"I don't follow you," the detective said.

"It is not necessary that you do, but I would appreciate it if you would answer the question. Isn't it true that you first spoke to Ms. Baroso, and after getting her tearful version of the events, you proceeded to in-ves-ti-gate?"

"Yeah, it's true. I had to start somewhere, and your client was unconscious."

"So he was, having been beaten into that state by Mr. Cimarron, correct?"

"Yeah, he got hit. I said that."

Patterson's voice grew louder. "And thereupon, having been told what supposedly happened by Ms. Baroso, you began to in-ves-ti-gate, or shall we say, you began to gather evidence that would corroborate and confirm, exculpate and exonerate this attractive young woman from any and all suspicion?"

"The lady was never under suspicion."

"What!" thundered Patterson, as if the answer was the biggest shock since the Jets beat the Colts in Super Bowl III. "You never even considered that Mr. Cimarron had been dispatched into the hereafter by...the lady?"

Racklin sighed with exasperation. His look to the jury said these fucking lawyers are a pain in the ass. "Ms. Baroso identified herself as an assistant state attorney in Miami, and then-"

"Did she show you her badge and ID?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact, she did."

"So here is one dead body on the floor and another man lying unconscious with multiple injuries, and once you learn that the third person on the premises is a fellow law enforcement official, you immediately conclude she is a mere witness and not a suspect, correct?"

A good question on cross-examination must be answered yes or no. And if the cross-examiner is really sharp, the question asks whether the witness has stopped beating his wife. If Racklin answered yes and admitted that he immediately concluded Jo Jo was free of suspicion, H.T. made his point: It was a hasty call by the cops. If Racklin answered no, then he knew the next question would be: When did you conclude she wasn't a suspect? And on and on.

"I've been doing this a while, and I concluded she was not a suspect. I considered her a witness. She seemed credible and-"

"She seemed credible! I suppose Jeffrey Dahmer seemed like a good prom date."

"Objection!" Now McBain was on his feet. "Counsel keeps arguing with the witness."

"I withdraw the question," Patterson said, graciously.

"What question?" McBain muttered under his breath.

Ramrod straight, pulling himself up to his full five feet six inches, cowboy boots included, H. T. Patterson strutted to the clerk's table and picked up the report compiled by the crime scene technicians.

"Now, Detective Racklin, you have testified that Mr. Cimarron died of a nail wound to the head ..."

"No, I didn't. I said I observed a head wound. I believe the deputy medical examiner will testify as to cause of death. That's how we do it up here."

Oooh. Racklin was no dummy. He was telling the jury to keep an eye on this slick-talking stranger.

"Yes, thank you so much for that clarification. Did you observe any nails other than the one you described as having been embedded in the saddle?"

"I believe the technicians came up with some in the corncrib. It's in their report. You'll have to ask them."

"I see." Patterson came back to the defense table and was thumbing through his notes. You like to conclude cross-examination with a bang, but H.T. seemed to be out of bullets, or nails, as the case may be. Just then, one of Charlie Riggs's old lectures popped into my head. Something about the four manners of death. Natural, accidental, homicide, and suicide. I wrote a single word with a question mark on a yellow pad and slipped it to Patterson.

My bantam rooster of a lawyer nodded and turned his attention to the witness stand. "Detective, when did you conclude the death was a homicide?"

"Upon being shown the body by Deputy Dobson who responded to the call."

"Prior to taking Ms. Baroso's statement."

He thought about it a moment. "Actually, Deputy Dobson was telling me what the lady said, as he led me to the body."

"So you knew Ms. Baroso's version of events even as you looked upon the body for the first time?"

"That's what I just said, yes."

"And you concluded it was a homicide."

Racklin smiled a crooked smile. "It didn't look like a heart attack or a fall down the stairs."

"Or a suicide?"

That stopped him a second.

"Did it look like a suicide?" Patterson asked. "Yes or no?"

A perfect question. It's fun to watch someone good at his work, whether it's Marino finding the open receiver or Perlman plucking the right string.

"No, not exactly," Racklin said quietly.

"So you never contemplated the possibility of suicide?"

Another problem for the detective. If he did contemplate the possibility, when and why did he rule it out? If he didn't contemplate it, why not?

Racklin tried to hedge his bets. "Not in any great detail," he answered, but the look on his face said he'd never even considered it.

"In what detail did you contemplate the possibility?"

"I can't recall."

"Isn't it true you never considered the possibility of suicide?"

"I can't recall spending time considering it. Like I said, it didn't look much like a suicide."

"Did you fail to consider the possibility because it didn't look like a suicide or because you immediately accepted Ms. Baroso's version of events?"

Racklin's pause said he was trying to figure out the ramifications of each possible answer. "Both, I suppose."

"But you have testified previously that the wound initially appeared to have been caused by a gunshot fired at point-blank range, correct?"

"Yes."

"You have witnessed many such wounds, have you not?"

"Some."

"Some? Let's see, in your years as a homicide detective, first in Denver and then here, how many such gunshot wounds have you investigated, confining ourselves to those gunshots fired at point-blank range into the temple or ear?"

"I m not sure."

"Five, fifty, a hundred, a thousand?"

"I'm not sure. More than five, less than fifty. Say nine or ten."

"And in those dozen gunshot wounds, how many were homicides and how many were suicides?"

He paused and gave the impression of honestly trying to remember. "One was Russian roulette. I suppose that was an accident. Maybe two were gang killings. The rest were suicides, as I recall."

"But you never considered that possibility here because you immediately accepted as true Josefina Baroso's version of events, isn't that correct?"

Trapped. He'd already said it. Not that we could prove Cimarron killed himself. But there were two living people in that barn, and it damn sure helps a reasonable doubt case if the cops were too quick to grab one of them.

"Yes, that's right," the detective said, just wanting to end the agony.

H. T. Patterson told the judge he had nothing further and gave the witness back to the prosecutor, who didn't want him. Judge Witherspoon allowed as how it seemed like a good time for lunch, and no one disagreed.

By the middle of the afternoon, half the jury was dozing or looked as if they wanted to. Two crime scene technicians and a lab worker identified little bags filled with odds and ends, none of which you'd want in your refrigerator. The blood, skin, bone, and brain matter belonged to K. C. Cimarron. Fingerprints on the stud gun were smudged, and the handle may have been wiped with a cloth, but there were still latents on the barrel identified as belonging to Cimarron and me. A partial of a third person's print was picked up there, too.

"Do you have any idea who this final fingerprint comes from?" McBain asked on direct examination.

The prints guy, a bookworm type with a laboratory pallor, looked at the jury as he was doubtless instructed and said, right on cue. "All I can say is that it isn't from Mr. Cimarron, Mr. Lassiter . . ." He paused for effect, "or Miss Baroso."

McBain smiled at Patterson, and just in case anybody missed the point, he repeated it. "Not Ms. Baroso's prints?"

"No, sir."

The other technician, a dark-haired woman in her thirties, testified about picking up the stud gun and delivering it to a Douglas Clifton who would perform certain tests on it. This was just chain-of-custody material, so the gun could be admitted into evidence. When she picked up the gun from the barn floor, or in her words, when she "secured the apparent weapon," there was no nail in the barrel, but there was a plastic clip with nine .27-caliber bullets remaining in the gun.

The nail pulled from the saddle was three inches long, made of carbon steel, and fit perfectly into the gun. The head of the nail contained a small amount of gunpowder residue in addition to the gunk from Cimarron's skull. Actually, she didn't say "gunk." She called it brain tissue, and the schoolteacher juror with the lace handkerchief squeezed her eyes shut.

It was a few minutes before six o'clock, and all the technical talk was over, so the judge sent the jury home with the usual admonition against forming opinions or discussing the case with the neighbors, and added the friendly advice about driving carefully with all the tourists in town.

As he stuffed his files into cardboard boxes for the night, H. T. Patterson asked me, "Can I buy you a drink?"

"Is the law an ass?"

We walked out of the stuffy, overheated courthouse and into the bracing air of dusk in the Rocky Mountains. Snowflakes whirled in a crisp breeze, and a three-quarter moon hung low over Smuggler Mountain. Cars crunched through a new snowfall on Main Street, and exhausted, happy skiers headed back to their hotels, condos, and chalets. I was struck by the utter beauty of the coming night, but at the same time, was overcome by a profound, nameless melancholy, a sense of approaching doom, and an unshakable conviction that I was powerless to affect my own destiny.

CHAPTER 23.

WHERE DAYLIGHT MEETS DARKNESS.

If you are charged with murder and plead not guilty, you have several choices. You can simply try a reasonable doubt case. Don't take the stand, but cross-examine the bejesus out of the state's witnesses. Magnify inconsistencies, exaggerate sloppy police work, and ridicule the prosecution. With some luck, you might get an acquittal, or at least a hung jury.

Or, if you have evidence the victim attacked you first, plead self-defense. But that admits you did the killing, and you'll be convicted unless you can convince the jury that you had reasonable ground to believe your life was in danger when you struck back.

Or, you can bravely confront the state head-on. Take the stand and swear you didn't do it, pure and simple. Well then, jurors might ask, if this rascal didn't, who did? In which case, it's useful to have a straw man. Or woman, as the case may be.

Which is what H. T. Patterson wanted to talk about after court. Once the jurors were sent home, promising not to read the newspaper or chat about the case, oaths broken more frequently than marital vows, H. T. Patterson bought me a beer at a local pub not frequented by the chichi Beverly Hills ski crowd. The place didn't have a view of the ski slopes, and it didn't have a burning fireplace. It sat in a warehouse/office center across Route 82 from the airport and had dim lighting where even accused murderers could enjoy draft beer in peace. We sat at a round wooden table scarred with cigarette burns, sipped our brews and ate boiled peanuts.

"I want you to watch your demeanor in court. Don't be so despondent and dejected, depressed and discouraged. The jury's going to conclude you think they're going to convict you."

"I do."

"Well, don't show it. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. It also makes you look sorry for what you did. It's a face for sentencing, not for trial."

"Okay, from now on, I'll laugh uproariously at every objection."

"Don't be difficult. You know what I'm talking about."

"I know. Never let them see you sweat."

"Right. You ever hear the story of the two generals watching their forces battle the enemy?"

"No, but I have a feeling I'm going to."

"One general is wearing a bright red cape, and the other asks him why such an outfit on a day of battle. 'Because, if I'm wounded, my troops won't see the blood, and they'll fight on.' The first general thinks about it and calls to his aide, 'Fritz, bring my brown trousers.'

That made me laugh, and my laughing made Patterson beam. "Good, much better. Now, you ready to play some poker?"

"Deal."

There weren't any cards, of course. It was a joke that went back to our first case together. Patterson had cleaned my clock in a civil suit in which I had sued a striptease joint where my client, a soon-to-be-groom, pulled a groin muscle in a hot-oil wrestling match with noted stripper Wanda the Whirling Dervish. It was my client's bachelor party, and Wanda thought it would be fun to see how far apart his legs could spread in a hold called "make a wish." I don't remember what damn fool mistake I made in closing argument, but Patterson came up to me afterward and said, "Lawyering is playing poker with ideas, and you just drew to an inside straight, sucker."

Now he looked at me as a more or less equal. "How do you like the jury?" Patterson asked.

"I don't know. I suppose if we had six blacks and six Hispanics, all of whom had been wrongfully arrested and distrusted the cops, I might feel better. But we've got a white bread and mayonnaise crowd. You'd never see this in Miami. You remember the jury when the judges were tried in Operation Court Broom?''

"Sure do. Ten blacks, one Hispanic, one Anglo."

"Yeah, wouldn't that be wonderful?"

"Miami's different," Patterson said.