“No, it ain’t true, and you ain’t got no fingerprints, no blood, no hair, no witnesses, no nothin’ to prove I was there.”

“But you did tell Mr. Timmons that the victim kept cash in her home and that you intended to steal it, didn’t you?”

“I never said no such thing. Timmons ain’t nothing but a drunk and a liar. He was probably just looking for some reward money so he could buy whiskey.”

“And you’re a model citizen, aren’t you, Mr. Dockery? I’ll bet you don’t even drink.”

Dockery’s eyes flashed with righteous indignation. He leaned forward and put his hands on the rail in front of him.

“Yeah, I may drink a little, but I’ll tell you what I don’t do. I don’t parade around in a fancy suit and put people on trial for murder when I ain’t got a smidgen of proof.”

“I object, Your Honor,” Dunn said. “The witness is being argumentative.”

“You walked right into it, Mr. Dunn,” Judge Green said. “Move along.”

“Isn’t it true, Mr. Dockery, that you took thousands of dollars in cash from the victim’s home the night you murdered her?”

“If I did, then where is it? Y’all tore my mama’s place, her cabin, our barn, and every vehicle we own apart looking for money and didn’t find a thing. And you know why you didn’t find nothing? ’Cause I didn’t do nothing.”

Alexander Dunn’s cross-examination was a monumental disaster. It ended shortly thereafter. Jim Beaumont rested his case, and Judge Green read the instructions to the jury.

The judge was long rumored in the legal community to be a closet homosexual, and he lorded it over his courtroom like an English nobleman. Before I stopped practicing law, I’d appeared before Green hundreds of times, and although I hadn’t laid eyes on him in a year, each grandiose gesture he made, each perfectly formed syllable he spoke, reminded me of what a pompous ass he was. During lulls in the trial, I found myself imagining him prancing around the room in a white periwig, pink tutu, and tights, leaping through the air like a fabulously gay ballet dancer.