Ben called his next witness, the prisoner who'd overheard Diana forcefully instructing John Baumgarten about opportunity. She entered the courtroom, a mouse of a woman, right down to her facial features – all she lacked, Ben thought, were some whiskers. Jamie had spent a long time prepping her, and Ben hoped she held up under Diana's cross. She took the stand and was sworn in.

"Ma'am," Ben began, gently, "you spent two years at Bedford Prison?"

"I did. Grand theft auto."

"And has the District Attorney's office made any deals with you for your testimony?"

"No, I served my time, complete."

"Thank you. Now, please tell the jury what you heard and when."

"It was about a month before I was sprung. She," she pointed at Diana, "was sitting with this big guy I'd saw her with before, at the next table. She was almost yelling at him, telling him that opportunities were limited and he had to make a move real soon. She said some poor guy was about to be offed by the State, and that might be the right time, said this Kincaid woman would be distracted by that. She told him she knew Kincaid had problems with the death penalty, but some man named McCoy was a pit bull on the issue. She told the big man to follow Kincaid closely up to and after the execution, and he said he would. He seemed a little scared of Hawthorne. Then me visitors come, and I ignored them."

"You specifically heard her use the name Kincaid?"

"Yes sir. It was the first time I'd heard the name, it kind of stuck with me, I liked it."

"But you never met Ms. Kincaid?"

"No sir. Some fat broad prosecuted me, name of Smithson. But Hawthorne, she had a real hate on for this Kincaid, it was scary to hear her talk. I stayed away from her as much as I could."

"And you never overheard Ms. Hawthorne in conversation with her cell mate, Joan Woodward Viola?"

She shook her head, violently. "No. I was scared to death of that woman, with her mob family. I saw Woodward and I ran."

"But Ms. Hawthorne wasn't scared of Ms. Woodward?"

"Don't think so, they was cell mates for months, you never heard no yelling coming from their cell."

"Thank you, Mrs. Benson." Ben walked away.

Diana got up and strode to the witness stand. "Why, Delores, how odd to see you again. I'm really curious, how did you overhear anything I said with the racket going on in that room, all those children?"

Delores Benson glared at Diana. "You was practically yelling at that poor man about the Kincaid bitch, as you called her. My table was two feet away."

"Hmm. Did you ever hear me tell John Baumgarten to kill Claire Kincaid?"

"Well, no, but you was after him to follow her and look for an opportunity."

"An opportunity to do what?" Diana leaned forward just a tad. "To do what?"

Delores Benson shifted uncomfortably. "You didn't say, but he seemed to know what you was talking about." She crossed her arms over her chest. "You sure told him to follow that woman."

"That doesn't mean I wished him to harm her, does it? Did I ever harm anyone in prison?"

"No, you had Joan protecting you, ain't nobody gonna mess with the Violas."

"But I didn't harm anyone, did I?"

"No," she repeated.

"Didn't I help other inmates with legal work?"

"Yeah."

"Did you ever hear me talk about Claire Kincaid to anyone besides John Baumgarten?"

Benson hesitated. "Well, you did talk some to that woman, that nurse, that came to visit you a couple of times. You talked about how evil she was."

"But I didn't ask the nurse to harm her, did I?"

"No."

"So the reality is you don't know what you're talking about, right?"

"I know what I heard."

"I'm sure you do," Diana said sarcastically. "I'm through with this witness," she said, and she turned around, hesitating when she saw Jack staring at her. She flashed her best taunting smile and returned to her table.

Jack felt it in his gut, twisting and painful. He had to leave. He put his hand on Sally's arm and whispered "I have to get out of here before I kill her."

Sally looked at him, alarmed. "Want me to go with you?"

He shook his head, but she gathered her coat and leaned over to speak to Ruthie. She got up and followed Jack out of the courtroom. He walked outside and down the steps, Sally struggling to keep up with his long strides. On the sidewalk, he turned and looked down at her. "I'm heading for a bar."

"Jack." She took his arm. "This thing is going to wrap up today, you have to be sober if you want to make a statement."

"Sally, I just want to sit and remember."

"Then sit with me, over coffee, and tell me your stories."

He looked at his former lover and felt her caring. "OK," he said, after a beat.

They went to a quiet coffee shop around the block and took a table in the back. Jack shook his head when Sally asked if he minded if she smoked, and she lit up. Jack sipped his coffee, then put it down.

"It's the taunting I can't stand," he said. "She's enjoying it, knowing what she took away from me. And I don't think she believes they'll sentence her to death."

"She is putting up a defense. She's scheduled to testify after lunch, then closing arguments. Then you get to speak for Claire. Can you do that, Jack?"

"Without breaking down?" He shrugged. A memory came to the fore, and he closed his eyes. He was napping, it was a Sunday afternoon, and then Claire jumped on him, laughing that merry gremlin's cackle, forcing him on his back and then having her way with him.

"I don't think you can put that in a victim impact statement," Sally dryly said.

He was stunned, he didn't realize he'd spoken aloud, and then he blushed.

Sally smiled. "Don't blush. I remember a few of those Sunday afternoons myself." She patted his hand. "Ancient history, I know." She crushed her cigarette in the glass ashtray between them. "I don't mind hearing about it, Jack. She was damned good for you."

His eyes warmed. "She was. You should have seen her the day the stick turned blue, oh God, it's funny now, but she was like, I don't know, unglued. She made me read it, then she said 'I think I'm going to puke.' And she did. And then she counted, realized when it must have happened, and threw her pills across the room. I think I started laughing, seeing Claire as the anti-Claire, and she turned to me, pushed me on the couch, and said 'I didn't do this by myself, Jesuit boy.'"

Sally smiled. "I gather she called you that a lot."

"She did. It was better than you motherfucking son a bitch, which she used more than a few times." His smile was fond.

"I imagine she did." Her cell phone rang, and she dug it out of her purse. "Bell," she said. "Hi. We're in Whitney's, around the block. OK, I'll warn him." She closed the phone and put it back in her pure. "Ruthie. She wants to join us."

Jack shrugged. "I don't have the energy to fight."

"So don't. So what else happened on the day the stick turned blue?"

He smiled. "Great, now I have a label for that memory." He picked up his coffee and sipped. "She flipped out, she couldn't believe her birth control failed, and I kept telling her it wasn't the end of the world. 'Yeah?' she said, 'and are we going to do the conventional thing and get married, or what?' I told her we'd do whatever she wanted. Then she crawled in my lap and I held her. That's when she said Ruthie would never let her live it down."

Ruthie arrived then and slid into a chair. She ordered coffee and looked at Jack and Sally. "Ben's rested his case," she said. "I thought I'd get out of there before I started shooting rubber bands at Diana or something. So what are we talking about?"

"Memory lane," Sally said, "the day the stick turned blue."

Jack blushed. "You can stop," he said, with no malice in his voice.

"No, it's too great a story, keep talking," Sally said.

He shrugged. "So I held her and said fuck Ruthie," he cut an apologetic glance at Ms. Miller, "and she lifted her head from my chest and said 'Don't you dare.' That got me laughing again, and I told her she'd be a spectacular mother, not to worry. And that I'd be there, she didn't have to worry about that." Tears filled the corners of his eyes and he let them fall unimpeded. "We ended up making slow love on the couch, we never seemed to make it to the bed." He sighed.

"You gotta get rid of that couch, Jack," Sally said, imagining from experience the memories it held.

"I know. I just don't seem to have the energy."

"We can get one for you," Ruthie said, a warning note in her voice, "you want the harem picking out your furniture?"

He shook his head. "You ladies scare me, God knows what you'd pick."

"Whatever it is, it won't remind you of…" Sally trailed off.

"She believed that sex was better than a drink for unwinding after a long day," he said, suddenly comfortable sharing these intimate memories.

"Oh Jesus," Ruthie blurted, "that's the last time I'm sitting on your office couch."

He laughed, a real laugh. "You have no idea how close to the truth you are, Ruthie."

"Jesus," Sally said, "you guys did it at the office? With Adam right across the hall?" She lit another cigarette, and Ruthie bummed one.

Jack blushed again. "Often, but Adam was usually gone for the day."

"I'm having a major ick moment," Ruthie said, "imagining Adam Schiff barging in at the wrong moment."

"Oh, Jack would just look up and say 'how ya doing, Adam, I'm a bit busy at the moment,'" Sally said. "And before you ask, no, Jack and I never did it on the office couch. And you know you were going to ask, Ruthie Miller."

Ruthie waved that away. "Perish the thought, I'm counting how many times I've sat on that couch, conferring with Jack and Claire."

Jack was openly amused at their laughter, which he knew was not at his expense. Or Claire's. "Innocence is bliss, Ruthie."

Ruthie shook her head. "Not anymore. I'll never walk in that office again without imagining your naked butt…" She drew on her cigarette. "Damn, Claire Kincaid on the office couch, I love it."

"She worried about someone barging in, rattling the locked door, the first couple of times, but then she got off on the forbidden." Jack shrugged. "At least I didn't hear directions and commentary." A half-smile broke on his face. He wasn't about to tell them about Claire's bedroom vocabulary.

Ruthie's pager went off. "They've recessed for lunch. Shelly thinks Diana will run through her witnesses this afternoon. Are you going to be there for that?"

Jack frowned. "I'm not sure I could take it."

Ruthie took his measure. "Stay sober, if there's time, Ben will want you to give your impact statement. You can't let that girl down, Jack."

"I won't."

And he didn't. He was called late in the afternoon, to make his impact statement. He knew Ben had nailed her with the evidence, now he had to speak for her. Help me, he pleaded, help me say the right things. He stepped to a podium set up for this purpose and looked at the judge. He drew a deep breath.

"Claire Kincaid was a human being," he began, "like all of us, she had flaws, but she had so much to give this world, give me. She was my world, the love of my life, and she was carrying our child. We had such plans, and it was all stolen from us, from me. I'm trying hard to put my life back together, but it isn't easy. There's a terrible hole in my heart, and it won't close. I remember her laughter, her sense of fun, weekends away from the city. I remember how hard we worked to bring justice to the victims, never suspecting she'd be a victim herself. She was a very good lawyer who was going to be a great one, and she would have served the city well for years to come. She would have been a terrific mother, a great wife. She was my soul mate, and I don't think that's too dramatic a term to use. I will miss her for the rest of my life, and I don't know how to live that life without her. I look at Diana Hawthorne and I wonder how such evil could have taken root in her, that she would ruin so many lives. So many people loved Claire. This is the only chance for her to get the justice she so deserves. I wake up every morning, reaching for her, hoping it was just a bad dream, and then I remember. Getting up is a struggle, where's the meaning without her? Where's the little boy she would have adored and raised with such love and guidance? She was my moral compass, my lover, my partner in every sense of the word. And she was ripped from me. Please, give her the justice she so deserves and the law requires." He stepped away and left the courtroom without looking at anyone, vision blurry from tears.

Diana clenched her fists, furious that Judge Pongracic had allowed Jack to make an impact statement. What gave him the right to condemn her? His behavior was just as bad, if not worse, than hers. After all, she had learned everything she knew from him.

Judge Pongracic looked at Diana, her signal to begin her closing statement.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," Diana said, rising to her feet. "The prosecution has woven together an impeccable story – I almost feel inclined to believe it myself. But that's all it is – a story, not the truth. The truth is that the prosecution has produced witnesses that were unreliable, that did not know what they were talking about, and skewed their testimony to incriminate me. The truth is that Claire Kincaid was not a saint, though the prosecution would have you believe that. They would have you believe that this young A.D.A. was the sun, around which the earth rotated. They would have you believe that I killed her out of jealousy. The truth is that she was killed in an accident, not by my hand. If you convict me, you convict someone innocent of the crime she is accused."

She sat down, proud at the way she had comported herself despite the anger that still burned in her. Ben Stone stood.

"You must convict Diana Hawthorne. We have built an airtight case against her, proving that she conspired with Joan Woodward Viola and John Baumgarten to kill Claire Kincaid. We have proved that the defendant's conspirator did not attempt to slow down at the traffic light that night, but continued to speed up. We have proved that Diana Hawthorne was vindictive, searching for revenge on Claire Kincaid.

"You must convict her. She has plead duress, insisted that her cellmate pressured her into arranging John Baumgarten's visits to jail, insisted that whatever she did was out of fear for her life. We have produced witnesses to prove that she was not afraid for her life, that she was on good terms with her cellmate, was not coerced in any sense of the word.

"Her actions took away one of the brightest stars in the District Attorney's office, a woman loved by nearly everyone – and all because of a misguided sense of revenge, a desire to punish Claire Kincaid for convicting her nearly a year ago, a jealousy that burned in her after Claire Kincaid took what Ms. Hawthorne believed was her place the arms of the man she loved.

"If there is any justice in the world, find her guilty. She deserves it."

With a deep sigh, Ben Stone sat down, hoping that the jury had been convinced by his closing arguments.

As the jury filed out of the room, ready to make their decision, Ben Stone caught Diana Hawthorne's eye. With a small sniff of triumph, she rose as the judge dismissed them, holding her head high as she walked out of the courtroom.