“Mr. Chin, you testified that these two videotapes were erased by two different methods, yes?”

“Yes.”

“So the State would have us believe that some person used two completely different methods to erase two videotapes in his possession?”

“That’s what the facts show. In my opinion—”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Chin, you’re an expert in videotape restoration, and not a criminologist or psychologist, correct?”

Joseph Chin’s disappointment is plain; he was salivating over the prospect of giving his theory on why a murderer might choose different methods to erase two tapes. The obvious answer—at least to me—is that the tape exposed to the MRI machine contained more sensitive or incriminating information than the one erased in the camcorder.

“I’m not a criminologist or a psychologist,” Chin admits with regret.

Quentin gives him a conciliatory smile. “So, to summarize, the technicians were unable to reconstruct any data from the tape erased in the camcorder, correct?”

“That’s correct.”

“So, why should a person with something to hide risk being seen doing something suspicious or even as risky as gaining access to an MRI machine when he could erase both tapes in complete privacy using a camcorder?”

“Uh . . . maybe he didn’t know the camcorder method was just as thorough?”

Quentin appears to consider this answer. “All right. Just to be absolutely clear, Mr. Chin, no usable information has been recovered from either videotape you were asked to help analyze, is that correct?”

“That’s correct.”

“So those tapes can give us zero information about what happened in Cora Revels’s house on the night Viola Turner died?”

Chin glances uncomfortably at Shad, then says, “Well . . . by the strict criteria of the data they contain, that’s correct.”

“Can your analysis, or that of the Sony technicians, prove that the tape was ever in Cora Revels’s house at all?”

“The fingerprints—”

“Fingerprints are not your domain, Mr. Chin. Can any analysis conducted by you or the Sony techs prove that those tapes were ever in Cora Revels’s house?”

“No, sir.”

Quentin touches his joystick and turns dismissively from the witness. “No further questions, Judge.”

While Quentin returns to his table, Shad calls a man named Byron Reed to the stand. A thin black man with gold spectacles gets up and walks to the witness box to be sworn.

I don’t know Mr. Reed, but I can guess what he’s here for: to confirm something that most people in the courtroom already know—that St. Catherine’s Hospital has an MRI machine. In short order this witness—who works as an MRI tech at St. Catherine’s—does just that, but Shad does not release him. Instead Shad walks over to the jury, looks back at the witness box, and asks, “Mr. Reed, on the morning Viola Turner was found dead, did you see Dr. Thomas Cage in St. Catherine’s Hospital?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What time was that?”