“Your Honor, this is ridiculous—”

  The judge raised a hand. “The objection is sustained. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, please disregard Mr. Kolarich’s speech to you. Closing arguments are a few days away. Now move on, Counsel.”

  “Yes, Your Honor. One more line of questioning. Officer, you called out to Tom to remove his hands from the purse, correct? You identified yourself as a police officer and ordered him to show his hands, didn’t you?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And he didn’t react in any way, did he?”

  “No.”

  “Your voice was rather loud and commanding, I take it?”

  “I would hope so.”

  “Right, because when you give orders, it’s important that you’re taken seriously.”

  “Correct.”

  “So? He didn’t respond to your clear command?”

  “He did not.”

  “And then you said it all over again, right?”

  “I… yes, a second time.”

  “And again, he didn’t react in any way?”

  “Object to relevance,” said Wendy. “Could we have a sidebar?”

  She knew what I was doing. I was portraying Tom as mentally ill, in his own little world, oblivious to the shouts of an approaching police officer.

  “I think the ship already sailed, Ms. Kotowski,” said the judge, before Wendy could get her sidebar. I’d gotten two answers on that topic already, he meant. She missed her chance. “Overruled.”

  “Officer? A second time, Tom was unresponsive?” Since I had a clear shot now, I might as well use a more clinical word, make Tom seem like he was comatose.

  “That’s correct.”

  I was done. I hadn’t accomplished much. Wendy got all she needed from this guy, and I didn’t put any meaningful dent in him.

  Prosecution 1, Defense 0.

  71.

  “I don’t think you did much to that cop.” Lee Tucker was dressed comfortably as always in his standard look, a blue sport coat, white shirt, and jeans. He had a scrappy look, a wiry frame and rough complexion, long dishwater-blond hair.

  I’d worked with Lee before. He’d been the case agent assigned by the FBI to me during the investigation of Governor Carlton Snow. That was a long story; suffice it to say the two of us generally got along but had the occasional rock in the road.

  Lee had agreed to meet me here, and the county attorney, who had offices in the criminal courthouse, had given us a room on the eighth floor during the trial’s lunch recess.

  I laid out everything I knew to date: Kathy Rubinkowski, her cryptic notes, what I’d learned about Global Harvest and Randall Manning and the associated companies.

  “I think these guys might be building a bomb,” I concluded.

  Tucker wasn’t assigned to counterterrorism. He handled political corruption, always a booming business in this city. But he’d been around the block and digested the information quickly.

  He perused the notes he’d taken. “So this company sells ammonium nitrate fertilizer to another company it purchased. And they register the sales with the state and federal governments. So that’s perfectly legal, right?”

  “Yes. I think there might be something unusual going on with those sales, because they were so sensitive about them—”

  “Right, no, I got that. And you don’t know if they even sold that company nitromethane, the other ingredient?”

  “I don’t. Trying to find out.”

  “So right now, all we can say is this company legally sold a product to another company.”

  I nodded. “Same thing I told my associate, Lee. I get it. Maybe this doesn’t give you PC to search—”

  “It sure as hell doesn’t.”

  “—but you can knock on their door, can’t you? I mean, maybe if they know you’ve noticed them, they slow down what they’re doing. And we build a case, meanwhile.”

  “We,” he said. “We build a case.” He nodded generally to the door. “Could I be so bold as to assume that this is going to help you with that case you got going there?”

  “I don’t deny that. Yes, it will. But these guys might be building bombs, Lee. It’s bigger than my case.”

  He accepted that but with skepticism. I think it’s fair to say that he’d learned, after our last go-round, not to underestimate me. He thought I was using him to make my case, that I’d call him as a witness to testify that the FBI was actively investigating a terrorist threat regarding Global Harvest, that kind of thing.

  “Lee, there’s a time to bullshit and there’s a time to get fucking serious. This is the get-fucking-serious time. These people are scary customers. A paralegal and a lawyer are dead. They’ve tried to kill me. I’d bet my law license they’re up to something big here.”

  He thought for a moment. “You get any photos of them firing those assault rifles?”

  I shook my head. “They confronted me before I could do it. I screwed up.”

  Tucker folded up his small notepad and wagged it at me. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’ve got the information.”

  I love how these guys talk. Reveal absolutely nothing. Not even a simple We’ll take a look. Just a simple confirmation that he heard what I said.

  Which meant, if my history with the FBI was any guide, that they would do whatever they were going to do and keep me completely in the dark about it from start to finish.

  Still, I exhaled with relief. I’d done what I could do. I’d handed this over to the experts. I’d keep doing my own investigating, but the feds had resources I couldn’t dream of.

  I knew Randall Manning and those guys were up to something.

  I just hoped the FBI would take me seriously.

  72.

  The prosecution called the forensic pathologist next. Dr. Mitra Agarwal had been with the county coroner’s office for more than thirty years and currently served as the chief deputy medical examiner. She was old friends with my mentor, Paul Riley, and I’d known her professionally and personally for several years. She testified for me twice when I was a prosecutor. Juries liked her because she had no flash, no spin. She was as straitlaced as they came. Her gray hair fell to her shoulders without style. Her now-weathered brown skin was freckled. She was stooped a bit with age but still spoke with a strong voice.

  I didn’t know why she was handling this case, but my assumption was that she was next in the rotation when Kathy Rubinkowski’s body was wheeled in. As the top deputy, she could have passed on autopsies altogether, but the thought probably never occurred to her. She was a workhorse.

  All of which made her a good witness for the prosecution and a terrible one for me. The only good news was she was a complete straight shooter—to a fault if you asked prosecutors. But in the end, there wasn’t much to get here. The cause of death was beyond dispute. I would have considered stipulating but we needed a couple of things from the witness, and the prosecution wanted to introduce graphic photographs through her, which I was unable to exclude during pretrial motions.

  Wendy Kotowski let her second chair, a woman named Maggie Silvers, handle the witness. She probably figured Dr. Agarwal was a safe witness. The prosecutor took the jury painstakingly through the pathologist’s credentials and then the autopsy she performed.

  “The bullet penetrated the skin and musculature of the forehead,” said the doctor, pointing to a diagram of a human skull. “It penetrated the glabella and continued front to back, impacting the occipital bone, where it came to rest.”

  “And the blood, Doctor?” asked the prosecutor, pointing to the pool of blood that had formed at the victim’s head. “This was caused by the gunshot?”

  “Yes, surely so. The sphenoid and ethmoid bones were shattered. It would cause a large episode of bleeding. Remember that even if brain activity had ceased, the heart would have continued beating. It could have gone on for a good five minutes, while she lay prone on the street.”

  “All right,” said the prosecutor. “You mentioned the ceasing of brain activity. In your expert opinion, how did that happen?”

  Dr. Agarwal nodded. “The bullet produced a shock wave that essentially ended all brain activity. Her brain activity would have ceased almost instantly upon impact. That explains the injuries to her knees and the side of her skull.”

  “Explain, that, please. Is this what we call a ‘dead drop,’ Doctor?”

  “That’s a term that is used. She died upon impact of the bullet and fell straight to the street. Her right kneecap was fractured in the fall, and she received significant contusions to the skull on the right side as well.”

  “She was dead before she hit the ground?”

  “Correct.”

  “And the blackening of her eyes, Doctor?”

  “Yes, you see here.” The doctor pointed to a close-up photograph of the victim, whose eyes had blackened. “Her orbital plates shattered from the pressure wave from the bullet. But as I said, her heart kept beating, so blood ran into the tissue around her eyes.”

  “So, Doctor, the fractured kneecap, the blackened eyes, the contusions to her skull—these were all the result of the gunshot?”

  “Without question, yes. The single gunshot caused her death. There is no evidence that she was otherwise beaten or attacked physically.”

  The witness appeared to have jumped the gun, anticipating the last question of the prosecutor. Without the final question she’d planned, she fumbled for a moment with her notes. “Thank you, Doctor,” she said.

  A little rough with the ending, but she got the job done. She wanted to establish that the only thing that attacked Kathy Rubinkowski was a bullet between the eyes. No punching or kicking or the like, because no evidence of such was found on Tom Stoller. He didn’t have bruising or blood on his hands or shoes. She had done her job, I thought. It was one single shot that dropped the victim.

  Shauna was handling the science in the case so she took the cross. “Doctor,” she said before she got to the lectern. “Where the bullet entered the victim’s skull—there was no charring of the skin around the site of the entry wound, was there?”

  “No, there was not.”

  “And there was no tattooing or spotting, either, was there?”

  “No, there was not.”

  “No soot or powder stippling, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “So to a reasonable degree of medical certainty, you can say that the gun muzzle was not within three feet of the victim’s skull, true?”

  “True.”

  Shauna paused for effect. “So the shooter was more than three feet away, wasn’t he?”

  “That appears so, yes.”

  “That’s what you think, right?” Shauna doesn’t like it when witnesses equivocate. It’s one of the things I love about her. It makes her a pain in the ass when we argue, though.

  “That’s what I think.”

  “It’s possible that the shooter was ten feet away, true?”

  “I can’t say it’s impossible.” Another equivocation.

  “Meaning it’s possible.”

  “Yes, it’s possible. I only say that—”

  “You’ve answered my question, Doctor.”

  I couldn’t get away with that. I’m not sure if it’s just a gender thing or my relative size compared to the diminutive witness, but I’ve never felt like cutting off a witness played well with the jury. I’m also pretty sure that the judge wouldn’t let me get away with it, but the old goat seems to like Shauna.

  “In fact, wouldn’t you agree, Doctor, that nothing in your findings would contradict the possibility that the shooter was ten feet away from the victim?”

  Dr. Agarwal paused. She wasn’t typically argumentative, but she didn’t completely agree with Shauna. We all knew that the spent shell casing from the murder weapon landed in the soil of a planted tree on the sidewalk and that the strong likelihood was that the weapon was fired from ten feet away. But it was possible that the casing rolled on the sidewalk, so there was a little bit of leeway in the estimate on either side of ten feet.

  Shauna was baiting the witness.

  “If common sense and experience are included in my findings,” the doctor answered, “then I would say that I am not totally convinced that the gun was fired from ten feet away.”

  “Why would you say that, Doctor?” Shauna said. You never ask open-ended questions on cross-examination unless you’re sure that any answer will suit your purpose. Shauna had a pretty good idea of how the doctor would answer, but she wasn’t sure.

  “In my experience autopsying homicides,” Dr. Agarwal replied, “most gunshots from the Glock handgun used here are not so precise that one could hit someone between the eyes from a distance of ten feet. It’s obviously possible, but it’s difficult.”

  “The shooter would have to be very good at what he did,” said Shauna. “He’d have to be an experienced shooter of that weapon?”

  “Objection,” said the prosecutor, Maggie Silvers, but she was a little late objecting to this line of questioning and the judge told her so.

  “I would think so, yes,” said the doctor, after Shauna repeated the question.

  We wanted the shooter to be as far away as possible, to show both the bizarre nature of the prosecution’s theory and that it would take a very good shot to hit a victim between the eyes from that distance. The prosecution had an answer for that, of course—First Lieutenant Tom Stoller was a trained shooter in the Army Rangers—but to bring in that evidence, they had to bring in Tom’s military background. And they didn’t want to do that, especially since we landed a retired colonel on the jury.

  Shauna killed another twenty minutes with the doctor and the prosecution redirected with just a few questions. We had scored one simple point, but the jury had seen several close-up, gruesome photos of the murder and heard graphic descriptions of the violent end to Kathy Rubinkowski’s life. When it was all said and done, it was another good witness for the state.

  Prosecution 2, Defense 0.

  73.

  Tori was in the courtroom at the close of the day and caught my eye as I packed up. She was telling me she had something significant.

  First, I had to do the customary wrap-up at the end of the court day with Aunt Deidre and Tom. Tom had actually been pretty composed in court today, to my chagrin, as I wanted the jury to see a guy who was clearly suffering from some mental problems. Instead, for some reason, Tom had remained relatively calm and still.

  We conferred in the holding room they gave us for post-court discussions. I told them about what we’d found so far with Global Harvest and my talk with the FBI earlier today. “We’re pursuing this with everything we’ve got,” I said. “If there’s something there, hopefully we can come up with it over the next few days.”

  Tom seemed like he was listening to me, but he didn’t say anything. For all I knew, he was contemplating his dinner in county lockup tonight. Deidre’s expression could best be described as downcast.

  “Remember,” I told them, “this is a circumstantial case. They can’t put Tom at the scene, and they don’t have him firing the weapon.”

  “Right,” said Deidre. She’d heard this before but, I’d come to learn, the repetition comforted her. We said our good-byes in the lobby, where Tori awaited me. As always, she wore that long white coat, only this time I didn’t have to fantasize about what it would be like to undress her.

  Now was not the time to be thinking with that part of my anatomy. I needed my brain more. “Whaddaya got for me, kid?” I asked her, trying to give it a platonic feel. It sounded forced. It sounded ridiculous.

  “Kid? Now I’m ‘Kid’?”

  “Your new nickname.”

  “Well, okay, Daddy-O.”

  “Nice.”

  We made it out of the doors and into the cool air. It felt good.

  “So do you want to know what I came up with?” she asked.

  “I do.”

  She looked at me.

  “I found Kathy’s e-mail address,” she said. “And I hacked into it.”

  74.

  Tori and I went into my office, where she opened her laptop. I thought, under the circumstances, this was a discussion best held in private.

  “So this is what you lawyers would call unethical,” said Tori.

  “Not to mention inadmissible,” I added. Even if we discovered gold in Kathy Rubinkowski’s e-mail inbox, I wouldn’t be able to use it. On the other hand, if I found something really useful, I could subpoena her e-mails and pretend to discover the e-mail for the first time.

  I really should record these thoughts and play them back to myself during a moment of reflection. The rules of ethics in my profession, last I checked, weren’t optional. When did I start treating them that way?

  Oh, that’s right—when an innocent man was on the verge of going down for murder.

  “So here it is.” Tori showed me the computer screen. “This is Kathy’s personal e-mail, not work.”

  “This is her inbox?” I asked.

  “Right. As you can see, she’s still getting a few e-mails, a year later. Mostly ads. But the real traffic ends on January thirteenth, when she died.”

  We sat next to each other on my couch. She handed me the laptop. I scrolled through the messages she received. Most of them appeared to be sent to friends. Many of them at the top of the screen—the most recent chronologically—revolved around plans to celebrate her twenty-fourth birthday, which would have been the next day after her death. It hit me at that moment, something palpable in my gut, the sense of loss. This woman didn’t make it to twenty-four. What I was doing, trying to solve this puzzle, wasn’t solely for my client. I owed it to her, too.

  “Check out January eighth,” Tori said.

  I had to move to the second screen to do so. I pulled up an e-mail dated Friday, January 8, 1:31 P.M.:

  I Need Some Advice

  From: “Katherine Rubinkowski”

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