“I’m afraid you do, Sheriff. You’re no more immune to the judicial process than Dr. Cage or myself, or even Judge Elder. And at this point, I have to ask the simplest question of all: Was that tape ever in the bedside table of that sickroom in the first place, as Cora Revels suggested? And if so, was there ever really anything on it?”

Byrd’s enraged eyes narrow. “You’re trying to get me all turned around!”

“On the contrary, Sheriff. I’m trying to strip away all conjecture and assumptions and leave only facts. And what we know is that, even if there was a tape in that bedside table, no one can say what happened to it. Certainly no one saw Dr. Cage remove any tape from that house.”

“Well, who else could have done it?”

At this point Quentin is turned in profile to me, and I see him smile. “That, Sheriff Byrd, is a very good question. One I think you should have been asking from the very beginning. But you didn’t feel that was necessary, did you? Lincoln Turner told you who his mother’s killer was, his suspect suited you just fine, and you never looked seriously at any other possibility.”

“But his prints were on the tape!”

“His fingerprints are on a tape, Sheriff. A blank tape. An erased tape that you say a deputy working surreptitiously for you supposedly discovered in an abandoned van.”

Sheriff Byrd shakes his head in impotent rage.

Quentin looks up as though about to ask another question, but then he simply says, “No further questions, Your Honor.”

As Quentin rolls back to the defense table, Sheriff Byrd growls, “You think you’re so damn smart. What about the other tape? Why don’t you ask me about that? Huh?”

Quentin’s face is toward me as the words leave Byrd’s mouth, and I see him lose a shade of color. Oh, no, I groan silently, bracing for the worst.

If Quentin doesn’t respond to Byrd’s parting shot, then Shad will happily lead Byrd wherever it is he wants to go on redirect. Except . . . Shad’s suddenly rigid posture tells me he might not be happy about Byrd’s little taunt.

“Your Honor,” Quentin says, turning his chair again, “in light of the witness’s outburst, may I continue my cross-examination?”

“You may, Counselor.”

Quentin drives his chair back up to the witness box. “What tape were you referring to, Sheriff?”

“The tape that was in the camera that night.”

“What about it? Are you saying that you believe you found that tape as well?”

“You’re damn right we did.”

Shad Johnson comes to his feet. “Your Honor—”

“Yes, Counselor?”

Quentin looks over his shoulder at Shad. “Is the prosecutor objecting to his own witness, Your Honor?”

“I’m not sure,” Joe Elder says. “Mr. Johnson?”

“I beg your pardon, Your Honor.”