The gesture, according to the note in the transcript, was a flat hand moved downward.

The third is the one that the assistant state’s attorney told me afterward was the single most important sentence in the entire investigation, and it is an answer to a question about whether she ever told anybody.

I nearly told Miss Obeng but then I didn’t because she is a teacher and teachers have to tell the police and then Mom would get arrested and it would be my fault because I told.

A seven-year-old had worked out the mandated reporting system, correctly, and had used that understanding to keep herself quiet.