“Well, miss, I tell you what, the road to confusion is lined with what-ifs.” Ferris made a damping-down motion with his hands like he was trying to get a golf shot to lay up. “As Judge Sam told us, we have to deliberate on the evidence, not the morality. Let’s stick to what we know for sure.”

Another man confident and certain—there’s something we all know for sure! Anne glanced at the sweep of the institutional clock. Friday morning, coming up on eleven; I still have time to work on these people. The closing arguments and conflicts on the court calendar had drawn out the last week of the trial. For the defense, Whiteside had stuck to the story of a fallen preacher thrown by temptation into a compromising situation. Blackburn appealed with pictures of Peggy Raleigh lying in Presbyterian. Barely breathing, Anne recalled, fed through a tube, forced to wear a diaper, walled off, muted, the bruises to her neck still visible weeks, months, after her attack.

“So what do we know?” Ferris counseled. “Margaret Raleigh was strangled in her garage.”

“Maybe,” Anne chirped.

“Excuse me?”

Anne scrounged for a Life Saver from her purse. “If we’re sticking to what we know for sure, there’s nothing in the evidence to suggest that he couldn’t have come into the house first, strangled her in the kitchen, and then moved the body to the garage.”

“But there was no evidence that he did that either.” The dentist’s mouth was somewhere between a smile and a snarl.

“You’re absolutely right.” Anne looked down. The next color on the Life Saver roll was green. Bleh. She suddenly felt the urge to smoke. “We don’t know. Except in the 911 call he says he came into the house.”

“Well that’s where the phone is.”

“Right, but he doesn’t locate her body. It’s possible he could have attacked her anywhere and then cleaned up the house and the garage. I guess it doesn’t really matter. If we come to the conclusion that he strangled her, then—”

“I don’t think we know if any of that is true.”

“Right, that’s my point. We don’t know.” Anne settled for the lime candy and lodged it against her gum. I have to start making an actual case here. “So what part of Standing Raleigh’s story is true? The part where he’s lying in messages to his wife? Or the part where he’s creating alibis and getting caught in his lies?”

“Completely agree.” Dr. Ferris feigned like he was listening and not annoyed at Anne’s derailing theories. “But let’s settle what the law requires.”

Anne realized she had to back off or she’d lose the ground she’d gained. Bide your time. Don’t be too pushy. Or too advocating. This isn’t a PTA meeting in the Bronx.