"A young Black male in a gray sweatshirt."

There was an audible intake of breath in the gallery. An older woman in the second row pressed her hand to her chest.

"A young Black male in a gray sweatshirt," Elijah repeated, without inflection. "On Pecan Lane, at nine in the evening. In a neighborhood where, by the most recent census, roughly forty percent of the residents fit that description."

"Objection!" Lindholm cried.

"Sustained," Tolbert said at once. "Mr. Carrington, restrict yourself to questions."

"Yes, Your Honor." But Elijah had already made his point, and he knew it, and so did everyone else.

He turned to face the judge squarely.

"Your Honor, based on the testimony we have just heard, I would respectfully argue that the arrest of Isaiah Carrington was an unlawful seizure under the Fourth Amendment and Article One, Section One, Paragraph Thirteen of the Georgia Constitution. Any evidence obtained as a result is fruit of that unlawful act."

The words hung in the air like a struck bell.

Tolbert looked at him for a long, long moment. When he spoke, his voice had lost its dryness.

"Where did you learn the phrase fruit of the poisonous tree, Mr. Carrington?"

"The Camilla Public Library, sir."

Somewhere in the gallery, a single person began to laugh, softly, and then stopped. It was not mockery. It was the sound of a person who has just been reminded that the world is larger than they thought.

Tolbert tapped one finger against his gavel. "Continue."

And Elijah, with his heart hammering, reached into the briefcase for the second folder.

Chapter 11: The Woman on Pecan Lane

The second folder was thinner than the first, and it held only a single document, three pages stapled at the corner, with a notary's seal pressed into the bottom of the last sheet.

Elijah carried it to the clerk and waited while the woman stamped it, then held it up for the whole room to see.

"Your Honor, I'd like to submit a sworn statement from Mrs. Wanda Freeman, the homeowner at 214 Pecan Lane. The woman whose house, according to the State, was burglarized on the night of August twenty-second."

Tolbert took the pages from the clerk and began to read. The courtroom waited. Somewhere behind the gallery, the old radiator gave a long metallic sigh.

"You had her sign this yourself?" the judge asked, without looking up.

"Yes, sir. Yesterday afternoon."

"And what does she say?"

"She says nothing was missing from her home, Your Honor. She found her television exactly where she left it. Her front door was locked and undamaged. Her windows were closed. There were no signs of a break-in at all."

A low, startled sound moved through the gallery, the sound of fifty people exhaling at once.

Andrea Lindholm was on her feet before Elijah had finished the sentence. "Your Honor, this statement was never disclosed in discovery. The State had no opportunity to review it."

Elijah turned to her. His voice carried no heat, only a patient steadiness. "She wasn't interviewed by the police, Ms. Lindholm. I found her on my own."

Tolbert lowered the pages and looked at him over the rim of his glasses. "How did you get her to talk to you?"

"I asked, sir," Elijah said. "Politely."

A few people in the gallery chuckled. It was not the same laughter as before. It was warmer. It held the pleasure of watching a very small man do a very large thing.

* * *

He had gone to Pecan Lane on a Wednesday afternoon, three weeks into the hunt, after the doorbell video had given him the first crack in the case. The house at 214 was a modest brick ranch with white shutters and a flowerbed so neat it looked embroidered. A silver wind spinner turned lazily in the front yard.

He had stood on the porch for nearly a minute, summoning his courage, before he rang the bell.

The woman who answered was in her late sixties, small and brisk, with cropped white hair and a faded apron over her housedress. She looked through the screen door at the boy in the school uniform, and her eyes narrowed.

"If you're selling something, I don't need it."

"No, ma'am. My name is Elijah Carrington. I think..." He swallowed. "I think you may know my brother's name from the paper."

Her face changed. The briskness drained out and something more complicated took its place. "The boy they arrested," she said slowly.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well." She hesitated. Then she pushed the screen door open. "You'd best come in out of the heat."

Her kitchen smelled of lemon polish and baked apples. She poured him a glass of sweet tea without asking and sat across from him at a small oak table, folding her hands in front of her.

"I've been wanting to talk to somebody," Mrs. Freeman said. "But nobody asked. The police came by once, the night of the arrest, and a young officer took my name. I told him my house was fine. He said that was good to know and left. I haven't heard a word since."

"Nobody took a statement?"

"Not a one." She shook her head. "Then I picked up the Courier a week later and read that a young man had been charged with breaking into my house. I nearly dropped my coffee. I thought I'd gone senile."

Elijah leaned forward. "Mrs. Freeman, can you tell me exactly what happened that evening?"

"There was no break-in," she said. "Not at my house. Not on that night. I'd stake my life on it."

"Would you put that in writing?"

She studied him for a long time. Her eyes were gray and shrewd. "How old are you, young man?"

"Seventeen."

"And you're doing this alone?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Does your mother know?"