He stopped a few feet from the stand and softened his voice.

"Mr. Dent. Thank you for being here."

Dent nodded without speaking.

"I want to start with a simple question. Can you tell the court what you do for a living?"

"I run a garage. Out on the Albany highway. Dent's Garage."

"For how long?"

"Eleven years."

"And are you acquainted with the officer who testified here earlier this morning?"

A slow, painful pause. Dent's eyes slid, almost against his will, toward the gallery, toward the big man in the blue uniform who sat with his hands clenched on his knees.

"Yes."

"How are you acquainted?"

"He's my cousin."

The word went through the room like a gust of cold air. Several people in the pews exchanged glances. A man near the back whispered, loud enough to carry, "I'll be damned."

"Your first cousin?"

"Yes, sir. Our mamas were sisters."

"Did you speak with Officer Haskins on the night my brother was arrested?"

Dent's throat bobbed. He gripped the arms of the chair.

"Yes."

"Where?"

"At my mother's house. It was her birthday. We had a dinner. He came by after his shift."

"And what did he say?"

Lindholm was on her feet. "Objection. Hearsay."

"Goes to motive and bias, Your Honor," said Elijah. "The witness is not offering the statement for its truth, but to show the state of mind of the officer who initiated this arrest."

Tolbert pressed his lips together. His gaze moved from the boy to the prosecutor to the officer in the third row. He seemed to weigh something, a long, silent calculation that drew lines across his forehead.

"I'll allow it for now," he said at last. "Mr. Dent, you may answer."

Dent looked down at his hands, scarred and broad and trembling very slightly. When he lifted his head, his eyes met Elijah's, and in them was something that was not quite fear and not quite relief. It was the look of a man who has jumped from a high place and is only now discovering that he can fly.

"He said," Dent began, "that he finally got him."

Chapter 15: One Anonymous Call

The room seemed to contract around the witness stand, the way a crowd tightens around a streetlight when something has gone wrong.

"Got who?" Elijah asked quietly.

"The Carrington boy. Isaiah." Dent drew a ragged breath. "He was drunk. Not falling-down drunk, just loose. He kept laughing, and my mother kept telling him to hush. But he said it again, loud. He said he was tired of seeing those Carrington boys walking around like they owned the place."

A low sound moved through the gallery, not quite a gasp, more a long wince.

"He said Isaiah thought he was slick with the system." Dent's voice grew steadier as he went on, as if each word he spoke removed a stone from his chest. "He said that boy wasn't smart enough to beat a uniform."

"Mr. Dent," Elijah said. "Did he explain what he meant?"

"I asked him. I said, 'Paul, what'd the kid do?' And he got this look. You know, like a cat with a feather in its mouth. He said, 'Doesn't matter what he did. It matters what I can make stick.'"

"Objection!" Lindholm cried. "Your Honor, this is slander!"

"It is testimony, Ms. Lindholm," said Tolbert. His voice was very quiet. "Sit down."

She sat. Her face had gone the color of old paper.

In the third row, Haskins had half risen from his seat. The bailiff took a step toward him, and he sank back down, his face contorted, his big hands clawing at his knees.

Elijah did not look at him. He kept his eyes on Dent.

"Did he say anything about how he planned to make it stick?"

Dent hesitated. He glanced, just once, at his cousin, and Elijah saw the war written plainly across his face: blood against conscience, the old law of family against the new law of the truth. For a long moment, the man did not speak. The clock on the wall ticked, loud as a hammer.

Then he squared his shoulders.

"He said one anonymous call is all it takes in this town."

The sentence fell into the room like a dropped glass.

"He said, 'Who they going to believe? Me, or some kid with a smart mouth?'"

Someone in the back of the courtroom began to cry. It was a soft, wet, shuddering sound, an old woman's sound, and no one turned to look.

Isaiah closed his eyes. His shackled hands lay flat on the table, trembling. Elijah could feel his brother's breath beside him, uneven and slow.

"Mr. Dent," Elijah said, and his own voice shook just slightly. "Do you know whether anyone actually made that call?"

"I know he said he'd made it himself."

"Himself?"