| abstract | - To everyone's shock, Barnabas shows up in the court house and announces he will now represent Quentin. Charles objects to Barnabas being involved in the trial, but the judges overrule him. As Barnabas prepares his cross-examination, Lamar has a panic attack and asks to be excused from the court house. The judge allows a recess until the following morning. Later, Barnabas visits Quentin in his cell. Barnabas admits Lamar was holding him prisoner and Valerie and Julia freed him. Quentin wonders why he wouldn't turn Lamar over the authorities, but Barnabas says he has other plans. Barnabas tells Quentin he only wants to concentrate on the trial than dealing with Lamar at the moment, and heads off to prepare for the following morning. That night, Barnabas visits Lamar at his chapel. Lamar is convinced that Quentin helped Barnabas escape. After taunting him for a while, Barnabas calmly tells Lamar he is going to kill him, but he won't tell him when he is going to do it. Lamar meets Charles early the next morning at the court house and tells him that he will not testify. Visibly frightened, Lamar says he has his reasons, much to Charles' disgust. Charles warns him that a lack of a testimony will likely swing the trial's momentum back into Quentin's favor. Meanwhile at Rose Cottage, Barnabas visits Flora and asks many questions about the Head of Judah Zachary. Flora is greatly concerned about Desmond's safety, and sadly admits Desmond brought it to Collinsport as a gift for Quentin. Barnabas asks who at Collinwood knows about the Head, before admitting to Flora he believes that Gerard is somehow involved in everything. Flora mentions that Gerard has been spending a lot of time with Lamar lately, and explains the night when they discovered Lamar's father's remains in the basement of the Old House. A few hours later, the trial resumes and Barnabas begins to cross-examine Lamar, who is still uneasy about being near Barnabas. Under Barnabas' questioning, Lamar agrees that participating in seances falls under the category of the occult, and Barnabas asks if he held a seance to contact his father. Charles attempts to have the question thrown out, but is overruled and Lamar confesses he took part in a seance to contact his father, who warned him of danger at Collinwood. Following Lamar's admission, the judges throw out a large portion of Lamar's previous testimony, including references to seances and the occult. Charles then receives permission to question Lamar regarding other ways Quentin has attempted to communicate with the dead. Lamar, still shaking, recalls Quentin writing letters to leave in a tree outside of Collinwood for a dead woman named Joanna Mills. Charles hands over the letter and Joanna's death certificate to the judges and asks for the trial to be ended immediately. After the judges consider this notion, a woman walks into the courtroom and identifies herself as Joanna Mills.
|
