"After a vigorous pursuit."
"That's what I said."
Elijah nodded slowly. He took two small steps to the side, so that he stood not directly in front of the witness but a little to the left, where the whole gallery could see both of their faces.
"Officer. What was the defendant wearing that night?"
"A gray hooded sweatshirt. Dark pants."
"And what was he carrying?"
"A wallet. A cell phone."
"Anything else?"
"A bag of seeds."
A thin laugh rippled and died.
"Thank you." Elijah pulled a single sheet from the folder and walked it to the clerk. "Your Honor, I'd like to mark this as Defense Exhibit A and show it to the witness."
Tolbert frowned. "What is it?"
"A photograph, sir."
"Where did you obtain it?"
"I'll explain the source in a moment. First, I'd ask the court's permission to let the officer look at it."
Lindholm stood. "Your Honor, we haven't seen this."
"You'll see it now," said Tolbert. His eyes were narrowed. "Mr. Carrington, hand it to the witness."
Elijah crossed the well of the court and set the photograph in Haskins's hand. It was a color print, slightly grainy, taken from a high angle. At the bottom corner glowed a row of small white numbers: 08/22 — 9:47:13 PM.
Haskins looked at it for a long time. His thumb pressed so hard against the paper that the edge began to buckle.
"Officer Haskins," Elijah said quietly. "Can you tell the court what this photograph shows?"
* * *
It had taken him four days to get it.
He had known, from the first night, that the timeline would be the weak point. Haskins's report said 9:52. Isaiah's account placed his arrest earlier, a few minutes after nine-thirty, on the sidewalk near the corner of Pecan and Third. Nobody had cared to check. So Elijah had gone looking.
He had walked the entire length of Pecan Lane with a notebook, ringing doorbells, introducing himself with the same words each time: Good evening, ma'am. My name's Elijah Carrington. I'm trying to find out what happened on August twenty-second. Do you have a camera?
Most people shut the door. A few were kind. Many said they had seen nothing, because they had been inside, watching television.
On the fourth afternoon, at the house with the green mailbox and the wind chimes on the porch, an elderly man named Mr. Desmond Whitaker had answered. He had a walker, a hearing aid, and a doorbell camera that his granddaughter had installed the previous Christmas, over his objections.
"I don't know how to work the thing," he had said, squinting. "But my granddaughter does. She comes on Sundays."
Elijah had waited on the porch until Sunday. When the granddaughter, a nurse named Keisha, finally pulled up in her little red hatchback, he had explained everything in ten careful sentences. She had listened, her eyes growing wide, and then she had sat on the porch swing with her phone and scrolled through three months of motion-triggered clips.
"Here," she said at last, quietly. "August twenty-second. Nine forty-seven p.m."
On the screen, in slightly pixelated color, a young man in a gray sweatshirt knelt on the sidewalk, his hands cuffed behind his back, his face pressed toward the pavement. A uniformed officer stood over him. A patrol car idled at the curb, its lights flashing blue and red against the dark.
Elijah's breath had left him in a rush.
"That's him," he whispered. "That's my brother."
Keisha had looked at him, and then back at the screen, and then, slowly, she held out her phone.
"You'd better take a copy," she said. "And honey? You'd better be careful with who you show it to."
* * *
Now, in the hush of the courtroom, Haskins stared at the printed frame and said nothing.
"Officer," Elijah repeated gently. "Can you tell the court what this photograph shows?"
"It shows..." Haskins cleared his throat. "A man. On the ground."
"Who is that man?"
A long pause.
"It looks like the defendant."
"Is that a patrol car in the background?"
"It appears to be."
"Is that your uniform?"
"I... can't say for certain."
"Officer Haskins." Elijah's voice remained even. "Please read the timestamp at the bottom of the photograph aloud."
The big man's lips moved. His voice, when it came, was barely above a whisper.
"Nine forty-seven p.m."
"Nine forty-seven," Elijah repeated. "And you testified that you initiated the traffic stop at nine fifty-two."
"I must have... gotten the time wrong."
"Five minutes wrong."