He polished his reading glasses with a silk cloth, set them back on his nose, and took the cracked phone from my hand.

He plugged it into a black cable attached to his desktop monitor and played the video twice through his desk speakers.

“That audio will hold up in any state court in Texas,” Mark said.

He leaned back in his swivel chair, picked up a wooden pen, and tapped it three times on his desk pad.

“Can you get the certified lab findings on the thermos sample before nine on December fifteenth?” I asked.

Mark opened a yellow paper folder on his blotter and looked over the top sheet.