His explanation was lengthy and detailed, and I was bored. I already knew the time stamps were altered and didn’t really care how so long as the testimony would hold up in court. Dev was clearly elated, though, which told me that he hadn’t been sure of my innocence before. Not that it mattered.

A text hit my phone, and I read it under the table. It was from Ned Bartman’s young associate, Joshua Matson. When and where?

Banoff had written a fifty-page report supporting his conclusion, and Schechler had signed it and for an additional fee was prepared to testify to it. At the end of the meeting, they distributed electronic copies of the report to Dev and me. I immediately forwarded it to Mark Ivins. He’d paid for it, after all.

Dev showed the two men out and returned to the conference room. He was still beaming. “I’ll study the report tonight, and if everything looks good, I’ll send it to the DA in the morning.”

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

His smile faltered. “Why wait? Once they see this, they’ll dismiss the charges. Within the week, I’d wager.”

“Then what?”

“Then?” He seemed to be puzzled by my apparent obtuseness. “Then it will be over.”

“Except that it won’t. I’ll still have this hanging over me. People will be whispering about me and speculating about what really happened for the rest of my life.”

“It’s not our burden to prove what really happened.”

“It is, though,” I said. “We have to play the long game, Dev.”

He deferred to me again, showing only the smallest of frowns as he moved on to the next items on my to-do list. His investigator had traveled to the federal penitentiary in Kansas to interview my half brother Roger. “He said he’d absolutely sign a statement that he never gave or sold you a firearm or even spoke to you in the last twenty years. But only in exchange for fifty thousand dollars. Which of course would render the statement utterly worthless.”

“Good old Roger,” I muttered. I wasn’t surprised.

“The good news is he’s not cooperating with the DA, either. He agreed to give them a statement—saying the opposite, I assume—but only in exchange for a pardon.”

“There’s no risk—?”

“None,” Dev assured me. “Even if the DA were willing, the feds would never agree. So the bottom line on the gun is that, yes, your estranged half brother purchased a dozen DIY kits from the same manufacturer as the elevator gun”—elevator gun was the euphemism Dev employed to avoid saying murder weapon—“but thousands of those kits were sold, and there’s no way to source the elevator gun to the kits sold to your brother.”

“But also no way to source it to Lucy.”

“Yes, but remember—” He checked himself before reminding me yet again about the burden of proof. “Final item,” he said, pivoting. “Your husband.”

I tensed. “You found him?”

“Not quite. But we learned that he was picked up for possession last month.”