Page 129 of The Right to Remain

Jack could almost see the goose bumps forming on the back of Elliott’s neck, but he did not turn around to face his lawyer.

“That’s it?” asked Weller, incredulous. “The gun was buried in the yard—that’s your proof that a six-year-old boy shot his father?”

“I’m just getting started,” said Jack, and then he returned to the whiteboard, pointed, and said the word again: “Sebum.”

Jack paused. For years, he and Andie had lived under a hard-and-fast rule that they never spoke to each other about his active cases or her active investigations. It was like living on opposite sides of the Great Wall of China, to borrow Andie’s metaphor, and trying to stay happily married. It felt good to be free from that rule—so good that Jack wished he could give credit where credit was due.

“My wife has worked on many child abduction cases for the FBI. One of the little-known forensic facts I picked up from her is that there’s an important difference between adult and child fingerprints.”

“Yeah, thesize,” said Weller, scoffing.

“I said theimportantdifference,” said Jack. “It’s in the skin oils, called sebum. Adult sebum is made up of stable lipids, which are less likely to vaporize over time. The sebum of children is higher in cholesterol and free fatty acids—unstable lipids that break down more quickly.”

“So?”

“Under identical conditions—like a gun buried in the yard—a child’s fingerprint disappears faster than an adult fingerprint. Which is exactly what your fingerprint analyst found here.”

Weller sat back in her chair, arms folded, unimpressed. “Or he found a smudged adult print left byyour client. I suppose now you’re going to tell me that this sebum also explains what Elliott Stafford was doing at the Pollard house on the night Owen Pollard was murdered.”

“No, that’s the end of the science lesson,” said Jack. “Elliott went to the house because he got a second call from the Pollard landline.”

“From Owen Pollard.”

“No. From Austen.”

Weller chuckled. “Because every six-year-old boy knows the phone number of a grown trans man by heart.”

Jack needed to marginalize Weller. He switched into closing-argument mode and directed his remarks to the state attorney, as if Abe Beckham were a “jury of one.”

“Things didn’t go well in the Pollard house after Helena ran out alone,” said Jack. “Austen wanted his mommy. He cried and carried on so badly that Owen threw in the towel. He called his wife—on his cell phone—and told her to come back and make their son ‘stop acting like a sissy.’ Austen called her too. Or he tried to. Things were so bad at this point that Austen couldn’t even remember his mother’s cell phone number. So, he picked up the landline. And he hit the redial button. It redialed the last number dialed from the landline: Owen’s first call to my client, which he made that morning, when he called him a ‘freak.’”

The room was silent. Finally, Elliott turned and faced Jack, but he didn’t direct his lawyer to stop. Jack continued.

“We don’t know what was said. But this was a call for help from a distressed child to the very person who had brought him into the world. What did Elliott do? What wouldyoudo? He went to help.”

“And he shot Owen Pollard,” said Weller, unable to keep quiet.

“No, he didn’t,” said Jack. “Maybe hewould have, if he’d had a gun of his own. Or if there had been some way for him to know that there was a gun in the purse Helena Pollard had left behind. That’s why you were wrong, Julianna, when you say Elliott got therebeforeOwen Pollard called 911 and said he was shot. The timeline is not that clear. Elliott arrivedafterOwen Pollard was shot. In fact, by the time he got there, Owen Pollard was already dead.”

Elliott was glowering but remained silent.

“Of course, Elliott had no way of knowing that Owen had already called 911. Lucky for him, the call was from Owen’s cell phone, so it took a while for police to figure out it was from the Pollards’ house. That gave Elliott enough time to make a plan and implement it.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Weller. “So he proceeded to cover it all up by making it look like suicide. Let’s get to brass tacks here: If your client wasn’t the killer, he would have called the police himself and told them there was a terrible accident.”

“Really?” asked Jack. “A trans man who gave up a baby for adoption is inside the house with the dead adoptive father who called him afreak and told him to stay away from his son. I’d like to meet the police officer who would believe it was the six-year-old boy who shot Owen Pollard.”

“That wasn’t it,” Elliott said sharply.

Jack froze. It was a logical point for Elliott to speak up, but after so much silence, the sound of his voice hit like a bolt of lightning.

“Elliott, I can’t believe I’m saying this,” said Jack, “but right now it’s best if you don’t speak.”

He glared and said, “That wasn’t the reason I made it look like suicide.”

“Elliott, I strongly advise you to remain silent.”

“It wasn’t because I thought the police wouldn’t believe Austen shot his father.”