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WE STAY AT IT for another couple of hours, with no further dramatics.

I am tired enough as we approach the end of the afternoon that I allow McGoey to start interviewing candidates.

But as concerned as I am that he will, at worst, embarrass me, and at the very least try to make the whole thing about him, he does a solid and professional job.

He mostly asks the same questions I would have asked and generally does nothing that will make that second chair of his empty by tomorrow morning.

Norma Banks has a yellow legal pad in front of her, and different-colored Magic Markers. She has been taking notes all afternoon when she isn’t in my ear making snarky and occasionally profane comments about the ones upon which Katherine Welsh and I have agreed, and the ones we’ve both rejected.

Sometimes I would look over and see this, in red:

“FULL OF CRAP.”

Or this in green:

“Dumb ass.”

Or this one, in black:

“Shut up and get out asshole.”

That one makes it impossible for me to stifle a laugh, even as McGoey is questioning a retired insurance agent from New Hyde Park, male, who looks old enough to have gone to college with Norma Banks.

“Something you find amusing, Ms. Smith?” Judge Horton says.

“Fighting a cold, Your Honor.”

“Fight harder,” he says.

It is a little before five o’clock when the last prospective juror of the long day sits down.

He appears to be around my age, good-looking, dark suit, open-necked white shirt, mostly gray hair.

Edward Oslin is his name. Retired venture capitalist, he says.

Living now in Brookville, a place I know isn’t for cheapies.

McGoey begins to stand. I stop him with a hand on his forearm.

“I’ll take the cute guy,” I whisper.

“Tutto bene,” McGoey whispers back, then grins. “It’s an expression some of my other clients often use.”

I start out making small talk with Edward Oslin, almost as if we’d met at a bar, and he goes right along with it, at one point saying he’s enjoying himself more than he thought he would, at which point I see Katherine Welsh roll her eyes.

But we’re almost up against Judge Horton’s five o’clock deadline. And I really am tired as hell, so it’s time for me to get to it.

“If seated, would you be prepared to stay both present and engaged across what might be a lengthy trial?” I ask him.

“Got nothing but time these days,” he says. “I’ve discovered you can only play so much golf. Though I do have a very nice boat.”

Another roll of the eyes from the district attorney, followed by an audible sigh.

“How much do you know about the facts of this case?” I ask Oslin.

“Only what I’ve read in the papers, and online,” he answers. “And to be honest, I’m aware of the previous trial involving Mr. Jacobson.”

“Any opinions about that one?”

“I actually followed it pretty closely. And to be honest again, you turned out to be even better than I’d heard you were, because it frankly shocked the shit out of me that you managed to win him an acquittal.”

He immediately turns to Judge Horton. “Sorry, about the language, Your Honor.”

Horton shrugs. “We’ve already had somebody sitting where you’re sitting drop the f-bomb today. I’m past having my delicate sensibilities be offended by language, even if it is getting late.”

“One last question, Mr. Oslin,” I say. “Do you have any other opinions you’d care to share about the events that have brought us all here today?”

I’m standing right in front of him when he shrugs, and smiles.

“Just one, I guess,” he says. “Just off what I know already, I think he probably killed these people, too.”

And, I think, there it is.

What a perfect way to end my day.

“Excused,” I say.

“I object, Your Honor!”

I know immediately that the voice belongs to Norma Banks, even before I turn around to see her standing, with her hand raised toward Judge Horton like a kid in school, until Horton grins and explains to her that she’s not allowed to object.

Norma apologizes. But even before she sits down, she is furiously waving me back to our table. When I get there, she grabs my arm and jerks me down close to her with surprising strength.

“Just what exactly do you think you’re doing?” I whisper to her.

“It’s the dumb ones we throw back,” she whispers back. “This guy we keep.”

“Why, because you think he’s cute, too?” I ask her.

“No, you dumb-ass,” she says. “I like him because he thinks you are.”