Twisted

prior witness that the two men were struggling face-to-face. How could the victim have been shot in that way?”
    “Very simple. A shot in the side of the head would be consistent with Mr. Valdez turning his head away from the weapon while he was exerting pressure on the trigger, hoping to hit Mr. Hartman.”
    “So, in effect, you’re saying that Mr. Valdez shot himself.”
    “Objection!”
    “Sustained.”
    The lawyer said, “You’re saying that it’s possible Mr. Valdez was turning away while he himself pulled the trigger of the weapon, resulting in his own death?”
    “That’s correct.”
    “No further questions.”
    Tribow asked the doctor how it was that the coroner didn’t find any gunshot residue on Valdez’s hands, which would have been present if he’d fired the gun himself, while Mr. Hartman’s had residue on them. The doctor replied, “Simple. Mr. Hartman’s hands were covering Mr. Valdez’s and so they got all the residue on them.”
    The judge dismissed the witness and Tribow returned to the table with a glance at the stony face of the defendant, who was staring back at him.
    You’re going to lose. . . .
    Well, Tribow hadn’t thought that was possible a short while before, but now there was a real chance that Hartman would walk.
    Then the defense lawyer called his final witness: Raymond Hartman himself.
    His testimony gave a story identical to that of the other witnesses and supported his case: that he always carried his gun, that Valdez had this weird ideaabout Hartman and Valdez’s wife, that he’d never extorted anyone in his life, that he bought a present for the Valdez boy, that he wanted to enlist Valdez’s help in putting money into the Latino community, that the struggle occurred just as the witness said. Though he added a coda: his giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Valdez.
    He continued, with a glance at the four Latino and three black jurors. “I get a lot of hassles because I want to help minority businesses. For some reason the police and the city and state—they don’t like that. And here I ended up accidentally hurting one of the very people I’m trying to help.” He looked sorrowfully at the floor.
    Adele Viamonte’s sigh could be heard throughout the courtroom and drew a glare from the judge.
    The lawyer thanked Hartman and said to Tribow, “Your witness.”
    “What’re we going to do, boss?” Wu whispered.
    Tribow glanced at the two people on his team, who’d worked so tirelessly, for endless hours, on this case. Then he looked behind him into the eyes of Carmen Valdez, whose life had been so terribly altered by the man sitting on the witness stand, gazing placidly at the prosecutors and the people in the gallery.
    Tribow pulled Chuck Wu’s laptop computer closer to him and scrolled through the notes that the young man had taken over the course of the trial. He read for a moment then stood slowly and walked toward Hartman.
    In his trademark polite voice he asked, “Mr. Hartman, I’m curious about one thing.”
    “Yessir?” the killer asked, just as polite. He’d been coached well by his attorneys, who’d undoubtedly urged him never to get flustered or angry on the stand.
    “The game you got for Mr. Valdez’s son.”
    The eyes flickered. “Yes? What about it?”
    “What was it?”
    “One of those little video games. A GameBoy.”
    “Was it expensive?”
    A smile of curiosity. “Yeah, pretty expensive. But I wanted to do something nice for Jose and his kid. I felt bad because his father was pretty crazy—”
    “Just answer the question,” Tribow interrupted.
    “It cost about fifty or sixty bucks.”
    “Where did you get it?”
    “A toy store in the mall. I don’t remember the name.”
    Tribow considered himself a pretty good lie detector and he could see that Hartman was making all this up. He’d probably seen an ad for GameBoys that morning. He doubted, however, that the jury could tell. To them he was simply cooperating and politely answering the prosecutor’s somewhat curious questions.
    “What did this video game do?”
    “Objection,” the lawyer called. “What’s the point?”
    “Your Honor,” Tribow said. “I’m just trying to establish a relationship between the defendant and the victim.”
    “Go ahead, Mr. Tribow, but I don’t think we need to know what kind of box this toy came in.”
    “Actually, sir, I was going to ask that.”
    “Well, don’t.”
    “I won’t. Now, Mr. Hartman, what did this game