The tape went on like this for half an hour: the detective suggesting things and Anderson seeming confused. When I’d first seen it, I hadn’t thought it hurt us, but I hadn’t seen it as particularly helpful either. Looking at it from the angle of Anderson being a drunken idiot and Steven actually abducting and killing Patty put it in a different light. I always watched these videos not with an eye toward the truth—the truth didn’t matter—but for what a jury would see. That’s the only thing that was of any importance. And what a jury would see was a high, confused kid being led along by an aggressive detective. Didn’t matter, though, because the confession would never be allowed at trial.

“Haven’t you watched this yet?”

I turned and saw Gates leaning against the door.

“Thought you were at church?”

“Ducked out early to see what you were up to. You weren’t home or at the hospital, so I figured this is probably where you were.”

“Russell filed a motion to suppress the confession and the video, so I wanted to take a look at it again.”

“Is he going to win?”

“Oh, for sure. Look at this.”

I fast-forwarded the video toward the end, to where Anderson said, “I wanna go home.”

Detective Howard, bless him, said, “Not yet.”

“It became a custodial interrogation right then, and he wasn’t under arrest. They didn’t Mirandize him, nothing. The confession will for sure be tossed.”

“We got enough without it, don’t we?”

“Well, Lyle’s testimony puts Anderson there, we maybe got Patty’s blood at his townhome, and if I cut a deal with Steven to testify against him . . . yeah, we could get a conviction.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

I clicked my tongue against my teeth. “I’m worried I might be prosecuting the wrong guy. Never had this problem as a defense attorney. My guys were always guilty.”

She chuckled. “The ethics aren’t quite as malleable over on this side, are they?”