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“HAVE YOU EVER TESTIFIED at a murder trial before, Mr. Salzman?” I begin by asking.

“No, ma’am.”

I turn to the jury and open my eyes wide. “ Ma’am ? I heard you call Ms. Welsh that. You can’t possibly think I’m as old as she is, can you?”

I see some of the women in the box laugh.

I’m here all week.

And just getting started.

Now I’m facing Steve Salzman again.

“I am going to make the assumption that in preparation for your testimony here, you studied the use of DNA as it has applied to other murder trials,” I say. “Am I correct about that?”

“As a matter of fact, you are.”

“And in those studies, in what was effectively your own trial prep, did you find a single case where DNA was the single determining result or conclusion or fact in proving a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?”

He hesitates.

“I’m not sure what you’re asking,” he says.

“Let me see if I can make it clearer for you,” I say.

“Wouldn’t even a cursory Google check tell you that often the opposite is true, that DNA—sometimes years after the fact—has often been used to prove the innocence of someone falsely convicted of murder by noble lawyers from places like the Innocence Project? ”

“Objection,” Welsh says, jumping to her feet. “Now who’s giving speeches, Your Honor?”

“Overruled,” Judge Horton says. “But Ms. Smith, let’s move on from you sounding like an unpaid spokesperson for the Innocence Project.”

“My pleasure, Your Honor.”

I walk toward the witness stand now, stopping only a few feet away. Jimmy Cunniff has always said that in moments like these I remind him of a boxer cutting off the ring. Even a girl boxer.

“Can a person’s DNA be harvested?” I ask Salzman.

“Harvested?”

“You see, Mr. Salzman, I did some forensic trial prep of my own. So what I’m asking is if someone who knew what he, or she, was doing, could they recover DNA off someone’s toothbrush, for example, and then—again, knowing what they were doing—preserve that DNA along with a few drops of water in a test tube for future use? ”

“I guess that would be possible, yes.”

“Objection!” Katherine Welsh says, much louder than before. “Your Honor, it’s also possible that Ms. Smith could become an astronaut if she trained for it. But as far as I know, she hasn’t.”

I’ve never been able to help myself in moments like these, no matter how many times I’ve been warned by judges.

“I’m starting to feel a little weightless right now, to tell you the truth,” I say.

“The objection is overruled,” Horton says. But then to me he says, “Ms. Smith, please let it be noted for the record that you’re not as amusing as you clearly think you are.”

Am too, I think.

But what I say is this: “If it pleases the court, what I’m trying to establish with this witness, in a scientific way I’m hopeful he will appreciate, is that there are a lot of ways why and how my client’s DNA could have ended up in that house, and near those victims, without him being the one to leave it there.

So what I’m really asking the witness is if he thinks it’s entirely possible that someone other than my client committed these crimes? ”

“It would be extremely difficult to plant that much evidence,” he says, “even for someone who did know what they were doing.”

I grin at him. “But possible,” I say, before adding, “like becoming an astronaut.”

“Yes,” he says. “Possible.”

“And on the subject of hair follicles,” I continue, “isn’t it true that someone whose intention is an elaborate and creative frame-up would only need access to someone’s hat, or even hairbrush?”

“Objection,” Welsh says. “Your Honor, that isn’t a serious question. It’s just more of Ms. Smith’s fever dream about this murder being a setup.”

“Sustained,” Horton says.

“Your Honor,” I say, “I’m just attempting to make the jury aware that this trial isn’t over just because of DNA samples that Mr. Salzman collected at the murder scene, but is rather just beginning.”

“We can all see what you’re attempting to do,” Judge Horton says. “You’re telling a story. And I’m telling you that this story needs to come to an end now.”

“Understood,” I say.

I know I can call Salzman back to the stand later if I think I need him. But I don’t think that I will—once I’ve got my own expert on the stand.

“Mr. Salzman, let’s approach this from another direction. Is there any way for the science you’re here talking about to know how long DNA has been present, whether on a hard surface or any article of clothing or on a rug?”

“No,” he says, “there’s not.”

“One more question: Is it possible that DNA, even belonging to the same person, can alter slightly over time, so that while it’s still clearly a match, it’s not an exact match?”

“Yes,” he answers, “it is possible, but it would require a longer explanation.”

“One I’m sure you could give this court, in both chapter and verse,” I say. “But for now, a simple yes or no will do.”

“Yes,” he says. “It can alter.”

“No further questions,” I say, “at least not at this time.”

Katherine Welsh is back on her feet before I’m back in my chair.

“Redirect please, Your Honor,” she says.

“To be clear, Mr. Salzman,” she says, “the defendant’s DNA was only found in close proximity to the three bodies, when it wasn’t in fact on the bodies, right?”

“That’s right.”

“What a coincidence.”

“It would be some coincidence.”

Welsh says, “And there was that one drop of blood on the nightstand in the main bedroom, right?”

“Yes,” Salzman answers.

“And we both know that the Carsons’ housekeeper has testified that she took a scrub brush to all the hard surfaces in that house on the day in question, don’t we?”

“I heard the same testimony you did, Ms. Welsh.”

“So sometime after Ms. Morales thoroughly cleaned that house and before you arrived at the house, somehow a drop of Rob Jacobson’s blood ended up on that table,” Welsh says. “Not something from a test tube, or a toothbrush, or a hairbrush, or a ball cap. Mr. Jacobson’s own blood.”

“Yes.”

“And with blood, you can tell that it’s fresh, can’t you?”

“Without a doubt.”

“Without a reasonable doubt,” Welsh says.

Not a question, not intended to be.

“No further questions,” she says.

In that moment, I do feel a little bit like a boxer.

One who just got cut.