Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer by John Grisham

give either his first name or his last. In rapid Spanish he went back and forth with Julio. The words were tense.
    “He wants to know why he should trust you,” Julio said. Theo was thankful for the interpretation because he’d understood almost none of the Spanish.
    He said, “Look, Julio, how about a quick review? He came to you, you came to me, and now I’m here. I didn’t start this process. If he wants to leave, then good-bye. I’ll be happy to go home.” It was tough talk and it sounded pretty strong in English. Julio passed it along in Spanish, and the cousin glared at Theo as if he’d been insulted.
    Theo did not want to leave. He knew he should. He knew better than to get involved. He’d been telling himself to butt out, but the truth was that Theo relished being exactly where he was at that moment. “Tell him he can trust me and that I will not tell anyone what he says,” he said to Julio.
    Julio passed it along, and the cousin seemed to relax a little.
    It was obvious to Theo that the cousin was deeply troubled and wanted some help. Julio kept rattling on in Spanish. He was heaping praise upon Theo, who understood some of it.
    The cousin smiled.
    Theo had printed a color Google Earth Search map of the Creek Course, and he had marked the Duffy home. The cousin, still unnamed, began to tell his story. He pointed to a spot in some trees in a dogleg on the sixth fairway, and spoke rapidly about what he had seen. He’d been sitting on some timbers near a streambed, just inside the tree line, eating his lunch, minding his own business, when he saw the man enter the house from the rear door and exit a few minutes later. Julio gamely hung on with his interpretation, often stopping his cousin so he could do the English for Theo. Theo, to his credit, began to understand more and more of the Spanish as he grew accustomed to the cousin’s speech patterns.
    The cousin described the frenzy around the golf course after the police showed up and the gossip spread. According to one of his friends, a kid from Honduras who waited tables in the clubhouse grill, Mr. Duffy was having a late lunch and a drink when he got the news that his wife had been found. He made a scene, hustled out, jumped in his golf cart, and raced home. This friend said that Mr. Duffy was wearing a black sweater, tan slacks, and a maroon golf cap. It was a perfect match, said the cousin. The same outfit worn by the man he saw enter the Duffy home and exit just minutes later.
    From his file, Theo produced four photographs of Pete Duffy. All four had been found online, in the archives of the Strattenburg daily newspaper. He had enlarged them to 8 by 10 inches. He spread them on the table and waited. The cousin could not identify Mr. Duffy. He estimated that he was between sixty to a hundred yards away when he was having his quiet lunch and saw the man. The man he’d seen looked very similar to the one in the photographs, but the cousin could not be certain. He was certain, though, of what the man was wearing.
    A positive identification by the cousin would be helpful, but not crucial. It would be easy to establish how Mr. Duffy was dressed, and the fact that a witness saw a man in the identical clothing enter the home just minutes before the murder would nail a conviction, at least in Theo’s opinion.
    As Theo listened to Julio translate into Spanish, he watched the cousin closely. There was no doubt he was telling the truth. Why would he not tell the truth? He had nothing to gain by lying, and plenty to lose! His story was believable. And, it fit perfectly into the prosecution’s theory of guilt. The problem, though, was that the prosecution had no idea such a witness even existed.
    Theo listened, and again asked himself what he should do next.
    The cousin was talking even faster, as if the dam had finally broken and he wanted to unload everything. Julio was working even harder to translate. Theo typed feverishly on his laptop, taking as many notes