“Your Honor, I’d like to introduce exhibit number thirteen.”

The poster board was swapped out, and the second message was played.

“Hey, you’re probably asleep, but I’m on my way home.”

“When did Reverend Raleigh leave this message?”

“Eleven twenty-nine p.m.”

“So that is left just minutes before he actually came home and called the police.”

“Yes.”

Covering his tracks. Poorly.

“Your Honor, can we play exhibit number twenty-two?”

Anne glimpsed Raleigh again—stone-faced, holding a pen and legal pad but not writing. They listened to the call he made to the police dispatcher.

“Uh, I just came into the house, and my wife . . . Somebody has done something to her.”

Anne tried to detect the tone of Raleigh’s voice through the static of the tape. No panic. Too vague. Too distant. The dispatcher asks:

“Has she been assaulted?”

And Raleigh’s reply:

“I don’t know, she’s foaming at the mouth or something.”

The call ended, and Blackburn waited a long, silent moment as everyone imagined Peggy Raleigh convulsing in that driveway. Blackburn reviewed his notes to make sure he had walked the detective through everything he needed.

“So from eight fifty-three p.m. to eleven forty-three p.m., do you know where Reverend Raleigh was?”

Detective Hume uncrossed his legs. He’s careful. And fairly precise on the timeline. Anne felt he was credible. Rehearsed, but credible.

“I don’t know.”

“Thank you. No further questions.”

Anne and the rest of the jurors were led out by the bailiff to the jury room to collect their things and head home for the day. After grabbing her purse and copy of the novel Cal, Anne lingered in the hallway behind the courtroom, waiting for the women’s room to open up.

A lot of testimony for day one, she thought, and hard not to prejudge any of it. So many sketchy moves. Why leave your family alone all night if you were getting death threats? Why had he pulled into the back when he said he would park in the front? On the message, he sent his wife out of the house to lock the garage. He sent her out there—into the dark—where it wasn’t safe or covered by the security system.

But Anne understood why he might lie about that. Carrying on with the bishop’s daughter. That would make page one. She had to stay even-keeled. All of this two days after Easter with two children in the house. Christ almighty.