Sarah Mae looked at him with saucer eyes.

“What exactly did you mean by that?” Winsor asked.

“I…”

“If you remember.”

“I don’t remember. Rightly.”

Winsor put his hand to his chin and studied the witness. “Now this is a pretty important matter, Sarah Mae. Think real hard for us, will you do that?”

“I am,” she said.

Winsor stepped to the side of the podium and looked at Sarah Mae. His demeanor changed ever so slightly – from benign consideration to the start of annoyance. Charlene was almost certain that annoyance was a reflection of the jury reaction.

“Sarah Mae,” Winsor said, “the fact is you really don’t remember much about that day, and that’s a real problem, isn’t it?”

“I don’t rightly know everything. I was so, it was so…”

“Did you discuss your testimony with Miss Moore during the break?”

“Objection,” Charlene said. “Privilege.”

“I’m not asking about the content of the conversation, Your Honor. I’m just asking if they discussed it.”

“Overruled.”

“Answer the question, Sarah Mae.”

“Did I what?”

“Discuss your testimony with your lawyer at the break.”

“Discuss?”

“Did you talk about it?”

Now Sarah Mae’s face reflected a fear born of confusion and guilt, the kind of guilt a child feels when confronted with a charge she does not quite understand. She looked at Charlene, asking with her eyes what she should say.

“You don’t have to look at your lawyer,” Winsor said. “Just tell us the truth.”

Charlene jumped up. “Your Honor, I will testify to the fact that I did what any lawyer does with a client. During the break – ”

“Now I object,” Winsor said. “That’s a self-serving statement.”

Charlene turned on Winsor. “Your whole cross-examination is self-serving, Mr. Winsor, and – ”

She was brought up short by the banging gavel of Judge Lewis. “Miss Moore,” he said sharply. “You will refrain from addressing opposing counsel. We’ll just stop it right here. Mr. Winsor has asked a question and I’ve ruled that he may ask it. I want the witness to answer. Will the reporter please read the question again?”

The court reporter, a young woman, pulled up the steno paper and repeated the question for Sarah Mae.

“So you went over your testimony with your lawyer, correct?” Winsor clarified.

“Yeah.”

“And still you are conveniently remembering some things and not others.”

“Objection.” Charlene was operating on pure instinct.

“Sustained,” said the judge, surprising her.

“Your Honor,” Winsor said, his voice theatrical, “I have no more questions for the witness.”

“I can’t stand this waiting!” Millie said. She and Holden were in the hospital parking lot, getting air. The afternoon was hot, dry, just like Millie felt. As nice as Holden had been, she was beginning to want to be alone. She stared blankly at the high school banner across the street. Home of the Blades.

“I know how hard this must be,” Holden said.

“Do you?” The words came hard and fast. “I need to talk to her.”

“You’ll get your chance.”

“How do you know that?” she snapped. And she knew several things at once – that he didn’t deserve her tone, that he was comforting her as his profession demanded, but that she didn’t care to hear platitudes at this moment.

“Just believe it,” Holden said.

“It’s not that easy.”

“No, it’s not easy,” he said.

She looked into his eyes and saw some long ago darkness there, shadowy and shapeless.

“I’ll call Royal,” Holden said. “The folks at the church will want to be praying.”

“Not yet,” Millie said. It sounded selfish. It was, partly. “I don’t want anyone coming up here. I want my time with her.”

“Sure. Will you excuse me for a little while? I’m going to the chapel.”

“Chapel?”

“I want to do some praying myself. You know where to find me if you need anything.”

She watched him go. When was the last time she had prayed? Millie remembered praying for kids to stop teasing her. Didn’t happen. She hadn’t taken prayer seriously since.

But then it occurred to her she had prayed recently, in a way. In her vision. Hadn’t she spoken God’s name?

And when her mother was sprawled on the kitchen floor, hadn’t she called the name of God over and over? She had been crying out for help. Now, on reflection, it seemed simply irrational. A product of stress.

Still, Millie looked up into the blue sky, as if seeking an answer. None came. The sky was just there, hot and oppressive. And never-ending.

On his way up to his office, Lawrence Isadore Graebner paused in front of the twelve-foot sculpture of the judge and bowed slightly, ironically. The limestone figure with a stern expression and a full British wig presided over the main courtyard of Yale Law School. His Honor always appeared ready to declare a cosmic mistrial.

Larry Graebner, however, liked to think of him as merely waiting for the right man to come along and take the law into new venues of justice. Graebner, ever since joining the Yale law faculty in 1975, considered himself that man.

At sixty-one, a time when many of his colleagues were looking toward retirement, Graebner was at the peak of his career. He was on the short list of every Democratic administration for appointment to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, he was also at the bottom of that list. He knew why. He was a “lightning rod of controversy” according to the New York Times. He had simply said and written too much. If and when the Democrats commanded a larger majority in the Senate, and the right president was in place, he just might make it through.

Until then, he was content to offer advice and step into legal challenges he found stimulating.

One of his stimulants called just after five.

“It’s Winsor.”

“How’d it go today, Beau?” Graebner put his feet up on his African mahogany desk.

“Beautiful,” Winsor said. “The plaintiff wilted under the heat.”

“How is that young lawyer doing?”

“She’s lost. Young and lost. I tried to talk sense into her, but you know these crusading types.”

“Hey, never underestimate the power of ideals, even if we think they’re wrongheaded.”

“Ideals don’t win cases. Good lawyering does.”

“Since you are on the scene, sanity will prevail?”

“One never knows what a jury will do, but this jury looks pretty solid.”

Graebner reached for his espresso, fresh from the gilded machine on his credenza. “I’ve been doing some thinking about that, Beau. And I think it would be best if we took it out of the jury’s hands altogether.”

“Why?”

Noting a hint of wounded pride in Winsor – I am a great trial lawyer, let me handle it! – Graebner spoke with modulated patience. “Juries get publicity. It’s a media fascination. And then they get interviewed. They show up on network news or O’Reilly. Win or lose, it’s publicity.”

Winsor cleared his throat. “But how do we do it?”

“I’ve got it all worked out. I’ll e-mail you the details. You have a little work to do.”

“What are you e-mailing?”

“A little bombshell we’re going to hand your opponent.”