“I will be blunt, Mr. Singh,” Simms said, addressing Jivan. “Karak is Hindu. The crop doesn’t belong to him.” The lawyer looked at Ram. “It doesn’t matter how hard he worked that land with you. It doesn’t matter that people have called this section Singh Farm for more than a decade. Under the new laws, that was not Karak’s crop. It was not your crop. I’m sorry.”

No, he was not a friendly man, but somehow Ram believed in his sympathy. “People call it Singh Farm?” Ram asked.

“Many do.”

“What do you need?” Amarjeet asked.

“Karak keeps talking about a gun. He says that Clive waved a gun at him, then Karak lost his temper. Others have told me that Clive started carrying a gun regularly a couple of years ago. But when we found the body, there was no gun in the holster. Can we find someone who will state that he saw Clive with a gun that afternoon?”

“Why must we do this?” Ram said, agitated. “It is not enough to say he was crazy? He was crazy. You did not see body, Mr. Simms.” Ram’s voice broke. “I saw.”

“People generally do not believe claims of insanity. I am invoking it as a defense because—” he hesitated. “We don’t have much else.” Simms’s expression was stoic, professional. “But if there was a gun, Karak can claim he acted in self-defense. It is a much stronger case.”

The silence was heavy. Ram felt it was directed at him.

“If we are finding someone to say they saw gun, Karak will be free?” Ram asked.

A wave of expressions crossed Simms’s face. Ram thought that he had said something unknowing.

“No. He will go to jail for a long time. But if he was threatened with a gun, and we can prove it, he might not hang.” Simms looked Ram in the eye.

After the lawyer left, when Jivan and Ram were alone, Jivan said, “We will go together to ask her.”

“Bhai-ji,” Ram said, wanting to disagree. But there was no choice now.

THEY DROVE TO THE BARRIO IN LATE AFTERNOON, after the sun had lost some heat. They parked off the main roadway and walked the remaining two blocks. Women and children stared from open doorways, following their progress. A cluster of men watched them from a front porch. “Why do they come here?” one said loudly, so Jivan and Ram could hear. But the Punjabis ignored them.

At Alejandro’s and Esperanza’s home, Jivan stood back and Ram knocked on the door. It opened a few inches and Adela’s face appeared in the crack. She must have seen them coming.

“We have something to ask you, Adela,” Ram said in Spanish. “May we enter?”

“We do not want to talk in public,” Jivan added.