“I want counsel back at their respective tables. You”—Franklin points at Jenny—“stay with me. I’m going to listen to this tape. Then I’ll make my decision as to admissibility. If I walk back into that courtroom and announce that the tape will be played, I don’t want to hear a single objection. If I don’t mention the tape, the same holds true, and I will give this case to the jury. It’s late, and there’s too much craziness surrounding this trial to drag it into tomorrow if we don’t have to.” She claps her hands together. “Everybody out.”

As I walk back to my table, Caitlin nods in encouragement from the bar. I take my seat and slide back within earshot of her.

“What do you have?” she whispers.

“I’m not sure. A tape of Marston and a New Orleans lawyer. Jenny says it will nail Marston.”

“You haven’t heard it?”

“No. Franklin’s listening to it now. She’s going to rule on admissibility.”

“I’m praying here,” Caitlin says. “I’m actually praying.”

The wait is almost impossible to bear. Two minutes stretch to five, then ten. The spectators are silent at first, but as the minutes drag on, they begin to whisper. Without Franklin to intimidate them, the whisper grows to a hum, then a dull roar. It reminds me of students assembled in a gymnasium. Twice I look across the aisle to Marston’s table, but Leo and Livy stare straight ahead, their faces set in stone. Only Blake Sims looks worried. Sims looks, in fact, like he would rather be getting a root canal than sitting at his client’s table.

At last Judge Franklin’s chamber door opens, silencing the court. Jenny Doe walks through first and heads for the spectators’ benches, her head bowed. Franklin emerges carrying a cassette tape player, a cheap jam box with a silver antenna sticking up off of it.

At Marston’s table, Blake Sims actually covers his eyes.

“Yes,” whispers Caitlin from behind me.

Judge Franklin takes the bench, sets the tape player before her, then turns to the jury box. “Members of the jury, I am about to play a tape recording of two voices having a telephone conversation. One, I am told, belongs to a lawyer in New Orleans. The other, I am convinced, belongs to the plaintiff in this case, Leo Marston. I have instructed counsel to make no objections to the playing of this tape. The supreme court might disagree with my decision, but this is not a murder trial, and I suspect that it will never see an appeals court.”

A murmur of anticipation ripples through the crowd.