Unfortunately, Sara figured the prosecutor probably had the right of it. Adrenaline and rage could allow almost anyone to kill when the victim was in a vulnerable position like Anne had been—in bed, possibly asleep already. “But if it wasn’t him, who was it? Could someone have come in and murdered her while he was just sitting there drugged out?” Sara had a hard time picturing that. It seemed like he would have heard something. Had a sense of danger. But then again, she knew what two sedatives at bedtime could do. Her house could have burned down around her some nights and she wouldn’t have known. That had been the point.

“Someone she knew? A stranger? I don’t know. But I imagine it wasn’t all that hard for someone to come and go undetected. The neighbors were used to seeing various men in and out of the house. No one would have paid attention.”

“But none of the women in the house said they saw anyone.”

He gave her a rueful smile. “Didn’t most of them also claim to be occupied at the time?”

Sara felt an inexplicable blush creep up her face, which irritated her. They were prostitutes, of course they had been having sex. That wasn’t news, nor was it anything to be embarrassed about, since it wasn’t like she was talking about sex in relation to herself. Yet for some reason, there was heat in her cheeks as Gabriel smiled at her. “Yes, I think all but two of them were supposed to be occupied with men.”

“And people living in that kind of area, in that hand-to-mouth, vicious lifestyle tend to keep their nose to the ground and mind their own business. They don’t want to be involved in anything that might negatively impact them. We see that today too. You can have a gang shooting with seventy-five witnesses and they’ll all claim they didn’t see a thing.”

“I’m sure.” Sara shifted back to let the server set her salad down on the table in front of her. When he retreated, she asked Gabriel, “So what is the ultimate question here?”

“Did John Thiroux kill Anne Donovan? That’s the ultimate question. How intoxicated was he and could a man in that state of inebriation kill with that kind of fury? If he didn’t do it, who could have? If he did do it, how was it possible that he got away with it? And if forensic science had existed in the nineteenth century, could they have solved the crime? Or is the human factor of the jury always the deciding factor in a criminal case in court regardless of the forensic evidence?”