Alez Kava - One False Move

Grace watched Judge Fielding nod and start flipping through the papers again. This was ridiculous. He couldn't possibly be buying any of this crap. Not unless he was looking for an excuse. She glanced over at Richey. Was there some under-the-table deal already set up? He still looked too calm, too cool for this sauna. Grace rubbed her neck again and was disappointed to find it damp.

"Your Honor." She waited until she had his attention, then she pulled out an envelope from her file folders and stepped out from behind the prosecution table. "If I understand correctly, Mr. Richey owns a business that specializes in commercial and residential computerized heating units." She looked over at Warren Penn, waiting for his nod of confirmation. "I have his United airline ticket that was confiscated at the time of his arrest." She made her way forward to hand over the envelope with the ticket inside. "I'm just wondering, Your Honor, what kind of heating business Mr. Richey might have in the Cayman Islands."

She heard the crowd behind her hum and whisper and shift in their seats.

"Mr. Penn?" Judge Fielding was now looking over his glasses and down his nose at the defense attorney. To Grace's disappointment, Warren Penn didn't flinch.

"Mr. Richey meets with his clients, often in a designated place that the client requests."

Grace wanted to roll her eyes. That Fielding was even considering this was crazy. But here he was again, flipping over papers as if he had missed something in the documents he had already examined.

She turned back to her table and noticed Detective Tommy Pakula sitting two rows down, shifting in his seat, impatient and ready. He was dressed for court, a collared shirt and tie, jacket and trousers, just in case she needed to call him today. Instead of calling him, she reached down behind her chair and pulled up the duffel bag.

"Your Honor," she said, bringing the bag out in full view of Judge Fielding, but more importantly in full view of the courtroom, "there is one more thing Mr. Richey had in his possession when Detectives Pakula and Hertz arrested him at Eppley Airport. He had this travel bag with him. If he was not fleeing the country, perhaps Mr. Perm might explain this." Grace unzipped the bag and turned it upside down, allowing the stacks of hundred-dollar bills to fall out onto the table.

This time the room erupted. Several reporters clamored out the door. Warren Penn shook his head as if, of course, he had an explanation for this, too. Grace scanned the room, and now she noticed that Jonathon Richey's smug look was gone.

"Okay, okay," Judge Fielding yelled, ignoring the gavel. He seemed pleased that his voice could still silence a room.

"Your Honor," Warren Penn began, but was interrupted when Fielding put up a hand.

"Bail denied." He stood even as he added, "Court is adjourned," and then escaped, not giving Warren Penn the opportunity to explain or argue.

Grace ignored the defense table as she repacked the duffel bag. The crowd had already turned into a crescendo of voices, shuffling feet and creaking chairs. She wouldn't need to worry about being accosted by reporters. They'd spend their energies on Richey, the price of being such an upstanding member of the community.

"Better make sure it's all there." She looked up to find Detective Pakula.

"Thanks for being here," she told him. He nodded, and she knew Pakula well enough to leave it at that, not to make a big deal of it.

"I found a witness who might be willing to testify against Richey."

"Might?"

"He needs some convincing. Doesn't wanna open his mouth if there's a chance he'll walk."

"He won't be walking," Grace said, finally shoving the last of the money into the bag. She knew where Pakula was going with this, and she didn't want to hear it.

"You know that and I know that. And that's what I'm trying to tell him." Pakula looked around, making sure no one was within earshot. "Our credibility's not riding too high right now with that asshole Barnett on every fucking talk show claiming the OPD framed him."

"Let him talk. Sooner or later he's going to screw up, and when he does I'll be there to nail his ass. Only next time it'll be for good."

"You and me both."

Grace knew the Barnett appeal had been eating at Pakula as much as it had been at her. In the last several months she had gone over and over the case against Barnett, hoping there was something, anything they might use. Five years ago, she had put her heart and soul into prosecuting Barnett, convinced that it was, indeed, Jared Barnett who had coerced seventeen-year-old Rebecca Moore into his pickup that cold afternoon in the dead of winter, probably promising her a warm ride home from school. But instead he drove her to a remote place where he raped and stabbed her repeatedly before shooting her through the jaw, shattering her teeth.

There were others. Four women, killed in the same manner, all within two years. Grace and Pakula were still convinced that Jared Barnett was the killer in each case. But other than circumstantial evidence, Rebecca's case was the only one they could actually connect to Barnett. That connection was Danny Ramerez and his eyewitness testimony, testimony that he saw Rebecca getting into a black pickup being driven by Jared Barnett the afternoon she disappeared. It had been testimony so convincing, so descriptive, that the jury hadn't hesitated to convict him. Then suddenly, after five years, Danny Ramerez confessed he hadn't even been out that afternoon. Without his testimony, Barnett was free. It was as simple as that.

What wasn't simple was the amount of criticism leveled at the police department and the prosecutor's office. So much so that even a recent string of convenience-store robberies had the media impatient for a resolution.

Grace glanced at the defense table, noticing that Penn and Richey had started to make their way out the door, taking a good portion of the crowd with them. That's when she saw him.

Jared Barnett stood in the back row, waiting his turn to get out the door-standing and waiting as if he were just one of the spectators.

"Speak of the devil," she said to Pakula and he followed her gaze.

"Son of a bitch," he muttered. "I saw him outside on the steps one day last week, too. Just can't stay away, can he?"

Grace had seen him, too, only it was in the coffee shop across the street from the courthouse, and then again right outside her dry cleaner's. She tried to convince herself it was Jared Barnett's way of thumbing his nose at them, at them all. Not that he had singled her out. But just as he got to the door he looked over at her, and he smiled.

7:30 p.m.

Logan Hotel- Omaha, Nebraska

Jared Barnett listened for the elevator, waiting for the grind and scrape of metal, the whine of the hydraulics. Where the hell was he?

He stayed in the shadows and leaned against the wall, ignoring the avalanche of plaster his shoulder set loose. No one had seen him enter the building. No one except the skinny crack whore with dirty-blond hair and eyes so glazed over she'd never remember what" day it was, let alone his face.

At the end of the hall someone was cooking spinach. God! He hated that smell. It reminded him of his stepfather who'd forced him to eat everything off his plate, and if he didn't, the bastard shoved his face into the green glob of shit. He couldn't help thinking the stench belonged here. It was a perfect addition to the dog piss on the carpet and the cockroaches skittering in and out of cracks and under doors. It also seemed the perfect place for Danny Ramerez to call home.

He shifted his weight from his left foot to his right then switched the sacks of takeout to his other hand. The food would be cold, though it didn't matter much. He was hungry and he loved Chinese food, even cold Chinese food. Although he was getting tired of holding the bags. He had thought about setting them down, but the fucking roaches would be all over them in seconds.