DEDHAM, Mass. — Attorney Alan Jackson on Wednesday continued to lay the foundation for the defense’s theory of a conspiracy that pitted “close-knit” Canton locals against an outsider — defendant Karen Read — in a cover-up for the murder of John O’Keefe.

Jackson’s efforts came in the form of his cross-examination of key witness Jennifer McCabe, who is one of the central figures in the defense’s theory of a local conspiracy.

Taking a softer approach, at least at first, than he did last year — even making McCabe laugh at one point — Jackson had McCabe one by one confirm members of the “large family” made up of the McCabes and the Alberts and cousins and in-laws, a family she agreed was “close-knit.”

Among them is a Canton Police officer, a Boston Police officer, a Canton selectman, and a “best friend” of the wife of State Trooper Michael Proctor, who was chief investigator of the case. Proctor has since been fired and played a huge role in the defense’s opening statement implying a conspiracy.

It’s a continuation of his Tuesday efforts to suggest to the jury that this group and others are “influencing” and “orchestrating” a story that they would all use with law enforcement.

The effort began with the relationship McCabe formed with Kerry Roberts. Those two, along with Read, found O’Keefe dead or dying at around 6 a.m. lying near the flagpole on the far side of the front yard of 34 Fairview Road in Canton.

McCabe testified Wednesday that she and Roberts have spoken a lot about the case.

“We have shared our experiences … We went through a traumatic experience,” McCabe testified. But she countered Jackson by saying those talks didn’t “influence” each other’s memories of that early morning and the time immediately preceding or following O’Keefe’s killing.

The cross examination intensified when it came to what came after. She revealed that she and family members got to speak openly — without separation and, as he said, “with no law enforcement oversight” — before being interviewed about what happened.

Then came much later, when members of an unidentified “law enforcement agency” unconnected to either the Canton Police Department or the Massachusetts State Police, which has jurisdiction over murder investigations, approached McCabe. McCabe admitted Wednesday that she lied to these investigators in her first interview with them.

Jackson is speaking around a prohibition of directly referencing the federal probe of the Karen Read investigation by being vague about the agency. That probe has since ended, according to a statement by special prosecutor Hank Brennan ahead of trial.

McCabe testified that these law enforcement agents — which is not the word she used, but will be used in coverage — first approached her at the car and she identified herself not as Jennifer McCabe but as her sister, Nicole McCabe because she thought they were salesmen and wanted to avoid them.

But then they called again and identified themselves as law enforcement and asked to interview her. She consented to the interview but asked for 10 minutes to get ready. In that 10 minutes, she admitted on the stand, she called her husband, Matt McCabe, as well as Kerry Roberts — both of which she disclosed to the agents.

But on the stand she admitted she also called O’Keefe’s mother Peggy O’Keefe, the victim witness advocate at the Norfolk District Attorney’s office and Brian Albert, her brother in law who along with her sister owned 34 Fairview Road, or, as Jackson called him, “the 30-year Boston police officer and on whose lawn O’Keefe was found dead or dying.”

These calls she did not disclose to the agents, she admitted.

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