"A case is kind of like a puzzle. When you start with the puzzle and pour the puzzle pieces out of the box, it's just a bunch of colored pieces all jumbled up, and doesn't resemble a picture at all. But, as you complete the puzzle, you can begin to see what the picture is. Once you've reached that point, you can tell, more likely than not, what the picture is. At that point, you are at what the law calls the "preponderance of the evidence" standard. Once the puzzle becomes clear and you have an abiding conviction as to what the picture actually is, you have reached the reasonable doubt standard. There may be pieces of the puzzle that are missing here and there, but you know for sure what the picture is.

"The People will present evidence that on May 3rd of this year, Nancy Haskins, with the intent to kill Barbara Densmore, delivered a bouquet of flowers to her that were specially rigged to dispense a fatal poison called ricin, and that this, in fact, killed Barbara Densmore. You will hear testimony from Barbara's colleague, Frances Templeton, who will tell you about death threats which Mrs. Haskins made to her.

"You will hear the testimony of Detective Roland Tomassi of the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Dept. that cellophane wrapping used to wrap the deadly flowers was found in Ms. Haskin's garbage, which had traces of the poison ricin. You will hear testimony from Dr. Ignacio Perez, the medical examiner, who will testify that this poison caused the death of Ms. Densmore."

Chernow then directed his gaze to Nancy at the counsel table, as if he was hurling the accusation straight at her body.

"The People are confident that, after hearing all of this testimony and examining all of the evidence, you will be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Nancy Haskins committed the crime of the murder of Barbara Densmore by poison. Thank you."

"Mr. Marks, do you wish to give an opening statement or reserve it to your case-in-chief?" asked Judge Curtis.

"I'd like to give an opening statement now, Your Honor," Brent replied.

"Very well, please proceed."

Brent walked up to the podium, rested his arm on it, and spoke to the jury as if he were talking to a group of friends.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I represent Nancy Haskins, the defendant. As you've all been briefed during the jury selection, for the first part of this case, we're going to listen to all the evidence that the D.A. has gathered concerning this case to determine whether the D.A. has proven every element of murder beyond a reasonable doubt.

"Now this is not a very easy thing to do, because all of the evidence you are going to hear is going to be circumstantial evidence. The prosecution claims that Barbara Densmore was presented with a bouquet of flowers, and that bouquet of flowers contained a deadly poison called ricin, but there is no evidence of any flowers, and no evidence of any delivery of flowers. The only evidence that exists is cellophane wrapping and a package of flower food containing ricin with only Ms. Densmore's fingerprints on it.

"The Judge will tell you that the People must prove every element of their case beyond a reasonable doubt. That means that they have to present evidence from which you can infer without a reasonable doubt that: 1) Nancy Haskins had the intent to kill Barbara Densmore; 2) that she did, in fact, kill her, by administering a deadly poison; and 3) that this resulted in her death.

"All of this has to be proven by the prosecution, and the defense does not have an obligation to prove anything. But, ladies and gentlemen, the defense will go farther than that. Even though Mrs. Haskins has no obligation to, and, in fact the right not to testify in her defense, she is going to testify and tell you that she had nothing to do with this horrible murder.

"The Judge will instruct you, ladies and gentlemen, that, if there are two inferences you can draw from the evidence you hear and see; one of which leads to the conclusion that Mrs. Haskins is guilty, and one of which leads to the conclusion that she is not guilty, that you must select the inference that leads to the conclusion that she is not guilty. I am confident that, after hearing and seeing all of the evidence, that you will have no choice but to choose the inference that Mrs. Haskins is not guilty. Her life is in your hands. Thank you."

"Objection! Move to strike as prejudicial!" called out Chernow.

"Counsel approach the bench," said the Judge.

"Good job Brent!" Nancy whispered to Brent as he stood up. Brent suppressed his smile and walked up to the bench, where Chernow was already waiting, eager for the Judge to lambaste him.

"Well, we're not starting out very well, are we?" said Judge Curtis. "Mr. Marks, you know that the jury is not to consider punishment in this phase of the trial."

"Sorry, Your Honor."

"Sorry's not good enough. When something's broken, sorry can never bring it back. Now I know your case is important, and that you're zealous in your defense of your client, but I don't want to declare a mistrial in this case. So please, don't make any more inappropriate comments."

"Yes, Your Honor."

The lawyers went back to their seats and the Judge faced the jury and said, "The motion to strike is granted. The jury is instructed to disregard Mr. Marks' comment that you hold the defendant's life in your hands. It is improper as you are not allowed to consider punishment in reaching a guilty or not guilty verdict in this case."

Nancy leaned over to Brent and whispered, "How can they disregard what they've already heard?"

"They can't," said Brent. "And now they've heard it twice." He winked.

"Ladies and gentlemen, you are excused. I will remind you of your obligation not to talk to counsel or the parties, not to discuss this case amongst yourselves, nor with anyone. Court is adjourned," said Judge Curtis, who stood up, and walked into his chambers, shaking his head.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.

Jack Ruder had spent weeks exhausting all the leads he had for Brent, each one of them cold, and Brent had already started the trial. He had been following the comings and goings at Keith Michel's house for the past 10 days with no luck, and this night was no exception. Stakeouts were incredibly boring. The coffee was bad, the junk food was worse, and his Kindle battery had just died. Oh well, I guess it's time to call it a night, he thought, when he noticed the classic tan VW van exit the garage. It was loaded up with surfboards. Jack slumped down in his seat and noted there were four occupants in the vehicle. He waited until the van turned the corner, then pulled out after it.

Once out of the development, the van turned left on Hollister, and Jack stayed far enough behind so he could not be seen, but not far enough to lose them at one of the long traffic signals on Hollister. The van took a right onto Cathedral Oaks and an almost immediate left onto Calle Real. Just as Jack thought he may lose it, it merged onto the northbound 101 freeway.

On the freeway, the van was easier to follow. Jack made sure to keep behind it in the middle lane, about five car lengths back. That way, he would have time to follow the van when it exited the freeway. A few more car lengths behind and exiting would be impossible. So far, the van was staying in the far left lane, so Jack had no trouble keeping an eye on it.

After passing El Capitan Beach, the van exited on Gaviota Beach Road. This confirmed to Jack that they were on a late night surfing trip and that Jack was most likely wasting his time. They passed Gaviota Beach, turning right on Hollister Ranch Road, which had no traffic at all to hide behind, so Jack stayed far behind. After a couple of miles, the van turned onto a desolate dirt road and crossed the railroad tracks. Jack quickly looked for a vantage point, and found one that was high enough, where he could park and use his night vision binoculars to watch the goings on.

When Jack saw the four exit the van and Michel and another dishwater blond surfer type take their surfboards from the roof rack, he figured the game was over, but decided to wait it out. He wasn't really sleepy yet and it had been a long drive, preceded by an even longer wait. He watched the two take off down the beach, jump into the water and start paddling, while their friend, the fat Hispanic guy who had attacked him and another guy sat around smoking. Not much fun for them, he thought, as he wondered why all four were not surfing. Jack lost sight of the paddlers a couple of times, but kept scanning the horizon until he could spot them from time to time. He knew that this was a popular surf area with the surf addicts, but because of its inaccessibility, most surfers rode the reefs to the north of Refugio.

Jack sat there, eating the last sticky, stale donut from the box, and intermittently looking at the two pot smokers by the van and the others in the ocean, when he noticed a boat on the horizon. He couldn't quite make it out because it was so far away, but the surfers seemed to be paddling to it. Then another boat appeared, as if out of nowhere. Jack put down the binoculars and got out his long range, night vision video camera. He started to tape the goings on. Michel boarded the first boat, along with his surfboard; then the other surfer boarded the second one.

As the boats drew closer, Jack zoomed in on them to see what was going on. The boats seemed to be about 30-40 feet long in Jack's estimate. He could make out the "Chris-Craft" insignia on each of them. He tried to zoom in on the names of the boats, but he could not see them from his point of view. They were both flying American flags and both towing very large tender boats. Not much was happening with the boats as they drew closer to the shore.

When they were about 100 yards from shore, the boats each dropped their anchor and, at about the same time, Jack saw another VW van, this one blue, pull up alongside the surfer van and park. Four more people hopped out of it; they looked like they were Hispanic. Jack got a close shot of each one of the suspects, and focused in on the van, noting its California license plate, DGY 145. Jack divided his video time between what was going on around the vans and what was happening on the boats.

After the boats were anchored, the crews on both boats began to load the tender boats with bags. Jack could not see the content of the bags, but he could see that it took at least one man to lift one bag. They looked like sacks of potatoes. Several men on each boat formed a conveyor line to load the bags from the boats onto the tender boats. Jack could recognize one of his surfers on each boat, because they were the ones wearing wetsuits.

When the tender boats were loaded, they motored to shore with the two surfers. On the shoreline, what Jack thought before were pot smokers turned out to be a fine-tuned labor force which unloaded the boats with dispatch into the vans. The tender boats returned to the yachts and came back with another load for the vans. Once they had emptied the entire loads of the boats, the surfers returned to the yachts in the tender boats and paddled back on their surfboards. All in all, it had taken the boats about 30 minutes to anchor and transfer their loads to the two vans.

Once the surfers reached the shore, they ran to the van, strapped their surfboards to the rack, jumped in, and both vans were on the move again. Jack couldn't call for "backup," because there was no backup. He wasn't an agent of the FBI anymore, so his only option was to call the police like any ordinary citizen who had witnessed a crime. He figured that, by the time he was able to explain what he had seen to the police, he would lose the vans, so he stuck to the surveillance task he had set out to complete. He would shoot each one of the suspects as best as he could, follow them and try to get them unloading their cargo, then turn copies of everything over to the police.

The vans both took off in synchronized fashion, back to the freeway. One van went northbound, and the surfer van southbound, so Jack decided to stick with the surfers. The van exited the freeway at Hollister and pulled into an EZ Storage facility. Jack pulled his car into an adjacent gas station where he could not be seen, and continued to film the suspects. He got a good shot of each of them as they unloaded the bags into storage unit 331-C.

Wait a minute, thought Jack. There's only three of them. I wonder where...

Suddenly Jack looked up from his camera and was face to face with the gun-wielding Hispanic guy from the house, whom Jack already knew had no sense of humor. He waved the gun at Jack.

"Gimme the camera, cavron," the man demanded.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.

There was no time to think, only to react. Jack thrust the camera at the man though the car window, and the man instinctively grabbed it. Jack threw open the door, knocking him and the camera down. He looked like a huge turtle that had been knocked on its shell. In that same split second, Jack jumped on him like a wild animal, disarmed him, kicked his gun away and quickly withdrew his stun gun, stuck it against the big man's neck and hit him with over 3 million volts.

The big man's head dropped like a cow being stunned in a slaughterhouse. As his body was still convulsing, Jack took some twist-ties from his utility pack and bound his hands. He whipped off his shirt and gagged the man with it. Jack patted down the man's body for weapons and emptied his pockets; wallet, cell phone, keys, loose change. He pocketed the cell phone.

As the man was coming to, Jack ushered him into the back seat of his car at gunpoint, and directed him to bind his own ankles with twist ties. He picked up and reactivated his camera, which, miraculously, was still working, so he could see that the suspects were still busy, and used his cell phone to call 911.

"911, what is your emergency?"

"My name is Jack Ruder. I'm a private investigator and ex-FBI agent. I've just been attacked at gunpoint, have subdued my attacker and have him incapacitated. There are three others all armed. Please send help immediately!"

That was a mouthful for the emergency operator to take at once, so she clarified the details with Jack and assured him that there was help on the way. Jack next called Brent.

"Hey Buddy."

"Hey Jack, how's it goin'?"

"I just got you a boatload of reasonable doubt, but I'm kind of busy right now, could I please speak to Angie?"

"Sure, she's right here."

Brent handed the phone to Angela, who immediately went into crisis mode, noting down the information.

"I'll call everyone, Jack, we will be there," she said and hung up the phone.

Jack turned now to his attacker.

"Nod your head for yes and shake for no. Do you understand?"

The man nodded.

"Do they know I'm here?" The man shook his head.

"Were you sent out to be lookout?" He nodded.

"Do you have anything to communicate with besides your phone?" He shook his head.

"Okay. There are police and FBI on the way. I'm going to ungag you and I want you to call them and ask them how much longer. When they ask you if everything is okay, you say yes, do you understand?" He nodded.

Jack removed the gag and put the cell phone on speaker. He put his gun to the man's temple.

"Incentive to tell them exactly what I told you. What's the number?"

"555-2396."

Jack held the phone to the man's mouth.

"What's going on?" Brent asked Angela, as she strapped on her flak jacket, gun and holster and pulled her jacket on over it.

"Jack's got a situation and I've called in a team to help him."

"You're going too?"

"I have to help him."

"Then, I'm going with you."

"No way, you stay here. I'll be in numbers, don't worry."

"That's what you said the last time, and you agreed to take a desk job after that."

"Desk or not, Brent, this is my job."

With that, Angela was out the door.

Angela fired up her government issued Crown Victoria and sped off.

"Agent Wollard, requesting status on possible 10-31 at Goleta EZ Storage," she called into the government frequency radio.

"Roger, Agent Wollard, Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department reports officers and SWAT are 10-76, responding."

"Thank you dispatch, what is their 10-77?"

"About fifteen minutes. Agent Wollard, you are advised to wait for SWAT. Do not engage suspects unless you are in danger."

"10-4."

The stranger's phone rang in Jack's pocket.

"Tell them everything is fine," Jack instructed.

Jack knew that his time was running out. He would stick it out as long as possible, but, if he was facing down three guns, the best thing to do would be to abort and leave as soon as possible. He put the man's phone to his cheek.

"Yo, man, what the fuck! Where are you?" crackled the voice over the speakerphone.

"Outside, Homes, jus' like you told me," said the man.

"Well get your ass back here, Bro. We gotta go!"

"Okay, gimme a couple of minutes."

Jack muted the phone. "Tell them you're taking a dump and you'll be there in five minutes."

"What?" said the voice.

"Man, look, I'm takin' a shit. I'll be there as soon as I'm done."

"Man, that's gross! Couldn't you wait? Well, get your nasty ass back here. Is everything okay out there?"

"Yeah, yeah Bro, fine. Everything's cool."