“She was Lauren Wright’s deputy. The thought at the time was that she knew more about Lauren than anyone else in the District Attorney’s office, and so it would be helpful to have her assistance.”

“During the investigation, did Ms. Goodwin ever tell you that she had been engaged in a sexual affair with Lauren Wright?”

“No. She did not.”

“Would that have been an important fact for you to know?”

“Of course. Among the first things we focused on was whether Ms. Wright might have been having an affair. Ms. Goodwin knew that she was, and yet she kept that highly critical information to herself.”

So far, so good. I feel at home in court, handling a witness again. Like riding a bicycle. Then again, this witness is my boyfriend. It’s bound to get more difficult.

“Did you know Lauren Wright before you were assigned to investigate her murder?”

“I did. My girlfriend . . . you, Ms. Broden . . . worked for Ms. Wright. I didn’t know her well when you worked for her. After we started dating, you talked about her from time to time, and we had dinner with Lauren and her husband, Richard Trofino, on the night she was murdered.”

I don’t need to look at the jurors to know that they are paying attention now. I can feel the tension in the room rising. LeMarcus Burrows has done his job in setting up Richard as the alternative murderer to Dana. The jurors want to know how he acted that night.

“Please tell the jury everything—and I mean everything—that you recall from that dinner.”

“As you can imagine, in light of the fact that I learned the next morning that Lauren had been murdered, I’ve given that dinner quite a bit of thought. So my memory is pretty clear, even though it’s been more than a month since the event. I remember Richard and Lauren were already at the restaurant when we arrived. I had met Lauren before, but never socially, and I had not met Richard previously, so we exchanged the usual greetings. ‘Nice to meet you.’ ‘What do you do for a living?’ That kind of thing. It was all very normal. During dinner, I got the sense that Lauren was unhappy that Richard consumed as much alcohol as he did, but other than that, they seemed like any normal married couple.”

“Tell the jury what gave rise to your impressions regarding the alcohol issue.”