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  "You mentioned evidence of gunpowder on both Emily's and Chris's clothes," Jordan said. "Isn't it true that if you find gunpowder on the shirt all it really proves is that the fabric was in close contact when the gun was fired?"

  "That's correct."

  "Can you determine from gunpowder residue on clothing who actually shot the gun?"

  "Not conclusively. But we didn't find any gunpowder residue on the victim's hands either. And the perpetrator of a suicide would have had some sort of trace of powder on her skin."

  Jordan seized on that. "Is it consistent with a murder investigation to immediately bag the hands of the victim?"

  "Ordinarily yes, but--"

  "When was the gunpowder test performed on the corpse?"

  Anne-Marie looked at her lap. "November ninth."

  "You're saying you didn't test Emily's hands at the scene of the crime, and you didn't test her on the way to the hospital, and you didn't even test her in the morgue until two days after she'd died? Is it possible that during that block of time, someone had tampered with Emily's hands?"

  "Well, I--"

  "Yes or no?"

  "It's possible," Anne-Marie said.

  "Could someone have touched Emily's hands during the trip from the crime scene to the hospital?"

  "Yes."

  "Such as medics, or uniformed officers?"

  "Either would be possible."

  "In the emergency room of the hospital, might someone have touched her hands?"

  "Yes."

  "For example, maybe nurses or doctors?"

  "I suppose so."

  "In the emergency room might she have been swabbed down, since there were no instructions otherwise?"

  "Yes," the detective said.

  "So any number of people might have tampered with important evidence before you got around to collecting it from Emily's hands?" Jordan summarized.

  "Yes," Marrone admitted.

  "Wouldn't it also be consistent with a murder investigation to immediately test the hands of the perpetrator for gunpowder residue?"

  "That's standard procedure."

  "When you first saw Chris at the scene of the crime, did you test his hands for gunpowder residue?"

  "Well, no. But he wasn't under direct suspicion then."

  Jordan's eyes widened. "Really, Detective Marrone? He wasn't a suspect when the police got to the scene of the crime?"

  "No."

  "So when did it dawn on you that he was a suspect?"

  "Objection!" Barrie called.

  "Counselor, why don't you rephrase that question," Puckett said dryly.

  "I'll move on. Did you test him at the hospital?" Jordan hammered.

  "No."

  "Did you test him the next day, when you went to gather more information?"

  "No."

  "Did you test Chris the day he came into the police station for that interview?"

  "No."

  Jordan snorted. "So he was never tested for gunpowder residue--not at first when he was not a suspect and not later, when you decided he was a murderer?"

  "He was never tested."

  "Isn't it possible that if you had managed to test Emily's hands before someone tampered with them, you might have found gunpowder residue on them?"

  "That's possible."

  "And that would have indicated that she'd fired the gun."

  "Yes, it would," Anne-Marie said.

  "And if you had tested Chris for gunpowder residue right at the scene of the crime, you might not have found any on his hands, either?"

  "That's right."

  "And that would have indicated that he hadn't fired the gun?"

  "Correct."

  And then none of us would have to be here. Jordan did not have to say the words. He walked to the jury box, standing at the end as if he was one of its members. "Okay, Detective. Your theory is that Chris was at the scene of the crime. He put two bullets in the gun in case he missed the first time from an eighth of an inch away. He unsuccessfully tried to get Emily drunk, had sex with her, went for the gun. Emily saw him going for the gun, they wrestled, and then he shot her. You absolutely believe this is what happened?"

  "Yes, I do."

  "Not a single doubt in your mind?"

  "None."

  Jordan moved closer to the witness stand. "Couldn't the fact that there were two bullets in the gun that night have meant that there was going to be a double suicide?"

  "Well--"

  "Couldn't it?"

  "It could," Anne-Marie sighed.

  "And couldn't the Canadian Club have been there to take the edge off a suicide attempt?"

  "Maybe."

  "And might there have been fingerprints on that gun that weren't in the right spot, or clear enough, to have been picked up by that test of yours?"

  "Yes."

  "And might another gunpowder test--one that for whatever reason, wasn't done--have shown that Chris Harte did not fire that gun?"

  "Maybe."

  "So you're saying, Detective, that in your expert opinion, there might be another way to look at this."

  Anne-Marie Marrone exhaled through her mouth. "Yes," she said.

  Jordan turned his back. "Nothing further," he said.

  THE JURY--NOT TO MENTION THE JUDGE--was getting glassy-eyed; a common enough response to heavily detailed police testimony. Judge Puckett called for a ten-minute recess, during which the courtroom emptied.

  Selena grabbed Jordan's arm on his way back from the men's room. "Nice work," she praised. "You've got Juror Five for sure, and I think Juror Seven."

  "It's early yet."

  "Still." She shrugged, rubbing his arm lightly. "On the other hand, your client is falling apart." She gestured toward Chris, visible through the courtroom's doors. Chris was still seated at the defense table, two bailiffs and a sheriff's deputy standing guard behind him with their arms crossed, a physical barrier to contact. "He's just spent an hour hearing what a sociopath he is, and there isn't even a friendly face in the courtroom."

  Jordan peered at Chris, his body hunched slightly over the table. "His father's here," he told Selena.

  "Yeah, but Ward Cleaver he's not."

  Jordan nodded and ran a hand through his hair. "All right," he said. "I'll talk to him."

  "You should. Unless you want him to pass out cold at the ME's testimony."

  Jordan laughed. "Yeah. He'd probably crack his head open on Barrie Delaney's chair rollers, and she'd still find a way to make it look like Chris was faking." With a light squeeze of Selena's hand, Jordan made his way back into the courtroom. He nodded at the entourage surrounding his client. "Gentlemen," he said, slipping into his chair and waiting for them to disappear.

  "It's going well," he said to Chris. "Really."

  To his surprise, Chris laughed. "I hope so," he said. "Because it seems a little early to throw in the towel." Then the smile fell away from his face, revealing--as Selena had said--the tightly drawn mouth and pale countenance of a very frightened teenager.

  "You know," Jordan said, "I realize it's hard to hear yourself described as a monster. The prosecutor is allowed to say whatever she wants ... but so are we. We just haven't had our turn yet, and we've got the better story."

  "That's not it." Chris ran his finger over the blue lines of a legal pad. "It's that ... the prosecutor's making it real. It's been seven months, you know? But there's all this technical stuff and the blood and where Emily was and where I was and--" He paused, burying his head in his hands. "She's making me live it all over again, and I could barely survive it that once."

  Jordan--who could confidently slay any prosecution's witness with his words, who had a thousand answers for any of Barrie Delaney's questions--stared at his client, speechless.

  THE MEDICAL EXAMINER FOR GRAFTON COUNTY--Dr. Jubal Lumbano--was a thin, bespectacled man who looked far more suited to chasing butterflies with a large collector's net than rooting around elbow-deep in the innards of a corpse. It took Barrie Delaney a full