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my open door before plopping his dense body down in my guest chair. “You keep any aspirin in this dump?” He grabbed a mail-order running-gear catalog from the corner of my desk and started flipping through it, propping one wingtip on the unoccupied chair next to him.
    “You comfy there?” I asked. “Can I get you a pillow? Maybe some chamomile tea?”
    “Tea’s for wusses.” He looked up from the magazine to give me a self-mocking tough-guy look while he shifted his weight to rest both feet on the ground. “Got an aspirin?”
    “Sorry, can’t help you.”
    “I feel sore all over. Advil, Tylenol, Aleve, anything?” I was shaking my head as he rattled off pharmaceutical products. “Come on, Kincaid, even you must get the occasional ovary-induced cramp.”
    “And just when I was feeling sorry for you. Besides, you probably did this to yourself. Did you lift yesterday?”
    “Yeah, that’s probably it.”
    “Then suck it up, Mister Marine. Don’t you jarheads always say that weakness is wanting pain to leave your body?”
    He laughed. “I think you mean ‘Pain is weakness leaving the body.’ But point taken: All whining will cease. So did you make it up to Vista Heights this morning?”
    “Yes, I made it up there, thank you very much. The trip was a total waste of time. I’ll be requesting reimbursement for mileage, you know.”
    “What are you complaining about? It saved you from intake, didn’t it?”
    “Speaking of which, it was mighty convenient that I drew our unit’s short stick on that one. Where were you this morning?”
    He interrupted the browsing again and laughed, shaking his head. “ Convenient, you say? You don’t know me at all by now, do you, Kincaid? What time do I usually get in?”
    Russ was the only attorney in MCU who often beat me into the office in the morning. “You are such a little shit.”
    “It was a near miss, though. I actually saw you walking to the courthouse just as I was sneaking out to Marsee’s. Nestled into a cozy little table in the back, I almost felt guilty, knowing what was waiting for you on your voice mail, but the cheese Danish got me past it.”
    “Did you come in here just to torment me, or is there actually a purpose to this little pop-in?”
    “I wanted to see how things went on the Crenshaw case this morning.”
    There was no right answer to that question yet. Early in a case, it’s impossible to tell if an investigation is getting any traction. You go through the usual motions of checking out the victim, scouring the neighborhood for witnesses, and shaking down any shady people whose names crop up along the way. You’re working the case, but for all you know you’re climbing the down escalator. But once you hit the right piece of evidence, all the early effort pushes the case into hyperspeed, potentially hurling the investigation forward too quickly from its own momentum.
    It was too soon to tell if we’d get to that point on this case, but we certainly weren’t there yet. I told Frist as much, bringing him up to speed on where the investigation stood.
    “Here’s a question for you, though. When Walker called you about the case, why’d you send him my way?” A high-profile murder like this one would usually be hoarded by the head of the Major Crimes Unit.
    “Give yourself some credit, Kincaid. You’re a good lawyer. You’re thorough with the cops, you’re one of the very best around here in trial, and you’re great with victims.”
    “Would you mind repeating all of that while I transcribe it for my next evaluation?” I said, pretending to grab for my legal pad. “Seriously, I wasn’t questioning whether I’m qualified to handle the case. I know I am.”
    “Modesty never was your forte.”
    “What I mean is—unless you’re saying I’m better than you at all those things—why didn’t you keep the case for yourself? You’re not exactly someone who backs down from publicity.”
    A frustrated defense attorney once told the