“How did you know that?” He raised his ever-so-slightly plucked eyebrows at her.

“Because I had . . .” She blinked rapidly. “A premonition.”

“A what?” The prosecutor pretended surprise, as if he couldn’t believe that such a stupid thing had come out of her mouth.

Betsy had already told the police about the premonition the night that Peter died, the night she stabbed him. She was eighteen. She was scared and traumatized, so she simply told the truth. She didn’t want to kill anyone, ever. She did it to save Johnny, she told them.

“A premonition?”

“Objection, Your Honor,” Betsy’s attorney, Shaylee, stood. “She doesn’t mean a real premonition, she means that she had a bad feeling. Only that. She and Johnny shared everything. Johnny shared his fear of his father, the abuse, that they’d been fighting, so Betsy simply thought that things were going badly at Johnny’s house, as we all get bad feelings sometimes.”

“Overruled.”

“What do you mean a premonition?” Alfred pressed on, as if Shaylee had not spoken and tried to diminish his argument. “You mean, you can see into the future?”

The whole court room held their breath.

Betsy was scared now. She knew she looked like a loon. Mentally unstable. A freak. “Yes. I knew that Peter was going to kill Johnny, that he was going to turn and grab a gun from the gun cabinet.”

“So you killed him because you had a premonition Peter was going to shoot Johnny?” Up went those perfectly plucked eyebrows again, in disbelief.

“Yes.” She squirmed. The police had already talked about it in front of the jury, reading from their reports about that night and their conversations with Betsy. They had read her her rights, but Betsy didn’t understand what was at stake. Her own attorneys had been appalled when they heard what she’d said to the police and had gone out that night to a bar for a couple of straight shots.

“Johnny accused his father of killing his mother. They were fighting about that. Peter was threatening Johnny because he was afraid Johnny would go to the police, then he punched him in the face twice and Johnny fell back.”

“Did you see the gun?”

“No.”

“Peter Kandinsky never pulled out a gun?”

“No. But he was going to.”

“So you stabbed him because you knew he was going to grab a gun because you can see the future like a gypsy? Are you magic?”

“No, I—”

“Objection!” Shaylee shouted.

“Do you have a crystal ball?”

“Objection!” Shaylee shouted again, louder.

Johnny stood up, agitated. “No, that’s not what happened. I killed my father. My father had just punched me in the face, twice, as he had done many times before. I thought he was going to kill me. Betsy is innocent. She did nothing, it was me, I stabbed him.”

The cacophony in the court room was deafening.

* * *