After Bailey left, Declan and I finished up the questionnaire on our own. He offered to drive me home, but I wanted to walk. I needed the air and the exercise. At seven o'clock it was still fairly light outside, but the air was a little cooler and it felt good to stretch my legs. As I reached Pershing Square, I noticed a film crew was setting up for a shoot. I was passing by, looking at the area they'd roped off for the scene, when I heard someone say, "Hey, isn't that the prosecutor bitch?" A young white guy with blonde dreadlocks who was unloading lights from one of the equipment trucks craned his neck to look at me and replied, "Sure is. Hey, Ms. Prosecutor! What're you gonna do when you lose? Maybe work a food truck?" That inspired a heavyset girl in Doc Martens and cutoffs. "Say, 'ho! Whyn't you get on up here so I can show you what we think of your bullshit case-"

Shocked and a little worried, I started to back away, when a booming voice behind me cut her off. "Yo, Buckwheat, you want to talk about showing something? Get on up over here!" The girl muttered under her breath and turned away. "Yeah, I thought so," said the voice I now recognized as Drew's. "Come on, Rache, you've earned a martini on the house." He put a protective arm around me and steered me past the crew and in through the back door of the Biltmore.

"I wouldn't mind waiting if you want to go back there and 'show' her, uh...something," I said. "I can promise you no charges will be filed."

Drew smiled. "Finally, I find a perk in being friends with a prosecutor."

61.

I had a martini and some welcome laughs with Drew. When I got back to my room, I saw that I had a voice mail message on my cell. The crisp tones of Andrew Chatham, my supposed tabloid co-conspirator, greeted me. "Rachel, I'm so very sorry about what Ms. Fisk said. I wanted you to know that I never told her I'd spoken to you. I do admit that I have spoken to her, and I imagine that's why she took a shot in the dark and falsely accused you that way. If there's anything I can do to clear up this mess, I'll gladly do so."

Yeah, I just bet you will. No, gracias.

I poured myself a glass of pinot grigio and was lying back on the couch with the remote when my cell phone played "Janie's Got a Gun," Graden's ringtone-in honor of his getting me my gun permit. I brought him up to speed but didn't mention my encounter with the film crew. On calmer reflection, I realized they probably hadn't intended to do me any physical harm. The only real danger lay in the possibility that someone had shot footage of my retreating derriere.

"Your turn," I said. "What's new?"

"I've made some progress on those reports Lilah talked about. They appear to be legit-"

Lilah, the murderous sociopath who'd sent me reports on my sister, Romy. "Why didn't anyone pick up on them before?"

"A couple of reasons. Number one reason, because I wasn't the investigating officer on the case, and number two, because the reports were from different jurisdictions, both of which were tiny and not computerized until very recently; and neither of the jurisdictions was where Romy was taken."

They hadn't realized the significance of what they'd seen. "Of course."

"So I'd say so far, so good. If our kidnapper kept Romy alive for six months, it's a lot less likely that he..."

"It's okay, you can say it: that he killed her. I've been living with the possibility that he killed her for over twenty years, I can certainly handle hearing that he might not have."

"You have the DA investigators trying to find Lilah, right?"

The DA investigators had wound up working that case with me, and in the course of the investigation, Lilah's accomplice, Chase Erling, had killed their beloved team leader. So when Lilah ran, they'd asked to take over the search for her. No one would have thought of refusing, even though she was technically an LAPD suspect.

"Yeah," I answered. "Why?"

"Just making sure. So when do you start trial?"

"We hand out questionnaires to the jury pool in a few days and voir dire starts next week."

"That's fast."

"Yeah, I've been jammed before, but never like this."

Just talking about it made my stomach hurt. After we hung up, I took a hot shower, got into bed, and watched rich housewives scream about one of them getting too drunk and another one hitting on someone's husband. It made me feel better about not being rich...or married. I was asleep within minutes.

The jury questionnaire was forty-five pages long and we had over two hundred of them. I always grade each juror on a scale of one to five, with five being best, and I flag the answers that need follow-up. It's a backbreaker of a process, but it really gets me on top of what I've got in that jury pool. I had a second copy made for Declan so he could review them all and make his own assessments. I spent the week going through each and every questionnaire, page by page, and sometimes more than once to make sure I didn't miss anything.

It was a task that had me alternating between relief and misery. Mostly misery. There were some real gems-smart, well read, and solid. But there was a depressingly high number of defense groupies. Not that they directly admitted it. Their bias-and lack of candor-lay between the lines. A municipal bus driver who admitted in the first pages of the questionnaire that he watched every news program from five o'clock till ten o'clock every night, in later pages insisted he'd heard nothing about the case. He also said he knew he could be fair, but admitted he'd heard that Ian Powers had been framed and thought it was possible. Another potential juror turned out to have been under investigation for a string of arsons in Torrance; he said he wouldn't hold the unfair suspicion against the prosecution. I told myself that I was being unduly critical, but it felt like for every solid juror, there were ten rejects.

I wanted to believe it would all change when the jury saw the evidence, but I knew better. You can't make a jury buy logic. I fought to keep my spirits up in the days leading to the trial, but the truth was, my optimism was losing the battle against a growing dread.

Too soon, the day for voir dire arrived. I dressed in one of my "believe me" suits and left myself plenty of time to get to the office and do hair and makeup repair, as per my lessons from Toni. I'd gone back to hoofing it to and from the office. I needed the exercise, and the danger of being chased by reporters had lessened considerably, thanks to Terry's penchant for giving daily interviews on the courthouse steps. The press now stuck close to the building, where they could be sure of getting their sound bites.

Even from two blocks away, I could see the antennae of the satellite trucks that now permanently surrounded the courthouse. The sight irritated me all over again. I'd wanted Judge Osterman to seal the transcripts of jury selection, so the jurors would feel safe enough to be candid, but he'd refused. "The right to a public trial means the whole trial." The press wouldn't physically be in the courtroom because there wasn't room for them. But they'd be monitoring and reporting every word uttered in court-other than jurors' names-in a separate room that was wired for sound.

Fortunately, I now had a key to the freight elevator, so I made it up to the eighteenth floor in blissful privacy. As I passed Eric's office on the way to my own, I heard the television playing what sounded like a crowd at a rock concert. When I leaned in, I saw that Melia was watching the coverage. Curious, I stepped in to get a look. A move I immediately regretted.

The low wall that fronted the length of the courthouse building was now a shelf for vendors hawking everything from T-shirts to teacups, all emblazoned with faces-of me, of Terry, of Don, and of Ian. People were marching back and forth, carrying signs that read TEAM TERRY and TEAM RACHEL.

"What about Team Hayley and Team Brian?" I fumed.

Melia gave me a mournful look. "I know, it's terrible."

Not so terrible it made her turn the damn thing off, though.

I'd felt pretty well dressed in the navy suit with the thin silver pinstripes that I'd found on sale at Bloomingdale's. Until I saw Declan. His was a darker navy that looked like it had been made for him. There's just no substitute for bespoke.

Now that jurors would be walking the hallways, the judge had ordered the reporters to either stay in the sound-wired room or go outside. The only camera allowed inside was the one mounted on the wall above the jury, which would ensure that no photographs of the jurors would be taken. And it wouldn't be activated until after jury selection was finished.

When we walked up the courtroom aisle, I saw that Russell was once again firmly ensconced on the defense side of the courtroom and Raynie was sitting in neutral territory, the back row of the middle section. As we set up at counsel table, I stole glances at the defense side. Terry was in a beige dress with a pleated skirt. No doubt trying for the soft, feminine touch. That would work until she opened her mouth. Don wore the standard dark suit. No fewer than six law clerks, and all wore more expensive suits than mine.

The lockup door opened and Ian sauntered out as though he were walking into an A-list party. He had a big smile and wave for girlfriend Sacha, and a smile and a nod for all his loyal acolytes, which included Russell. Five minutes later, the judge took the bench. He surveyed the courtroom with a frown and spoke to the bailiff, Deputy Jimmy Tragan. "I'll need all family members to sit in the section on the far right, away from the jurors."

The bailiff turned to face the gallery and gave them Judge Osterman's edict. Raynie reluctantly moved to the designated area, but as far away from Russell as she could get. I took that as a good sign. Then again, I might just have been desperate for a positive omen.

With the family and friends safely cloistered, the jury commissioner's emissary opened the door and our group of two hundred prospective jurors began to file in. I watched them fill the benches, looking for early signs of a bad attitude or an overly excited glance at Ian Powers. Not one nuance could be overlooked. Among this group were the twelve people who'd decide whether Brian and Hayley's killer would be brought to justice.

62.

"You've all been assigned numbers and that's what we'll use today instead of your names," Judge Osterman said. "We do this to protect your privacy. My clerk, Tricia Monahan, will call out sixteen of you by your numbers, so please look at your number while she reads them. If she calls your number, kindly move up and take a seat in the jury box, starting with the upper-left corner as you face it. Trish?"

Tricia stood, pushed her glasses up her small freckled nose, and began. I pulled out their questionnaires as Tricia called the numbers. When I saw that the electronic engineer from Silicon Valley was in the first batch, I turned my back to the jury and hissed, "Damn it."

As a general rule, engineers are good prosecution jurors. Smart, logical, and dispassionate, they see through defense games and have no problem convicting. This one in particular was even better because he had sat on a murder case before-and I would bet he'd been the foreman. He was perfect.

And he was toast. Each side got twenty peremptory challenges in this case-meaning challenges we could use without having to show actual bias or inability to serve. The trick in jury selection is in how and when you use these precious challenges.

So if my engineer had come up later in the draw, after the defense had used most of their peremptories, there was at least a chance they'd have to accept him over someone who looked even worse-like a retired cop. But now, with all twenty challenges at their disposal, they wouldn't hesitate to boot him.

"Counsel, while they're being seated, I've prepared a full randomized list of the jurors for you," the judge said. "Jimmy, would you mind handing these out?"

The randomized list was computer-generated, showing the order in which all jurors would be called up to the box. Back in the old days, the clerks used a Bingo cage and drew name cards out one by one. Nowadays, with jury pools of two and three hundred, a computer took all the names with their associated numbers and created a randomized list that showed the order in which they'd be called.

I quickly reviewed the list and flipped through some of the questionnaires to see what we were getting in this first batch and what was coming up in the next groups. What I saw put a lump the size of a grapefruit in my stomach. All of our best jurors, my "fives," were in the first batch. This meant the defense would have enough peremptory challenges to get rid of all of them. I'd be able to save up my peremptories by "passing" and accepting the jury, but the minute the next batches were called, I'd have to start using them-most of them were "ones" and "twos"-our worst. And the next batch after that...I pulled out the questionnaires and looked at the grades...just as bad. I looked through the last batch. They were better, a few "threes" and "fours," but it wouldn't matter-we'd never get to them. I'd run out of challenges and be forced to accept the jury before they could get called.

It's well known that the case is won or lost in jury selection. What's less well known is that something as simple as jurors' placement on a randomized list can mean you'll never get a shot at the ones you need. Luck of the draw plays a much bigger role in our system of justice than anyone cares to know.

While the judge read some of the basic instructions that explained their duties as jurors, Declan and I exchanged notes about which jurors had to go.

Declan thought we had to bounce the black single mother of two whose brother was in prison for armed robbery and whose father had been murdered in a drive-by shooting. Next up was a librarian who'd never married or had children and so wasn't our ideal profile-we preferred women with children-but she was relatively intelligent and well read. It wasn't worth wasting a peremptory on her, and I'd bet the defense wouldn't either. An older black man would normally have been my ideal juror. Conservative, articulate, and strong minded. But he'd said he was no fan of "this younger generation" and their "questionable values." I had two kids who'd schemed to extort a million dollars. Not a love match.

Judge Osterman had said that he'd do most of the questioning and give each side half an hour for the first round, then ten minutes for each successive round. He started by running each juror through the standard list of questions that was posted on a bulletin board near the jury box: marital status, children, employment and spouse or significant other's employment, prior contacts with law enforcement or the judicial system, any past or current situation that might affect their ability to be fair, and so on. Some of them had been covered in the questionnaire, so the questioning went quickly.

I watched as each juror answered, and made notes on tone of voice, attitude, and body language. "And now, I'm going to let the lawyers ask you some questions," the judge said. "People?"

I smiled in what I hoped was a disarming way and thanked them for being there, as though they'd had a choice in the matter. I asked them about the prosecution's problem points. Motive: We didn't have to prove it. What did they think about that rule? If they believed the evidence proved someone was guilty but they didn't understand why that person did it, could they still convict? I watched carefully as they answered. Only one seemed to be uncomfortable with the rule. A young mom, and the only obvious Ian-lover in the batch, who was addicted to the E! channel. It figured.

Then I asked, "If you heard that the victims had staged a phony kidnapping, would that make you believe the victims got what they deserved?" It wasn't something any juror would want to admit to thinking, and it certainly wasn't a legal reason to acquit Powers, but it was the kind of emotional issue that could make jurors look for a reason to acquit-biases that no one wants to own up to even privately, let alone out loud. The only way to handle hidden bias is to pull it out into the open. That way, there's at least a chance someone in the jury room will remind the others that we talked about this in voir dire.

I got everyone to say they agreed that it would be wrong to ignore evidence of guilt just because the victims did something they didn't approve of and-as I frankly admitted to the jurors-that the victims shouldn't have done.

Then I went through the standard discussion of reasonable doubt and circumstantial evidence. Everyone nodded as though they understood. I knew many of them didn't. That's why I always end the discussion with a hypothetical to illustrate the concepts in simpler terms. "You understand reasonable doubt is a doubt founded in reason. Not just something you might imagine." I turned to the librarian. "For example, Juror Number One-oh-eight, see that baseball on the bailiff's desk?"

The librarian glanced over at his desk and quietly answered, "Yes."

"If you saw the bailiff throw that baseball at Tricia's desk and heard glass breaking, and then you walked over and saw that the vase on her desk was broken, you'd know beyond a reasonable doubt that Jimmy had broken it, wouldn't you?"

"Well...if that's the only thing on her desk that was broken...yes."

"Exactly right. Now, it's possible that in the very same moment Jimmy threw the ball, Tricia's vase fell apart on its own, or that Tricia had taken out a hammer and smashed the vase herself, but would that be reasonable?"

The librarian blinked a few times. "Well...no, it wouldn't. At least, not in my opinion."

"So would you agree that in my example, there is no reasonable doubt that Jimmy broke the vase when he threw the baseball at Tricia's desk?"

"Yes."

I watched the others with quick glances during this exchange to see how they reacted. The older black man was looking impatient, and gave me a "duh, no shit" look. The young mother who was an Ian groupie looked perplexed-another great reason to bounce her. But the black single mother was watching me with a little smile on her face. She got it. The electronic engineer was sitting back in his chair with the forbearing look of one who'd been through the drill. Most of the others seemed interested. Like I said, a great group. It'd break my heart when the defense gave them the boot. The best I could do at this point was ask them lots of questions so I could use their answers to teach the rest of the jurors in the pool.

I turned to the young rocker with the semi-Mohawk; from his questionnaire I knew he was a stocker at Ralph's Grocery Store. I didn't intend to waste a peremptory challenge on him, but I didn't figure him to be a great pick for our side. After all, we were "The Man." But when I asked him if, knowing that Hayley and Brian had staged the kidnapping, he'd be unable to convict, he half snorted and said, "You kidding? No. Smoke him."

I had to swallow to keep from laughing out loud. Terry, of course, wasn't finding this so funny. Bye-bye, rock star. He wasn't the only good surprise: most of the others turned out to be even better than I'd expected too.

And when the defense got done, not a single one of them would remain. By the time I'd finished my questioning, I was more depressed than before.

"Defense, you may question the jury."

Terry came out swinging-and showed me exactly what I was up against. With her very first question, I found out that even my best batch of jurors was vulnerable to the defense party line.

"Juror Number Seventy-four, do you believe that sometimes innocent people can be framed?"

The juror, a divorced father of three employed by the Department of Water and Power who looked like a beer-drinking football fan, responded, "Uh...sure."

"And have you heard of cases where innocent men served as much as thirty years in prison before the courts agreed that they'd been wrongly convicted?"

He nodded seriously. "Yeah."

I noticed she conveniently forgot to mention that those men had been freed by DNA evidence-our strongest proof of guilt in this case. I'd make sure to point that out when I stood up again.

Terry stretched the question out to the rest of the panel, and every single one of them said they'd seen such cases in the news.

"How many of you have heard about the Rampart Division of LAPD planting drugs and lying to justify arrests?"

I looked at Judge Osterman to gauge whether he'd sustain an objection. He glanced at me but looked back at Terry-a sign I shouldn't waste my breath. I sat tight and did my best to look serene.

About six of the jurors raised their hands, and I heard rustling behind me that said many in the audience would've raised theirs too.

"Would you agree that the Rampart Division's actions are an example of a conspiracy?"

The jurors answered in unison, "Yes."

Where the hell was she going with this police conspiracy junk? Why on earth would the cops want to frame Ian Powers? I was glad Bailey wasn't here to listen to this; she'd be ready to pull out her gun. Bailey and I were going to have to do some more digging to try to find out whether there was some bad blood between Ian Powers and the LAPD we hadn't heard about yet.

"Now, you all agree, I'm sure, that it's a terrible thing for an innocent man to be convicted?" Terry asked.

Firm agreements all around, "Absolutely" and "No question" and "Of course."

"And you'd never want to be in the position of believing evidence that'd been trumped up to frame an innocent man, would you?"

Again, there were headshakes all around and murmured verbal responses of "No" and "Never." Only my electronic engineer seemed immune. He pressed his lips together and watched Terry with a stony expression.

Terry moved on to the more personal issues. "You all know by now that my client, Ian Powers, is a very important figure in the film and television industry, and that he's a wealthy man."

Nods and murmurs of "Yes" throughout the jury box.

"Juror Number Twenty-eight, are you going to hold that against him?"

That, at least, was a fair question. The juror, a slight Hispanic woman who'd worked for the California Highway Patrol as a dispatcher but was now unemployed, shook her head vigorously and frowned. "No."

Declan had given this juror a thumbs-up, but I'd been less impressed. Civilian employees of police departments aren't necessarily big fans of law enforcement, and the fact that she was no longer working for the CHP worried me. She'd said she left because she wanted to go back to school. I wasn't sure I believed her. Now, watching her practically mugging for Terry, I knew this juror was trouble.

"And just to follow up with you, Juror Twenty-eight, have you ever heard of an innocent person being framed?"