Two hours later, Judge Valarie Rhodes resumed the trial. The fire alarm had turned out to be false, apparently caused by a defective smoke detector in one of the courtrooms that wasn't being used today.

Ashlyn was grateful that it was finally continuing. She had to get the witness's statement on the record as quickly as possible before anything unexpected happened. She leafed through the documents in front of her restlessly and breathed a sigh of relief when the judge finally asked her to continue the questioning.

"Mr. Sadqi," she said kindly. 'I hope that after this unexpected interruption, you can still testify before us today?'

Malik Sadqi nodded.

Ashlyn smiled again. "Excellent. Then please explain to us in your own words what has brought you here today and what you can contribute to solving this case."

Malik looked nervously at Ashlyn, who had to force herself to appear confident. "Okay," he began with a shaky voice. "Well, here's the thing. I knew the lawyer and notary, Eric Sanchez, quite well. He had hired me to talk to the farmers whose land he wanted to develop. That was about four or five years ago when he called me into his office. We talked, and he told me that there was a lot of money to make. He said that we had this opportunity largely because of the failure of Boston politics. They're not building enough housing for everyone, so more families are moving from Boston to the surrounding area." He became calmer, and it seemed as if his initial agitation subsided with each of his words.

Ashlyn watched with satisfaction because that would give Sadqi's testimony more credibility.

"Sanchez then told me that the situation could be exploited relatively easily. He wanted to buy land from the farmers. I mean, arable land. And then make sure that this land became building land." Malik Sadqi reached for the water glass before him and emptied it in one go. "Eric Sanchez told me that the land would be worth much more. I then asked him what my role would be. He just said that because he had so much to do, he needed someone to find out which farmers wanted to sell land."

Ashlyn nodded slowly and frowned a little. "Okay, I understand that," she said, looking Malik straight in the eye. "Before we go into further details, though, I have a question. Please tell us how you met Eric Sanchez in the first place. I mean, how did you come to meet him?"

"Oh," Malik replied with a smile. "That was quite simple. You see, in our community, among the Lebanese in Boston, we have a very tight-knit community. I had just lost my job at the cell phone store. The business went bankrupt, and I was looking for a new job. And then someone told me that Eric Sanchez had a job opening."

Ashlyn nodded again and clenched her teeth for a split second. "And who exactly was that?"

He shrugged. "Excuse me, but I don't remember. It was so long ago that it could have been anyone. We often meet in the evening in one of the shisha bars or at dinner. There are just a lot of places where we get together, and then someone tells us. I don't remember who it was; it was so long ago."

Bauman, who had been nervously shifting back and forth in his chair since the beginning of the testimony, suddenly jumped up. 'Your Honor, this is ridiculous,' he said emphatically, his forehead deeply frowned. "This is hard to believe!"

Malik looked at Bauman. His expression looked so genuinely surprised that Ashlyn had to suppress a satisfied smile. Another point for her.

Rhodes looked at Bauman sternly and intently. "Mr. Bauman, I appreciate your commitment, and you will still have the opportunity to question the witness," she reprimanded him. "Until then, I ask you to control yourself a little."

Bauman sat down again, breathing heavily, and shook his head.

Ashlyn licked her lips and looked at her witness again. "Mr. Sadqi, please tell us what happened after Eric Sanchez offered you the job."

Over the next thirty minutes, the sixth witness gave a detailed account of how Sanchez had provided him with a list of farmers who owned farmland in and around Boston and how he had contacted each of them. He went on to say that about a third of them had expressed an interest in selling part of their land and how he had passed this information on to Sanchez as agreed. The whole thing, he reported, had taken place over several years, and he had a fixed appointment with Sanchez once a month in his office to discuss it.

"And, Mr. Sadqi, please tell us what happened next." Ashlyn looked at him intently. They were slowly approaching the crucial part of the testimony. So far, everything was going according to plan.

Malik pulled down the corners of his mouth. "Well, I don't know if you know Eric Sanchez's office, but it is right next to the meeting room where we always had our conversations. It's an old building, and I always waited for him there. And these big double doors lead from his office directly into the meeting room. You can hear if Sanchez had discussed something in his office with another client or on the phone before he came to me. In the meeting room, I mean. It's all very poorly soundproofed."

He reached for his water glass again, empty by now, and looked around searchingly.

Ashlyn saw this immediately, went to the defense table, grabbed the water carafe, and filled her witness's glass. She smiled broadly. "Mr. Sadqi, you're doing just fine. Please tell the court exactly what you heard. You must tell the whole truth here. You don't owe anyone anything; you don't have to keep anything back here."

It was Ashlyn who the judge gave a reproachful look this time, and Bauman seemed on the verge of jumping out of his chair again. But he obviously thought better of it and just made a note. Ashlyn raised her hands apologetically before clearing her throat.

After Malik had taken a big gulp of water, he continued. "It was about a year ago when I was waiting for Eric Sanchez again and sitting in the meeting room, that I heard him talking excitedly to someone in his office next door. I think it was a phone call, but I don't know because I didn't see it. I only heard it." He paused.

Ashlyn gave him a few seconds. "And what exactly did you hear?"

"He seemed very agitated, almost angry. He was so loud that I understood every word. He shouted that Nicholas Brandt – I heard the name clearly – that Brandt wouldn't follow orders anymore and that they would have to take other measures. He said that if Brandt didn't do what was asked of him, then his daughter Lily's life would be threatened. Brandt should do his damn job, he said, whatever the cost!"

Malik Sadqi's testimony had already lasted a good thirty minutes, and after his last remark, it was so quiet in the courtroom that you could have heard a pin drop. The Boston Daily newspaper reporters sat tensely in their seats, greedily absorbing every word of the sixth witness.

Ashlyn knew that they had now reached a crucial point in the hearing. The next two minutes would determine whether the judge would believe her witness or not consider it important.

Valarie Rhodes seemed to see it that way, too, leaning forward in her chair as far as she could toward Malik Sadqi as if she wanted to study every detail of his facial expressions and gestures.

"And what happened then?" Ashlyn asked with a slight frown, careful not to lead Sadqi in any direction.

He seemed to be absorbed in the events of the past. He looked at his hands, which he had folded in front of him, before continuing. "Then he came to see me in the meeting room shortly afterward. He seemed particularly agitated and spoke only briefly with me. He said that I had done an excellent job but that, for now, my job was done. He said he would get back to me and no longer had any work for me. And then he just left."

Ashlyn nodded slowly. "And what did you do then?"

"Well, the whole thing shocked me and annoyed me a lot, but I didn't know what to do. So I went home first. I was angry that I had lost my job. Eric Sanchez paid well. And the whole thing, what Sanchez had told me, was on my mind. But then I thought it was none of my business, so I didn't do anything." Sadqi fiddled with his hands and licked his lips, shaking his head.

"You didn't do anything?" blurted out Bauman and the agitation was written all over his face. And this time, Judge Rhodes let the prosecutor's interjection pass without comment because, quite obviously, she also wondered if it was all true.

"Did it never occur to you to go to the police?" Bauman followed up. 'After all, you were a witness to a possible criminal conspiracy. It seemed as if Eric Sanchez here wanted to endanger the life of a young girl.'

"Your Honor," Ashlyn said loudly, as it seemed that Bauman wanted to take over the questioning.

"Mr. Bauman!" Rhodes said admonishingly, and Bauman raised his hands before sitting down again and straightening his tie.

Malik shook his head. He looked at Ashlyn as if seeking an answer from her. She just nodded, and Malik then looked at Judge Rhodes. "I didn't do anything because no one would have believed me anyway. What do you think would have happened if I went to the police? A Lebanese. A foreigner. I don't have an American passport, just a temporary residence permit. I have a suspension of deportation," he said, looking at the prosecutor. "So if I went to the police and accused an American lawyer, the cops would have laughed at me. And who knows what would have happened then. I was just afraid that they would deport me right away." He shook his head, and Ashlyn thought she saw a mixture of guilt and fear in his eyes.

Malik continued quietly, 'Besides, I didn't know how serious the whole thing was until recently anyway.' He looked uncertainly at Rhodes.

She held his gaze and seemed to be thinking about how to evaluate the whole thing. Then, from one moment to the next, she made some notes. Finally, she turned to Bauman and Ashlyn. "Counselors, before we continue here, I would like to have a brief word with you in my office." Turning to her records clerk, she said, "We'll recess the trail for thirty minutes."

The die is cast, Ashlyn thought, hopefully with the correct result.

xxx

"Counselors, I'll get right to the point," Rhodes said to the two lawyers sitting in front of her desk, taking off her robe of office. "The testimony of Malik Sadqi, let's assume that it's credible, sheds a whole new light on this case. The defendant would, therefore, have a comprehensible motive for his actions. And whether that will positively or negatively affect him is up to the jury to judge. But it seems that Eric Sanchez was blackmailing him and reacted to that."

"This is just a lame attempt by the defense to reduce the sentence," Bauman fumed. "It's a cheap trick. The witness was bought; that's obvious!"

Rhodes looked at Ashlyn questioningly. She didn't find the thought completely absurd.

Ashlyn just shrugged. "Your Honor," she said. "I don't quite understand Mr. Bauman's annoyance. Witness Sadqi's testimony allows me to dismiss the possibility of pleading not guilty or pleading guilty with diminished responsibility. And that's what it's looked like so far. After all, everything seemed to indicate that something had gone wrong with my client. He has never been in trouble before, has led a law-abiding life, and is the stereotype of a boring square. So, if it had been revealed that he committed the crime in a state of mental confusion or derangement, he would have walked out of there with a fantastic verdict. But the testimony has motivated him, and I can probably stop my original defense strategy with that. Therefore, I don't see how his testimony can help me or my client or why the prosecutor is making such abstruse allegations."

Rhodes looked thoughtfully at her notes and then at the two lawyers. "I am inclined to believe Mr. Sadqi's testimony," she said. "He seems quite credible to me, even when questioned. Whether and how I will take this into account in my judgment, I do not yet know. We also have the testimony of Mrs. Brandt, which will hopefully shed further light on this thoroughly confusing case. We will, therefore, continue with the hearing." She looked at Bauman intently. 'You will have plenty of opportunity to ask the witness your questions.'

xxx

After the court hearing had resumed, Bauman asked his questions, but no matter how hard he tried to entrap the witness and lead Malik up the garden path, the latter stuck to his statement. He also offered a simple explanation for why he had suddenly approached Ashlyn.

"The whole thing, the Brandt case, has been in the news and newspapers for months. And, of course, I noticed that too. And then I felt that I had to tell my story now."

When Bauman asked why he hadn't gone to the police, Malik simply replied that he thought Brandt's defense attorney was the right person to contact. If that was wrong, he was sorry. After Bauman kept going around in circles, asking the same questions repeatedly, Judge Rhodes ended Bauman's questioning, and Malik Sadqi was dismissed from the stand as witness number six.

When all the spectators and parties to the proceedings had left the courtroom, Ashlyn cleared her things away after a long day. She thought it couldn't have gone better, but she wouldn't get to set the final point with Malik. Her most important and biggest trump card was the seventh witness: Anja Brandt.