Then, unable to sleep, he had tried to put the house to rights. At six, he had stopped, and then he had lain on the couch for an hour, staring up at the ceiling. At seven, he had showered and dressed: shirt and tie and jacket, and then fifteen agonizing minutes of trying to tame his too-long hair with a comb. A seven forty-five he had made oatmeal. Thank God someone had knocked; looking down into that oatmeal, trying to figure out how he could force himself to eat it, had been enough to make him want to kill himself.

When he opened the door, Aniya Thompson was standing there, immaculate in a cream silk blouse and a skirt printed with a band of geometric designs. She cocked her head, looked up at him, and her beaded braids clicked together.

“I was going to come to your office,” Hazard said. “They don’t want me at the station until nine.”

“May I come in? You said the search was excessive, and I’d like to take some photographs.”

Grunting, Hazard stepped back, and Thompson followed him inside.

“I should have thought of that,” he said.

“That’s all right; most people don’t.”

“It’s not all right. I’m supposed to know this kind of shit.”

Thompson already had her phone out, and she was moving through the house, snapping pictures: the broken door on a hutch, the damaged trim on a sideboard, a jagged hole in the upholstery of a seat cushion. On this last one, she made sure to angle the camera so that the zipper, which would have provided non-destructive access, was visible.

“It’s not about knowledge,” she said, moving from room to room, still snapping pictures. “And it’s not about expertise. It’s not about smarts.” She lowered the phone and met his gaze. “It’s about these people getting in your space, getting in your head, and fucking everything up. Nobody’s brain is wired to handle that. That’s why lawyers don’t represent themselves at trial.”

Hazard leaned against the wall and scrubbed his face. “That . . . makes sense.” When he pulled his hands away, Thompson was smiling as she bent to take a picture of a register that one of the officers had smashed. “What?” he asked.

“Is it unprofessional to admit I was surprised when you called me?”

“Why? You’re good at your job, you’re local, and your rates aren’t exorbitant.”

Thompson straightened, and for a moment, she smiled. “You’re not much different on this side of the table, are you?”

“What does that mean?”

“I assumed you would be upset about how our interactions have gone in the past.”

“You mean the times you’ve handed me my ass?” Hazard snorted. “That’s the person I want working on this. Whatever John’s being framed for, I want the best person I know to take care of it.”

“I don’t think we’ll be able to make much progress on the arrest warrant today,” Thompson said. “I’m not Mr. Somerset’s attorney of record, so the best I can do is offer to help bring him in safely and then, if he chooses to hire me, help with his defense.”