And what Judge Pitcock had said during the bench conference was true. He had bent over backwards to give Father Beale a fair trial. Ben couldn’t remember a time when he’d had a fairer judge overseeing a capital case. Sometimes, they were so preposterously biased that the whole trial became a stacked battle more against the judge than the prosecutor. But not this time. There’d been no unfairness, no error. And if there was no procedural error, there could be no successful appeal.

Which meant Ben had to win this case at the trial. There would be no second chances.

During the lunch break, Ben had the courtroom to himself. Which was fine-he liked it that way. All the other lawyers went to lunch; even Ben’s crew insisted on crossing the plaza to the cafeteria and ingesting high cholesterol foods in the name of nourishment. Certainly the clients went to lunch. But Ben remained in the courtroom, preparing for the afternoon ahead.

Being in trial was like nothing else. Ben sometimes compared it to being submerged in a bathysphere; the pressure of the trial pounded down on all sides at all times, while the world outside became increasingly distant and remote. One caught echoes from time to time, but it didn’t seem real. While a trial was on, only the courtroom was real, only the judge and the jury and anyone else you needed to get the job done. Everyone and everything else was too far removed to matter.

Which might explain why most people went to lunch-to recapture a tiny measure of the real world, if only for a brief time. But Ben wouldn’t allow it to himself, especially not during this case. Until the final rap of the gavel, his mind had to stay totally focused on the matter at hand. If he had fifteen spare minutes, that was fifteen minutes he’d spend preparing for whatever came next. Which in this case, was Ernestine. And he had lots to say to Ernestine. So he made sure he was ready. While the rest of the world went on without him.

Well, not entirely.

“I brought you back a sandwich,” Christina said, hovering over his shoulder. “Turkey wrap.”

Ben’s head remained buried in his papers. “No thanks.”

“I got it just for you.”

“Throw it away. Give it to the poor. Eat it yourself.”

“Well… no. It is rather disgusting. I also brought some tomato soup.”

“Thanks, but no.”

She placed her hand on his shoulder. “Ben, you have to keep your strength up.”

“Chocolate milk. Caffeine high. Adrenaline surge.”

“I’m serious, Ben.”

“Me too. No soup.”

“Then at least eat a few Fritos. I don’t want you to end up like my uncle Freddie. Did I ever tell you what happened to my uncle Freddie?”

He looked up from his papers. “If I say yes, will you not tell the story?”

She gave him a wry expression. “We worry about you, Ben, when you do your ascetic trial-addict routine.” Her voice dropped a notch. “I worry about you.”

“Don’t waste your energy. If you want to worry about something, worry about the case.”

“You’re doing enough of that for both of us. What is it about this one, anyway? Why are you so personally involved?”

“I told you. I’ve known Father Beale for years.”

“Don’t kid a kidder, Ben. There’s more to it than that.”

He returned his nose to his notebook. “I’m trying to help a man I know isn’t guilty.”

“How do you know?”

“I just… know, okay?”

Christina let him return to his work. But she slipped a half-full bag of Fritos into his attaché, just in case.

Ernestine Rupert tottered to the witness stand and performed exactly as Ben had expected, only better. For the prosecution, that is. Ben had hoped she would come off as a biased old biddy with an agenda, but instead, she seemed reasonable, tempered, even compassionate. Chalk one up for Canelli, or whoever was prepping his witnesses.

Canelli spent a good deal of time establishing that Ernestine was a respected member of the community, well-to-do widow, and the founder and chairman of the PCSC-an important civic organization. He didn’t mention that it was a pro-choice organization; that was too potentially controversial. Eventually, Canelli led her to the subject of the strife at St. Benedict’s.

“We tried to make the new priest work,” Ernestine explained patiently. “Tried every way we knew how. We didn’t want his ministry to fail. But no matter what we tried, it didn’t work, and no amount of effort was going to change that. Tensions grew and, in time, matured into outright hostility.”

“That must have been very painful.”

The blue-haired lady nodded. “I can’t tell you what a strain his hostility created, not only on myself, but the entire parish. I consider the people at St. Benedict’s my family. I love them all like brothers and sisters. It was as if some outsider had married into the family and begun systematically tearing it apart.”

“How was this hostility manifested?” Canelli asked. This was Ernestine’s cue to recount each and every outburst, every confrontation since Father Beale came to the church. Which she did. In detail. Some of them the jury had heard before, but it didn’t matter. Father Beale came off as an irrational, egomaniacal, uncaring man with an explosive temper he couldn’t control.

“At the last meeting before the murder, he totally lost control. He pounded on the table, his face red with rage, and shouted, ‘I won’t take this anymore!’ Shouted it as loud as he could, right in Kate’s face. And of course, soon after, she was dead.”

Canelli wrapped it up by bringing Ernestine to the fateful wedding and the confrontation in the corridor. Ernestine’s version had a few new wrinkles.

“I just happened to be in an alcove between the offices and the main corridor when the argument started. At first, I couldn’t help but listen and didn’t think anything of it. Then it became embarrassing. The fight just kept getting worse and worse, and I couldn’t come out without making it obvious I’d been there all along. I had to stay put.”

“So you heard the whole thing.”

Ernestine nodded. “Whether I liked it or not. And believe me, I didn’t like it. His language was grossly offensive. I’ve never heard such words-certainly not from a priest.”

“What was Kate McGuire saying?”

“She was telling him he was evil, or what he was doing was evil. She didn’t want it to continue. And he just kept on yelling at her. Finally, he threatened her. ‘I won’t put up with this,’ he said. ‘This isn’t over.’ ”

Canelli paused, allowing the grim words to sink in with the jury. “And the next time you saw Daniel Beale?” he asked finally.

“Was after the wedding. I was in the alcove again, and I saw him rush by, down the corridor toward the bathroom. His hands were red.” She paused, and her voice wavered slightly. “They were covered with blood.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Rupert,” Canelli said gravely. “No more questions.”

Ben scrutinized his opponent as he approached the podium. She sat prim and nearly motionless, poised in the chair with her handbag in her lap and her hands crossed over it. She was a sympathetic, somewhat vulnerable appearing woman, and Ben knew if he came down too hard on her, it might alienate some of the jurors. But in this case, that was just too damn bad.

“You must be awfully fond of that alcove,” Ben said, first off the bat. He let the declarative sentence hang in the air, giving everyone time to turn it around, consider it, guess where he was going.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well,” Ben explained, “twice you said you were hanging around in there by yourself, for no apparent reason. What gives? Have they got closed circuit TV in there?”

Ernestine ran her tongue along her teeth before answering. “No.”

“Then why were you in the alcove?”

Ernestine drew in a tiny breath, giving herself a moment to think. “I find it a quiet spot, somewhat secluded. A good place to gather my thoughts, meditate, pray.”