LITMIR.BIZ

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Donovan didn’t really need your testimony.”

      “I take it Tucker tore you a new one?”

       “It’s not just the Lou. We should have at least gone through the motions. Like I said: Protect the crime scene, talk to the friends, do what we do.”

      “Like I said, it’s a waste of time.”

       “That’s why I let you convince me to leave. But we screwed up.”

      “And how exactly did we do that?”

       “I’ll tell you when I get there. Meet me out on Centre Street. I’m three minutes away.”

      Neither one of them said goodbye.

      Three hundred and seventy-five miles northwest of the city, in Buffalo, New York, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sugarman took a call from the front desk. “There’s a James Grisco here to see you.”

      “Okay. Send him back.”

      She had heard all the terms used to describe the other stars in the office. Dan Clark was a natural born trial lawyer. Joe Garrett was a genius in front of a jury. Mark Munson was a courtroom machine.

      Munson? Really? She’d popped in on him in trial one day to see what the fuss was all about, only to hear him argue that the defendant’s story was all an “elaborate rouge.” He even touched his fingertips to the apple of his cheek, just in case she was wondering if she’d misheard the word that was supposed to be “ruse.” An elaborate rouge. What an idiot.

      Jennifer Sugarman? Ask around the office, and they’d say she was a hard worker. Diligent. Detail oriented. Conscientious. Burns the midnight oil. When men were good, they were born that way. If she was just as good—better, even—it must have come by way of tremendous effort.

      She didn’t mind those descriptions, though. She’d made it out of misdemeanors into felonies faster than any ADA on record and was now first-chairing murder cases after only five years in the office. Rumor was she’d be named a unit chief in the next round of promotions. And when the big boss finally retired, her reputation for working hard would come in handy. Voters liked to know they were getting their money’s worth with public employees. She planned to be Erie County’s first female district attorney.

      And she was, in fact, harder-working than most. Take the call she got from the jail this morning about Grisco, for instance. Most of the ADAs would have blown it off. At most, they would have passed the information on to the parole officer and forgotten about it.

      But she had been the one to negotiate Grisco’s release from prison, and she knew ex-cons feared the official power of a prosecutor much more than they feared the often-empty threats of parole officers. If there was some reason for a person to call the prison inquiring about Grisco’s whereabouts, she wanted Grisco to know she hadn’t forgotten about him. She wouldn’t hesitate to pull his ticket if it came to that.

      He removed his baseball cap when he entered her office. It was a good sign he knew who was in charge. She told him about the call that had been made to the prison that morning. She reminded him of his release conditions, going so far as to read them aloud from his file.

      “You don’t need to remind me, ma’am. I got no plans of messing this up.”

      “Good to hear, Jimmy. I stuck my neck out for you.”

      “Yes, ma’am. I appreciate it.”

      She shook his hand and walked him to the hallway. As she watched him make his way toward the exit, she found herself hoping he might actually find a decent life for himself. He wasn’t even forty yet.

      It wasn’t until she returned to her office that she realized she should have covered up the note pad on her desk, the one on which she had scribbled the information she’d received from the prison. It was a stupid mistake, but Grisco hadn’t seemed to notice. His eyes had remained on his shoes the whole time, anyway.

      She flipped the pad to the next page. It was nothing. She was certain of it.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      As Casey Heinz jogged up from the 6 subway train at Bleecker, he was thinking that, all in all, it had been a good day.

      Ramona’s school had some kind of teacher in-service Monday, so she’d been able to spend the day with him, starting with a snack at AJ’s. On a day without Ramona, he might have had only a chocolate-chip muffin, forcing himself to chew slowly, careful not to show his hunger. The fact that he was getting sick of that particular food option would have helped to slow the pace of his eating. He was tiring of nearly all the choices at AJ’s, one of the only places left on the Lower East Side that allowed them to hang out without buying too much. A cup of coffee first. A couple hours later, a muffin. Sometimes Brandon or Vonda would drop in with enough collected change for another cup of java.

      AJ’s was starting to feel like home.

      But, today, time wasn’t a problem, because Ramona was there. Girls who carried themselves like Ramona were never asked to leave, no matter who they consorted with.

      Cost wasn’t an issue, either, when Ramona was around. He appreciated how Ramona paid. Not just the fact that she paid. Of course she would, given their different circumstances. But it was cool how she did it. Always ordering something for herself, too, even when Casey knew she wasn’t hungry enough to finish it. And she always seemed to order the things that Casey liked. Today it was chicken breast, mozzarella, and basil on a baguette. She’d picked off a bite or two, then, when Casey had finished his muffin, she’d pushed the sandwich toward him, insisting, “I’m so full. Here, can you finish this?”

      As they had walked through SoHo after lunch, he had studied her profile. He’d never known a girl as pretty as Ramona. She wasn’t classic pretty. Or even cute pretty, the way most straitlaced high school girls were, with their misplaced confidence and upturned noses. Ramona was actually sort of funny-looking. Her nose was a little too long and flat, and he knew from memory that one of those big eyes of hers fell a little lower than the other. And her lips were on the thinnish side, her smile a bit crooked. But all of those features together? Ramona was, by any definition of the word, a stunner.

      Even cooler was the fact that she didn’t try to be pretty. No highlights in that short jet-black hair of hers, the ends chunky as if cut with a razor. Plus, she wore way more vintage clothing and black eyeliner than acceptable among Upper East Siders. Plus, she hung with the likes of Casey.

      Usually, they goofed around the neighborhood, making fun of the pretentious, surreal art galleries and the wannabe punk kids. And usually one of them had someone in tow—he with Brandon, or her with Julia. But today it had been just the two of them.

      And they hadn’t just goofed around. Today, Ramona had really talked to him.

      “I’m worried about my mom. I think she’s depressed or something.”

      Casey couldn’t imagine what Ramona’s mother could possibly be depressed about. From what he could gather, her full-time job was to shop and work out, but he held his tongue.

      “I called Julia last night. She thinks I should talk to my dad. Tell him that she’s spending so much time holed away in her room all day.”

      “See this?” Casey had pointed to his own face. “This is a look of pain and humiliation that you talked to Julia about this before me.”

      “Sorry.” She had leaned over and grabbed his shoulders from behind in a quick half-hug. “She’s just constantly in contact, you know, with text and IM and everything.”

      Texting and instant-messaging. Two other conveniences of a normal life that Casey did not enjoy. At Promises, there was a fifteen-minute limit on computer use unless it was related to a job

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