“Your Honor, I would like to play for the jury exhibit number twelve, the first message recovered from the Raleigh answering machine.”

“Proceed.” Judge Sam nodded at his clerk, Mr. Greenfield, who set up the audio player while Ms. Silverstone, Blackburn’s assistant prosecutor, produced a poster. It was a transcript of the message, which played on a speaker.

“I don’t have my watch on, but it’s about nine thirty or nine forty-five. If you want to, go ahead and lock the garage door, and I’ll park out front.”

“Detective Hume, what time do the phone records put this call at?”

“Eleven twenty-four p.m.”

“So almost two hours later than the defendant states on the message. Is that correct, sir?”

“Yes.”

“And by the way, looking at the car phone records for the month of April ’87, there are eight instances of Reverend Raleigh calling the number 787-1111. What is that number?”

“That number gives out the time and temperature.”

“And why did Reverend Raleigh call that number so much?”

“Objection.” Whiteside was growing a little testier.

“Withdrawn. Is it safe to conclude he was calling to find out the time from his car phone?”

“Or the temperature,” Hume half-joked, “but yes.”

“In your questioning of Reverend Raleigh, did you ask him if he wore a watch?”

“We did ask, and he did not wear a watch.”

“So when he says in the message ‘I don’t have my watch on’—that’s because Reverend Raleigh doesn’t wear one, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And did Standing Raleigh park out front?”

“No, sir.”

“He parked in the driveway in the back where the garage is, right?”

“Yes.”

“The garage door, which Reverend Raleigh claimed Mrs. Raleigh was, earlier that evening, trying to grease with dish soap. Did you examine the lock on the garage door, Detective?”

“Yes.”

“And was it broken or stuck?”

“No, the garage door and the lock were in working order.”

Anne’s imagination went wild with that key detail. He came into the house first. She left the alarm off for him to come home. He lured her out to the garage . . .

“And did you swipe the door, its handle, and the garage for fingerprints?”

“Yes.”

“And did you find any prints other than members of the Raleigh family?”

“No.”

“Anything else strange about the garage that you found in your investigation?”

“Well, there was no lightbulb in the overhead light.”

He lures her there. Away from the sleeping children. The car still running so it’s noisy enough.

“No lightbulb? So someone had removed it before the attack?”

“Objection, speculation.”

“Withdrawn. So the garage would have been pitch-black the night of the attack because the lightbulb was missing from the socket. Is that true, Detective?”

“Yes.”

Anne reversed course with a dozen silent postulations. He didn’t go into the house. He hid. He lay in wait in the garage for her to lock it.