wake her. She can tell from the sound of my voice that something is wrong.

"What's going on?" she asks.

"Call Pete Stanton and tell him that there's an armed break-in taking place at three eighty-three Vreeland."

"Is there?"

"Not if I can help it."

I'm out the door and running to my car. I can run really fast when I'm scared, and this is just about the fastest I've ever run.

Barry lives on the other side of town from me. It would ordinarily take me about twenty minutes, but there's no traffic and I'm not stopping at any lights, so it takes me fifteen. It feels like an hour.

As I turn onto his street, I'm glad to see that the police have beaten me there. There's about half a dozen police cars, lights flashing. I see Pete standing in front of Barry's house and I pull up in the driveway. He's going to be pissed at me, but it's a lot better than the alternative.

I get out and walk over to Pete. "Thanks for coming," I say.

He nods. "I wish it could have been a few minutes earlier. You know the victim?"

It feels as though somebody has lifted Barry's house off the ground and dropped it on my head. The pressure literally pushes me to my knees. "Don't say that, Pete. Don't say there is a victim. Please …"

"I'm sorry, Andy … the guy who lived in the house. He was shot once through the head."

"Oh, no … no …" I don't think I can stand this.

"We got the perp, Andy. He's on the floor in the kitchen."

I start walking toward the house. Pete yells ahead for the officers to let me through and then follows me. It feels like it takes me an hour to get to the front door, but in truth Barry lived on a small piece of property.

We finally reach the kitchen. There is blood everywhere, obviously that of the murderer, whose bullet-ridden body lies on the floor next to the counter.

"You know him?" Pete asks.

He's lying on his stomach, with his head turned away from me, so I have to walk around toward the counter to get a better view.

I'm struck by how little I'm surprised that I'm looking at the very dead face of Geoffrey Stynes.

Pete mentions the obvious, that he needs me to detail what I know about tonight's incident to him. He drives me down to the precinct, having somebody else follow in my car. I ask him to have someone call Laurie and tell her what happened, and then I don't think either of us says another word the entire way there.

My mind is still something of a blur, and the only clarity that is able to get through is the fact that I am responsible for Barry Leiter being murdered, as surely as if I pulled the trigger. I brought this craziness, this sickness, into his twenty-three-year-old life, and he paid the price.

We reach the precinct and go into an interrogation room so that Pete can record what is said. I tell him everything, starting with the moment Stynes walked into my office. He raises his eyebrows when he hears that it was Stynes, the man he tried to find at my behest.

When I'm finished, I have a couple of questions for Pete. "Stynes was shot a bunch of times. Did he resist?"

Pete shakes his head. "He committed suicide." When he sees my surprise, he explains. "We had him dead to rights, half a dozen of us, guns pointed at him. We yelled, he saw the odds, and he raised his gun to fire, forcing us to shoot him. He had to know he would die, but in his mind it was better than letting us take him into custody."

"How can you be sure about that?" I ask.

"I saw his eyes," he said. "They weren't scared … they were already dead."

It's almost two o'clock in the morning when I leave the precinct, after assuring Pete that I'm okay to drive. He promises to update me on whatever he learns about Stynes, and tells me I'll probably have to answer more questions from Sabonis in the next day or two. He's also going to track Sam down and tell him what happened, and ask where Barry's family is.

Laurie is waiting up for me when I get home. She heard from Pete's underling what happened. The numbness I felt is wearing off, and the pain is changing from a dull throb to a piercing agony. Laurie has a million questions, but she hardly asks any of them. She just holds me, and Tara nuzzles against me, until it's morning.

It doesn't make me feel better, but it doesn't make me feel worse. Nothing could make me feel worse.

MARCUS CLARK SCARES EDNA HALF TO death when he comes to the house to give his first weekly report. I assure her that he's on our side, but I don't think she can reconcile his menacing presence with the fact that he's one of the good guys.

Then Laurie comes into the room, and the transformation is immediate. She and Marcus hug warmly, and he inquires as to her health, her mental outlook, anything she might need, etc. Edna grudgingly accepts him as one of the team, though she occasionally glances over at him, as if to make sure he doesn't turn on us.

Marcus essentially has made no progress, which in his eyes is in itself a sign of progress. He has not found a trace of Dorsey, and since he firmly believes he can find anyone, he considers his failure a sure sign that Dorsey is dead.

"I spoke to him," Laurie points out.

"Or somebody trying to sound like him" is Marcus's response.

She pushes back. "It was him."

They kick around this unresolvable issue until finally Marcus allows as how it's possible Dorsey is alive, but with a lot of help powerful enough to keep him totally hidden. We all agree that only somebody like Dominic Petrone has that kind of power, but Marcus doesn't believe that Petrone would have let Dorsey make the phone call. That was the act of a man with intensely personal motivations, and Petrone would look at this as strictly business.

The court clerk calls to announce that Hatchet has reviewed Dorsey's files and set a meeting for tomorrow morning in his chambers to discuss our motion to receive them in discovery. Hatchet likes to resolve these matters without a formal hearing, and that's fine with me. I'm glad he didn't call it for this morning, because I've got the meeting with Willie Miller and the attorney representing the estates we are suing.

The easiest way for me to explain how Willie is reacting to his impending wealth is to say that he asks me to pick him up at a Mercedes dealership. He's standing out front when I pull up, and he gets in the car.

"How come you weren't inside kicking the tires?" I ask.

"They weren't taking me seriously. They don't think I can afford one of those pieces of junk. Shows what they know."

"How much do you have in your checking account?" I ask.

"I don't have no checking account," he says, and then he smiles his broad smile. "But I'm gonna."

The conversation during the rest of the drive to the lawyer's office involves Laurie. Like everybody else who knows her, Willie is concerned, and he has a better idea than most how unjust the justice system can be.

We arrive at the law firm of Bertram, Smith, and Cates, a respected civil litigation firm in Teaneck. I have spoken a couple of times to Stephen Cates, the attorney representing the defendants, and he has been properly noncommittal as to his position, pending this meeting.

He greets us cordially, sits us at a conference table with a large fruit bowl, offers us something to drink, and gets right down to business.

"I understand you've been approached by the daughter of one of my clients," he says, referring to Nicole.

I nod. "I have."

"I apologize for your being put in that position. I, of course, had no idea until after the fact."

"No problem," I say.

He then launches into a long-winded recitation of the position of his clients, and their desire to bring this unhappy matter, or at least this portion of it, to a close. They recognize the negative impact their actions have had on Willie's life, and they have concocted a formula that they believe accurately assigns a financial value to it. He is so busy explaining the formula, he neglects to mention what that value is.

After twenty minutes that seem like two hours, he reaches the end and says, "Do you have any questions?"

Willie, who has had three oranges, two apples, a banana, and a bunch of grapes during this presentation, doesn't waste any time. "How much?" he asks.

Cates seems somewhat taken aback by Willie's directness, but decides to meet it. "We're looking at in the neighborhood of four point three seven million dollars, paid out over seven years."

Willie almost spits up three grapes at the absurdity of the offer. "That may be the neighborhood you're lookin' in," he says. "But not us. We're lookin' uptown." By "us" Willie means he and I, although my intention is to keep him functioning as chief negotiator. He's doing fine, and I prefer to spend my time mentally beating myself up over Barry Leiter's murder.

But Cates turns to me, obviously looking for a weaker link than Willie. "What exactly is your position?"

I look to Willie and he nods, in effect giving me the floor. "Eleven point seven million, paid out over five minutes."

He doesn't blink. "May I ask how you arrived at that figure?"

"Gut instinct," I say. "We consider it a fair figure, and as such it is nonnegotiable. I believe we can get considerably more at trial."

"I see. I'll convey this to my clients."

I tell him that'll be fine, and with Willie grabbing a final orange on the way out, we say our goodbyes.

Willie asks if I can drop him off at his girlfriend's house, which is in a rather depressed area of downtown Paterson. Paterson is a city of over a hundred thousand people and can match any other city blight for blight. Yet whenever anyone in the area refers to "the city," they are talking about New York.

We are about ten blocks from our destination when we almost hit a dog running loose on the street. It looks to be a Lab mix, skinny, worn-out, and frightened from life on the street.

Willie and I are both shaken by the near miss. "Damn, that was close," he says.

"Poor dog. They'll catch him and take him to the pound," I say.

"And then what?"

"And then they'll kill him."

"What?" Willie yells, outrage in his voice. "Stop the car!"

I barely have time to pull over when Willie jumps out, chasing the dog down the street and calling, "Here, dog!"

The dog demonstrates his intelligence by running away from the screaming Willie, so I pull the car up ahead and try to cut him off. I jump out of the car and start chasing him back toward Willie, but again the dog is clever enough to run down an alley.

The chase is on, as Willie and I spend the next twenty minutes running up and down streets and in and out of alleys, all in pursuit of this poor dog. We execute a number of maneuvers to cut him off, but he outsmarts us each time.

The workout in the whirlpool at Vince Sanders's club hasn't quite prepared me for this kind of running. I'm gasping for air and my insides are burning, but Willie handles it like he's out for a walk in the park.

After a few minutes more I lose sight of both Willie and the dog, and they are going to have to handle this on their own. I stagger up and down a few alleys, hoping to find one of them, although my first choice would be to stumble upon an oxygen tent.

And then, at the end of an alley in front of a dirty garage, I see Willie. He is sitting on the cement, back against the wall, cradling the dog in his lap and petting him gently on his head. The dog contentedly rests that head on Willie's knee. They look so relaxed that the only thing missing from this picture is a pond and a fishing pole.

When I'm able to breathe and walk again, the three of us go back to the car. Willie keeps the dog on his lap in the front seat and announces that he is now his dog, and his name is Cash, for obvious reasons. I check and see that there is no collar or tag on the dog, which makes it far less likely that there is an owner somewhere looking for him.

Willie promises to put up signs in the neighborhood with pictures of the dog, but I'm not sure he'll follow through on it. Whatever. A dog has found a loving owner; there are worse things that can happen in this world.

I get back home and am surprised to see Pete Stanton waiting to update me on the early stages of the investigation of Stynes. He could have done it by phone, but I think he wanted to see Laurie and offer additional moral support.

The report on Stynes is stunning in its brevity. "So far Stynes doesn't seem to have existed," Pete says.

"What are you talking about?" I ask.

Pete proceeds to tell me that they have run his prints everywhere, military, federal, and state, and come up with nothing. They've circulated his picture to every law enforcement agency in the country on a priority basis and came up empty as well.

"How is that possible?" I ask.

"I don't think it is," Pete says. "A guy like that, he had to have a record, or been in the military, or applied for a gun permit … something. If there's no record of him, then that record had to have been erased."

"By who?"

Pete shrugs. "By some record eraser--how the hell should I know? Anyway, we're still looking, but I don't think we're going to find anything."

Pete leaves and I spend the rest of the night preparing for the meeting in Hatchet's chambers tomorrow to discuss our request for all of Dorsey's records. It's not a motion we can afford to lose.

The morning is sunny and bright, but as always, Hatchet's chambers are cloudy and dark. Once again, Dylan is there before Kevin and me, which annoys me. The judge should not be talking to one counsel without the other present. I could lecture Hatchet on this point, or I could decide to keep living.

It becomes instantly apparent to me that their pre-meeting was by Hatchet's design. "Mr. Campbell has decided not to oppose your motion" he announces to me.

"Good," I say.

"You will have the file by close of business today."

"Good," I say.

"That will be all, gentlemen."

"Good," I say.

Dylan hasn't said a word, and I've only said one, although it's a word I like and I've gotten to say it three times. Within moments Kevin and I are back in my car.

"What the hell was that about?" Kevin asks.

"Hatchet obviously read him the riot act before we got there," I say.

Kevin is incredulous. "And Dylan just caved?"

"You've obviously never had Hatchet read you the riot act. Giving up on the motion was easy; if Hatchet had really put on the pressure, Dylan would have sacrificed his firstborn."

I call Edna and she tells me that there's an important message from Marcus, asking me to meet him at an address in a very depressed area of town. Kevin agrees to go along, and within twenty minutes we're at the location, which seems to be an abandoned apartment building. It is next to an abandoned movie theater and across the street from some abandoned stores.

We get out of the car and start looking around. After a few moments we hear a voice.

"Up here."

Looking down at us from one of the few unboarded windows in the building is Marcus. "Come on up," he says. "Sixth floor."

I moan, since the elevator in this building would obviously not be running, and I'm still sore and barely catching my breath from yesterday's dog-chasing jaunt with Willie. But ever the trooper, I march into the building with Kevin and we trudge up the steps.

When we reach the sixth floor, I instantly know that my instinct that the elevator would not be running was a correct one. I know this because hanging above the empty elevator shaft is a human being. He's hanging from a shoulder harness, his eyes bulging in fright and trained on Marcus, who stands nearby with a large knife in an apparent threat to cut that harness and send the man six stories to his demise.

I'm speechless, but Marcus is calm and relaxed, as if we were meeting him at the pool to have pina coladas. Ever aware of the social graces, he performs the obligatory introductions. "Andy Carpenter, Kevin Randall, this is Asshole. Asshole, this is Mr. Carpenter and Mr. Randall."

When I first walked in, I couldn't understand how a person could find himself hanging over an elevator shaft. Now I understand that most of the fault lies with his parents. When you name your kid Asshole, you are pretty much preordaining his being treated with a lack of respect as he grows older.

Marcus informs us that the hanging man has something to tell us. I think Kevin is going to have a stroke at being part of this scene, and I'm not terribly comfortable with it either, so I convince Marcus to bring the man onto safe ground. Marcus grudgingly agrees, after the man croaks a promise to speak just as candidly standing as he would have hanging.

Once he gets out of the elevator shaft, the man calms down some, and I learn that he has another name. Mitch. Mitch is apparently a small-time hustler, part-time informant, and full-time slimeball, who keeps his ear to the ground in the hope of gathering information he can sell. Marcus, persuasive fellow that he is, has prevailed upon Mitch to share some information with us for free. He has even prepared the special harness as a show of support for Mitch in that effort.

Mitch is able to shed some light on Dorsey's illegal activities, but it is a slightly different light than we had pictured. Dorsey was, as we suspected, heavily involved in the criminal activities of the Petrone family. But according to Mitch, Dorsey was merely a glorified bagman; the real power and protection for Petrone came from above Dorsey on the totem pole. Mitch doesn't know the identity of the man or men above Dorsey, but he's sure that Dorsey's main function was to collect money and pass a good chunk of it up the ladder.

This angle certainly fits in with what Celia had to say about the other lieutenant that Dorsey was involved with. Whether that lieutenant was in fact above Dorsey in the Petrone operation, or just working alongside him, it's becoming very clear that someone in the department has an interest in Laurie getting convicted.

We send Mitch on his way with our sincere thanks and our admonition to him to keep his ears open and report back to Marcus if he learns anything else. He promises that he'll do just that, but my guess is that Mitch will choose not to remain in the same hemisphere as Marcus.

Hatchet Henderson is the kind of judge whose orders are followed, and Dylan is not about to be the lawyer to buck that trend. When Kevin and I get back to the house, the remainder of Dorsey's file has already been sent over, and Kevin and I immediately start to pore over it.

The interesting period in Dorsey's record starts with Laurie's accusations against him, which are documented here. There is a report from Internal Affairs which, while not exactly on the scale of the Warren Commission, nevertheless confirmed Laurie's charges and expanded upon them.

Dorsey was in business with Dominic Petrone in various areas of his operation, mostly loan-sharking, prostitution, and drugs. His role in those businesses was essentially to provide protection--actually insulation--against the police. Occasionally, his role was even more active and direct, but it is clear that his value to Petrone was in his capacity as a police lieutenant.

The FBI did in fact intervene to save Dorsey's job two years ago, and the specific intervener was Special Agent Darrin Hobbs. Amazingly, Hobbs provided not much more information to the police than he provided to me; he simply said that there was an important FBI investigation that would be compromised if Dorsey's role were to be revealed. Hobbs said that the operation had nothing to do with Dorsey but was directed at "elements of organized crime." The fact that the Paterson authorities caved in to this federal intervention is not exactly something they should be proud of and is most likely the reason they resisted turning the information over to me.

In return for receiving the incredibly mild punishment of a reprimand, Dorsey promised to desist from his unlawful activities in the future. There is some evidence that he kept that promise, but only for a short time. About six months ago, Internal Affairs became aware that Dorsey was at it again, and that charge was also confirmed.

Hobbs was made aware of the situation before action was taken, but this time neither he nor anyone else in the FBI intervened. Dorsey was about to be arrested when he disappeared, and a week later the body that they believe to be Dorsey's was discovered.

It is rather depressing for us to get the information that we have been seeking and discover that it is not particularly helpful. It opens up no new areas to investigate or strategies to formulate.

The next nail in our legal coffin is a phone call from Nick Sabonis. He informs me that they have turned up zero evidence that Dorsey might be alive. It will remain an open investigation, but as far as he and the department are concerned, Dorsey is dead. He allows that he is not saying Laurie is lying about the phone call, simply that she must have been deceived by a fake or crank caller.

My frustration is reaching the boiling point. "Mind if I ask you a question, Nick? How is it you came to be on the Dorsey case?"

He pauses for a moment, considering the implications of the question. "Why? You think I'm this mysterious 'lieutenant' that Dorsey was working with?"

"Somebody was," I say. "At this point I'm not ready to eliminate anyone."

"Be careful who you're accusing," he says, his tone even more ominous than his words.

"Are you going to answer my question, Nick?"

"I asked on the case."

"Why?"

"I didn't like Dorsey or what he was doing. But I like cop-killers even less."

TIME IS THE ULTIMATE PAIN IN THE ASS. IT CONSISTENTLY, absolutely, and obnoxiously does the exact opposite of what one wants it to do. This is my theory and I'm sticking to it. In fact, it is just one of the profound theories I am able to come up with in situations such as this, lying in bed, unable to sleep, at three o'clock in the morning.

The weeks leading up to the trial, set to begin later this morning, represent a perfect example of my premise. For Laurie the calendar has moved excruciatingly slowly, as she awaited the day when her confinement would be at least partially relieved and, more important, she could be on the way to legal vindication.

For Kevin and me today's trial date approached like a speeding, out-of-control freight train. We spent every moment of every day trying to prepare, to figure out a defense strategy that we could have confidence in, and yet haven't come close.

I fall asleep around four and wake up at seven, adrenaline starting to pump. Laurie seems more excited than nervous. The prospect of actually getting out of the house holds such great appeal that it has temporarily overpowered the natural fear that she should and will feel. But that's okay; right now I'm afraid enough for both of us.

A bailiff arrives at nine to accompany Laurie to court, and she has her first experience wading through the gathered press outside. The questions called out to her mainly refer to her feelings as the trial is about to begin. Some ask about our personal relationship, which has made for considerable fodder in the press in recent days. There has been open speculation that Laurie broke up my marriage, and veiled criticism about the propriety of mixing our private lives with our professional ones.

I have responded openly and directly, completely acknowledging that I am and have been in love with Laurie, starting after my marriage had ended but before she had become my client. But for Laurie it is difficult and embarrassing to take, especially since she has no choice but to take it.

The press crush is far greater at the courthouse than at home, but we are given a special entrance through the back, so as to avoid it. Before long we are seated at the defense table, as Hatchet goes through the formalities involved in opening the proceedings.

At the defense table with me are Kevin and Laurie. Across the aisle Dylan sits with two other prosecutors. He is dressed in his Sunday best; I'm surprised he doesn't have a flower in his lapel. He has an air of confidence about him, confidence that I wish were misplaced.

The gallery is packed, as expected, and according to the bailiff, the public won their coveted seats through a lottery drawing that will be held each day. The group today, while they might consider themselves lucky winners, is about to be bored out of their minds by the tedium of jury selection.

I've consulted two jury consultants on tactics but ultimately decided to go it on my own. One of the few things we have going for us is the incongruity between Laurie's appearance and demeanor on the one hand and the brutality of the crime on the other. The consultants felt that female jurors would have the most trouble believing Laurie could do such a thing, but I don't agree. I'm going to listen to my gut instincts, although it would be nice if my gut would stop churning and allow me to hear them.

It is conventional wisdom to say that jury selection is perhaps the most important phase of a trial, a process during which cases can be won or lost before a single witness is called. In theory this is true, but in practice it is rarely that decisive.

Competent lawyers have become sophisticated enough at jury selection that it is very unusual for one side to gain a decisive advantage. It's like in a football game. The mechanics of the game, the x's and o's, are vital to a team's success, but modern coaching staffs have become so knowledgeable that it is usually in other areas that a team develops a winning edge.

Every chance Dylan gets, he publicly describes Laurie as a tough-as-nails former cop, while my goal is to have everyone view her as a delicate flower. In the real world she's both, so it makes our little game more challenging.

Laurie hates when I refer to a trial as a game, but that's how I see it, that's how I have to see it to perform at my best. And it is a game in the sense that it has strategy and luck, peaks and valleys, ebbs and flows, and winners and losers. The stakes are not what make a game a game; you play to win and then you cash in your chips, whatever they are worth.

For me to be effective, I must depersonalize the case, view it only from the perspective of proper strategy and tactics. That is my greatest danger here, other than the fact that the prosecution has a seemingly airtight case. It is a constant struggle for me to step back and look at the game, without looking at the people and the incredibly high stakes.

I am scared that I will not do well enough to win, but I will not do well enough to win if I am scared.

Hatchet is in good form. I've always suspected that he carries a "glower meter" with him. The more significant the occasion, the more momentous the moment, the more he glowers and threatens. Today the meter is hitting approximately a seven, which is to say he would certainly chew a lawyer up, but might not spit him out. It's a sign that he considers this an important trial. He's right about that.

After about an hour Hatchet turns to me. "Is the defense ready?"

"Yes," I lie, and we're under way in the case of the State of New Jersey v. Laurie Collins.

One hundred prospective jurors are brought into the room, and Hatchet gives them his standard lecture on the importance of jury service to society. He thanks them for being good citizens, but he knows as well as I do that they are here because, unlike the majority of their fellow good citizens, they couldn't figure out how to get an excuse from serving.

The jurors are given questionnaires to fill out, answering many of the questions that the lawyers would ask. This is designed to reduce the repetition and time necessary to get through this process, as the written responses often disqualify people without us having to take the time to question them.

It takes two and a half days to empanel the twelve citizens, plus four alternates, who will decide Laurie's fate. Seven men, three African-Americans, one Hispanic. There's not a brain surgeon in the group, but for a jury I would say they're above average in intelligence and apparent open-mindedness. That's important, since they're going to have to be receptive to our defense, should we happen to come up with one.

The last juror is sworn in at three o'clock in the afternoon, and Dylan takes Hatchet up on his offer to delay opening statements until tomorrow morning. That's fine with me; I can use the extra time to prepare. I ask Kevin and Marcus to be at the house at six o'clock, and we can once again go over where we are and where we have to go.

Laurie makes dinner, then sits with us in the den. Marcus is very frustrated; he feels he has never done so little to advance a case, yet for him this is the most important case that he has ever worked on. Stynes's real identity and his connection to the murder are still a complete mystery, as are Dorsey's whereabouts.

I'm disappointed that Laurie has not received any more communications from Dorsey. I was hoping that he would have a need to continue contacting her so that he could twist the knife even further. We've even set up an elaborate taping system on her cell phone so that we could nail him. No such luck.

Marcus has had success in cataloguing a list of missing persons who might be the actual decapitated body found in the warehouse. After narrowing it down by height, weight, and time of disappearance, there are seven possibilities. Unfortunately, every possible cross-check has not yielded a connection between any of these people and Dorsey.

Marcus leaves about nine o'clock, and Kevin and I go over the parameters of my opening statement. I don't like to write openings out in advance; even detailed notes seem to cut down on my spontaneity and effectiveness. So we go over general areas, points to be made, and then I send him on his way.

Laurie and I get into bed at about eleven, and we lie there talking for an hour or so. She's a realist; she knows how difficult the situation is. The tension I am feeling is overwhelming, and it must be that much worse for her. At least I have some control over the events of the next few weeks; she can only watch and then face whatever consequences those events cause. Even Tara seems to be on edge, uncharacteristically barking out the window at street noises.

Once Laurie and Tara go to sleep, I can focus on Barry Leiter and perform my nightly self-flagellation. I will always consider myself to blame for his murder, and I will always be right.

It's a really long night.

We've been studiously avoiding television coverage of the case, and this morning is no exception. It's very difficult for Laurie to watch people openly calling her a murderer, and the few that are on her side represent small consolation.

Today, however, she will hear Dylan give his opening statement, and it will be far worse than anything she might hear on television. She will have to listen as he tells the jury that she decapitated Alex Dorsey and set fire to his body, and she will hear him ask that jury to send her to prison for the rest of her life. I restate to her what she already knows: that she must sit there stoically and unemotionally, not reacting in any way.

Outside the courthouse today, it is even more chaotic than usual, and inside, the tension level has been ratcheted up considerably. All of this is due to the start of opening statements. The prosecution gets to present its road map of the crime, telling the jury exactly what it is they will prove. They promise only what they believe they can deliver, and in this case that is quite a bit.

Before Hatchet brings in the jury so the statements can begin, he asks if there are any last-minute things we need to go over. We had included my name on our witness list, since I'm the only one who can testify to the meeting I had with Stynes. Dylan attempts to get Hatchet to rule that I should be prohibited from testifying, since Stynes is not relevant to the case. The canons of legal ethics frown on lawyers as witnesses and preach that efforts should be made not to take on cases in which the lawyer will have to testify. But it is not prohibited, and I'm not backing out.

I stand and argue that Stynes is completely relevant, that he in fact is the sole reason Laurie was out behind the stadium. Hatchet decides to defer his decision until the defense case is set to begin, and he calls in the jury.

Lawyers, start your mouths.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Dylan begins, in a tone reflecting his sadness that we have to be here at all, "over the next few weeks you are going to hear different points of view about the incidents that brought us here today. But let me make one fact very clear right at the start."

He walks over toward the defense table and stands a few feet away from Laurie, pointing at her. "This is the person on trial. This is the person whose actions you are here to judge. Now, that may seem obvious now, but soon it won't be. That is because Mr. Carpenter is going to stand up here and try to make Alex Dorsey the person on trial. That's right, he is going to make the victim the criminal, and the criminal the victim.

"Make no mistake about it, Mr. Carpenter is going to pull some tricks that would make Houdini blush. You'll watch as he makes a man rise from the dead, you'll be shocked as he turns a murdered man into a conspirator, capable of concocting grand schemes, and you'll shake your head when, for his next trick, he turns a brutal murderer into an innocent, victimized woman.

"It will be amazing, and it will be amusing, but it will all be nonsense. Because fortunately, there will also be facts that even a magician like Mr. Carpenter can't make disappear, and those facts, every single one of them, will lead you to the conclusion that Laurie Collins brutally murdered Lieutenant Alex Dorsey of the Paterson Police Department."

He points toward Laurie again. "Doesn't look the part, does she? Not who you envision when you think of a person who could decapitate a human being and set the body on fire. The very idea of it seems almost beyond comprehension. But I've prosecuted a lot of horrible criminals, ladies and gentlemen, and let me tell you something: They come in all different shapes and sizes. I've seen mothers that killed their children, I've seen schoolchildren that killed their friends, and none of them looked the part of killer.

"Laurie Collins was a police officer until she left the force after a dispute with Alex Dorsey. She carried a grudge against him and against another man, Oscar Garcia. So she concocted a plan, to murder Lieutenant Dorsey and to frame Mr. Garcia for that murder. Two birds with one stone. And it almost worked."

He shakes his head, both for effect and to demonstrate his own amazement at the brazenness of Laurie's crimes, and repeats, "It almost worked."

Dylan then gets into the meat and potatoes of his case, describing the crime and the prosecution's theory of how it was accomplished. "And I say to you today, there is nothing we will claim that we will not prove. Nothing. By the time Judge Henderson sends you off to deliberate, you will have no trouble understanding that we have proved not just beyond a reasonable doubt but beyond any doubt that Laurie Collins committed one of the most heinous crimes this county has ever witnessed. And I know, I am absolutely positive, that you will bring her to justice."

The eye contact Kevin makes with me tells me that he agrees with my assessment that Dylan has done a strong job. It was clear, concise, persuasive, and it had the jury's attention throughout. It also maintained and took good advantage of the presumption of guilt.

There is a myth going around, something about the Constitution granting everyone the presumption of innocence. In the real world, that is total nonsense. Juries go in thinking that the accused is most likely guilty, or that person would not be on trial.

That leads right into the second myth, which is that the prosecution carries the burden of proof and that the defense bears no burden at all. The burden is absolutely on the defense, starting with the opening statement, to aggressively attack that presumption of guilt and plant in the jury's mind that this defendant just might, wonder of wonders, be innocent. If the defense does not meet that burden, the defendant will be eating off of tin plates for years to follow.

Hatchet asks me if I want to make my opening statement now or reserve it for the conclusion of the prosecution's case. It's a no-brainer; it's time the jury came to understand this is not going to be a walk in the park for Dylan.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," I begin, "that was a heck of a speech, wasn't it? That Mr. Campbell can really turn a phrase."

I look directly at Dylan. "I'm such an admirer of his words, in fact, that I'd like to read some more, if I may. I'll make sure I quote him directly so I don't mess things up."

I walk over to the defense table, and Kevin hands me a piece of paper. "Here goes … these are words that Mr. Campbell said about this case," I say, as I start to read. "'Your Honor, the State of New Jersey will prove that on May thirteenth of this year, in the City of Paterson, New Jersey, the defendant did, with malice aforethought, will-fully murder Mr. Alex Dorsey, a lieutenant in the Paterson Police Department.'"

I hand the paper back to Kevin and turn to the jury. "A little drier than his speech today, but it summed things up pretty nicely, wouldn't you say? The defendant murdered Alex Dorsey. Very simple."

I walk over and point to Laurie. "The only problem is, this wasn't the defendant he was talking about. He was talking about a man named Oscar Garcia, and Mr. Campbell at that time said that Oscar Garcia was guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, of the murder of Alex Dorsey. Now he says that Oscar Garcia is innocent and that Laurie Collins is guilty of that same murder, also beyond a reasonable doubt.

"So here's a riddle: How many people, not working together, can be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the same crime before those doubts become totally reasonable?"

I look at Dylan and shake my head, as if saddened by his transgressions. "In our justice system, a prosecutor should be certain before he brings charges like these, and Mr. Campbell claimed to be certain that Oscar Garcia was guilty. He was totally wrong then, but he asks you to believe he's right now. And he wants you to send somebody to prison for the rest of her life based on that belief.

"I said he was wrong then, which makes me one for one. I'm telling you he's wrong now, which you will soon see makes me two for two.

"But when the State of New Jersey brings a charge of murder, however unfounded, it must be vigorously defended. So let's look at what Mr. Campbell would have you believe. He claims that Ms. Collins carried a grudge against Mr. Dorsey for two long years, never once during that time attempting to cause him physical harm. Then the police discover that she was right about him all along, and he is forced to go on the run. So according to Mr. Campbell, this was the time she chose to make her move. She found him when the entire police department could not, and then she brutally murdered him, even though she could have gotten total vindication and revenge just by turning him over to the department.

"In other words, when he was free and clear, she didn't go after him. When she had won, when he was a destroyed man, that's when she chose to put her own life in jeopardy by committing murder.

"Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?"

I go on a while longer, extolling Laurie's record as a public servant and her extraordinary character as a human being. Kevin and I have debated whether to introduce in the opening statement our belief that Dorsey is alive. He is opposed, and I'm on the fence, but I decide to go ahead.

"I talked to you a little while ago about reasonable doubt. I told you that before long, you will be knee-deep in reasonable doubt about the charge that Ms. Collins murdered Alex Dorsey. But I'll take it one step further. You will have reasonable doubt that Alex Dorsey was murdered at all.

"Because, ladies and gentlemen, it is very possible that the murder victim in this case is alive and laughing at all of us."

EVERY MINUTE IS CRUCIAL DURING A TRIAL. I TRY to avoid spending any time at all on anything not directly related to our defense. It requires self-discipline, not something I have in abundance, but I'm able to summon it when I need it.

What I do most often is read. I read and then reread every scrap of paper we have, no matter how obscure. I sometimes find that it can be on the third or fourth reading that the significance of an item becomes clear.

I file things according to subject matter, and then I keep shuffling the files and going through them whenever I get the time. Tonight I take the file labeled "Tomorrow's Witnesses," which Kevin will update daily during the trial, into the den to go through. I also bring the Stynes file, since I haven't been through it in a while.

Dylan will be calling foundational witnesses tomorrow, none of whom will directly implicate Laurie, but who will "set the table" for the later witnesses to do just that. I go through the discovery related to their testimony and roughly plan out my cross-examination. I won't be able to do significant damage to them, but it's important that I make my points so that the jury does not see the prosecution's case as an uninterrupted juggernaut.

The Stynes file is short and depressing. We have all the police reports on Barry Leiter's murder and on their fruitless efforts to determine Stynes's real identity. I feel the now-familiar stab of pain that the real culprits, the people who sent Stynes to kill Barry, are likely never to be discovered.

The reports written by the individual officers on the scene at Barry's house that night basically echo Pete Stanton's statements to me. Stynes essentially ensured his own death by raising his gun when he was completely surrounded by gun-pointing officers. The problem is that no one, certainly including myself, can say why.

The autopsy report on Stynes is interesting but ultimately unenlightening. He was shot eleven times, six of which could have by themselves been fatal. The coroner describes Stynes as being in outstanding physical shape, with almost no body fat. However, at the same time, he writes that Stynes's body was "worn beyond his apparent chronological age." There was significant joint damage in his knees, elbows, and shoulders and an inordinately large amount of old scarring and scar tissue. This is not a guy who spent much time behind a desk. The coroner wryly noted that Stynes had a single tattoo on his right arm in just about the only area on his body that had not been previously damaged.

I'm just finishing the file when Laurie enters along with her traitor companion, Tara. "How are we doing?" Laurie asks.

It's probably the thousandth time she's asked me that question since this nightmare started, and my insides cringe when I hear it. She wants me to tell her that I've just come up with something, a breakthrough, that is going to bring us a quick, decisive, and startling victory.

"We're getting there," I say without much enthusiasm, and then I try not to listen to the sound of her heart hitting the floor. "It's a process."

"I know, Andy, I know it's a process," she says, partially venting her frustration. "You've told me a hundred times that it's a process, and I've got it down pat. It's a process."

I can get annoyed, start an argument, and we can add "hurt" and "miserable" to our mental state, which alphabetically would follow smoothly after "depressed" and "frustrated." Instead, I put my arm around her shoulder and draw her to me.

"I can say two things with certainty. Number one, this is not a process. Never has been, never will be. In law school that's the first thing they tell you: If you want a process, go to business school."

She smiles, and I can see the anger melting away. "You said you know two things with certainty. What's the other one?"

"That we are going to win. I'd be lying to you if I said I knew exactly how, but we are going to win."

She starts to formulate a question, then changes her mind and rests her head on my shoulder. I know she doesn't fully believe in what I'm saying, but I hope she's getting there. It's a process.

Dylan's first witness is a fourteen-year-old boy, one of a group that saw the smoke coming out of the warehouse that night and called the fire department. Dylan takes twenty minutes when he could have taken two, and since the kid never even saw the body, I don't bother to cross-examine.

Next up is a rookie police officer, Ricky Spencer, who was the first to realize it was a body that was smoldering.

"Did you immediately realize it was a body?" Dylan asks.

"Well, it was dark, and I wasn't really sure. I couldn't see a head … a face." He seems shaken by the recollection, which most people would be. "When I shined a light on it, there was no doubt what it was."

"Other than the fact that there was a body, was there anything else unusual that you noticed about this fire?"

Spencer nods. "Yes. The fire seemed localized around the body, and there was a mostly empty gas can about ten feet away. It appeared to be arson, with the body the only target."

"If you know, did subsequent tests show that the same material that was in the can was involved in the fire?"

"Yes, it was. I saw the reports."

I could object to this as hearsay, but the facts are true, and Dylan could bring the same information in with other, more polished witnesses.

I rise to cross-examine. "Officer Spencer, that night at the warehouse must have been an upsetting experience for you."

He nods hesitantly. Dylan has told him to be wary of the evil defense counsel, but this seems harmless enough. "It was. I've never …" He catches himself. "It was."

"You said, 'I've never.' Did you mean you've never seen anything like it before?"

He's caught, and he nods sheepishly. "I never have."

"But you weren't so upset that your recollections might be incorrect, were you?" I ask.

"No, sir. I remember everything very clearly."

I nod. "Good. Now, before you knew it was a body that was burning, what did you think it might be? Any ideas?"

He considers this. "Well, I thought it might be a mattress. Or maybe an old sofa. It sounds pretty awful to say that now, but …" He lets his answer trail off.

"No, it's okay. I'm sure everybody understands." I look at the jury, and they are clearly joining me in sympathy for what this young man went through. "Now," I continue, "you say it seemed like a mattress, or a sofa … so whatever was on fire seemed fairly large?"

"Yes. He was a big man."

"Right. Now, the gasoline can … was that near the wheelbarrow?"

"I didn't see any wheelbarrow," he says.

"Really? Then where was the gurney?"

"There wasn't any gurney."

Now my surprise is showing through. "How about a cart or wagon of any kind?"

"No."

"Let me see if I understand this. Mr. Campbell said in his opening statement that the murder was committed behind Hinchcliffe Stadium, and then the body was brought to the warehouse. If that's true, are you saying that somebody carried it into the warehouse?"

"It's possible."

"How far was the body from the nearest door?"

"About forty feet," he says.

I back him further into the corner. "So the murderer is somebody strong enough to carry dead weight the size of an old couch more than forty feet?" I walk toward Laurie, to make it seem even more absurd that someone her size could have done this.

"I assume the murderer had a cart of some kind and then took it with him when he left. Or when she left."

"Then why would he leave the gas can?" I ask.

Dylan objects that the witness couldn't possibly know the murderer's internal reasoning, and Hatchet sustains.

"Did you see any wheel marks, or any tracks made by anything other than human feet?"

"No, but you should ask the forensic people that."

I smile, knowing that there were no such tracks. "Oh, I will. Believe me, I will."

Dylan has a couple of questions on redirect, trying to repair whatever damage I may have caused.

"Officer Spencer, do you know what kind of flooring there is in this particular warehouse?"

"I believe it is cement."

"So you wouldn't expect a gurney or a cart to leave tracks?"

"I wouldn't think so, no."

Dylan lets him off, and after Hatchet adjourns court for the day, I head home for what will become a nightly routine. Kevin, Laurie, and I have dinner, discussing the events of the day in court. Marcus will join us when he has something to add, which I hope will be soon. After dinner we move to the den, where we discuss our plans and strategies, and then they both leave me alone with my reading and preparations for the next day's witnesses. It's a grind, but experience has shown that it works for me.

It's eleven o'clock, and I'm sitting on the couch surrounded by paperwork, when Tara comes into the room. She walks over to me and stands a couple of feet away, as if waiting for me to call her over.

"It's obvious you're here only because Laurie's asleep," I say.

She responds by jumping up on the couch, but sitting about six inches away from me. "I need two hands to read, so there's no way I'm petting you," I say.

She tilts her head, as if puzzled by what I'm saying. It should be noted here that Tara has the cutest head tilt I have ever seen. If "head tilting" had been an Olympic sport in the eighties, even the East German judge would have given her a ten.

Tara's next move is to come closer and snuggle up against me, her head resting on my thigh. It's a blatant attempt to receive pleasure, and I can see through it from a mile away. "Nice try," I say, "but I'm not buying it."

She licks my hand, so I spend the next hour reading and petting her until we both fall asleep.

I meet Kevin at the courthouse at nine in the morning, and we again go over how we're going to handle Nick Sabonis, the first witness to tie Laurie to the crime. It's important that we make a real dent in him.

Dylan takes him through his being called to the warehouse the night of the murder, and the actions that he took. They're standard and proper, which is fine, because it has nothing to do with Laurie.

Dylan then moves to the meat of the testimony, which covers the afternoon when Laurie, at my request, went to check out the evidence Stynes had said he left behind Hinchcliffe Stadium.

"She was only there a few seconds before she went toward the clothing and the knife," Nick says.

"So it seemed as if she knew where it was?" Dylan asks.

Nick nods. "Seemed like it to me."

"Have you determined whose clothing it was?"

"It was the defendant's clothing. Ms. Collins." I could argue this point, but the prosecution has fiber evidence and sales receipts, so it would seem like a losing battle to attempt to disprove that these were Laurie's clothes, especially since they were.

"And the bloodstains? Were they the defendant's blood?"

"No, the DNA report showed the bloodstains to be Alex Dorsey's."

Dylan covers the gas can found in Laurie's garage, then starts to introduce the Oscar Garcia side of the equation, getting Nick to talk about the grudge Laurie had against Oscar. He will supplement this later with witnesses to confirm the grudge and to speak about Laurie being spotted near Oscar's apartment.

Dylan, and Kevin for that matter, seem surprised that I'm not objecting more, since a good portion of this is hearsay, but my feeling is that this is all information that the jury will come to realize is true. I don't want to be seen as trying to bury the truth, especially since I can't.

Dylan finally finishes with Sabonis and turns him over to me. I've always believed that a trial doesn't begin until there's a contentious cross-examination. If that's the case, the curtain's about to go up.

"Lieutenant Sabonis, you knew Alex Dorsey fairly well, didn't you?"

"We worked together."

"That would be a really good answer if the question were, 'How did you and Alex Dorsey work?' You could say, 'We worked together,' and then we could move on. The problem, and I do hope it's not a recurring one, is that wasn't the question." I pause. "Am I going too fast for you?"

Dylan objects to my tone, but Sabonis lets the insult roll off his back. He's an experienced witness; he's not going to be drawn into a fight with me. "I knew him fairly well, yes," he says.

"So when you saw the body that night, you were upset that this person you worked with and knew so well was dead?"

"I didn't realize it was him. He had been decapitated and his body badly burned."

I nod. "So he couldn't be identified from the condition of the body?"

"Not by me. It took the DNA tests." I can tell by Sabonis's self-satisfied expression that he's pleased to have gotten in the mention of the DNA. He no doubt thinks it makes my questioning about the body seem unimportant.

"Yes," I say, "we'll get to that. So if there were no subsequent scientific tests, you still wouldn't know who that poor soul was?"

"He was wearing that distinctive ring, which I noticed at the morgue. I've seen Alex wear that ring before."

"You're not saying that you can identify a man's body by the ring on his finger, are you?"

"I'm saying it makes it much more likely that it was him."

I take the ring, which Dylan had introduced into evidence, and hand it to Nick. "Do you recognize this as the ring he had on that night?"

He nods. "I believe so, yes."

"Would you try it on, please?"

Nick puts the ring on his finger and looks up at me, as if waiting for the next command.

"Alex, we were so worried about you," I say, wiping my brow in mock relief. "They said you were dead."

Hatchet admonishes me even before Dylan objects.

"I'm sorry, Your Honor," I say, then I turn back to Sabonis. "You are Alex Dorsey, aren't you?" I ask.

Dylan jumps up. "Objection, Your Honor, this is frivolous. Counsel knows who the witness is."

"Sustained," says Hatchet, staring a hole through my forehead. "Be very careful, Mr. Carpenter."

Undaunted, or at least only partially daunted, I try again. "Does it make it more likely that you are Alex Dorsey because you're wearing that ring?"

Dylan objects again and this time Hatchet overrules him.

"No, it does not."

"But putting Alex Dorsey's distinctive ring on his otherwise impossible-to-identify body would be a good way to make you believe it was him, isn't that right?"

"There is no evidence that happened. And we have the DNA results."

It's my turn to be annoyed. "That's twice that you've mentioned DNA, just like Mr. Campbell asked you. Did he promise you a lollipop if you did what you were told?"

I can see a flash of anger from Sabonis, which makes the question worthwhile, even though Hatchet sustains Dylan's immediate objection.

I change the tempo and throw some questions at him in rapid-fire fashion. "Did you run the DNA test, Lieutenant?"

"No."

"Are you an expert on DNA?"

"No."

"Would you know a piece of DNA if it walked into this room, stood on the prosecution table, and sang, 'What kind of strand am I?'"

Dylan objects again, and I move on. I like to jump around, moving from subject to subject, to keep the witness off balance. "You said that Ms. Collins didn't like Oscar Garcia, that she had a grudge against him. Do you know why?"

"I was told it was because Garcia got the daughter of a friend of hers hooked on drugs."

"When?"

"I'm not sure. I think about two years ago."

"Has Mr. Garcia ever filed a complaint that Ms. Collins attacked him? Tried to kill him?"

"No."

"So she carried this terrible grudge for two years, yet never cut off his head? Never set him on fire?"

"No."

I press on. "Was Oscar Garcia protected during those two years? Any police unit assigned to make sure Ms. Collins couldn't get to him?"

"He wasn't under police protection."

"Do you know if Ms. Collins is licensed to carry a gun?"

He nods. "She is."

A quick change in attack. "How did you happen to be there when Ms. Collins showed up in the area behind Hinchcliffe Stadium?"

"We received some information linking her to the Dorsey murder. We initiated surveillance, and she led us to the stadium," he says.

I react as if surprised by his response, though of course I'm not. "Information from who?"

"It was a phone call from an anonymous informant."

I nod. "You testified earlier that you received information from an anonymous informant initially linking Oscar Garcia to the murder. Is there an 'anonymous informant fairy' looking down on this case?"

Dylan objects and Hatchet sustains; it's getting to be a pattern.

I rephrase. "Was the extent of your investigative efforts in this case to sit by the phone and wait for someone to anonymously call you?"

"It is not uncommon to get such information. People often know things, but don't want their identities to be known."

"And sometimes the information is right, and sometimes it's wrong?"

"Yes."

"Lieutenant Sabonis, did I ask you to go over Ms. Collins's internal police records before you testified today?"

"Yes. I did so."

"Thank you. Would you please tell the jury how many times the then-Detective Collins was found to have committed any form of police brutality?"

"None that I could see."

"Any times that she was accused but not found guilty?"

"No."

"Is there anything in her record that could in any way have predicted she could be capable of a brutal act like this murder?"

Sabonis looks at me evenly. He's pissed and he could waffle, but he doesn't. "No, there isn't."

I end the cross there, and Dylan tries to patch up the holes I punched. Afterward, we break for lunch, and Laurie, Kevin, and I are all feeling pretty good about the Sabonis testimony. We cast some significant doubt in an area where there should automatically already be doubt: the question of whether someone like Laurie could have committed such a horrendous act.

Kevin and I do some quick preparation for Dylan's next witness. It's the head of the police lab, Phyllis Daniels, who will be testifying to the DNA typing. She is our key to establishing doubt that the DNA evidence is reliable, and I think we've got a shot to do just that. Marcus, with some off-the-record help from Pete Stanton, has come up with some good information on lab practices to help me in that effort.

Twenty years ago, Phyllis Daniels was a police lab technician, not particularly accomplished, who had the foresight to recognize the incredible implications the infant science of DNA would have in forensics. She successfully set out to make herself an expert, thereby putting herself on the fast track, or at least the fastest track a scientist in the Paterson Police Department can be on.

I have come up against Phyllis on cases before. She can be long-winded and proud to show off her expertise, but her basic knowledge and honesty come through. In Dylan's hands she is an outstanding witness, leaving no doubt in anyone's mind that the DNA from the body absolutely matched the blood labeled as Dorsey's in the police lab. This testimony comes as no surprise, nor do I have any intention of challenging it.

"Ms. Daniels, you testified that Lieutenant Dorsey's blood sample was in room 21 of the police lab. How is that room guarded?"

"There is always a person sitting at a reception desk at the entrance to the room. Twenty-four hours a day."

"Is that person armed?"

"No, it is a civilian job. But everyone entering must sign in."

"If you know, is the evidence room entrance handled the same way?"

"No," she says. "The evidence room has an armed officer assigned to it."

"So an armed officer is considered more effective than a civilian sign-in monitor?"

"I would say so, yes."

"Who is allowed to enter room 21, after signing in?"

"Police officers who need to access material in the room."

"Thank you," I say. "Now, you testified that the DNA in the blood listed as Lieutenant Dorsey's matched that of the body in this case. Correct?"

"Yes."

"Allow me to present a hypothetical. If the blood in the lab had been changed or incorrectly marked--and in fact wasn't Lieutenant Dorsey's?--then the body also could not be his. Correct?"

"That's certainly correct. But I saw the vial myself when I ran the test."

I introduce a sign-in list from the lab into evidence and ask her to read a specific part of it. It shows that Alex Dorsey had entered the lab twice in the three weeks before his disappearance.

"It is not unusual for him to have been there," she says. "Officers enter all the time."

"If he entered for the purpose of substituting a different vial of blood for the one in his file, could he have done so?"

"I guess it's possible" is her grudging response.

"Reasonable to assume he could have?" I ask. It's a loaded word, since if I can establish reasonable doubt that the blood was Dorsey's, we're home free. How can Dylan prove Laurie murdered Dorsey if he can't even prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Dorsey's dead?

"I'm not sure I know the answer to that" is the closest she will come to a concession.

"What if you were to hear Lieutenant Dorsey's wife testify that he planned to fake his own death? Would that make it reasonable to believe he could have changed the blood?"

"I suppose that it would."

"Thank you. And just so we're clear: If that blood were changed, if it were not Dorsey's blood, then that would mean that the body was not Dorsey? Correct?" I'm repeating myself for effect.

"Yes."

I let her off the stand while barely stifling my desire to yell out "Game, set, and match." We have had a hugely successful day, and the evidence of that is etched on Dylan's face.

I stop outside long enough to conduct a mini-press conference, during which I allow myself some gloating. The questions demonstrate just how successful a day we have had, as the reporters want to know if I believe Hatchet will dismiss the charges once the prosecution rests. I don't believe that he will, but I certainly do nothing to discourage the speculation.

We have our evening meeting as usual, and I try my best to temper the group enthusiasm. Laurie and Kevin completely understand intellectually that we won a battle today but that victory in the war can only be declared by the jury. Nevertheless, we have become so used to depressing news that it is only natural we overreact on the positive side.

Laurie proposes a toast at dinner to her "wonderful attorneys," and since it is bad luck to refuse to toast an obvious truth, I join in. I throw in a toast to Barry Leiter, partially as a sobering device. Kevin is as happy as I've ever seen him, and it takes me a while to get them both to calm down so we can start planning for tomorrow's witnesses.

Just when I think I have them sufficiently wary and depressed over what lies ahead, Willie Miller shows up. He explains that he was going to call to find out if there's been any counteroffer on his case yet (there hasn't), but when he heard today's good news on the radio about the trial, he decided to come over. And with him is Cash, the Wonder Dog.

Cash goes everywhere with Willie, and Willie has determined that Cash is the smartest, most amazing dog in the history of the universe. Since it is a known fact that Tara is the smartest, most amazing dog in the history of the universe, I am aware that his claims are overblown, but I let him continue in his blissful ignorance. Besides, Cash is a pretty cool dog, and Tara seems to like him.

Unfortunately, Willie also brings along his infectious enthusiasm. Without the benefit of any knowledge at all, he confidently tells Laurie that she is just days from vindication. In the process, he pretty much eradicates my efforts to get the group back to thinking cautiously. Just when Laurie is about to bring out the party hats, I convince Willie to take Cash and Tara outside in the yard to play, so that we can get back to work inside.

Willie obliges, grabbing a couple of tennis balls and a Frisbee and leading the dogs out to the yard. Kevin and I get started on the files, but after a few minutes I see Laurie looking out the window and shaking her head in disapproval.

"Look what they're doing to my vegetables."

I sigh and go to the window. Cash is out near the back of the yard, digging furiously in Laurie's vegetable garden. I don't think it's such a big deal. "Looks like we're back to buying basil like the city folk," I say.

"Come on, Andy. I put a lot of work into that garden," Laurie complains.

I'm annoyed at the interruption, but I've got little choice but to deal with this vegetable crisis. I tell Kevin that I'll be right back, and go out to the yard.

As I exit the house, I'm surprised to see Willie coming toward me, looking uncharacteristically upset. He's holding on to Cash by the collar, and I can still see the dirt on Cash's nose from his digging.

"Andy," Willie says, "you'd better get your ass over here."

My initial instinct--make that panic--is that something has happened to Tara. But Willie turns and runs back to the garden, and Tara is standing there, looking none the worse for wear.

Willie points down to where Cash was digging, and I see why he is so upset. Something is buried there, in clear plastic and well preserved.

Alex Dorsey's head.

AS LONG AS I LIVE, I WILL NEVER SEE AS DISGUSTING a sight as that severed head in that plastic bag. I only look at it once, but it will forever be etched in my memory.

I turn and walk back to the house, asking Willie to stay by the garden and secure the area. I go in and tell Laurie and Kevin what I've seen, and we basically sit there speechless, waiting for Pete to show up.

Within five minutes, it is as if a police convention has convened on my lawn. Pete is there, as well as Nick Sabonis and just about every other cop of every rank in the department. Dylan shows up as well, acting as if he is in charge. His look is somber and serious, in an attempt to conceal his total glee at this turn of events.

I tell Nick what happened, truthfully disavowing any knowledge of how the head got there. I remember that Tara had barked out the window facing the garden a few nights before, and that might be when the head was buried. They don't believe me, and they don't even attempt to question Laurie, no doubt fully aware that I would not allow it.

The forensics people spend a couple of hours out there, and the detectives fan out to interview my neighbors. The head is actually taken away in an ambulance, though I think it's too late to save it. I can't speak for the EMS people, but I'm certainly not about to give it mouth-to-mouth.

Just before Nick leaves, he tells us that the coroner is going to be examining the severed head tonight, and Kevin goes down to the morgue to get the results of that examination. Once everyone is gone, Laurie and I stay up to wait for his call.

The call from Kevin comes in less than an hour. "We've got a problem," he says. "The official determination is that the head was from the body in the warehouse, and that obviously means the time of death is the same. He also says that the cut was made from the back, so the murderer probably snuck up on him."

That is all the information he has, and I ask very few questions. We are both aware that our case is in shambles. All our success so far has centered on creating a reasonable possibility that Dorsey's death was faked, that the body in the warehouse may not have been his. We staked our credibility with the jury on this, and the resulting loss of that credibility is devastating, and most likely impossible to recover from.

Just as bad is Laurie's claim that Dorsey called her, at a time long after he was dead, as has now been shown. The jury can logically conclude that she lied about this and can thus doubt anything else she or her lawyer has to say.

It is a disaster.

I tell Laurie what we've learned, and she receives the news quietly, almost with a sense of resignation. She's smart enough to know what it means to our case and to know what Dylan will do with the revelation.

It's only as we get into bed that she reveals what she's been thinking about. "Andy, why don't you ask me if I did it?"

"Laurie--," I begin, but she cuts me off.

"You say that everything in the case fits perfectly into our claim that I was framed. Wouldn't it fit even more perfectly if I actually did it?"

"Laurie, this is not a conversation worth having. We need to focus on what's important. I know that you didn't do it."

"How?" Her eyes are boring in on me like a laser beam.

I sigh, a tactic that turns out to be pitifully ineffective against laser beams.

"Andy," she presses, "how do you know I'm not guilty?"

"Because I know you."

She shakes her head. "Not good enough," she says. "I want to hear facts--facts that prove my innocence to you."

I'm not going to put her off, so I might as well play this out. "Okay. Did you send Stynes to hire me?"

I keep going before she can answer; the questions come out in a barrage, and there's no prosecutor to object. "Did you send yourself to find your own bloodstained clothes? Did you ask me to represent Garcia? Did you murder Barry Leiter? The damned facts are on your side, Laurie. I'm just the only one who knows them."

She's quiet for a moment, then says, "Thank you for that. We're going to be okay." She kisses me, rolls over, and goes to sleep.

Women.

I'm not as good at getting to sleep these days as I used to be, and this is a tougher night than most. Instead of counting sheep, I count evidence, and I apply my "nothing is coincidence theory" to the latest developments.

I had always wondered why someone would decapitate a victim and then bother to set the body on fire. In light of today's events, I can now make the assumption that it was done so that we would have reason to doubt that the body was Dorsey at all.

That might not have been accomplished by the decapitation alone, since there may well have been marks on the body capable of identifying Dorsey. Perhaps scars, perhaps a distinctive tattoo--

I jump out of bed, rush down to the office, and then rummage through the case files until I get to the Stynes file. I find what I'm looking for--the autopsy records. And, more important, the autopsy photographs.

The coroner had made reference to a tattoo on Stynes's body, and I look to see if I can find it on the photographs. Sure enough, there it is, on the upper right forearm, where the coroner said it was. Even with my magnifying glass, though, it's too small for me to make out details.

At a key moment in the Willie Miller case, I called upon Vince Sanders to utilize the sophisticated machinery at his newspaper to blow up a photograph so that I could read a license plate. He was a pain in the ass about it, and that was at six o'clock in the evening. This is two in the morning. I'm going to call him, but if he has the technology to murder me over the phone, he'll do it.

I call Vince at home, and he answers on the third ring. "What the hell do you want?" are the first words out of his mouth.

"How did you know it was me?" I say, though I realize he must have caller ID.

"Next question," he says dismissively.

"Would you meet me at the paper? I know it's late, but I need your help."

"Not as much help as you'd need if I met you at the paper," he snarls.

I play my only trump card. "Vince, it could be crucial to Laurie's defense."

"Twenty minutes," he says. "Take Market Street."

"Why?"

"When you get to the corner of Market and Madison, you'll know," he says, and then hangs up.

I quickly get dressed, leave a note for Laurie in case she should get up, and head for Vince's office. Since my life is important to me, I stop at the Dunkin' Donuts at the corner of Market and Madison. And since it should only be a twenty-minute meeting, I pick up six jelly and six glazed.

The fact that Vince is meeting me at this hour reflects his feelings about Laurie. Vince Sanders, Pete Stanton, Kevin Randall, Marcus Clark, Andy Carpenter … we know who Laurie is and what she's about. And if we have any power at all, she's not about to spend a goddamn day in prison.

Vince stuffs a donut in his mouth, takes the picture, and brings it into a room filled with large machines and people to run them. Within a few minutes the job is apparently accomplished, and he brings the enlarged photograph over to me, laying it out on a table.

The tattoo on Stynes's arm is now at least three times the size of the entire original photograph. I'm not sure what I was hoping for, probably a name or something that could become a clue to his identity. It's still hard to make out, but it doesn't seem as if my hopes are realized.

"What the hell is that?" I ask.

Vince shakes his head in disgust. "What are you, one of those hippie, draft-dodging, limousine liberal, pinko, defeatist, chickenshit, pacifist bastards?"

I nod. "Pretty much …"

"Those are crossed arrows. Your boy was Special Forces. Green Beret time."

This, if true, could be helpful. "Are you sure?"

Vince snorts and points to his right knee. "Of course, I'm sure. If I didn't have this trick knee, I would have been fighting commies right alongside him."

I point to his other knee. "I thought your left knee was the trick one."

He nods without embarrassment. "That's part of the trick."

I thank Vince, and in an uncharacteristically gracious gesture, he offers me a jelly donut on my way out. The bigger they are, the nicer they are.

I go home, grab three hours' sleep, and get up at six to call Kevin. I tell him that we need to find a way to track Stynes, or whatever his real name was, back through his army record.

"No problem," he says. "I'll call my brother-in-law."

It turns out that Kevin's brother-in-law is Lieutenant Colonel Franklin Prentice, stationed at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Not only does Kevin get along great with him, but he has done him some legal favors in the past, which Lieutenant Colonel Prentice would love to reciprocate. It is a stroke of luck, the first that we have had on this case.

We agree that Kevin will spend the day following this lead and leaving the courtroom action in my so-far-incapable hands. And if there is a trial day to miss, this is as good as they come.

Dylan is emboldened by last night's news and loaded for bear. Before the jury comes in, he informs Hatchet of the developments and requests permission to revise both the witness list and the order in which they are called. He wants to make sure that the jury is immediately informed of the defense's disaster. I object, but I don't have a prayer of success, and Hatchet blows me away.

Dylan calls the first officer to arrive at my house last night, who describes what took place. The jury doesn't look terribly surprised, which is evidence that they have been ignoring Hatchet's repeated admonitions to avoid media coverage of the case. The discovery of Dorsey's head on my property was the lead story this morning.

Next up on Dylan's list is a neighbor of mine, Ron Shelby, who semireluctantly testifies that he had seen Laurie digging in the garden. I start off on cross by getting him to admit that he's only seen Laurie planting seeds, not heads.

Moving on, I ask, "Do you remember when you saw the defendant digging in the garden?"

He thinks for a moment. "I can't be sure. Maybe a couple of months ago. It's hard to remember. I mean, at the time it didn't seem unusual."

"Was it daytime?" I ask.

"Yes, absolutely. And I work during the week, so it had to be on a weekend." He's trying to be helpful.

"Was Ms. Collins acting secretive? Like she was hiding something?"

He shakes his head. "No, she waved to me, and then we talked a little."

"Was she behaving at all strangely? Did you sense anything was wrong?"

Shelby is picking up on where we're going. "No, sir. She was as nice as can be. She's a really nice person."

Dylan objects and Hatchet overrules. I conclude with a hypothetical. "Mr. Shelby, if you were trying to hide something very important, do you think you would do it in broad daylight on a weekend when everyone in the neighborhood could see you?"

Shelby allows as how that is not how he would behave at all, and I let him go. I made a little progress, which Dylan doesn't seem too concerned about, mainly because his next witness is the coroner, Dr. Tyler Lansing.

Dr. Lansing is approaching retirement age, which will conclude what can only be described as a thoroughly distinguished career. He has no doubt spent more time in courtrooms than I have, and if there is such a thing as a truly unflappable witness, he's the one.

Dylan takes him through his findings concerning the time of death and the likelihood that the severed head and the burned body are a match. He also brings out the fact that the murderer struck from behind, making it more credible to the jury that Laurie could have done it without having to overpower Dorsey in the first place.

Anybody in the courtroom with a brain knows that what he is testifying to is accurate and correct, and the jury would no doubt frown on anyone trying to get them to believe otherwise. Which is okay, because I'm not dumb enough to attempt it.

"Dr. Lansing," I begin, "you've testified that the head that was dug up last night was severed from its body almost three months ago."

He nods. "That is correct."

"Was the face recognizable as Alex Dorsey?"

"Yes, it was."

"Why had there been so little decomposition?"

"It was buried in an airtight plastic wrapping," he says.

"A plastic bag?"

"No, there was considerably more effort taken here. It was a thick plastic that was stapled and sealed at the edges."

"So the purpose of that effort would have been to prevent decomposition? To preserve the head?"

Dylan objects. "Your Honor, the witness cannot possibly be expected to know the murderer's purpose in doing this."

"Sustained," says Hatchet.

I try again. "Are you aware of any effect the plastic wrapping would have other than preservation?"

He shrugs. "It would keep it clean."

"Would all of this keep it recognizable?"

"Yes. Certainly."

"So let me sum up, and tell me if you agree. The murderer decapitated, and burned the body, which had the effect of leaving the identity in some question. Then the murderer wrapped the head in airtight plastic, thereby preserving the identity. Is that fair?"

"Yes."

"And the body was left in a place that could not be tied to the defendant, but the head was left in a place that could directly be tied to her?"

Dylan objects, saying that this is beyond the scope of the coroner's expertise. Hatchet sustains, but my point has been made. Even so, I try to drive it home.

"Dr. Lansing, how well did you know Ms. Collins when she was with the police force?"

"Reasonably well, I would say."

"Seem like a good cop? An intelligent cop?"

He nods. "In my dealings with her, yes."

"Assuming she has a normal amount of common sense and a good knowledge of police procedures, wouldn't you say that the prosecution's theory as to her actions would make her self-destructive and stupid?"

Dylan objects, but Hatchet lets him answer. "It would seem so. On the other hand, though this is not my area of expertise, I would say that some people who commit terrible crimes want to be caught and punished."

"Good," I say. "We agree."

He is surprised. "We do?"

"Yes. We agree that whoever did this wants Laurie Collins to be caught and punished."

LIEUTENANT COLONELS HAVE A LARGE workforce to call on when they want to get something done. Which is why Kevin's brother-in-law, Lieutenant Colonel Prentice, is able to call him back with our information just six hours after we had requested it.

Kevin reports that since all identification records of Stynes had mysteriously been erased, our favorite LC had his minions compare his face with that of every known member of the Special Forces during the Vietnam era. A positive match was made, and Stynes's real name is Roger Cahill. He was a sergeant in the 307^th Division, Delta Company, and served in Vietnam for three years, distinguishing himself and winning three combat medals.

Kevin asked him to run a military report on Alex Dorsey, but unfortunately Dorsey and Cahill were not in the same division. At first glance, nothing in Stynes/Cahill's record matches Dorsey, but we put Marcus on the case to try to dig something up. The bottom line is, we have new information but don't yet know enough to benefit from it.

I put in a call to Darrin Hobbs, the FBI special agent who deflected my earlier attempts to get information about the FBI's intervention into the Dorsey matter. I'm told he's in a meeting, and I wind up speaking to Agent Cindy Spodek, Hobbs's underling, heretofore best known for successfully resisting my conversational charms when we last met.

This time she's just as aloof, but I'm not trying as hard. I don't really care if she likes me or not; I'm looking for information. I tell her what I've learned about Cahill and that I want access to the FBI investigative files to see if he is included in them, under either "Cahill" or "Stynes."

To my surprise she seems interested by what I am saying, and asks some clarifying questions. But ultimately, she says, "You understand that I can't authorize the release of our confidential information. That will be up to Special Agent Hobbs."

This is what I expected. "When can I speak with him?"

"I'll be talking with him before the end of the day."

I give her my phone number and tell her I'll be waiting for his call.

"One of us will call you back," she says. "But I must tell you, I think you should pursue any other avenues you have. It is not the kind of information Special Agent Hobbs is likely to share."

I again ask that he call me, and she promises to do her best. She seems sympathetic to my request but cognizant of the inclinations of the person for whom she works. My guess is that she is right, and I doubt that I'll hear from him.

It takes ten minutes to again be proved wrong. The phone rings and Hobbs himself is on the phone.

"Andy? Darrin Hobbs here. What's this about you needing more information?" His tone is friendly but on-the-run, as if he's really busy, but he'll take a few seconds to rid himself of this annoyance.

"That's right," I say. "There's a new piece added to the puzzle. A guy named Cahill."

"Never heard of him," he says dismissively.

"It's not the only name he uses. I need to know if he turned up in your investigation of Petrone and Dorsey."

"That road is closed. I told you that."

The guy is on my nerves, but it won't pay to antagonize him. "Yes, you did," I say. "I'm hoping you'll reconsider."

He laughs a short laugh at the absurdity of my hope. "It's not going to happen."

There's no sense beating around the bush. "Hopefully, the judge will have a different view of that."

The temperature of his voice drops fifty degrees in the blink of an eye. "I don't know how much you know about me, Carpenter, but if you know anything, then you know I can't be threatened."

"I'm defending my client," I point out, my voice reflecting my annoyance.

"Good for you." Click.

Within thirty seconds of the time he hangs the phone up, my anger switches from being directed at Hobbs the pompous asshole to Carpenter the idiotic, counterproductive defense attorney. I've just permanently pissed off the only guy who might have information that could help Laurie.

Good job, Andy.

I call Kevin and give him the job of preparing a motion asking Hatchet to compel Hobbs to turn over the FBI investigation files. Kevin is happy to do it; motions like this are undoubtedly one of his strengths, and this will prevent him from having to be in court tomorrow morning. It would be depressing to watch me spend another day playing legal rope-a-dope, lying back as Dylan pummels us with witnesses.

Actually, the rope-a-dope analogy isn't quite accurate.

Ali, in using it in his fight against Foreman, was doing it intentionally. I'm not.

Ali had a strategy. I don't.

Ali had the masses chanting "Ali bomaye! Ali bomaye!," which when translated means "Ali, kill him! Ali, kill him!" I have the press, writing columns and going on TV, essentially saying, "Carpenter, you're a moron! Carpenter, you're a moron!," which when translated means "Carpenter, you're a moron! Carpenter, you're a moron!"

Dylan's first punch/witness of the day is a neighbor of Oscar Garcia, who recounts having seen Laurie hanging out near Oscar's apartment on a number of occasions. I make the point that "apartment hanging" is not a felony, but it remains an effective small piece of Dylan's puzzle.

Next up is Laurie's ex-partner on the force, Detective Stan Naughton. He looks like he would rather be anywhere else than here and occasionally looks over at Laurie, his eyes apologizing for what his mouth is saying.

Naughton recounts the story of Oscar providing drugs to the daughter of Laurie's friend and how Laurie was determined to nail Oscar for it. It provides motive with a capital "M," at least concerning the initial framing of Oscar for the Dorsey killing.

With Naughton obviously friendly to the defense, it's simply my job on cross-examination to lead him where he already wants to go. I take my time doing so, prompting him to talk about Laurie's exemplary record on the force, his feeling that she is a levelheaded, decent human being who abhors violence and who never came anywhere close to committing police brutality.

Kevin shows up, motion in hand, and I tell Hatchet that we have an important matter to bring up before the court. We file the motion, providing Dylan with a copy, and Hatchet schedules argument for nine A.M. tomorrow.

Kevin and I are going to be up late tonight going over our position on the motion. We will have to convince Hatchet that the Cahill/Stynes involvement in the case is relevant and presents a credible alternative to Laurie's guilt. At the same time, we also have to make him believe that there is at least a reasonable chance that the FBI files contain information that could be exculpatory to Laurie.

I arrive home before Kevin, and Edna hands me the mail that has built up over the last three days. It's mostly solicitations for charitable contributions, and I have a quick pang of guilt that I have been neglecting my philanthropic blundering during the trial.

There is also an envelope from Stephen Cates, the opposing lawyer in the Willie Miller civil lawsuit. It's surprisingly thick, and when I open it, I see why. It is a one-page letter attached to a long legal document. The letter informs me that they have agreed to our demands and that when Willie signs the attached settlement agreement, they will forward a check in the amount of eleven million seven hundred thousand dollars.

I'm thrilled for Willie, but I'm so obsessed with the trial that my first reaction is to view this as a distraction. Nevertheless, it wouldn't be fair to Willie not to tell him about it immediately, so I ask Edna to call him and have him come over.

Willie arrives so quickly that I think he must have been waiting on the front lawn for Edna to call. With him, as always, is Cash, who is probably delighted at the prospect of digging up another head.

"What's up?" Willie asks.

"We received an official response from the other side."

"We did?" he asks nervously. "You got any beer?"

"You want a beer before you hear their answer?"

"Every time I've ever gotten good news in my whole life I've had a beer in my hand. Every single time."

"Really?" I ask. "What about the time the jury found you not guilty and you got off death row?"

That time had slipped his mind. "Okay, forget the beer. What did they say?"

I hold up the settlement agreement. "That if you sign this paper, they'll give you a check for over eleven million dollars."

Willie looks at me, not speaking, for about twenty seconds. Then he leans over, picks up Cash and holds him right up to his face, and says, "Did I tell you? Did I tell you?"

And then he starts to cry. Not huge sobs, but serious sniffles and definite tears. Cash seems far less upset, no doubt recognizing that he has gone from roaming the streets eating garbage to a future filled with designer biscuits.

Willie turns back to me, apparently wanting to explain his reaction. "This doesn't make up for what I went through, you know? But it's pretty damn good."

I had long ago told Willie I would handle his case for ten percent, which is far lower than customary. Even at that, I've just earned more on this one case than I've made in the totality of my legal career.

I laugh at the realization and turn to Kevin. "Do you realize that we just made over a million dollars in commission?"

"What do you mean 'we'?"

"You're in for half," I say.

Ever honest, Kevin says, "Andy, you pay me a hundred and fifty an hour."

I shake my head. "Not on this case. On this case you get half a million. You can buy those triple-load washers and dryers you've had your eye on." I turn to Edna. "And you get two hundred."

"Dollars?" she asks.

"Thousand," I say.

Laurie comes into the room, and I give her the rest, which she can put toward her legal fees. Within a few moments we're all laughing, out of control, a brief but welcome respite from the ongoing pressure we've been under for months.

Edna calls cousin Fred, making appointments for him to talk to both Willie and herself about investing their windfalls. Kevin and I adjourn to the den to plan for tomorrow's hearing. Based on what we come up with, I probably should have saved Kevin's half million to offer to Hatchet.

We're joined in court by Darrin Hobbs, Cindy Spodek, and Edward Peterson, the U.S. attorney representing the FBI's position. Hobbs, certainly still angry about my supposed threat to do exactly what I've now done in bringing him to court, ignores me. Spodek does the same, no doubt taking the lead from her boss.

Hatchet calls on me first, admonishing me to be brief, since he's already read our motion papers. I recount what I know about Dorsey's involvement with organized crime, and the FBI's intervention with Internal Affairs on his behalf. I then talk about Cahill/Stynes, starting with his visit to my office, his "admission" about the bloody clothes behind the stadium, right up to his murder of Barry Leiter.

I think my story is intriguing, if not compelling, but rather weak regarding relevance to the FBI files. It is difficult to conceal what is the essential truth: We have no idea what is in those files, and our seeking them is nothing more than a fishing expedition.

Dylan is quick to see it for what it is. "Your Honor, this is a fishing expedition," he says. "The defense counsel is telling an uncorroborated story to help the defense. Even if the court were to take it at face value, which I am certainly not suggesting, the link to this FBI investigation is just not there."

Hatchet then turns to Peterson, the government lawyer, who presents a stipulation from Special Agent Hobbs that there is nothing in the files regarding Dorsey that would be helpful to either side in this case and that there is no mention at all of Cahill/Stynes. Peterson takes great pains to point out that Hobbs is a highly decorated military officer, who has earned similar praise in his career with the Bureau. There should be no reason, according to Peterson, to question his word.

Peterson doesn't stop there. "The details in the file are of little consequence to the government," he says. "Its insignificant revelations would have no impact on this case, but the act of releasing it could have widespread ramifications on other cases. By their very nature, these investigations must be cloaked in secrecy; many who cooperate do so with that secrecy as a condition. If that trust is violated, the inhibiting effect on future investigations could be devastating."

Hatchet, bless his heart, seems unmoved. "We are not talking about publishing this in the New York Times," he says, "we are talking about my looking at the material in camera to determine probative value to this case."

"Respectfully, Your Honor," Peterson counters, "Agent Hobbs has stipulated that there is none."

"And he may be correct. But he's a war hero, not a judge. Which balances things out quite well, since I'm a judge and not a war hero. I assume you brought the file with you?"

Peterson nods. "As you ordered, Your Honor."

"Good. Turn it over and I'll review it."

Peterson just nods in resignation, and Hobbs turns and walks out, with Spodek behind him. It's a victory for us, but whether it will turn out to be a meaningful one will depend on what Hatchet finds in the file.

DYLAN HAS SOME FINISHING TOUCHES TO COVER before he rests his case. These take the form of fact witnesses, basically noncontroversial, who will provide information to round out and support the prosecution's theories.

First up is the 911 operator who received the anonymous tip alerting the police to Oscar Garcia's guilt, information that proved erroneous.

The tape is played in court, though I've of course heard it many times. It's a female voice, masked somewhat by some computer or electronic technique. Dylan's theory is that the caller was Laurie, and he buttresses his contention by pointing out that the caller referred to Oscar as a "perpetrator." It's a term, in Dylan's view, that a cop or ex-cop like Laurie would be likely to use.

I have an expert prepared to testify that, computer enhancement techniques being as advanced as they are, the original voice could be female, male, or a quacking duck. There's no sense questioning the prosecution's witness about it at this point, so I let her off the stand with no cross-examination.

Next up is the police officer who found Dorsey's gun in Oscar's house during the execution of a search warrant. Since Oscar has been cleared, and since Laurie has been placed near Oscar's apartment, this supports the theory that she planted the gun there as part of her frame-up of poor Oscar.

Once again there's little I can do with this witness, other than to get him to confirm that Laurie's fingerprints were not found anywhere in the apartment. I'm sure the jury would consider Laurie, as a former cop, too savvy to have left any prints, so I don't accomplish much.

The parade continues with Rafael Gomez, a police officer who found the gas can in Laurie's garage and who testifies that the gas/propane residue in it is the same mixture as that used to set Dorsey's body on fire. While that is no doubt true, his testimony at least gives me an opening to score some points.

"Officer Gomez, were there any fingerprints on the gas can?"

"No, sir. Wiped clean."

"Really? So you think she was stupid enough to leave this terribly incriminating piece of evidence in her own garage but smart enough to wipe off the prints?"

"Well …"

He's unsure, so I push the advantage. "Maybe she figured the police wouldn't be able to figure out whose garage it was?"

He thinks for a moment and comes up with a pretty good answer. "Maybe she didn't wipe it. Maybe she was wearing gloves. To keep the gas off her hands."

"Is the gas dangerous to touch?" I ask.

"No, but some people--"

I interrupt, and Dylan doesn't object, even though he should. "Where did you find the gloves?"

"We didn't find any gloves."

"But you said you conducted a full search of the premises," I point out.

"We did, but there were no gloves. Maybe she threw them away so we wouldn't find them."

"Under the theory that Ms. Collins would get rid of the gloves but keep the can of gas?"

"I can't say what she would do" is his fairly lame response.

"Is that what you would do?" I press.

"I wouldn't murder anyone."

"You and Ms. Collins have that in common," I say. "No further questions."

I've done with Officer Gomez exactly what I've done with many of Dylan's witnesses, no more and no less. I've shown that if, after the murder, Laurie had done the things Dylan has alleged, then her behavior was illogical. The problem is that there is no reason a jury should expect someone who has decapitated and set fire to a police officer to act logically. In effect, I am saying, "She couldn't have committed this bizarre crime because if she did, look how strangely she acted afterwards." In this case, strange behavior fits neatly with the crime and could be taken as an indicator of guilt, rather than as exculpatory.

Dylan's last witness is retired Paterson police captain Ron Franks, probably Dylan's best friend on the force. Though Franks retired more than a year before the Internal Affairs investigation that Laurie instigated, Dylan's purpose in calling him is to present the positive side to the victim.

It makes sense. We have been tearing Dorsey down as best we can, and Dylan certainly knows that will be a big part of our defense. The worse Dorsey looks, the less compelled the jury might feel to avenge his murder.

Franks is only on for fifteen minutes, but he talks warmly and admiringly of Dorsey's years of public service, both in the military and especially with the police department.

My cross-examination is brief, honing in on the fact that Franks knows nothing about the Internal Affairs investigation or the facts that caused Dorsey to go on the run. The man seems to sincerely have been a friend of Dorsey's, and it will do me no good to attack him.

Dylan rests his case, I move for a dismissal, and Hatchet denies my motion. Since it's late, and it's Friday afternoon, he excuses the jury and tells me I can start our defense Monday morning. Unfortunately, he means this coming Monday.

As we're about to start one of Laurie's perfectly prepared dinners, a phone call comes in that certainly has the potential to ruin it. It's from Hatchet's office, setting up a conference call between Dylan, Hatchet, and myself. Dylan is already on the line, but I'm not in the mood for chitchat, so I just wait for Hatchet.

After a few minutes His Majesty gets on the line. "Gentlemen, I have made a ruling on the defense motion, and I thought you should hear it immediately so that you can be guided in your preparations for court on Monday."

He pauses, but neither Dylan nor I say a word, so he continues. "I have carefully reviewed the FBI material, and I have determined that it provides no new or relevant information to this case. Lieutenant Dorsey is mentioned only peripherally, and Mr. Cahill, or Stynes, is not mentioned at all. There is also no indication of another police lieutenant that may have been in a conspiracy with Mr. Dorsey.

"Therefore, my ruling is that the probative value of these documents as it relates to our trial is effectively zero and certainly not worth interfering with an FBI investigation. Any questions?"

Dylan, the victor, responds first. "Not from my end, Your Honor. I think you made the right decision."

"That's comforting," Hatchet responds dryly. "Mr. Carpenter?"

"Have a nice weekend, Your Honor."

The loss of this motion does not come as a great surprise. We have no choice but to shrug it off, and Kevin and I work until almost eleven o'clock on our defense strategy. Our plan is to work all day tomorrow and then take Sunday off, resting up before the battle begins.

Laurie is already asleep when I get into bed, and I lean over and kiss her lightly on her forehead. My concern for her is almost overpowering. We're heading into the homestretch, and she doesn't have a hell of a lot of horse under her.

I'm just dozing off when the phone rings, and I jolt upright, immediately alert. The last time I got a call at this hour, it started the chain of events that led to Barry Leiter's death. I have an initial desire to just let the phone ring, but I force myself to pick it up.

"Hello?"

The voice on the other end is immediately recognizable, as it should be, since I heard it a number of times earlier today. It is the computer-masked female voice that in the 911 call identified Oscar Garcia as Dorsey's murderer.

"Mr. Carpenter, you're not looking in the right place."

This of course is not exactly shocking news. "Where should I be looking?" I ask.

"Vietnam. That's where it began. That's where you'll find the connection."

"Connection between who? Dorsey and Cahill?"

There is no answer, and I'm desperately afraid she's going to hang up. "Come on, please," I say, "what about Vietnam? I need more to go on."

Again there is no answer; for all I know she may not even be on the phone any longer. Then she answers hesitantly, as if not sure whether to tell me more. "Talk to Terry Murdoch."

"Who is he? Where is he?"

Click.

I don't even put down the phone; I just dial Kevin's number.

"Hello?" he answers with not a trace of sleepiness in his voice.

"What time do lieutenant colonels go to sleep?" I ask.

KEVIN IS OVER BY SIX IN THE MORNING TO JUMP-start our weekend. He informs me that, even though he planned to call his brother-in-law this morning, he couldn't resist and called him last night. It was a great thing to do, because it, has already gotten the ball rolling.

Lieutenant Colonel Prentice has already contacted the Records Division at Fort Monmouth and instructed them to fully cooperate with our investigation. He's established a liaison there, Captain Gary Reid, to deal with us.

Laurie is just getting up as Kevin and I are ready to leave for Fort Monmouth. She's excited about the news and the possibilities it represents and amazed that so much has happened while she was asleep. I can tell it's killing her that she can't go with us today, but she's forced to leave it up to us.

Fort Monmouth is located on the Jersey Shore and is surrounded by beach communities. We've left early to try to beat the beach traffic, but the only way to really do so would be to leave in February.

It's a phenomenon that has always amazed me. People get in their cars in the height of the summer heat and crawl along for two or three hours, all for the right to spend an afternoon lying in grainy dirt, baking, sweating, and burning under a barrage of cancer-causing rays. Their only escape is to enter the water, which can best be described as a freezing, salty urinal. Then, unless they've endured the day covered with sticky grease, they can spend the two or three hours on the way home watching their skin blister.

As you may have noticed, I'm the type of guy who sees the ocean as half-empty.

We arrive at Fort Monmouth, though the only thing that tips us off to the fact that it's an army post is the "U.S. Army" sign at the main gate. It is basically an office complex of nondescript brick buildings, set in the middle of a residential area. For every soldier we see walking around, there are three or four civilian workers. Kevin, whose mind is filled with obscure knowledge like this, tells me that the fort is mainly involved with electronics and that its chaplain school has recently been moved to Maryland.

We head to the main building, and Captain Reid is there to meet us. He is the personification of the buttoned-down military man and looks as if he had his uniform pressed while he was in it. He openly tells us that the order from Lieutenant Colonel Prentice was quite clear: He is to do whatever is necessary to facilitate our investigation. Which is good, because there is no doubt that this is a guy who follows orders.

Captain Reid assigns four young enlisted men to do our bidding. It gives me a feeling of power; I'm tempted to send them into Guatemala Bay to rescue the otters. But first things first, and we request all military files related to Dorsey and Cahill, as well as a search for any records for a Terry Murdoch, the only stipulation being that he be someone who served during the Vietnam era.

Within moments we are looking at and comparing the military histories of Dorsey and Cahill. The files are quite detailed, listing on an almost daily basis every commendation, every assignment, every communication, even every illness that they had.

There are similarities to be sure. Both were Army Special Forces, both had advanced infantry training and were considered outstanding soldiers, and both served a lengthy hitch in Vietnam. Dorsey's time there started two months after Cahill's, which means they overlapped for a long time.

Unfortunately, there is no obvious connection. The two men came from different parts of the country, went to different schools, trained stateside at different posts, and were assigned to different divisions in Vietnam. There is no evidence, at least none that we can see, that they knew each other. Certainly nothing that should have caused them both to die, their deaths interrelated, all these years later.

Captain Reid comes in with the military records of two men and one woman, all named Terry Murdoch. They all served in Vietnam, but only one of the men was there at the same time as Cahill and Dorsey. He was also Special Forces, advanced infantry, and much decorated, but again has no other obvious connection to the others. Murdoch left the army in 1975, and as with Cahill and Dorsey, that is when the army lost track of him.

"Do you have any idea where we could find him now?" I ask Reid.

"We don't keep those records," he says, "but we have some resources we can call upon when it's absolutely necessary."

He says this cryptically and ominously, and I'm afraid to ask him what he's talking about, since if he tells me, he might have to kill me. Kevin's not the bravest guy either; right now he wouldn't open his mouth if I offered him a raspberry turnover.

"Lieutenant Colonel Prentice indicated everything was possible," I say.

Reid smiles. "Yes, he did."

Reid leaves, suggesting we go over to the mess hall, as aptly named an establishment as has ever existed, for lunch. I just have some coffee, then watch as even Kevin is challenged to find something edible. Finally, he settles on a plate of what looks like baked linoleum. He puts things in his stomach I wouldn't put in a Dumpster.

"It's not bad," he says, and goes up to see if he can negotiate another helping. The server agrees; I'm sure it's the first time he's ever been confronted with a request for seconds. Kevin is polishing off plate number two when a soldier comes in and summons us back to see Captain Reid.

"You guys get enough to eat?" Reid asks us when we return.

"I would say we both had as much as we wanted," I say.

"Good. Terry Murdoch has not exactly been a credit to the army since he went civilian."

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"He's currently serving time in Lansing."

Lansing is a federal prison in Pennsylvania, less than a hundred miles from here. "What is he in for?"

"Counterfeiting," he says. "Twenty-five to life, must serve the twenty-five minimum?"

"Which means he can't get out until he's seventy-five years old. Can you get us in to talk to him?"

Reid hesitates. "Lieutenant Colonel Prentice didn't mention anything about interceding with federal prison authorities."

"I'm sure it just slipped his mind," I say, and then turn to Kevin. "He's your brother-in-law, why don't you call and ask him?"

Captain Reid shakes his head with authority. Actually, he does everything with authority. "Won't be necessary," he says. "When do you want to go?"

It's getting late in the day, and we haven't done any case preparation yet. I also want some time to figure out how to approach Murdoch, so I say, "How about tomorrow, late afternoon?"

Reid nods. "Done. He'll be expecting you. Whether he talks to you or not is up to him."

Reid tells me that I should not hesitate to contact him if I need anything else, so before we leave, I test that by asking if we can have copies of the files on all three men. Within moments I have them. This kind of power is so intoxicating that I've decided I want to be a lieutenant colonel when I grow up.

We get home, and after briefing Laurie on what we've learned, Kevin and I get started on preparing for our own witnesses. Edna is there, making sure we have pens, paper, coffee, or whatever else we might need. After all this is over I'm going to take some time to reflect on the concept of Edna working weekends.

The most difficult part of the preparation is our belief that a significant part of the defense will involve the Dorsey-Cahill-Murdoch connection, yet we don't know where that is going to take us. We may even have to try to string out our case, delaying and taking more time while we follow the dots. One of our problems is that Hatchet's never been real big on case stringing.

In order to maximize our time, and to pretend I'm a big shot, I agree to spend six thousand dollars to charter a private plane to fly to Lansing. Having somebody go to all this effort and expense just to see him will no doubt make Murdoch the envy of the entire cellblock.

I have Edna reserve the plane, and I'm so focused on the case that alarm bells don't go off in my head when she asks, almost offhandedly, "How much do you weigh?"

When I see the contraption she has chartered the next morning, the meaning behind Edna's questions becomes clear, and I immediately wish I had exercised more at Vince's gym. But Clyde, the pilot, seems like a nice enough guy, and he swears that we'll make it, no problem, so I get on.

I have a great time, the first relaxing moments I've had in a while. Clyde lets me take the controls, and I mentally shoot down about thirty Russian MIGs, anachronistically teaching those "dirty commies" what American skill and courage are all about.

As we land at a small private airport just outside Lansing, ground control tells the pilot that the prison has sent somebody out to meet me. Good old Captain Reid can really get things done.

A car pulls right up to the plane as we taxi in. I get out and am greeted by a thin, pasty-complexioned guy who gives me a limp handshake and actually introduces himself as "Larry from Lansing." My immediate mental connection is to a sports talk-radio show: "Hi, this is Larry from Lansing … I'm a first-time caller … uhhhh … how do you think the Mets are gonna do this year?"

I tell Larry I want to get right out to see Murdoch, but he says, "The warden sent me out to tell you there's a problem with that."

Uh-oh. "What kind of problem?"

"He killed himself last night. Slit his throat in his cell," says Larry from Lansing with the kind of passion normally reserved for readings of the telephone directory.

The news is simultaneously devastating, frustrating, and yet further confirmation that we are on the right track. I have Larry from Lansing take me to the prison, a collection of gray buildings surrounded by barbed wire in the middle of nowhere.

The warden is Craig Grissom, who looks and sounds just like Eddie Albert in The Longest Yard. When I meet him, it's immediately obvious that he isn't grieving too much over Murdoch's death; nor do I get the feeling he stayed up agonizing over the eulogy. The closest he comes to serious reflection is, "Things like this happen. You try to prevent them, but they happen."

I coax the particulars out of Grissom. The guard found Murdoch in his locked cell while making his midnight rounds last night. The doctor's estimate was that he had been dead at least an hour.

"How did he get the knife?" I ask.

He seems surprised. "Who?"

"Murdoch."

"You think he got the knife?"

"Larry said it was a suicide. That he slit his own throat," I say.

Grissom shakes his head sadly. "Larry's not exactly the sharpest tool in our shed. How many suicides slit their own throat from ear to ear, then still have the knife tucked in their hand after they bleed to death and fall to the floor?"

"So somebody got into his locked cell in the middle of the night and killed him? Warden, this is a maximum security prison."

He nods. "That's why they didn't hang him in the mess hall during dinner." He can see me getting more and more frustrated. "Look, this is not the Boy Scouts. We've got murderers in here, so we've got murders. We do our best, but it is what it is."

"Had he been told I was coming?"

Grissom nods. "I told him myself. He seemed to like the idea. Maybe somebody else didn't."

"Did he make any phone calls?"

"Hard to tell," he says. "We monitor the pay phones, but they can get access to cell phones."

"Cell phones in the prison?"

He shrugs. "They got money or things to trade, they can get whatever they want in here. Think of it as the old economy--a return to the barter system."

Grissom gets Murdoch's file at my request and tells me that he was serving a lengthy term for counterfeiting. It was only incredibly bad luck on his part that got him arrested. There was a fire in his house while he was out, and when the fire department broke in, among the things they saved were plates with American presidents on them. His lawyer had claimed that the evidence should be suppressed since the firemen had no warrant, but the judge correctly ruled that they had good reason to enter the burning building.

Referring to Murdoch's murder, I ask, "Are you going to investigate this?"

He laughs a short laugh, then nods. I've got a hunch the investigation is not going to be relentless, nor is it going to get anywhere. Just like I'm not going to get anywhere with Warden Grissom. I hope Burt Reynolds comes here, puts a football team together, and kicks his ass.

I have Larry from Lansing take me back to Clyde the pilot, so I can take my new frustrations out on those dirty commies.

I call ahead to Kevin, tell him what happened, and ask him to assign Marcus to find out everything he can about Terry Murdoch. The first thing I do when I get home is go through the military files again, looking for some connection, any connection, but there just isn't anything there.

Kevin and I finish our preparations for tomorrow's witnesses, and Laurie and I get to bed early. For the past couple of weeks, we've pretty much kept our conversations about the case out of the bedroom, more to help our insomnia than for any other reason.

But tonight Laurie breaks that unwritten covenant. "I want to testify," she says.

"I know you do. We're just not ready to make that decision yet."

"I'm ready, and I've made it. I'm not going to jail without having told my story. I'm telling you now so you can factor it in."

"Consider it factored," I say a little petulantly. I need to focus on tomorrow's witnesses, not a decision that is now, no matter what my client says, hypothetical and premature.

The problem is, now that it's in my head, I spend the next hour thinking about it. Like every other defense attorney practicing on this planet, I am generally loath to put my clients on the stand. There is just too much that can go wrong, and not enough potential upside to counterbalance that.

The main reason not to put Laurie on, besides the unseen pitfalls inherent in such a move, is that she doesn't have any evidence to present. It's not like she has an alibi for the night of the murder; all she can say are the things she didn't do. "I didn't kill him, I didn't frame Oscar, I didn't own the gas can." Etc., etc., etc. These are self-serving statements which won't and shouldn't carry any weight with the jury. The truth is, anything positive that she might have to say about the facts of the case I can introduce through other witnesses, without exposing her to a withering cross-examination.

At this point the only reason I can come up with to put her on is to give the jury a taste of who she is. There has always been an incongruity between Laurie's demeanor, her persona, and the crime she is accused of committing. Dylan's task, even with the overwhelming evidence in his favor, has first been to get the jurors to consider Laurie capable of such an act. The more they get to know her, the harder it will be for them to believe it.

If Laurie does testify, she will be the last witness we call. Tomorrow morning will be considerably less dramatic, but it's important that we get off on the right foot. I have no doubt that if the jury were to be polled right now, they would vote to convict. Which means we have twelve formerly open minds to win back.

THOUGH THE PROSECUTION BUILDS THEIR case brick by brick in logical order, my style of defense is to shoot random darts, jumping around so they won't know where the next attack is coming from.

Our first witness is Lieutenant Robert Francone, the officer who directed the Internal Affairs investigation of Dorsey. Since Celia Dorsey told me that her husband was in cahoots with an unidentified lieutenant, in my mind everyone with that rank is a suspect. However, Francone is widely considered above reproach, and Pete Stanton endorses that view.

I take Francone through the particulars of the investigation. He's not hostile, just reluctant, viewing the material as not meant to be public. Nevertheless, the information ultimately comes out, and the portrait painted of Dorsey is that of a corrupt cop, selling out to, and profiting from, the criminals he was sworn to combat. Those criminals will have to go unnamed during this trial, as per an edict Hatchet issued earlier in the case.

"So Ms. Collins was correct in her initial report about Dorsey?"

He nods. "She was, although she was just skimming the surface. Most of it was brought out by our subsequent investigation."

"Did you think it was proper that he only received a reprimand?" I ask.

"That's not really my area. My job is just to report the facts."

"Then let me ask it a different way. Were you surprised when he received only a reprimand?"

"Yes."

"The people Dorsey was involved with, the criminal element you refer to, would you consider them capable of murder?"

He says yes quickly, before Dylan has time to object to my improper question. Since the jury has heard the answer anyway, I withdraw the question.

I get Francone to say that there were no complaints of any kind directed at Laurie in all her time on the force, and then turn him over to Dylan.

"Lieutenant Francone," Dylan begins, "regarding these alleged mob people you say Alex Dorsey was involved with, to your knowledge, did any of them ever cause him harm?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"And they were in something of a partnership, is that right? Both sides benefited from the relationship?"

"Yes."

Dylan then asks him a few questions about the type of violence organized crime generally practices, and he says that decapitations and body burnings are very atypical.

Dylan lets the lieutenant off the stand, satisfied that he's done little damage to the prosecution. He's right: All we've managed to show is that Dorsey was not a choir-boy and hung around with dangerous people. There is absolutely no evidence that those people had anything to do with Dorsey's death, but unfortunately plenty that Laurie did.

Next up is Celia Dorsey, a less important witness for us than she would have been if we were still contending that Dorsey is alive. Her testimony is a self-indictment of a wife looking the other way while her husband descended into a life of crime and violence.

With quiet dignity, she talks about their life together, about his increasing secrecy, the talks with the mysterious other lieutenant that she overheard, and his stealing their money before leaving.

"And he was gone for a week before the murder?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Were the police looking for him?"

She nods. "Yes. I told them that I didn't know where he was. But that if Alex didn't want to be found, they wouldn't find him."

"Why did you say that?"

"He was too smart. And he used to brag about being able to disappear, to blend in so well that he couldn't be seen. Said he learned it in Vietnam."

"But whoever killed him found him," I point out.

She shakes her head. "I don't think so. I think whoever killed him wasn't somebody he was hiding from. It had to have been somebody he trusted."

Dylan objects that this is speculation, and Hatchet sustains.

"What else did you hear him say about how he might disappear?"

"He said he would fake his death. That they might bury his coffin but that he wouldn't be in it."

I've debated with Kevin whether I should open the door to Celia's "fake death" story, and we decided it was something we needed to do, if for no other reason than to have the jury know we didn't create the idea out of thin air.

I turn her over to Dylan, who treats her fairly gently but makes the point that she has no actual knowledge of what happened to Dorsey, just theories.

Hatchet sends the jurors off on their lunch break, after which we catch a break of our own. One of the jurors has taken ill, either a bad stomach virus or food poisoning. Hatchet sends everyone home for the day, giving us some much-needed additional time in the process. A key strategy in our defense will now be hoping that whatever the juror has, it's contagious.

But I have to assume that the worst will happen, that the other jurors will stay healthy. Therefore, I must prepare for tomorrow's witnesses tonight, which will make for an excruciatingly boring evening.

The two witnesses we are likely to get to tomorrow are a blood spatter expert and a retired medical examiner. Their testimony, which I hope will be significant, will also be dry as dust, and Kevin has to force me to concentrate on the nuances of it. He knows this stuff better than I do, and I offer to let him handle at least one of the witnesses, but he thinks I have developed a good rapport with the jury, and to change lawyers, even for one witness, would be messing with that chemistry.

It's not until almost eleven o'clock that he feels secure enough with my grasp of the subjects to head home. I'm not tired, so as I do almost every night, I take paperwork that I have gone through countless times and go through it again.

It is a curiously relaxing part of my routine. I take a glass of wine and the documents into the den, and Tara grudgingly joins me on the couch. I hope to find something significant but don't expect to, since I've been over these things so many times before. So if I uncover a gem, wonderful. If not, my expectations are low enough that I'm not disappointed.

Tonight's no-pressure reading includes the respective military records of the recently murdered partners in the Green Beret firm of Dorsey, Cahill, and Murdoch. There simply has to be a connection between these men; the computer-masked, anonymous tipster was certainly right about that.

I wonder if she knows that by simply giving me Murdoch's name, she caused his death.

I am simultaneously all-powerful and all-oblivious.

The detail in the files is extraordinary. My admittedly uninformed mental picture of the military experience in Vietnam includes jungles, napalm, land mines, snipers, and daring chopper missions. Yet based on the size of these reports, half the people we had there must have been typists. Every hangnail, every training proficiency score, every reported enemy sighting, every move they must have made … it's all been dutifully chronicled.

I start out by taking Dorsey's file and randomly picking out items from his time in Vietnam. I then compare them to the two others, in the hope that there might be some overlap. For instance, if Dorsey went to the hospital for a vaccination, I look to see if by chance Cahill and Murdoch were there the same day. Their meeting could have been brief and appear inconsequential in these reports, but it could have somehow triggered the devastating events that have led us to where we are today.

I'm on my fourth glass of wine, and Tara has long ago fallen asleep with a chewy half hanging out of her mouth, when I notice something startling. Though the chronology of Dorsey's Vietnam stay covers eleven single-spaced pages, on page nine there is an entry dated August 11, 1972, and then the next entry bears the date February 4, 1973. The two notes seem to be completely ordinary events, and there is no indication of any reason for the six-month gap.

I can feel my pulse start to race as I grab Cahill's file and look for his records during that same six-month period. Sure enough, he is unaccounted for in that time as well, and Murdoch's file, as I expect, is identical in that respect. I'm so excited that if Tara's paws weren't under her chin as she sleeps, I would high-five her.

I can't keep this to myself, so I wake Laurie and tell her what I've discovered. Her reaction is identical to mine: She understands that this could be the break we've been searching for, yet she's all too aware that we have no idea what it means.

I place a call to Captain Reid's office at Fort Monmouth, knowing he isn't there but leaving a message for him to call me back as soon as he can tomorrow morning. I hang up and go upstairs to the bedroom, barely reaching the top of the stairs before the phone rings.

"Hello?"

"Captain Reid here. How can I help you?" he says in his crisp, professional tone.

I'm amazed he has called me back so quickly, and I apologize for disturbing him this late at night. He doesn't react either way, so I quickly get down to why I called, describing the six-month gap in the records of all three men.

There is a noticeable delay in his answer, and when he does speak, it is the first time I have heard him sound tentative and unsure of himself. "There are a number of possible explanations. Record keeping in wartime is not the most accurate, and--"

My bullshit meter is clanging so loud I'm afraid it will wake the neighbors. "Captain Reid," I interrupt, "it is vitally important I get to the truth, and really quickly. I believe that what I've discovered can be very significant, and I need your help in explaining it to me. Please."

Another pause, and then his voice is softer and even more serious. "I was not in Vietnam, so what I'm about to tell you is not something I know from personal experience. As it relates to your case, you should simply consider it informed speculation."

"Fine."

"It may not be true, and even if it is, it may not be true in this particular case. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"I must have your word that you will never reveal where you heard this."

"You have my word." I hope this preamble is over before the jury reaches a verdict.

"I am told there was a practice of bringing together the most elite members of the Special Forces, often from different divisions, and sending them out in small groups to operate behind enemy lines. Actually, the way the battlefield was drawn in Vietnam, it would be more correct to say 'among the enemy' than behind their lines."

"Operate in what way?" I ask.

"In any way they saw fit," he says. "There were no rules, there were no restrictions. Their mission was to create havoc and destruction, by any means they deemed appropriate."

"Was there any accountability?" I ask.

"I'm not sure you understand what I'm saying. During the times these men were operating, they did not exist. Existence is a prerequisite for accountability, don't you think?"

I'm afraid I know the answer to my next question. "Is there any way I can obtain proof, written proof, that these men were together in one of these squads?"

He hesitates again. "I doubt that even Lieutenant Colonel Prentice could access that information."

I thank Reid, and warn that I may be calling upon him again. Then I spend the next hour processing what I've learned and trying to figure out how I can learn more.

I have no concrete proof that these three men were together in Vietnam, yet I'm certain they were. But even if I do prove it, so what? How does it make Laurie any less guilty, in the eyes of the jurors, of the murder of Alex Dorsey?

Unfortunately, not only are the jurors' eyes clear, but their stomachs are healthy, and the trial resumes at nine in the morning.

Every subject you can name, every single one, comes with a coterie of experts. And the places these experts hang out are the courtrooms of America.

Our first witness today is Dr. Brian Herbeck, widely considered the nation's foremost authority on the spattering of blood. We are paying him ten thousand dollars to impart that expertise to the jury, who will hear how much he is making and will no doubt hate him for it.

Once I establish Dr. Herbeck's considerable credentials as an expert, I have him examine the bloodstained clothes of Laurie's that were behind Hinchcliffe Stadium. He has of course previously examined them, and we've rehearsed exactly what he is prepared to say.

Dr. Herbeck points out in excruciating detail the pattern of blood spatter on both the front and the back of the blouse. His position is that they are essentially matching, which means that, while the blouse may belong to Laurie, neither she nor anyone else was wearing it when it became bloodied. The blood was applied to the front, and it caused a contact stain by going through to the back. If there had been a person in the blouse, he contends, the blood would never have reached the back.

It is a logical, albeit boring presentation, and as Dylan rises to cross-examine, his expression is sort of bemused, as if he and the jury have to deal with eccentrics like this and they might as well do it with a smile.

Dylan has obviously been well schooled in this area, and his cross-examination is impressive. He takes the good doctor back over the clothing, stain by stain, pointing out those areas that don't match quite so perfectly. Dr. Herbeck has answers for each of Dylan's points, but by the time it's all over, there's no way the jury could find any part of the testimony particularly compelling.

All in all, it's a depressing morning. My hopes are beginning to rest almost entirely on the outside investigation we are trying to conduct into the experiences of the three men in Vietnam. An investigation that has every possibility of going nowhere.

Kevin, Marcus, and I have lunch together in the court cafeteria, and they bring me up to date on our progress, or lack of it. Kevin has talked to the lieutenant colonel, who checked and confirmed Captain Reid's view that the information is not accessible. Marcus has learned about the crimes Murdoch committed to get himself put in jail, but this doesn't seem to shed much light on our case.

Having finished his lunch, Kevin cleans up the leftovers on Marcus's tray and my own. He seems about to ask the people at nearby tables if they're going to finish theirs, when Pete Stanton comes over. He had been in an upstairs courtroom testifying on another case and is just checking in to see how we're doing and to lend moral support.

"There have been happier days in defenseland," I say.

He nods and throws a light verbal jab. "Maybe you should let Kevin take over."

"That would help," I counter. "But what we really need is a bozo like you to cross-examine."

We both realize that this banter is halfhearted at best, and he inquires as to how Laurie is doing. He's been a great friend and supporter to her, which she and I will both appreciate pretty much forever. I tell him that she's doing okay and is stronger than I am. Both statements are basically true.

Across the room, having just finished his lunch, is Nick Sabonis. Nick and I haven't talked since he was on the stand, though our paths have crossed on a couple of occasions. My sense is that Nick has not forgiven me for implying that he could possibly be the mysterious lieutenant that Celia Dorsey spoke about.

"I'll be right back," Pete says, standing. "I've got to talk to Nick."

I'm not sure why it hits me this time, but it does, right between the eyes.

"What did you say?" I ask, though I know exactly what he said.

"I said I've got to talk to Nick."

"Call him over here," I say. "Please."

I'm sure that Pete, Kevin, and Marcus can all hear the strange tone in my voice, but I'm not concerned; my focus is totally on Pete and Nick.

"Hey, Nick," Pete calls out, waving. "Come here a second, will ya?"

Nick looks over, a little tentatively, obviously not wanting to be drawn into an uncomfortable situation with the enemy, meaning us.

But my mind is already elsewhere, and I turn to Kevin, just about dragging him out of his chair. "Come on, we need to talk."

On the way to the phones, I tell Kevin what I've just come to understand. We call Captain Reid, who characteristically comes to the phone immediately.

I get right to the point. "Captain Reid, we need a list of every Special Forces lieutenant who was in Vietnam at the same time as Dorsey, Stynes, and Murdoch."

He doesn't burst out laughing, which I take as a good sign. After a few moments he says, "It'll take the better part of an hour."

I thought he was going to say week, so I'm thrilled. "Can you fax it to me at the courthouse?"

"Give me the number."

I do, and the list arrives an hour and five minutes later. It's five pages, and on page two is the name that is going to blow this wide open.

I'VE NEVER CONDUCTED A STAKEOUT BEfore, and I'm not sure this would qualify as one. I've got the obligatory donuts and coffee, but I don't have a radio to say "ten-four" into. I just sit in my car outside the FBI regional office, downing donuts and listening to an Eagles CD, while remaining ready to hunch down to avoid being seen.

I'm listening to "Life in the Fast Lane" for the fourth time when Agent Cindy Spodek comes out at about six-forty-five. She walks to her parking space and drives away. I let her move out a little, then I smoothly start following her without being detected. You would think I've done this all my life. Ten-four.

She leads me across the George Washington Bridge, up the Palisades Interstate Parkway, and into Rockland County. Rockland is on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River but is a part of New York State. It's not much farther from Manhattan than northern New Jersey or Westchester County, but almost as nice and much less expensive.

My fervent hope is that Agent Spodek is heading home, and not out to dinner or a book club or a rifle range or whatever it is that FBI agents do at night. This stakeout thing is tiring, and I'm very anxious to talk to her.

She gets off the highway and drives into a small town called Pomona. It's a residential area, and since she may be nearing home, I start following her a little more closely. It would be beyond annoying to lose her now.

After a few more minutes she pulls into the driveway of a one-story redwood home. Kids play on the street, but none pay attention to her arrival. I realize I have no idea if she has kids or whether she's married or single. For my own limited purposes, I'd rather she lives alone, since I don't want her to have to consider other people when she hears my request.

I park on the street directly in front of her house, and she's looking in my direction when I get out of the car. I think I see a flash of panic in her eyes, or maybe it's anger, or maybe it's an eyelash. I'm not that good an eye reader.

She strides directly toward me. "What the hell are you doing here? I don't want you near my house."

She thinks that will intimidate me; she's unaware that women have been saying stuff like that to me my whole life. "I was hoping we could continue our conversation," I say.

"What conversation is that?" she challenges.

"The one about Terry Murdoch."

This time I'm pretty sure the eye flash is panic, but she doesn't back down. "I don't have any idea what you're talking about. Now, please, I--"

I interrupt. "Did you know that Terry Murdoch is dead? Someone killed him to stop him from talking to me."

She sags slightly and closes her eyes. "Oh, God …"

"Can I come in?" I ask.

She doesn't answer, just nods in resignation, turns, and walks toward the front door. I follow her inside. Chalk up another successful stakeout for the good guys.

We're no sooner in the house than she asks me, "How did you figure it out?"

I don't want to tell her the truth--that I wasn't even absolutely positive I was right until I saw her reaction to the news about Murdoch's death. So I simply say, "Dorsey's wife said he called someone 'Lieutenant' I assumed it was someone within the police department, until I realized Dorsey was a lieutenant himself, and people of the same rank don't talk that way."

I pause for a moment, preparing to drop the bomb. "It had to have been Dorsey's commanding officer in the army, the special unit he was in with Murdoch and Cahill. It turns out that your boss Hobbs was a lieutenant in Vietnam at the same time as Dorsey, which makes him the logical choice. Also, the 911 call referred to Garcia as the 'perpetrator.' It's a word you might use."

She doesn't react with any surprise at all; she's been living with this truth for a long time. "You can't prove it. Nobody can."

"I don't have to prove it," I say. "I just have to shine a light on it."

"I can't help you," she says.

"You're the only one that can help me. And you've already tried to. But now it has to be out in the open. No more phone calls, no more masking your voice."

She smiles at my naivete. "Do you have any idea what it would be like to come out publicly against a man like Damn Hobbs? Do you know what they would do to me?"

I nod. "Laurie Collins faced the same decision with Dorsey two years ago. She knew it would be bad, and it's been worse than she could have imagined. It may well ruin her life. But she'd do it again ten times over."

She speaks quietly, as if she's really talking to herself. I have a feeling this is a conversation she's had with herself quite a few times. "I've wanted to be an FBI agent my entire life."

I shake my head. "I don't know you, but I'd bet you didn't want it like this. I don't think you can live with it like this, knowing what you know …"

"I'm telling you, I have no proof that your client is innocent. I have no information about her at all."

"I know that." I sense that she is weakening, and I am going to stay here and beg and plead and persuade until she caves. It is realistically the only chance Laurie has to stay out of prison. "I just want the information you have about Hobbs."

She nods. "I've got plenty of that."

I'm definitely making progress, and I want to be extra careful what I say so I don't blow it. "Would you tell me about it?"

She sighs her defeat. "Are you hungry? This is going to be a long night."

"The longer the better," I say. "Besides, I had four stakeout donuts in the car."

"What is a stakeout donut?"

This woman is an FBI agent? J. Edgar would snap his garters if he could hear this. "It's a technical term," I say. "You wouldn't understand."

The next three hours are the most exciting I've ever spent, with a woman with my clothes on. Cindy has made a study of Hobbs from her vantage point as his subordinate/punching bag, and she has the goods on him.

From his high-level perch in the FBI, he has essentially been providing protection for his elite army squad, which has come together for some domestic work. There were at least four men under Hobbs, probably more, though it will take investigatory work to find any others.

All were involved in different types of criminal activity, still under Hobbs's command. But his blanket of protection was not total. Dorsey, for instance, drew too much attention to himself, and Hobbs couldn't keep him out of trouble without exposing himself. Murdoch had the bad luck of having his counterfeit plates found by the fire department, and it became public so quickly that Hobbs was powerless to intervene.

For all intents and purposes, Cindy can prove what Hobbs has been up to, but with some glaring gaps, the main one being the Dorsey murder. She believes that Hobbs either murdered Dorsey himself or more likely sent Cahill to do it, but the evidence simply does not exist to get Laurie off the hook.

By the time I leave her house at eleven o'clock, I've got a plan formulated. I call Kevin and bring him up to date, then I give him a list of subpoenas to start serving. I also tell him to call Captain Reid and ask for some special help. For us to have any chance to pull this off, we've got to start now.

Laurie is waiting up when I get home; she would have stayed up if I didn't come home until November. She devours what I have to say and wants me to tell her exactly what we're going to do from here on in. I describe it as best I can, but a lot of it is going to be reactive, and she's just going to have to trust me.

We get to sleep at two and we're up at six-thirty. I've got to be ready to play a different role today. I've spent most of my adult life in courtrooms, but today, for the first time, I'm going to be a witness.

Kevin and I meet at the coffee shop to do a crash preparation for my testimony, since we didn't have a chance to go over it last night. What I learned from Cindy Spodek has changed our goal for my testimony. Rather than provide the crucial basis for our defense, I am in effect a setup man, helping the jury understand what they will later be presented with.

Dylan again objects to my testifying, and Hatchet shoots him down. Kevin takes me through the basics of my relationship with Laurie, from our first meeting until today. I openly admit our romantic attachment; the jury knows about it anyway, and it's better that we acknowledge it voluntarily than let Dylan appear to be exposing it.

Within fifteen minutes we're at the meat of what I'm here to say. I talk about the day that Stynes came into my office, describing my attorney-client privilege dilemma, my subsequent decision to defend Oscar, and my sending Laurie out to the stadium to retrieve what I thought were Stynes's clothes.

"Did you ever see Stynes again?" Kevin asks.

I nod, and for the first time I'm in danger of losing my focus and becoming emotional. "I asked a young man to help me find Alex Dorsey. His name was Barry Leiter, and when it was discovered that he was helping me, Stynes shot him to death in his home. The police killed Stynes on the scene, but it was too late to help Barry."

After a few more questions Kevin and I make eye contact, and I can tell that we both feel we've covered the facts that we wanted the jury to hear. He sits down and lets Dylan have a shot at me.

"Mr. Carpenter," he begins, "did anyone else hear Stynes's confession to you?"

"No."

"Had you ever met him before?"

"No, I had not."

"Was he referred to you by someone?"

"No."

"So out of the blue he came into your office and told you a story, which you are now telling the jury. A story which just happens to argue against your client's guilt. Your lover's guilt. Is that what you're telling us?"

"Yes. That's what I'm telling you."

"This is a woman you want to spend the rest of your life with?"

Kevin objects as to relevancy, but Hatchet lets me answer.

"I certainly do."

"And that would be difficult if she were in prison?" he asks.

"It would. Which makes me glad the truth is on her side."

Dylan objects, and he and Kevin fight it out for a while in a bench conference. When it concludes, Dylan veers off from this area and focuses on my involvement with Oscar Garcia. His contention is that I was less than zealous in my representation of Oscar, questioning me about my inability to uncover the bank tapes in the supermarket. The clear implication is I was throwing Oscar to the wolves to make sure Laurie stayed in the clear.

Dylan asks, "If Mr. Garcia had been convicted, then Ms. Collins would likely not have been charged. Isn't that true?"

"I can't answer that. You're the one who charges people without regard to the facts, so you might want to testify after I do."

The jury laughs, which pleases me but infuriates Dylan. We spar for a little while longer, but he seems even happier to finally let me off the stand than I am to get off.

The testimony went very well. We got out the story about Stynes without having to reveal what we know about his military connection to Dorsey, even without revealing that his real name is Cahill. The less of this that comes out before Hobbs takes the stand, the better. That's if we can get Hobbs to take the stand.

Tomorrow will be the key to the entire trial, and Kevin and I go over our approach until past midnight. Marcus calls to report that the subpoenas have been served and that Hobbs was furious to receive one. Marcus served that one personally. He thought the level of Hobbs's anger was pretty funny; the fact that Hobbs might well be a Green Beret killing machine did not intimidate him. If I ever meet someone who intimidates Marcus, I am going to be very afraid of that person.

Simply put, we have to make Hobbs look bad on the stand. So bad that suspicion gets cast on him and away from Laurie. We cannot prove that he murdered anyone, but we can prove some other facts, and the trick will be to get him to perjure himself by denying those facts. It's risky; if he detects our strategy, he can just admit to the facts and explain them away with minimal embarrassment. That would be it for our defense.

Which means that would be it for Laurie.

DYLAN HAS SMOKE COMING OUT OF HIS EARS when I arrive in court. He has been confronted by a roomful of potential witnesses that we have subpoenaed, none of whom were on our witness list. Which means he has not prepared for any of them.

Those witnesses consist of four members of the Paterson Police Department, including Pete Stanton, as well as three FBI agents. Two of those agents are Darrin Hobbs, who is angry at the imposition, and Cindy Spodek, who is secretly privy to our scheme and nervous about her crucial role in it.

Before the jury is called in, Dylan objects to the witnesses' appearance, based on our not having put them on our list, and also based on relevance. Hatchet agrees to hear argument on the matter, and I suggest that we might as well let the witnesses be in the courtroom to hear the argument themselves, as well as each other's subsequent testimony, should it be admitted. Dylan agrees, as I hoped and expected he would.

If we don't get these witnesses in, we are dead in the water. "Your Honor," I say, "these people were not included on our witness list because they are rebuttal witnesses, called to rebut the specific testimony of Captain Franks."

Hatchet is properly suspicious of my motivation here, since this is clearly overkill to rebut a relatively innocuous witness like Franks. "I didn't realize Captain Franks was that powerful a witness, nor that significant a part of this case," he observes dryly.

"Respectfully, Your Honor, I disagree. He portrayed Lieutenant Dorsey as cut down in the prime of life just before reaching sainthood. I believe these witnesses will paint a truer picture, and it is important for the jury to hear that truth."

"This is a delaying tactic, Your Honor," Dylan argues. "As well as an attempt to muddy the water and blame the victim. I urge you not to allow it."

I jump in before Hatchet can say anything negative to our side; this is not an issue I can be passive about. "Your Honor, it is entirely possible that all of these witnesses will not be necessary. And if you determine that I am not eliciting significant and relevant facts, you can stop me in my tracks with a ruling."

Hatchet stares another hole through my forehead. "Are you saying you will abide by my future rulings? Is that your idea of a concession?"

He's caught me; I can't help smiling. "No, Your Honor. I am saying that you will find I would never waste the court's time."

Hatchet lets the witnesses testify, putting me on a short leash by announcing he will not let this drag out if he feels it's repetitive. He also takes pains to confirm that I am not using Hobbs's presence as a backdoor attempt to get in the FBI report that he has already ruled out. I feign horror at even the prospect of it.

I do have another request of Hatchet. "Your Honor, if we call Special Agent Hobbs, I would like to qualify him as an adverse witness. He has been antagonistic toward the defense throughout these proceedings."

Qualifying a witness as adverse, or hostile, allows me to question him as if it were a cross-examination, giving me the leeway to ask leading questions. At this point the request does not seem to be a big deal to Hatchet or Dylan, and it is granted without objection. Satisfied that I've gotten what I need, I call FBI agent Albert Connolly.

Connolly had been mentioned in the FBI report as one of the agents involved in the surveillance of Petrone's people and therefore of Dorsey. There is really nothing I want to get from Connolly; I am merely questioning him so that Hobbs will not realize that he is being targeted. When Hobbs is asked the same questions that he has heard asked of Connolly, he will be less likely to realize that we are laying a trap.

So, with Hobbs and Cindy Spodek watching from the gallery, I have Connolly identify himself and describe his role in the Petrone investigation.

With a glance at Hatchet, I tell Connolly, "I am not interested in the details of your investigation. I am simply trying to get your knowledge and impressions of Lieutenant Dorsey. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir," he says.

"Good. Had you known or had any contact with Lieutenant Dorsey before you encountered him on this investigation?"

"No, I had not."

"Did you have occasion to have any direct conversations with him during the investigation?"

"No."

I take him through his observations of Dorsey during this investigation. My questions are brief and designed to elicit quick responses, since there is a very real danger that Hatchet will intervene.

Connolly says that he really hadn't had much occasion to watch Dorsey, nor had he had much knowledge of his activities. Clearly, Dorsey was involved with members of organized crime, in ways that his police bosses would not have approved.

"Are you familiar with a man named Roger Cahill, who also goes by the name Geoffrey Stynes?"

"I am not."

I let Connolly off the stand, and Dylan does not cross-examine. Instead, he calls for a bench conference, during which he again asks Hatchet to stop "this unproductive waste of the court's time." Since it is out of earshot of Hobbs, I promise that I will not call four of the seven witnesses I brought in today and will end the parade after only two more, Agents Hobbs and Spodek. Hatchet accepts the compromise, and I call Darrin Hobbs to the stand.

I can count on zero fingers the number of times I've seen witnesses knowingly make self-incriminating statements. I would love trials to be like the one in A Few Good Men. I could get Jack Nicholson on the stand so he can scream, "You can't handle the truth!" at me and then, in a rage, admit his own guilt. But I never get that lucky, and I'm not going to get that lucky with Hobbs. He will incriminate himself only if he doesn't believe he is doing so; he will expose himself to danger only if he is unaware that the danger exists.

"Good morning, Agent Hobbs."

"Good morning."

"As I told Agent Connolly, I am not interested in the details of your investigation. I am simply trying to get your knowledge and impressions of Lieutenant Dorsey. Do you understand?"

"I do."

"You were in charge of the investigation which included Lieutenant Dorsey. Is that correct?"

"He was a peripheral figure."

"I understand. Had you known or had any contact with Lieutenant Dorsey before you encountered him on this investigation?"

Hobbs doesn't even flinch; the son of a bitch lies through his teeth. "No, I had not."

"Did you have occasion to have any direct conversations with him during the investigation?"

"No."

"How about since then?"

"No."

As with Connolly, I ask Hobbs a few quick questions about Dorsey's activities during the investigation. My final question is, "Are you familiar with a man named Roger Cahill, who also goes by the name Geoffrey Stynes?"

"No, I am not. Other than what you've told me and I've read in the paper."

"Thank you," I say. "No further questions." I want to add, "I've got you, you son of a bitch," but I control the impulse.

Dylan again declines to cross-examine, and I surprise him and Hobbs by asking Hatchet to keep Hobbs present and available for recall this morning. I can see a flash of worry across Hobbs's face, but he still has no real idea of the hole he has just dug for himself.

"Call Cindy Spodek."

Cindy rises and walks to the witness stand, passing Hobbs on the way and staring him right in the eyes. If he didn't know he was in trouble before, he should now.

"Agent Spodek," I begin, "who is your immediate superior at the FBI?"

"Special Agent Darrin Hobbs."

"The man who preceded you to the stand?"

"Yes."

"Were you present in the courtroom during his testimony?"

"Yes, I was."

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Hobbs alert, listening intently. "Did you listen to Special Agent Hobbs's testimony in its entirety?"

"I did."

"To your knowledge, was he being truthful?"

"He was not."

Dylan and Hobbs simultaneously jump to their feet. When Dylan gets there, he screams an objection. When Hobbs gets there, he has no idea what to do, so he looks around, a puzzled expression on his face, and sits back down.

Hatchet calls us over for a bench conference to discuss Dylan's objection. Dylan is steaming, and once the jury cannot hear us, he lets loose. "Your Honor, Carpenter is making a mockery of this courtroom."

Starting a conversation with Hatchet by telling him that his courtroom is a mockery is not a shrewd strategy. He didn't get the name Hatchet by treating lawyers with kid gloves, and it's possible we could have another beheading on our hands. I just stand there, well behaved and totally innocent.

Dylan realizes in an instant what he's said, and he backtracks. "I apologize, Your Honor, but these tactics are truly reprehensible."

"Which tactics do you mean, Dylan?" I ask with a voice as sweet as sugar.

Dylan is not about to be drawn into a conversation with me; he speaks only to Hatchet. "Your Honor, the defense called Agent Hobbs under false pretenses."

"Which pretenses do you mean, Dylan?" I purr.

Hatchet now turns his glare on me. "I would say it's time you announced where this is going, before I stop you from going there."

I nod. "Your Honor, I said I would question these witnesses, including Hobbs, about their knowledge of Dorsey. I did that. I admit I suspected Hobbs would lie, but I couldn't know that for sure until he did. Those lies, as I will demonstrate, bear directly and crucially on this case."

"He's impeaching his own witness," Dylan complains.

"My own adverse witness."

I know for a fact that Hatchet is annoyed with me. He feels I manipulated the court for my own ends, and in fact I did. But I didn't lie, and there's no legal reason for him to prohibit me from going forward.

"Mr. Carpenter, I'm going to allow you to proceed, but be very careful. If I sense you are being dishonest with this court, you will find yourself in very unhappy circumstances."

"Yes, Your Honor, I understand."

I prepare to resume questioning Cindy, who has sat stoically on the witness stand, no doubt watching her career flashing before her. Hobbs has been staring at her, trying to intimidate her. Not a chance.

"Agent Spodek, you said that Special Agent Hobbs was being untruthful in his testimony."

"He was lying, yes."

"Which part was a lie?"

"Almost everything after he gave his name."

The jury laughs, but Spodek doesn't crack a smile. This is one tough lady.

"I'm paraphrasing, but Special Agent Hobbs claimed never to have had contact with Lieutenant Dorsey. Was that a true statement?"

"No. I witnessed their meeting at least half a dozen times."

"How did that come about?"

"Usually, we were out in the car, working on a case, and we would stop at an apparently prearranged location. Lieutenant Dorsey would be there, and they would talk."

"Did you hear any of the conversations?"

She nods. "Parts of two of them."

"What were they about?"

"They were discussions of Lieutenant Dorsey's activities with certain criminal figures. About protecting Lieutenant Dorsey from prosecution by the local authorities."

"Lieutenant Dorsey was worried about that?" I ask.

"Very worried."

I steal a glance at Hobbs, who looks like a newcomer to acting class who has just been instructed by the teacher to "show outrage." The funny thing is, he thinks this is the worst part. Just wait.

"Agent Hobbs also said he did not know Roger Cahill. Was that a lie as well?"

"Absolutely." She goes on to describe two meetings that he had with Cahill, though she hadn't known his name until she saw his picture in the paper after Barry's murder. It was a major reason she called me about Murdoch, another man whom she knew Hobbs was meeting with before he was sent to prison.

I take her through some more discussion about Hobbs's perjured testimony, then ask her if she knows anything about the original 911 call that implicated Garcia in the murder.

"Yes," she says. "I made that call."

"Why?"

"Agent Hobbs instructed me to. He said that he had information that Garcia was guilty but that he didn't want to involve the Bureau."

"Do you know why he didn't make the call himself?"

"No, I don't."

"Could it be that he wanted the call to come from a woman so that the prosecution would accuse the defendant of making it?"

Dylan objects, and Hatchet sustains. I tell Hatchet I want to recall Hobbs, and Dylan reserves his cross-examination of Cindy until after Hobbs is finished. Dylan is smart enough to know he is walking into a minefield, and he's hoping Hobbs will at least provide him with a map.

Hobbs takes the stand again, a considerably less confident and self-assured man than he was last time he was there.

"Agent Hobbs," I begin, "I take it you listened carefully to the testimony of Agent Spodek?"

"Yes."

"Do you wish to change your previous testimony as a result of it?"

"I do not."

"So would it be fair to say that your position is that Agent Spodek was herself being untruthful?"

"She was lying through her teeth."

"Do you have any idea why she would do that?"

"Agent Spodek is a bitter woman of very low competence. I have been considering recommending her termination from the Bureau. I suspect she is aware of that and has taken what amounts to a preemptive strike against me."

"So she is lying and you're not?"

He nods. "She is lying and I'm not."

"You did not know either Alex Dorsey or Roger Cahill?"

"I did not."

At that moment, by prearrangement, Captain Reid, dressed in military uniform, enters the courtroom. He goes to Kevin, whispers something, and hands him a piece of paper. Kevin looks at it, smiles, and indicates for Captain Reid to sit with the other witnesses. Then Kevin walks over to me and pretends to whisper in my ear. Hobbs watches all of this take place with barely concealed horror.

"Special Agent Hobbs, were you in Army Special Forces in Vietnam?"

Hobbs doesn't answer. I can see his brain reacting to figure out what to do as surely as if I were watching it through a CAT scan.

"Did you not hear my question?"

This brings him back to face his current dilemma. He is positive that Reid must have brought absolute evidence of his military connection to Cahill and Dorsey. To deny it is to commit perjury even more blatant than previously.

"Were you in Army Special Forces in Vietnam?"

"Yes."

"Was your rank first lieutenant?"

"Yes."

"Did you command a small secret unit which operated behind enemy lines?"

"That is classified."

"I think that war is over, Agent Hobbs. Were Roger Cahill and Alex Dorsey under your command?"

His answer is soft, as if he's hoping no one will hear it. "Yes." The resulting buzz from the gallery and jury says they heard it loud and clear.

"So you knew them? Had contact with them?"

"Yes."

"So Agent Spodek was right? You were lying before when you denied contact with them?"

"I didn't realize you were talking about in the army. I thought you meant more recently, during the investigation."

"That's another lie, isn't it, Agent Hobbs?"

"No, it isn't."

"So let me see if I understand," I say. "You knew them in the army but haven't had any contact since?"

He nods. "Yes. That's correct."

"You say this fully aware of the perjury laws in the state?"

"Yes."

I introduce as evidence a tape recording supplied by Cindy. It is Bureau practice that all calls from agents' offices are taped, in order to protect the agents and help in investigations. Thinking she might need it to protect herself, Cindy had confiscated a tape of one of Hobbs's conversations with Dorsey, and I play it for the court.

It is a devastating record of a conspiracy between Dorsey and Hobbs, and though Hobbs doesn't directly implicate himself in any criminal acts on the tape, there is no doubt in anyone's mind he has committed multiple perjuries in his testimony today.

I ask Hobbs if Murdoch was in his squad and if he knows that Murdoch was recently murdered. He acknowledges the army connection but denies knowing about the murder. Not a person in the room believes him.

I'm finished, and Dylan doesn't even cross-examine the shell that was Special Agent Hobbs. His defeat is total; the man is ruined.

Heh, heh, heh.

WE ARE A SUBDUED GROUP DURING OUR NIGHTLY meeting. We're nearing the end; the only issue to resolve before closing arguments is whether or not Laurie will take the stand.

Laurie still wants to, but in light of today's positive developments, is willing to listen to arguments. Kevin and I tell her the basics: that there really is nothing for her to add and that the dangers are potentially enormous.

I feel compelled to point out that, while we did really well today, we are still in very precarious shape. The jury could easily find that our entire defense, centering on Hobbs, Dorsey, and Cahill, is interesting but off point. The only tangible evidence in the Dorsey murder still points to Laurie, and the jury may follow that evidence--in fact is more likely to than not.

It's a lively discussion which finally ends with Laurie trusting our judgment and agreeing not to take the stand. This allows us to focus on the closing arguments, which in this case are going to be even more important than usual. It will be up to us to make the jury understand that what we have been saying matters, and creates at least a reasonable doubt as to Laurie's guilt.

The media are filled with the trial news, and there is open speculation that Hobbs will be indicted and tried for perjury. The FBI director himself has issued a statement saying that Hobbs is being put on temporary leave, and both federal and state investigations are under way. It's gratifying, but it's small consolation if it doesn't result in Laurie's vindication.

Our first action in court is to announce that the defense is resting, and Dylan tells Hatchet that he is ready to give his closing argument.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," he begins, "I stood here at the opening of this trial and told you that the evidence would show that Laurie Collins murdered Alex Dorsey. I told you the defense would utilize tricks and mirrors to make you think otherwise, but that what you needed to do was focus on the facts.