Bo gave a curt nod and waited a good three seconds so that everyone in the courtroom could take in what they’d just heard. Then he spoke. “No further questions.”

“Cross-examination, Mr. Glover?” Judge Connelly asked, and Helen almost smiled at her old friend’s failure to use the “General” title. Sack Glover clearly noticed the omission, as his face turned a dark shade of red. Mad lawyers make stupid mistakes, Helen thought, wondering how Sack was going to begin. I admitted everything and gave a plausible explanation for how the physical evidence could be present without me killing Butch.

“Ms. Lewis . . .” Sack clearly took pleasure in not calling Helen by her title, even more so after Judge Connelly’s similar slight of him. “In December 1977, you had an abortion, didn’t you?”

Sack was looking at the jury as he asked the question, clearly hoping to gauge their reaction when Helen said yes.

“I told Butch I aborted our child.”

Sack turned his head toward her and blinked. “Yes, we know that, General, and that was because you did, in fact, have an abortion in December 1977, correct?”

Helen had waited seven months for this question, hoping that it wouldn’t come in so direct a manner. She had written Bo’s questions for her on this topic, but she had no control over the prosecutors. She had known, as soon as the letter written by Butch was leaked to the press, that she’d eventually have to face the music. Better right here, right now, in front of the jury that would decide this case in a standing-room-only courtroom.

“Judge, would you please instruct the defendant to answer the question?”

Helen gazed up at Susan Connelly, and Her Honor peered down at her with concerned eyes. “General Lewis, you must answer. Did you have an abortion in December 1977?”

Helen released a sob and then covered her mouth. Slowly, she turned back to face the jury and told them a secret she’d been keeping for thirty-eight years.

“No,” Helen said.

There was an audible gasp from the gallery. One of the spectators yelled, “Oh my God!”

“Order!” Judge Connelly bellowed, banging her gavel. “I’ll have order in this court.” But Her Honor likewise looked flustered. “Go ahead, Mr. Glover.”

“Excuse me,” Sack said, grabbing his collar and trying to keep his composure. “Let me ask it again. Ms. Lewis, did you or did you not have an abortion in December 1977?”

Helen cleared her throat and spoke into the microphone. “I did not have an abortion.”

Sack’s mouth hung open, and he made the fatal mistake of any cross-examination. He asked a question to which he didn’t know the answer. “What happened then?”