“Mrs. Manning, have you ever fired a scuba diver’s spear gun?”

She reacted as if struck. “Ah, I…no.”

“That’s a lie. If I can spot it, so can the jury. Answer the question.”

She took a deep breath and exhaled it. “Yes, of course. Paul and I went diving whenever we were near a good reef.”

“Have you ever struck anything with a harpoon fired from a gun?”

She smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid not. Paul was a good shot, but I would always miss.”

“Good, get a laugh out of them. How far were you standing from Paul when you fired the spear gun at him?”

Her face collapsed into disbelief. “What?”

“Where did the spear strike him?”

“Are you crazy?”

“In the chest? In the neck? Did he fall overboard immediately, or did you have to help him?”

“Stone, goddammit!”

“Did he bleed a lot? Did sharks come when they smelled the blood?”

“Stop this!”

“Answer the questions!!!”

“I never fired a spear gun at my husband, never!” she cried, furious now. “I would never have done anything to harm him!”

“Now that’s better,” Stone said. “That’s a good time to get angry, when he does that to you.”

“You said not to get angry.”

“I misled you.”

“You son of a bitch.”

“No, I’m the sweetest guy in the world; Sir Winston Sutherland is the son of a bitch, and he’ll do anything he possibly can to get you to come apart on the stand. He already knows about the spear gun.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because the police searched the yacht, remember? You think they wouldn’t notice a lethal weapon hanging on a bulkhead in plain sight?”

“Oh,” she said.

“What about the other weapons?”

“What other weapons?”

“What did they take from the boat? A pistol? A shotgun?”

“We didn’t have any weapons on board; Paul was very anti-gun.”

“What about the spear gun? That was a weapon.”

“It was a tool; it was used for fishing,” she said calmly.

“What didn’t they find? A nine-millimeter automatic? A riot gun? What?”

“There were no weapons aboard!” she cried. “None!”

“How many knives were aboard the yacht?”

“I don’t know how many…”

“Think! Count them in your head!”

She thought for a moment. “Maybe eight or ten, maybe a dozen.”

“Enumerate them.”

“Let’s see, in the galley, there was a chef’s knife, a bread knife, a boning knife, and two paring knives.”

“How long was the chef’s knife?”

“About eight inches. I could never handle the big ones.”

“Is that what you used on your husband? An eight-inch chef’s knife? That would do the job.”

“I never harmed my husband,” she said quietly.

“What other knives were aboard?”