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subtle nod and she picked up the cue immediately. “Mrs. Laird?” DeeDee waited until Elise raised her head and looked at her. “Can you lead us through what happened here tonight?”
    Before beginning, Elise took a deep breath. “I came downstairs to get something to drink.”
    “She does nearly every night,” the judge chimed in, flouting Duncan’s request that he not speak until asked.
    Duncan chose to let it pass. Once. “You suffer from chronic insomnia,” he said, remembering what he’d heard the judge tell Crofton.
    “Yes.” She addressed the reply to DeeDee, not to him. “I was on my way to the kitchen when—”
    “Excuse me. What time was this?” DeeDee asked.
    “Around twelve thirty. I remember looking at the clock shortly after midnight. It was about half an hour later that I got up and came downstairs. I thought a glass of milk would help me fall asleep. Sometimes it does.”
    She paused, as though expecting someone to comment on that. When no one did, she continued. “I was in the kitchen when I heard a noise.”
    “What kind of noise?”
    She turned toward Duncan, meeting his eyes for the first time since that moment in the kitchen. “I wasn’t sure what I heard. I’m still not. I think maybe it was his footfalls. Or him bumping into a piece of furniture. Something like that.”
    “Okay.”
    “Whatever it was, I knew the sound was coming from the study.”
    “You couldn’t identify the noise, but you knew where it was coming from?”
    The judge frowned at the skepticism underlying DeeDee’s question, but he didn’t say anything.
    “I know that sounds odd,” Elise said.
    “It does.”
    “I’m sorry.” She raised her hands palms up. “That’s how it was.”
    “I don’t see why this couldn’t wait until tomorrow morning,” the judge said.
    Before Duncan could admonish him, Elise said, “No, Cato. I’d rather talk about it now. While it’s still fresh in my mind.”
    He studied his wife’s face, saw the determination in her expression, and sighed. “If you’re sure you’re up to it.” She nodded. He kissed her brow, then divided an impatient look between DeeDee and Duncan, ending on him. “She heard a noise, realized where it was coming from, thought — as any rational person would — that we had an intruder.”
    Duncan looked at Elise. “Is that what you thought?”
    “Yes. I immediately thought that someone was inside the house.”
    “You have an alarm system.”
    Duncan had noted the keypad on the wall of the foyer just inside the front door. He’d seen a motion detector in the study and assumed that similar detectors were in other rooms as well. Homes of this caliber almost always had sophisticated alarm systems. A judge who’d sent countless miscreants to prison would surely want his home protected against any ex-con with a vendetta in mind.
    “We have a state-of-the-art monitored security system,” the judge said.
    “It wasn’t set?” Duncan asked.
    “Not tonight,” the judge replied.
    “Why not?” The judge was about to answer. Duncan held up his hand, indicating he wanted to hear the answer from Elise. “Mrs. Laird?”
    “I…” She faltered, cleared her throat, then said more assertively, “I failed to set the alarm tonight.”
    “Are you usually the one who sets it?”
    “Yes. Every night. Routinely.”
    “But tonight you forgot.” DeeDee put it in the form of a statement, but she was really asking how Mrs. Laird could forget to do tonight what was her routine to do every night.
    “I didn’t exactly forget.”
    These questions about the alarm had made her uneasy. An uneasy witness was a witness who was either withholding information or downright lying. An uneasy witness was one you prodded. “If you didn’t forget, why wasn’t the alarm set?” Duncan asked.
    She opened her mouth to speak. But no words came out.
    “Why wasn’t it set, Mrs. Laird?” he repeated.
    “Oh, for crissake,” the judge muttered. “I’m forced to be