One False Move

Synopsis:

Nebraskan suspense author Kava takes a break from her successful series featuring FBI Special Agent Maggie O’Dell (
At the Stroke of Madness; Split Second
) with this psychological thriller about the fallout from an abortive bank robbery. The principal players are Jared Barnett, just released by his shady attorney’s machinations from a life sentence for murder; his docile sister, Melanie Starks; and her 17-year-old son, Charlie, to whom Jared is a father figure. Just as their lives seem to be approaching normalcy, Jared scopes out a bank heist and bullies his sister and nephew into helping him. Mel is designated driver in the high-risk chase that begins right after Jared and Charlie, empty-handed, flee the bank. In a remote state park cabin, Andrew Kane, a writer, happens to be alone when they appear and Mel, shocked, learns from his TV that four people were killed in the hold-up. Then she remembers the childhood that she and Jared were cheated out of — a mother who washed down pills with vodka while their father mercilessly beat the children until Jared took matters into his own hands. Victims accumulate as fast as the escape route changes, while abbreviated chapters and truncated dialogue signal the approaching explosive climax. This is a one-night read with some unexplained loose ends that won't bother readers hooked on hair-raising car chases and gruesome murder scenes.

1:13 p.m.
Nebraska State Penitentiary—Lincoln, Nebraska

Max Kramer wore his lucky red tie with his blue power suit. While he waited for the guard to unlock the door, he admired his reflection in the glass security window behind them. That Grecian hair formula really worked. He could barely see any of the gray. His wife kept telling him the salt and pepper made him look more distinguished. Of course she would say that. She always said stuff like that when she was suspicious, when she knew he was hunting for someone new. God, she knew him well, better than she realized.

“Big day,” the hulk of a guard said to him. But he was scowling instead of smiling.

Max had heard the nicknames the guards had given him in the last several weeks. He knew he wasn’t a popular guy here on death row. But that was to the guards. To the inmates he had reached hero status. And they were the ones he cared about; they were the ones who counted. They needed him to right their wrongs, to tell their stories, or rather
their
versions of their stories. Yes, they were the ones who mattered, but not because he was a bleeding-heart liberal like the
Omaha World Herald
or the
Lincoln Journal Star
seemed pleased to label him. It was nothing quite as admirable as all that. Quite simply, all his hard work, all his efforts were for a day like today. A day when he could watch a client of his walk out of this concrete hellhole. A day when he could save his client from the electric chair and walk alongside him out the front doors and into the sunlight. The sunlight
and
the spotlight of about two dozen TV cameras from across the country. CNN’s Larry King had already booked Max and Jared on his show for tomorrow night. And his red tie would show up wonderfully tonight when NBC aired his interview with Brian Williams.

Yes, this was what he had waited for his entire career. All the shitty pay and long hours would be worth it, and the local media attacks would come to an end.

He stopped at the doorway to the holding room, pretending to show some respect for his client’s privacy. Pretending. He didn’t want to spend any more time alone with Jared Barnett than necessary. So he watched from the doorway. Barnett was wearing the same faded jeans and red T-shirt he had surrendered that first day at the penitentiary five years ago, only now the T-shirt bulged from the muscles Barnett had built up during his days of incarceration. Since Barnett had traded in his orange jumpsuit for street clothes, Max couldn’t help thinking how ordinary the man looked. Even his short dark hair had that disheveled but cool look, that just-got-out-of-bed look that Max could never pull off, but that Barnett would probably make trendy after his media appearances.

Max had already made his client out to be the poor misunderstood bad boy who had been framed and then abused by a justice system that had stolen five years of his life. Now Barnett just needed to play the role. He certainly looked it.

The guard at the door stepped aside.

“Paperwork’s coming,” he said. “You want, you can wait inside.”

Max nodded as if grateful for the invitation—for what the guard seemed to consider a courtesy—even though Max preferred that the asshole let him wait in the hall. Too late. Jared saw him and waved him into the holding room. He stood up when Max entered, another courtesy. Jesus! What was this world coming to when convicted murderers started being courteous?

“Relax. Take a load off.” Max shoved one of the metal folding chairs in Barnett’s direction, scraping it against the floor, the noise grating on his nerves. Only now did he realize he was nervous, nervous that Barnett would screw this up for him.

“Man, I never thought you’d actually be able to pull this off,” Barnett said, taking the seat, seemingly not bothered that Max remained standing. It was a trick Max had learned long ago in his early years as a defense attorney. Get the client to sit down while you stand over him, instant authority. At five feet seven inches Max Kramer had to use every trick he could.

“So how does this work?” Barnett asked, even though Max had explained it several times during the appeal. His client sounded as if he believed there was still a catch. “I’m really free to go?”

“Without Danny Ramerez as a witness the prosecution has no case. The rest of the evidence was all circumstantial. As long as there’s no eyewitness testimony from Ramerez, there’s nothing to connect you to Rebecca Moore.” Max watched Barnett, measuring his response, or rather his lack of one. “It was quite admirable of Mr. Ramerez to come forward and finally tell the truth, that he wasn’t even there that afternoon.”

Barnett smiled up at him, but there was something about his smile that creeped Max out. Never once during the appeal process had he asked how Barnett had managed to get Ramerez to recant his original testimony, but he suspected Barnett had, indeed, made it happen, despite being locked up.

“What about the others?” Barnett asked.

“Excuse me?”

Max waited, but Barnett sat cleaning his fingernails, using his teeth to scrape them out and then bite off the cuticles. He had seen him do this in court—a nervous habit, probably an unconscious one. And now Max wondered if he had heard him correctly. Jesus! What others was he talking about?

Max hadn’t handled Barnett’s original case, only the appeal. But he wasn’t stupid. He knew there had been others. Other women, all murdered with the same M.O. and the signature gunshot wound up through the jaw as if the killer had hoped to remove the victim’s identity by shattering her teeth. It didn’t matter. Barnett had only been charged with Rebecca Moore’s murder. Why the hell would Barnett even be asking about the others?

“What others?” Max finally asked, though he didn’t want to know.

“Never mind,” Barnett said as he spat out a piece of fingernail then crossed his arms, tucking his hands under his armpits. “You know I don’t have a fucking dime to my name, man,” he said, changing the subject. “I know you said I don’t have to pay you anything, but I feel like I owe you.”

Max almost let out a sigh of relief. This was a much safer topic. If there
had
been others, he didn’t want to know about them. As far as Max was concerned there had been only one case, one eyewitness. And now there was no eyewitness and no case. If Barnett wanted to get something off his chest he could find a fucking priest. Yes, he preferred that Barnett worry, instead, about paying his debt.

Max knew Jared Barnett was the kind of man who wouldn’t like feeling that he owed anyone. He also knew it was a big deal for Barnett to even admit that he might owe him. And that’s what he wanted his client to focus on. Max had heard rumors that, after Barnett had been read his sentence of death by the electric chair, he turned to his court-appointed attorney, poor James Pritchard, and told him that it appeared he didn’t owe him anything more for his help than a hole in the head. Max liked the idea that Barnett thought he might feel indebted to him. In fact, he was counting on it. “I think we can work something out,” he said.

“Sure. Whatever you decide.”

“But first I have to warn you. There’s a media circus outside waiting for us.”

“Cool,” Barnett said, standing up. And that’s exactly what he looked like—cool and collected, that same lack of emotion that had carried him through the trial and sentencing and every aspect of the appeal process. “So what’s the going rate?”

“Excuse me?”

“What are these media blood-suckers willing to pay for an interview?”

Max scratched his head, his own nervous habit which he immediately caught and turned into a smoothing of his hair. Though he wanted to rip his hair out, instead. Christ! He couldn’t believe this. The son of a bitch was going to fuck everything up. Money? He expected to be paid for being interviewed?

Max had to watch his temper. He couldn’t make it sound as if he even cared whether or not they did the interviews. He couldn’t make it seem as though Barnett was doing him a favor. He didn’t want Barnett thinking these interviews would be his payback. He needed to think quickly. He needed to appeal to Barnett’s core values, to those few essentials that made him tick. One of which, certainly, was not money.

“You’re going to be a celebrity overnight, my friend,” Max told him, smiling and shaking his head as if he could hardly believe it. “I’ve got messages from
NBC News, 60 Minutes, Larry King
and even Bill O’Reilly’s
The Factor.
You’re going to have something money can’t buy. But I can understand if you’d rather tell them all to go screw themselves. Whatever you want to do. It’s entirely up to you.”

He watched as Barnett thought it over, forcing himself to keep quiet, to pretend it didn’t matter. He concentrated on breathing, on not thinking about how much he wanted this, how much he
needed
this. He tried to keep his fists from balling up. And in his mind he couldn’t stop repeating, almost like a mantra, “Don’t you dare fuck it up.”

“Bill O’Reilly actually wants me on his show?”

Max swallowed another sigh and calmly managed to say, “Yep, tomorrow night. It’s up to you, though. I can tell him…hell, I can tell them all you don’t want to put up with the whole lot of them. Whatever you want to do.”

“That O’Reilly guy always thinks he’s so tough.” And now Barnett was smiling again. “I wouldn’t mind telling a few of those assholes what I think.”

This time Max smiled, too. Perhaps he could control Barnett, after all, but he’d need some sort of insurance. For the first time since he’d met Jared Barnett, Max allowed himself to look deep into those dark, vacant eyes, and now he allowed himself to admit the truth. He knew Jared Barnett had, indeed, killed that poor girl seven years ago. Not only did Max know it, he was counting on it.

10:30 a.m.
Hall of Justice—Omaha, Nebraska

Grace Wenninghoff hated waiting. The air in courtroom number five felt like a hot, wet towel wrapped around her neck. There were too many people, jammed inside, generating too much heat. The squeaking of chairs as people shifted in their seats and an occasional cough interrupted the silence, but that was all. Judge Fielding’s presence kept the crowd agitated but quiet as he looked over the papers in front of him, taking his time, not a hint of sweat or discomfort on his face.