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you understand.”
    He blinked, and when he exhaled entirely, I let him go.
    Judge Mudge peered down from the bench and said, “Mr. Montaigne. Are you ready to give your opening statement?”
    Philippe said, “Yes, Your Honor.”
    I grabbed Harry’s and Hugo’s hands again. Phil stepped out into the aisle, and as he buttoned his gray jacket and walked up to the lectern, I felt a sudden rush of love forhim. He was working to defend Matty knowing full well that whether he won or lost, he would likely not be paid a nickel for his time.
    Matty did have his own money, separate from the lien against my parents’ estate, but the Gee family had filed a civil lawsuit against him for wrongful death. Who knew if he’d have anything left once that was settled.
    I shot a look at Harry, who put his arm around me and said softly, “Courage.” I nodded and swallowed hard as Phil greeted the jury.
    “Tamara Gee was a wonderful young woman, and Matthew Angel loved her very much,” Phil began. “Even though Tamara told the press that she was having an affair with Malcolm Angel, Matthew’s father, and that the baby she was expecting was not his, Matthew loved her.
    “He loved her so much that whether or not the baby was his, he still wanted to marry her, still bought her a ten-carat heart-shaped diamond ring a week before her death. He still phoned her when he wasn’t with her, and she still phoned him. We will introduce evidence to prove this. But for now, I want to tell you what happened the night in question, the night Tamara was murdered by an unknown killer for reasons we don’t know.
    “On that night, Matthew played poker with four of his friends, as he told the police, but he left earlier thanhe originally recalled, and instead of going home, as he first claimed, Matthew went out to a bar. He got, in his words, ‘stinking drunk,’ and sometime in the early hours, he came home. He didn’t lock the door.
    “He got undressed in the bathroom, then got into bed with Tamara. He never turned on the lights and he never kissed her good night. He passed out.
    “The next morning, Matthew awoke and found Tamara, the love of his life and the mother of his unborn child, dead. At that point, Matthew Angel went into shock. He went into denial. He left the house and the gruesome scene the prosecution has just subjected all of you to, hoping against irrational hope that it wasn’t true. That he hadn’t seen what he had seen. Later that day, at home and surrounded by his loving family, he was arrested and charged with murder.
    “The investigation stopped right there, ladies and gentlemen. But there are other possibilities. Was Tamara already dead when Matthew got into bed with her? Or was she killed while he was lying beside her, passed out drunk?
    “To this day, the police believe that the defendant killed Tamara Gee and her unborn child, but here’s the dirty little secret.”
    Phil paused for effect, and when I thought I would gocrazy from waiting, he walked to the jury box and put his hands on the railing. “The dirty little secret, folks, is that while Tamara was stabbed by a sharp object fifteen times, there was no murder weapon in the apartment.
    “No murder weapon was found.”
    Point, Phil!
He was every bit as dramatic as Nadine, but he didn’t have to rely on shocking, grisly photos to stir up the jury. Phil had facts.
    “There were no knives missing from the apartment, no knife in the apartment to match the victim’s stab wounds, no evidence that Matthew had purchased any such knife. There is no proof that Matthew Angel had the means to commit this crime. There are no eyewitnesses to report having seen Matthew Angel commit this crime. Every single piece of evidence the prosecution will submit to you is circumstantial.
    “What is true is that this is a classic case of the police rushing to judgment against a bigger-than-life individual without sufficient evidence. We suggest this: Someone came in and killed Tamara