“Mr. Simmons,” he said. “I’m not asking you to speculate one way or the other here, okay? But is it possible—is it possible—that Mr. May never fired a shot at all? Is it possible that when he saw his mother fall, he fell with her to tend to her wounds?”

Victoria suppressed a smile. Justice had just won the fight.

“It’s possible,” George mumbled.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Simmons, but there’s a record that needs to be accurate. A little louder, please.”

“It’s possible that that asshole never fired a shot.”

Rory looked for an out-of-order ruling on the epithet, but Victoria answered with a barely perceptible shake of her head. It was time to declare victory and move on.

Silence dominated Maggie’s Place as Rory returned to the table and reviewed his notes. “Thank you, Mr. Simmons. I have no further questions for you.”

Honestly, Victoria could not have asked Rory Stevenson to do a more capable job. As she watched him burn through the other witnesses, she was impressed not just by his skill as an interrogator, but the witnesses’ unwillingness to lie. On that point in particular, she had done them an injustice with her expectations.

Two hours later, it was all over. Rory rested his case.

All that remained was a compelling closing argument. If Rory could pull it off, she could spare Brandon-Lee May’s life.

“Your Honor,” he said. He turned his back on the judge and addressed the townsfolk in attendance. Victoria thought that was a brilliant stroke. They were not the jury. They would not determine guilt or innocence, but they would determine this young man’s future.

“Ladies and gentlemen of Ortho. We all know that a terrible crime has been committed, and that a kind man is dead. We know that in the absence of civil authority, this town was ransacked by one person or many. It may very well be that the people who ransacked Simmons Gas and Goodies and the pawnshop were the same people who murdered Ryan Hamilton.

“The facts in this case are infuriating. In the shadow of the worst disaster in history, people pillage stores and murder a man. When a posse moves to apprehend the one known suspect, a group is found to be not just in the vicinity of the murder, but in possession of the stolen goods.

“So we connect the dots that seem so easy. They seem self-evident. But they’re not. Once already, a grave error nearly cost the Foster twins their lives. That, too, seemed beyond obvious to all but the accused. And Mrs. Emerson, I am told.”

As he spoke, Rory paced a line from left to right in front of the assembly. He moved gracefully, and as he did, he rubbed his palms together slowly, as if trying to warm them, but without friction.