While everyone in the courtroom stares, Shad texts someone, then makes a call. A moment later, he’s speaking in angry whispers once more. His voice is punctuated by brief silences, but his volume increases after each one. With five seconds remaining of his allotted minute, he hangs up and stands to face the judge.

“Mr. Johnson?”

“Your Honor, the FBI reports that the crime lab will be unable to restore the tape found in the St. Catherine’s Hospital Dumpster. The magnetic information was too scrambled to repair.”

Judge Elder listens with interest, then purses his lips in thought. “Would more time increase the odds of a successful outcome?”

Shad looks like a schoolboy about to either break into tears or punch somebody in the mouth. “I’m told it would not, Judge. That information is gone. The magnets in that MRI machine basically obliterated it.”

I shift my focus to my father, who once again is wearing a mask of sober reflection. But in his posture I sense a change that I can only describe as relaxation. He appears not to have changed position, but I’ve known him so long that I see things in him others can’t. Thirty seconds ago, there was a profound tension in him, an electric current holding his muscles rigid, his face immobile. He was like a gambler with all his holdings sitting on the table, waiting for the turn of a single card. Now he looks like that gambler after the card turned his way.

My God, I think, watching Shad try to adapt to this new reality. Shad was the gambler on the other side of that bet, and he must feel he has lost everything. He stands there with every eye upon him, making a silent inventory of his remaining assets. I can’t see that he has many.

“Mr. Johnson, please proceed,” says Judge Elder.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

Shad said the words, but it takes him a few seconds to get his feet moving. Once he does, he walks to within about eight feet of the witness box and addresses my father again.

“Dr. Cage, what’s the purpose of the adrenaline you carry in your black bag?”

“I carry a one ten-thousandth dilution, for IV administration, and also a one one-thousandth dilution for intramuscular injection. Adrenaline has many uses in emergencies. Treating anaphylactic shock, for example. Allergies to things like bee stings or peanut oil. And of course, treating cardiac emergencies. I’ve always kept an ampoule of adrenaline nearby because of my own cardiovascular disease. Sort of my own personal crash cart. A lot of older doctors do that.”

“And did you have adrenaline with you on the night Viola Turner died?”

“I did. As Melba Price testified was likely, I believe.”

“Did you inject that adrenaline into Viola Turner on the night she died?”

“I did not.”