As Quentin rolls slowly forward, I hear no electrical whir, and I realize with a shock that he’s in a manual wheelchair, not his motorized one. Did he have an electrical problem? I wonder, surprised that I didn’t notice the change back in the clerk’s office. But then instinct tells me that Quentin must be making a subtle play to elicit sympathy or respect from the jury. When the legless old lawyer’s still-powerful shoulders grip those big wheels and turn them, you can’t help but feel you’re in the presence of a man of great fortitude.

Quentin elects to begin his questioning from his customary spot by the lectern, but I have no doubt he will have rolled a half mile or more before he finishes this afternoon.

When he clears his throat, the whispers of the standing-room-only crowd behind me fall silent. Just before he speaks, Quentin glances my way, and I give the smallest shake of my head, letting him know I’ve heard nothing more from Kaiser about the Dumpster tape.

“Dr. Cage,” he says, “did you treat Viola Turner during the last weeks of her life?”

“I did.”

“Were you her only doctor?”

“I was.”

“What was her chief illness?”

“Metastatic carcinoma of the lung.”

Quentin pauses for this to sink in; even for a lay audience, “metastatic” carries the awful weight of mortality. “And what was the prognosis?”

“Terminal.”

“So you were not trying to cure her?”

“No. I was providing palliative care. Trying to ease her suffering as much as possible.”

“Until her death?”

“Yes.”

“Did Mrs. Turner clearly understand this?”

“Yes. She’d been a nurse all her life. She knew her prognosis as well as any doctor would.”

“I see. Did she come to your office for treatment?”

“No. I generally saw her at her sister’s residence, where the front room had been converted to a sickroom.”

“I see. How often did you make house calls on Mrs. Turner?”

“Almost every day.”

“That’s uncommon these days, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I did that because Viola had once been my employee, and also because we had once had an intimate relationship.”

A collective intake of breath from the crowd charges the atmosphere in the courtroom.

“An extramarital affair?” Quentin asks, as though asking for clarification of some dull point of cost accounting.

“That’s correct,” Dad replies, just as clinically.

“I see. Dr. Cage, it has been said in the courtroom that you had a pact of sorts with Mrs. Turner, that you would help her to commit suicide before the pain from her cancer became too bad. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

A hundred people shift on their chairs at the same moment.

“Could you elaborate on that?”