'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 Bar-nett. 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?'
CHAPTER 33
8:15 a.m.
Platte River State Park
Andrew no longer noticed the residual pain from his mending collarbone. Who'd have guessed that an instant remedy would be a bullet wound to his head?
Christ! It hurt. It felt as though the entire side of his forehead had been scraped away and left raw and bleeding. He felt as if he was going to vomit as waves of nausea rolled over him. His vision had finally begun to return to normal after seeing triple for a few hours. He wished he could turn off the ringing in his ears, though, and the banging in his skull meant his head would surely explode any minute and simply take him out of his misery.
They were taking turns using his shower and eating his food. Maybe when they finished they'd simply take his car keys and wallet and leave. He still wasn't sure if the guy named Jared had intended to shoot him or just scare him. After getting a good look in his eyes, Andrew thought he recognized the guy, but he couldn't place him. He didn't think this Jared was the type who missed a shot. Maybe that's what Andrew wanted to believe. Maybe that's what he needed to believe.
The younger one, Charlie, had helped Andrew up onto the sofa. Like an idiot, Andrew had thanked him, an automatic response but so inappropriate that even the kid had looked at him as if he had misunderstood. Then he'd grinned and nodded. All cleaned up and with his hair red instead of black, he looked like a kid. He had overheard him call the woman Mom, and Andrew couldn't help thinking that was just great. He was being assaulted and robbed by Ma and Pa Kettle out in the middle of the woods.
It was Charlie's turn to watch over Andrew while the woman showered and Jared took a nap in the back bedroom, probably stretched out where Andrew had been only hours before. He hoped he was finding that damn foam pillow just as uncomfortable as Andrew had.
Charlie had Jared's gun. Andrew noticed the two men handle the gun, but neither allowed the woman to have it. The gun currently sat tucked in the waistband of Charlie's jeans-actually, a pair of Andrew's jeans. He and Jared had helped themselves to Andrew's clothes.
Charlie had chosen one of Andrew's favorite Nebraska Huskers T-shirts. The clothes were too big for him but somehow he made them fit.
Charlie was in the kitchen constructing his second sandwich. His mom had made him the first one. That must have been what she was doing when Andrew had discovered them earlier.
Andrew didn't care. They could eat his food and take his clothes, his wallet, hell, even take his brand-new car. That had to be what they really wanted. He wanted them to leave.
From where he sat he could see out the porch, and he could make out a piece of the sunrise through the trees. Soon it would be completely light and maybe this nightmare would be over.
The woman came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel. With her hair wet and her skin pink and clean she looked too young to be Charlie's mom. Actually, dressed in only that towel, it was difficult for Andrew to think of her as anyone's mother.
'Do you think you have anything in your suitcase for me?'
Andrew stared at her, surprised that she'd bother to ask. Not just ask but actually make it sound as if there might be something special in there for her. Or did she simply want him to look at her? Was that her game? The menfolk got off by bullying him. Was this her way of getting off?
'Help yourself,' he told her, waving his hand at the scattered contents of his suitcase. Jared and Charlie had left everything on the kitchen table. They'd shoved the case aside to make their sandwiches, leaving a pair of socks dangling over the edge. She started sorting through his things almost hesitantly, slowly and carefully, even folding some of the mess the guys had made. Maybe Andrew had read her wrong. Maybe she had asked out of politeness, out of respect.
He continued to watch the horizon, preferring the blurred blue and purple hues to the chaos inside his cabin, his retreat.
'Does this work?' Charlie had found the nine-inch TV and was already plugging it in. 'Probably no cable out here, huh?' But he searched for it along the walls, anyway.
He kept his sandwich in one hand while he turned on the TV and started moving around the rabbit ears with his other hand. The static didn't slow down his bites. However, when he dropped a piece of its precious contents-a slice of tomato, followed by a slice of onion-he stopped everything to pick it up off the carpet, give it a quick inspection and pop it into his mouth. 'Seven-second rule,' he said to no one in particular.
Finally he found a station that came in. Andrew recognized the orange halos from his own attempt to watch last night. It looked like the morning news.
'No tornado touchdowns reported, though there were several reports in Douglas and Sarpy Counties of funnel clouds being spotted. We'll have more about that later. Now for an update on the bank robbery that took place at the Nebraska Bank of Commerce on south Highway 50. The amount of money that the two masked robbers got away with is still undetermined.'
