"While those of you who are parents will naturally identify with Mr. Sales's grief," she told the jury in her most compassionate voice, "I must ask you to remember that anything he says will be clouded by unfettered hatred for Professor Lipton. And that hatred, ladies and gentlemen, did not spring from his daughter's death. No, that hatred burned long and hard before the day of the unfortunate tragedy because Mr. Sales was enraged over the affair his daughter was having with her professor. So when he tells you his story, you have to realize it's just that, another story…

"Finally, the prosecution will make much of Ms. Sales's underwear…" Here Casey paused to look modestly down at her own feet. "Now… I have a sex life. You have your sex lives. And we don't expect that anyone else will be privy to that part of our existence, do we? No. No, we expect that what goes on in the privacy of our bedrooms will stay there. The way we look, what we say, what we do… we expect these things to be private. But remember, the DA is telling a story, and won't it make people sit up and listen if he talks about a man with a woman's underwear? And if there's blood on that underwear? How sensational! What a story!

"But… what if that garment was nothing more than a private bedroom thing between two adults? What if it was no one's business? What if the blood came, not from the commission of a crime, but from someone wiping her mouth after biting her tongue during some lively consensual sex."

"You bitch!"

The words rang out in the courtroom, leaving a tremendous silence in their wake. Donald Sales was up from his seat and over the balustrade before anyone else could move. Casey instinctively retreated back toward the bench. Luckily, the bailiff, who was a young, tubby three-hundred-pounder, hadn't yet fallen asleep, and when he stepped forward, Casey ducked behind him to screen herself from the raging father. The bailiff grabbed the storming Sales in a bear hug and held tight until help could come from the hallway. Rawlins hammered indignantly with his gavel while two armed officers helped the bailiff subdue Sales in a scuffle in which no one threw a punch.

"Get him out!" Rawlins wailed. "Get that man out of my courtroom!"

Out-muscled and realizing his mistake, Sales allowed the officers to lead him out of the court without resistance.

"Would you like to go on, Ms. Jordan?" Rawlins asked derisively. "We have a trial to conduct here."

Casey checked herself from rebuking Rawlins. It was absurd to continue without at least a brief recess, but Casey quickly decided to turn the situation to her advantage. She wouldn't try to hide the tremble in her voice. She wanted them to see she was frightened, that Sales was an uncontrollable, vicious, and violent man capable of almost anything.

She stood, shaking and scared, until Rawlins badgered her again.

"Please, Ms. Jordan," he barked. "Continue if you have anything more to say. If not, I will direct the prosecution to proceed with its case."

Casey drew a breath, cleared her voice, and said, "As you see, Mr. Sales is a furious, unpredictable man… And, as I said, you will hear from him and the police and the prosecutor and all of his other witnesses in an attempt to construct a story that is far from the truth… But you must remember this: The most important charge the judge will give to you will be the words 'beyond a reasonable doubt.'

"That means, my friends, that a reasonable person would have not a single doubt that the prosecutor's story is true. But you will see, I will show you, that his story is remarkably doubtful. I will show you a police force so aggressive and a father so bent by hatred that you will understand why they were so eager to point the finger at Professor Lipton. At first glance, yes, his actions are suspicious. But as I said, there are good reasons for why he acted as he did. They make sense, and they will convince you that he is nothing more than a man in the wrong place at the wrong time."

The DA used the first two days of the trial to unveil the evidence that linked Professor Lipton to the scene of the crime. For the most part, Casey did little on cross-examination. She wanted to lull the opposition into a false sense of security before she poured it on. Except for the actual murder, Casey was conceding that Lipton had done everything the police said. Her theory was that, yes, he was at the scene. Yes, he raced away, hitting a car in the process. Yes, he lied to the police and he even tried to flee.

The only point she got aggressive about had to do with the blood on Marcia Sales's underwear. Casey wanted it clear that the women's underwear Lipton was carrying might not have any connection to the murder at all.

"So," she had asked a witness from the crime lab, "while you know this blood belonged to Marcia Sales, you don't know when it got there, do you?"

"No," the tech had answered.

"It's perfectly possible," Casey continued, "that this blood came from a bite in her tongue or the inside of her mouth, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"So it's possible that Marcia Sales, gagged with that underwear as part of a sexual idiosyncrasy, bit into her tongue or her cheek and bled on that underwear, isn't it?"

The lab technician had to admit that it was possible.

At the time, Donald Sales had twisted his face into a silent snarl. Rawlins had allowed him back into the courtroom after giving him a strong warning that another outburst like the first would land him in jail. Since then, he had spent his time shifting his hateful glare between Casey and Lipton and sometimes even Patti. Instead of avoiding eye contact, Casey stared right back at him, taking in his hatred and allowing her own anger to smolder. She would bring it to a flame when she cross-examined him on the witness stand. And with the information that Tony had gathered, it was going to be a hot flame indeed.

It was the night of that second day when Casey received an unusual call at home from the judge's clerk. Casey was requested in chambers before trial the next morning. The clerk wouldn't say what it was about.

"What's the matter?" her husband asked her absently from his side of the plush velvet couch when she hung up the phone. It was nine-thirty at night. Casey was sitting with him dutifully in their cavernous walnut-paneled den while he watched a rented action movie that she had no interest in.

"I just don't like being called to chambers without knowing why," she said.

"Yeah," he told her, "I know. It'll all work out."

Then his attention was back on the movie. Casey knew he hadn't even really heard her. It was his mantra. It'll all work out. That was how he dealt with any unexpected bumps in Casey's world. He dismissed them, presuming she could take care of it.

She wondered if it was some deficiency in her that caused the people closest to her to act that way. She'd experienced the same thing with her parents while growing up. Whether it was an award for something she did in sports or school, half the time her parents weren't even there. And just recently, after she had won the Texas Trial Lawyers Association's highest honor, her father had responded over the phone by saying, "That's real nice. What'd they eat at the dinner?"

"Did you ever think you might like to know why or what I'm upset about, Taylor?" she asked, suddenly mad at her husband for a lifetime of underappreciation.

"Yeah," he said. "Sure." But his feet remained on the coffee table, his eyes on the screen.

"Can you shut that off for a minute?" she said.

"Honey, it's a good part right now," he told her, eyes still glued to the set. "Give me a minute…"

"Fine," Casey said. She shot off the couch and stomped all the way up the broad spiral staircase to get ready for bed. When she was in her nightshirt, she went to the top of the stairs. She could faintly hear the movie echoing through the long hallways and off the marble walls of the magnificent entryway. He was still watching. She returned to the bedroom and lay down but couldn't sleep. He was obviously going to watch to the conclusion. She was in the middle of an enormous case, a case everyone in all of Texas was talking about, and her husband couldn't even pause his sophomoric action movie to discuss her concerns. It was infuriating.