8:05 a.m.
Hall of Justice

When Grace arrived at work, she found Max Kramer in her office, sitting in her visitor’s chair, using her phone while he waited. He glanced at her, holding up one finger to indicate that he was almost finished with his call. No apology for using her phone. Finally he said into the receiver, “No, it’s white. That’s all I can tell you. I gotta go.” And he hung up, sitting back in the chair, taking his Starbucks coffee cup from the corner of her desk and sipping it, as if this was his office.

The coffee’s aroma filled the small space, reminding Grace that their office brew couldn’t possibly be related to this wonderful scent. She tried to focus on that rather than be pissed off by Kramer’s presumptuous attitude.

“Forgot my cell phone,” he said almost as an afterthought and still no apology.

“You must have heard how bad our coffee is,” she said instead of addressing his rudeness. She slipped past him to get behind her desk, putting down the mug of coffee she’d brought in with her.

“I’m addicted to this stuff. In fact, I’ve started chewing gum in the afternoon to curb my withdrawals.”

She pulled out a couple of files from the two stacks on her desk and glanced across at him. That wasn’t his only addiction. She could tell that he bit his nails, too. Expensive suit, salon-cut hair, silk tie and yet he paid no attention to his hands. Odd for an attorney, she thought, since her own hands were an integral part of her court presentations. She probably couldn’t make a closing argument without using her hands. Of course, Vince would most likely say she couldn’t talk without using her hands.

“Your client has several priors,” she said, getting down to business. A brief chit-chat about coffee was all the niceties she was willing to grant the man who’d fought for Jared Barnett’s release. “What makes you think she has any room to bargain?”

“She may be able to identify who’s responsible for the string of convenience-store robberies.” He said it like it was an official announcement, then sat back and sipped his coffee, looking pleased with himself, as if he had handed her the thief’s name, address and DNA sample.

“What makes…” Grace stopped to check the name, “Carrie Ann Comstock think she might be able to do that?”

“She was in the vicinity of the store on Fiftieth and Ames when it was robbed. She saw the man leave.”

“The store was robbed at one-fifteen in the morning. What exactly was she doing in the vicinity at the time of the robbery?”

She watched his hands. His fingers tapped the oversize cup that he held between both hands. His right hand index fingernail had been bitten down to the quick. She decided she didn’t trust an attorney who bit his nails and spent more money on his hair than she did.

“It really isn’t important what she was doing.”

That was exactly what she’d expected him to say. She sat back in her chair with her hands wrapped around her mug, as if ready for a showdown.

“So she thinks she got a good enough look that she might be able to identify him?”

“She got a good enough look that she was able to recognize him,” Max Kramer said with a smile.

“Why didn’t she come forward sooner?”

He shrugged, a practiced gesture that raised his shoulders almost to his earlobes. “Who knows? So do we have a deal?”

“Hey, Grace.” Pakula suddenly filled her open doorway. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you had—” He stopped when he recognized Max Kramer. “I didn’t realize you had a pile of trash in here.”

Grace had to restrain her smile. Instead, she watched Kramer shake his head and shift his weight in the chair to give Pakula his back. Detective Tommy Pakula had been one of the detectives involved in Barnett’s case and his appeal process. Grace knew the detective well enough to know it’d be easier to cut out Pakula’s tongue than to get him to refrain from speaking his mind. He leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed, waiting for Grace to indicate whether or not she wanted to be interrupted, whether or not she needed rescuing.

“Actually, we were just finishing up,” she announced, enjoying Kramer’s raised eyebrows and his befuddled look, probably another practiced gesture. He obviously didn’t think they were close to being finished. “Why don’t you send me the details later today, and I’ll get back to you,” she said, standing now—a practiced gesture of her own—and pushing back her chair as if she had an appointment with Pakula.

Max Kramer reluctantly stood. “Okay, so I’ll do that and give you a call this afternoon.”

Kramer hesitated at the door, waiting for Pakula to step aside. Grace wished she could get Pakula’s attention, just long enough to give him Grandma Wenny’s evil eye and warn him to keep his cool, to play nice.

“No hard feelings,” Kramer offered when Pakula stepped away just enough to let him pass. Grace cringed. Why didn’t Kramer cut and run?

“Oh, sure,” Pakula said. “Why would there be any hard feelings? You go on national TV and tell Bill O’Reilly and the whole fucking world the Omaha PD framed Jared Barnett. Why would I have any bad feelings about something like that?”

Kramer shook his head as if he didn’t have time to deal with such nonsense. “It’s nothing personal.”

“No, of course not,” Pakula agreed, but Grace knew…she knew that wasn’t the end of it.

“If you ever need to dial 911 and nobody shows up—that’s nothing personal, either.”

Kramer shook his head again. That’s when his phone started ringing, and he reached inside his jacket’s breast pocket, bringing out a slim cell phone. He was answering it and walking down the hall without even considering that he might owe Grace an explanation. After all, didn’t he say he forgot his cell phone?

Pakula stood in the doorway watching Kramer. Grace waited. Finally he looked at her and said, “You had breakfast yet?”

She shook her head.

“How ’bout we pick up a couple of Egg McMuffins on our way to the autopsy?”