“After Paul died, why didn’t you use the satellite phone to call for help?”

“Two reasons,” she said without hesitation. “First, I couldn’t get the damned thing to work. I’ve never been very good at reading manuals, and I just couldn’t get it to lock onto a satellite, so I gave up. After I got to port I got it to work the first time; maybe it was because the boat wasn’t moving anymore, or maybe it was the crossword syndrome.”

“What’s the crossword syndrome?”

“You’re working on the crossword, and there’s a big patch of it you just can’t solve. So you put the thing down for a while—maybe until the next day—and you pick it up and immediately get all the words. Maybe it’s like that with following directions in a manual.”

“I’ve had that experience,” Stone agreed. “What was your second reason for not calling for help?”

“First of all, I did call for help, but on the VHF radio. I didn’t know how to work the high-frequency unit—still don’t—but I tried calling ‘any ship’ on channel sixteen, but I never got an answer. I never even saw a ship or a yacht the whole trip. Second, I would have been ashamed if somebody had come to my rescue.”

“Why ashamed?”

“Well, I had a perfectly good yacht under me, and I had some idea of how to sail it, so my sense of self-reliance would have been punctured if I’d had to ask somebody else to do it for me. Anyway, in the end, I proved I could sail her.” She looked at him in the mirror. “Why did you want to know about the satellite telephone?”

“I thought the police might have seen it during their search and that Sir Winston might ask the question at the trial. If he does, stick with the answer about not being able to get the phone to work, and calling for help on the VHF; don’t mention that business about your sense of self-reliance. I’m not sure how it would play with the jury.”

“Okay.”

“Later, I’ll go through your testimony with you, and we’ll fine-tune it.”

“You mean you’re going to rehearse a witness?”

“You bet I am. Oh, I’m not going to tamper with your story; I just want to shape it in a way that will tell the jury, in a simple and straightforward way, that you’re innocent.”

“Okay. What are you going to do the rest of the day?”

“I have to go out and talk to Leslie Hewitt about the trial. I’ve made some notes that I want to give him.”

“I’ll be here all day,” she said, “or as long as the cops are.”