“Objection, relevance.”

“Sustained. Move on, Mr. Logiudice.”

Logiudice puckered his mouth. He flipped a page of his yellow pad, a page of questions he would set aside. Like a bird rustled from his perch, he began to move nervously around the courtroom again as he asked his questions until, at length, he settled back into his place at the lectern near the jury box.

“For whatever reason, in the days after Ben Rifkin’s murder, you became concerned about your friend Jacob’s role in it?”

“Objection.”

“Overruled.”

“You can answer, Derek.”

“Yes.”

“Was there anything in particular, besides his temper, that made you suspicious of Jacob?”

“Yes. He had a knife. It was like kind of an army knife, like a combat knife. It had this really really sharp blade with all these … teeth. It was a really scary knife.”

“You saw this knife yourself?”

“Yeah. Jake showed it to me. He even brought it to school once.”

“Why did he bring it to school?”

“Objection.”

“Sustained.”

“Did he show you the knife once at school?”

“Yeah, he showed me.”

“Did he say why he was showing it to you?”

“No.”

“Did he tell you why he wanted a knife at all?”

“I think he just thought it was cool.”

“And how did you react when you saw the knife?”

“I was like, ‘Dude, that’s cool.’ ”

“You weren’t bothered by it?”

“No.”

“Concerned?”

“No, not then.”

“Was Ben Rifkin around when Jacob produced the knife that day?”

“No. Nobody knew Jake had the knife. That’s the thing. He was just walking around with it. It was like Jake had this secret.”

“Where did he carry the knife?”

“In his backpack or his pocket.”

“Did he ever show it to anyone else or threaten anyone with it?”

“No.”

“All right, so Jacob had a knife. Was there anything else that made you suspicious of your friend Jacob in the hours and days after Ben Rifkin was murdered?”

“Well, like I said, at the very beginning nobody knew what happened. Then it kind of came out that Ben got killed with a knife in Cold Spring Park, and I just kind of knew.”

“Knew what?”

“Knew-I mean, I felt like he probably did it.”

“Objection.”

“Sustained. The jury will disregard the last answer.”

“How did you know Jacob-”

“Objection.”

“Sustained. Move on, Mr. Logiudice.”

Logiudice pursed his lips, regrouped. “Did Jacob ever talk about a website called the Cutting Room?”

“Yes.”

“Would you tell the jury, what is the Cutting Room?”

“It’s like a porn site, kind of, only it’s just stories and anyone can write stories and post them there.”

“What kind of stories?”

“Like S and M, I guess. I don’t really know. It’s, like, sex and violence.”

“Did Jacob talk about the site often?”

“Yeah. He liked it, I guess. He used to go there a lot.”

“Did you go there?”

Sheepish, blushing. “No. I didn’t like it.”

“Did it bother you that Jacob went there?”

“No. It’s his business.”

“Did Jacob ever show you a story on the Cutting Room that described Ben Rifkin’s murder?”

“Yes.”

“When did Jacob show you this story?”

“Like late April, I think.”

“After the murder?”

“Yeah, a few days after.”

“What did he tell you about it?”

“He just said he had this story he wrote and he posted it on this message board.”

“You mean he posted it online for other people to read?”

“Yeah.”

“And did you read the story?”

“Yes.”

“How did you find it?”

“Jacob sent me a link.”

“How? Email? Facebook?”

“Facebook? No! Anyone could have seen it. I think it was email. So I went to the site and I read it.”

“And what did you think of the story when you read it the first time?”

“I don’t know. I thought it was weird that he wrote it, but it was kind of interesting, I guess. Jacob was always a really good writer.”

“Did he write other stories like this one?”

“No, not exactly. He wrote some that were, like-”

“Objection.”

“Sustained. Next question.”

Logiudice produced a document, laser-printed, thick with text on both sides. He laid it on the witness stand in front of Derek.

“Is that the story the defendant told you he wrote?”

“Yes.”

“Is that printout an accurate record of the story precisely as you read it that day?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Move the document be admitted in evidence.”

“The document is admitted and marked Commonwealth’s Exhibit… Mary?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Commonwealth’s exhibit twenty-six.”

“How do you know for sure that the defendant wrote this story?”

“Why would he say it if it wasn’t true?”

“And what was it about the story that made you so concerned about Jacob and the Rifkin murder?”

“It was just, like, a total description, every little detail. He described the knife, the stabs in the chest, the whole thing. Even the character, the kid that got stabbed-in the story Jake calls him ‘Brent Mallis,’ but it’s obviously Ben Rifkin. Anyone who knew Ben would know. It wasn’t like totally fiction. It was just obvious.”

“Do you and your friends sometimes exchange messages on Facebook?”

“Sure.”

“And three days after Ben Rifkin was murdered, on April 15, 2007, did you post a message on Facebook saying, ‘Jake, everyone knows you did it. You have a knife. I’ve seen it.’ ”

“Yes.”

“Why did you post that message?”

“I just didn’t want to be the only one who knew about the knife. It was like, I didn’t want to be alone knowing that.”

“When you posted that message on Facebook accusing your friend of the murder, did he ever respond?”

“I wasn’t really accusing him. It was just something I wanted to say.”

“Did the defendant respond in any way?”

“I’m not sure what you mean. I mean, he posted on Facebook, but not really responding to that.”

“Well, did he ever deny that he murdered Ben Rifkin?”

“No.”

“After you published your accusation on Facebook in front of his whole class?”

“I didn’t publish it. I just put it on Facebook.”

“Did he ever deny the accusation?”

“No.”

“Did you ever accuse him directly, to his face?”

“No.”

“Before you saw that story on the Cutting Room, did you ever report your suspicions about Jacob to the police?”

“Not exactly.”

“Why not?”

“Because I wasn’t totally sure. Plus, the cop in charge of the case was Jacob’s dad.”

“And what did you think when you realized that it was Jacob’s dad who was running the case?”

“Ob- jec — tion.” Jonathan’s voice was disgusted.

“Sustained.”

“Derek, one last question. It was you that sought out the police to share this information, isn’t that right? Nobody had to come ask you?”

“That’s right.”

“You felt you had to turn in your own best friend?”

“Yeah.”

“No further questions.”

Jonathan stood up. He seemed for all the world to be unfazed by what he had just heard. And he would conduct a gallant cross, I knew. But something had obviously changed in the courtroom. The atmosphere was electric. It was as if we had all just decided something. You could read it in the faces of the jurors and Judge French, you could hear it in the supreme quiet of the crowd: Jacob was not going to walk out of that courtroom, not out the front door anyway. The excitement was a mix of relief-everyone’s doubts were resolved at last, about whether Jacob did it and whether he would get away with it-and palpable eagerness for revenge. The rest of the trial would be only details, formalities, tying up loose ends. Even my friend Ernie the court officer looked at Jacob with a wary eye, assessing how he would react to the handcuffs. But Jonathan seemed not to notice the drop in air pressure. He moved to the lectern and slipped on the half-glasses he wore on a chain around his neck and began to take it apart piece by piece.