Rusty expects to continue his questioning, but Glowoski sent George home. Rusty suspects this wasn’t an accident, so he calls Glowoski to the stand instead, since he discovered a potential Brady violation. Rusty shows Glowoski the notes her partner, Agent Martinez, made during the second interview with George. Martinez noted that Gina suddenly left the interview, possibly because she disagreed with her husband. Gina’s departure came right after George claimed Aaron was driving the Subaru. To Rusty, this implies that Gina disagreed about who was driving, and she must’ve seen Mae. Since this indicates Mae was still alive when the State claims she was murdered, Rusty accuses Glowoski of intentionally hiding this note.

Rusty questions why Glowoski had George ask Gina about doing her interview, which isn’t standard procedure. Glowoski admits that she didn’t try to speak with Gina after this date. Judge Carrington ends the questioning and proclaims that the notes should’ve been handed over at the outset. Jackdorp doesn’t have another witness prepared, so Judge Carrington angrily adjourns court. She instructs the prosecution to hand over every note they have.

Rusty informs Susan about Bea’s idea to testify about the rope, and she agrees that it’s a bad idea. On his drive home, Rusty thinks about the physical toll of the trial. Despite his many age-related ailments, Rusty still feels alive, and his relationship with Bea is the happiest period of his life. Rusty falls asleep immediately and wakes only minutes before he’s due back in court.

Deputy Akira Holloway testifies to investigating a tip at Ginawaban. At the scene, he found a female corpse lying across a Subaru’s front seats. Holloway carefully collected Mae’s ID, cash, and fentanyl from her back pocket. He figured Mae was impaired and had crashed. Holloway remained on the scene until other officers arrived. Two days later, Holloway returned on his regular patrol and found Aaron asleep in a truck next to the crime scene tape. Holloway placed Aaron under arrest.

Rusty questions Holloway about the presence of bears in Harold’s Woods, and Jackdorp objects to the relevance. Holloway explains that in autumn, most of the police’s calls are about bears attacking campsites. Deputies advise campers to string their food packs up in the trees. Holloway declares with certainty that campers use ropes like the one currently in evidence.

Rusty moves to Holloway’s interaction with Aaron. Aaron claimed he was paying his respects to Mae, but his truck died, so he had to sleep in it until parts arrived to fix the vehicle. Holloway discovered Aaron was wanted for Mae’s murder and was surprised, since Aaron was so calm and open. Aaron thought the warrant was for driving without a license. Holloway cuffed the cooperative Aaron and found no disturbances at the scene.

Rusty shows photos of the initial dispatch to the site. Multiple vehicles and nearly a dozen officials trampled over the scene, and Hardy was the first to arrive. The FBI gave jurisdiction to state police, and the officials didn’t believe they were at a crime scene. Rusty concludes that Hardy was ultimately the first person to destroy evidence.

Rusty and Jackdorp take a recess. Rusty chose not to refute certain evidence, like DNA, fibers, screenshots, data from Mae and Aaron’s phones, and a tollbooth photo of Mae’s Subaru. Jackdorp presents the stipulation to the jury. He then calls Glowoski back to the stand as an expert law enforcement witness. She describes the early investigative efforts at Harold’s Woods, where she determined the couple’s campsite was packed in a hurry.

The cellphone data from Mae and Aaron’s phones shows where each phone was active. Rusty reminds the jury that Cassity explained how Aaron went the wrong way at first while hitchhiking. Aaron’s phone powered on north of Harold’s Woods just after noon on September 14 to use a navigation app, and then he received a short phone call from Elaine Harop, who dialed the wrong number. Aaron turned his phone back on the night of September 14 to the south of Harold’s Woods, and then again on September 15, a little further south. Jackdorp shows the September 14 tollbooth photo of Mae’s Subaru taken just before noon near the turnoff to Ginawaban.

Glowoski describes Aaron’s rope purchase, and Jackdorp plays surveillance footage of the transaction. Glowoski recounts how she found the rope at Aaron’s residence but never found Aaron’s Nikes or camping gear. She deduced that he must’ve destroyed them.

Rusty returns to the cell tower data. He refutes the prosecution’s story that Aaron was at the tollbooth near Ginawaban at noon, discarded Mae’s body, and then was 50 miles south only half an hour later. Glowoski claims that cell towers can connect with phones up to 45 miles away, but she admits it’s unlikely. Glowoski tries to explain other discrepancies, but her theories don’t corroborate the data. For Rusty, the evidence points toward Aaron’s story, where he accidentally hitchhiked north before heading south, and that Mae drove to Ginawaban. Glowoski agrees that cell phone data can’t prove anything, and Rusty realizes he discredited this information for his case.

After Glowoski’s testimony, Aaron indicates that he needs to talk to Rusty. Jackdorp records his handing over the investigation notes, and Judge Carrington scolds Jackdorp again. Rusty realizes just how important this case is for Judge Carrington’s career. Jackdorp and Rusty settle their timelines for the remaining trial.

Rusty and Susan chat. Rusty worries he accidentally made the cell phone evidence worthless. He understands that Jackdorp never relied on the data because he found the tollbooth photo more compelling. Reviewing the photo, Rusty and Susan see two dark hands on the steering wheel. Susan thinks tollbooth cameras don’t accurately capture contrast, so she adds proving this theory to her to-do list.

Rusty drives home, stopping for whiskey on the way. He sees an old man who reminds him of his late mother. Rusty dreads his time alone because he can’t escape thoughts of Bea. He understands why Bea kept her secret, but he still grieves. Rusty fears Bea killed Mae, but several pieces of evidence prove otherwise. Rusty drinks and contemplates whether he’ll ever find joy with Bea again.

The next morning, Aaron declares that he wants to testify. Rusty believes a defendant shouldn’t take the stand, since the jury will only consider that testimony and no other evidence. Aaron would have to talk about his drug conviction, which Rusty thinks the jury doesn’t suspect. Rusty mock questions Aaron about how he’ll explain the backpack burning, and he reprimands Aaron harshly for rolling his eyes.

Aaron wants to correct the story about Elaine Harop’s phone call, which he claims was from Mae. At the time, Aaron was with a Black trucker heading in the wrong direction, and he was so upset he shut his phone off so Mae couldn’t call back. Aaron never mentioned this before, and until now, Rusty had no reason to doubt Elaine Harop’s statement. Rusty thinks Aaron is lying and fears Jackdorp will twist the story to make Aaron look dishonest. As Rusty leaves, Aaron still insists on testifying.

Rusty returns home and awkwardly informs Susan that Bea moved out. Rusty and Susan don’t normally speak about their personal lives, though Rusty knows Susan was a party girl before she married her husband, Al. Susan wants to investigate the hardware store to see whether the rope Aaron bought is different than the garage rope, as he claims. While Rusty spoke with Aaron, Susan learned that tollbooth cameras use altered contrast to obscure details of the driver’s identity. Susan thinks Aaron would do well on the stand, but she, too, believes it’s safer for him not to testify.

Rusty explains Aaron’s new story about the phone call, but they can’t determine how it could be true. Susan works on her to-do list, and Rusty prepares documents for their defense case. Bea arrives to grab more clothes. Bea brings Rusty outside, where she describes how ashamed and sorry she is. She worries she’ll have nothing left if Rusty doesn’t forgive her. Rusty acknowledges her speech but explains he must use all his focus on Aaron’s case. Bea claims Rusty should understand secret relationships, which only makes Rusty angrier. He returns inside, but a memory of Bea stops him. During the pretrial period, Rusty and Bea had had sex, and afterward, Bea eerily declared, “There is so much pain in life” (355). Rusty wonders if Bea was thinking about the harm she’d done to Mae.

At court on Monday, Susan is delayed while Special Agent Nancy Merado testifies. Rusty hopes one of the jurors, Archer Rideau, will be skeptical of the prosecution’s conclusions and that his strong personality will persuade the jurors during deliberation. Rusty believes Merado’s testimony will work in their favor, since the woman considers her scientific work innately unbiased.

Merado explains how she analyzes shoe and tire impressions, and she shows impression casts from Harold’s Woods, positively identified as Mae’s hiking boots and Aaron’s Air Force 1s. Susan arrives while Merado states that investigators never found Aaron’s shoes. Merado also analyzed three partial impressions at Ginawaban, which were run over or stepped on, but she concludes that Aaron’s Nikes could have made the shoe prints. Mae’s boots made impressions on Mae’s dashboard, and Aaron’s shoes could have made a faint impression on Mae’s blouse.

Rusty immediately has Merado explain that the partial impressions don’t definitively match Aaron’s specific Nike shoes, since there’s no way of corroborating shoe size. Rusty plays a video that overlays the mismatching sizes of the impressions at each scene, and Merado agrees it’s reasonable to assume different people made the impressions. She also asserts that the prints on Mae’s dashboard and her blouse could’ve been made at any time before the crime. In Merado’s follow-up at the crime scene after Aaron’s arrest, she saw no evidence that Aaron had walked or driven down the road.

Merado recalls how, at the first investigation at Harold’s Woods, Glowoski was already referring to Aaron as a “person of interest” (369). She concludes that it’s possible Hardy’s Escalade and Hardy himself damaged the shoe impressions at Ginawaban, but she refuses to conclude that the impressions in evidence came from Hardy’s Escalade.

During the next recess, Rusty notices how frail Joe has become. Inside the restroom, Rusty runs into Hardy, who confronts Rusty about painting him as Mae’s murderer. Hardy thinks Rusty is trying to get back at him for his relationship with Bea, but Rusty feigns ignorance.

Dr. Leland Shapera, a fiber expert, testifies at length about nylon 6’s properties. Shapera concludes that the fibers found on Mae and in Aaron’s closet match the rope coil found in the garage. Rusty’s first question concerns Shapera’s hefty fee. Rusty posits that fiber science, unlike DNA, cannot conclusively identify the source of nylon fibers. After dodging the question, Shapera agrees that, without considering other evidence, he can’t be certain of the fibers’ source.

Shapera insists that the hardware store surveillance tape points to his original conclusion, but Rusty argues that Aaron bought a different kind of rope. The rope in evidence is a thin double-braided rope, but Aaron purchased a twisted, half-inch rope. Shapera types the product number from Aaron’s receipt into the hardware store’s website to confirm this. Rusty concludes that the garage rope isn’t the rope Aaron purchased and therefore has no relevance to the case. Judge Carrington agrees, and Rusty emphatically throws the rope out.

Although Rusty’s cross-examination pleases him, he knows Jackdorp can still claim Aaron bought a rope that was never found. The knowledge that the garage rope is still connected to Bea, who could still be Mae’s killer, taints his good feelings about Bea and Aaron’s honesty.

As Rusty prepares for the next witness, Susan declares she has exciting new leads. Dr. Bonita Rogers, the pathologist who conducted Mae’s autopsy, takes the stand. Rogers refers to pictures of Mae’s corpse and reads from her official report that Mae died by strangulation. Rogers also found signs of a struggle, as if Mae had been dragged on the ground. She hypothesizes that Mae was killed in her car, with the assailant strangling her from behind. The assailant then pushed the body out of the way to drive to Ginawaban. Jackdorp plays a digital recreation of this theory.

Rusty’s colleagues warned him about Rogers, since she’s close to law enforcement. Rogers confirms that she believes Mae died in Harold’s Woods, but Rusty contends that the evidence points to Ginawaban as the death site. The investigators did not search any other site at Ginawaban since they must’ve suspected there wouldn’t be evidence left to collect. Judge Carrington objects to Rogers’s unsolicited hypothesis, and Rusty senses tension between the women.

Rogers tested the soil on Mae’s body, which didn’t match Harold’s Woods, but she didn’t compare the results to the soil at Ginawaban. Rusty and Rogers spar about whether Mae’s positioning can indicate where she died. Rogers believes the pathology, coupled with other evidence like the tollbooth photo, points to Mae dying at Harold’s Woods. Rusty suspected this response, so when Rogers decisively identifies a dark-skinned person in the tollbooth photo, Rusty reads the sworn testimony of the camera’s manufacturer. He assured the court that the cameras purposely make everyone appear dark. Rusty and Judge Carrington force Rogers to admit she was wrong.

Rusty has Rogers explain the elements of Mae’s injuries that are consistent with hanging, not strangulation. Rusty posits a new theory, that perhaps a bystander found Mae after she died by suicide and made the scene look like an accident. Rogers laughs at the theory, but she concedes that no evidence disproves it.

After Jackdorp’s curt redirect, he declares that the prosecution rests. Susan follows up on her leads, and Rusty meets with Aaron. Aaron worries that if Rusty’s theory is right, he might still be to blame, since he hung up on Mae when she threatened self-harm. Rusty now believes Aaron is telling the truth about the call. Rusty considers whether to ask for a mistrial, which would mean doing the whole trial over again. He thinks asking for a mistrial will have many disadvantages, so he suggests they should go to a verdict. Aaron again insists on testifying, but Rusty tells him to wait until Susan finishes her investigations. As Rusty waits for Judge Carrington, Susan texts that he should seek a verdict, since she has evidence of Aaron’s innocence.