“No. She just took Regina in the house and closed the door.”

“What about the two men? What were they doing while Vivian and Regina were in the house?”

“They stayed in the shack. They must have been holding Mr. Mattison down, because he kept begging them to let him go. Then Vivian come out of the house and the two men went in. She went in the shack and there was some talking, but it was real low and I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I moved around the corner close to the door and then all of a sudden it opened. I sort of squeezed myself up against the wall because if I moved the snow would crunch. Then I heard Mr. Mattison tell her he hated her and the rest of them and he was going to get the cops after them. She was standing in the door and she laughed and she said, ‘You wouldn’t call the cops on your mother, would you?’ and he said she was a liar. She said the cops would haul him away to the nut house if he ever opened his mouth.”

“And then what happened?”

“She went back in the house. She didn’t even close the door to the shack. He had to do it.”

“Did you go into the shack?”

“No. I ran home. I cut back through the woods and I fell on a stick. It stuck right in my leg. I still got the scar.” She pointed to a spot below her right knee.

“Did you ever mention this incident to Mr. Mattison?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It would’ve shamed him. That kind of thing you don’t want no one to know.”

“How soon after this December night did Regina Mattison kill herself?”

“Couple of months. April, I think.”

“April ninth, to be exact. Did you ever return to the shack?”

“No. I never went near that house again.”

“Did you have any contact with Mr. Mattison after he left Ridgeway?”

“No.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Lowell.” He turned to the prosecution. “Your witness.”

Naturally, the prosecution did its best to discredit Wanda Lowell’s testimony. How, after all these years, could she recall exact words, exact dialogue? What was her real interest in the defendant’s husband? Was she secretly in love with him? Wanda grew indignant at the last question and told her questioner she was a married woman and a mother and she hadn’t come here to be insulted. I watched the jury. They were impressed.

The wrap-up came on a day of record-breaking temperatures. Collars wilted, faces drooped, magazines and newspapers were used as fans. Among the jury I sensed a definite anxiousness for the whole thing to be over with. For some of them, what had begun as a privileged adventure had now degenerated into a ritual of tedium. In his summary, my lawyer flattered them, caressed and cooled them with his mellifluous voice.