In April 2003, three additional murder charges brought the charged set to seven. At the authorized briefing, Mara learned that paint evidence had linked three additional cases. She recognized references from the earlier records assignment, but recognition gave her no share of the scientific finding. She opened a fresh page for the documented change. The work had advanced beyond locating material: examination had produced connections investigators could act upon, and prosecutors had filed additional charges. Neither fact supplied an answer for every unresolved death.
Salcedo divided the supporting assignments. Mara would check that the case references in their briefing materials matched the current charging documents. Ben would handle submitted family questions and follow-up arrangements. Mercer would address the legal status of the charges. Mara reached for Ben's papers as he laid them on the table. He kept one hand on the pile until she withdrew hers. 'Anything you want to compare?' she asked. He passed her one question, not the whole assignment.
It asked whether seven was the final number. Mara read it and handed it back. Ben folded the page into his folder. Before either could continue, voices rose beyond the door. Two early arrivals were arguing about who should be allowed into the smaller discussion afterward. One believed the newly filed charges should give particular families priority. The other said that was another way of telling everybody else to keep waiting. Neither had asked Mara to referee their grief.
She went into the corridor. One woman held the door open with her shoulder; the other stood where anyone leaving would have to pass her. Mara asked them to move into the room so the doorway could stay clear. 'Then where do you want us?' the second woman demanded. Mara looked at the arrangement she had helped prepare: rows, a table, a short interval reserved for questions. There was no place in that tidy plan for the argument already happening.
She moved two chairs to the side and asked whether they would sit while Mercer explained what could be discussed privately. The first woman sat. The second remained standing until Ben placed a chair where she could face the doorway. Mara returned to her assigned papers. Ben had not sought permission for the change, and she had no reason to correct it. They began later than planned, with the disagreement present in the room rather than pushed beyond it.
Mara stated the new count and the role of the additional paint evidence. The woman nearest the door interrupted. 'Does that mean the DNA was wrong?' Mara said it was another line of evidence. Mercer explained the legal position of the additional charges. The other woman asked to hear that distinction once more, and this time it was the first woman who waited. Mara watched them listening to the same answer for different reasons. The number seven had brought them into one room without giving them one experience.
A question about what remained unanswered brought the dispute back. Mara began to offer another interval for individual conversations, but Ben asked the woman near the door what she needed to decide today. Whether to call her relatives, the woman said, or let them read it first. She was tired of becoming the person who had to explain every change. Mara lowered the sheet she had been about to quote. Mercer addressed what the filing established. Ben asked which practical help the woman wanted.
They could not give her the complete account she wanted. They could give her time, a private place to make a call, and someone to clarify the questions she chose to ask. She accepted the room. The woman who had argued with her offered to wait outside it until she was finished. Mara stepped aside to let them pass. She had spent the morning expecting to protect the session from interruptions. Its most useful change had begun with one she could not have planned.
Afterward, she collected unused packets while Ben spoke privately with two attendees. His notes stayed in his folder; hers stayed in hers. The paint avenue had changed the prosecution, and seven families' places within the charged set could now be discussed differently. Beyond that set, unanswered questions remained, not erased by the arithmetic. Mara waited by the door rather than listening to a conversation that was not hers. When Ben finished, he asked whether she wanted company on the walk out, not permission to proceed. She said yes and held the door.