Excerpt from Her Kind of Case by Jeanne Winer, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"No, and thanks for not smoking."

"You're welcome. Anyway, when Jeremy was eight or nine, they moved to Colorado Springs and joined some kind of fundamentalist Christian group that was against everything. No singing, no dancing, no socializing with anyone who doesn't accept Jesus as their savior ..." Her face clouded over. "I can't believe my sister went along with it. But she did. After that, I was lucky if I got to see them once a year."

"That must have been tough," Lee said, scribbling down the information. Over the years, her notes had become illegible to everyone but her. After the first thirty or forty trials, she'd learned never to write anything that some curious bystander could easily decipher.

"Tell me about it. Mary and Jeremy are my only living relatives. I was married once, for just a couple of years in my thirties. And I thought he was a chauvinist pig. Compared to Leonard, he was a doll. Anyway, I never got pregnant. When Jeremy was little, I did a lot of babysitting and we got very close. I always figured I'd be his Auntie Mame, show him the world." She shook her head and sighed. "Instead, I'm hiring him a lawyer."

"Well, a trip to Marrakech would be fun, but you're getting him what he needs."

"Exactly. Too bad about Marrakech though."

"So, whom did your nephew allegedly murder?"

Peggy grunted as if she'd been punched in the solar plexus, a pain no martial artist ever got used to.

"Some poor guy named Sam Donnelly. That's all I know. According to the Daily Camera, he was killed by a group of skinheads and somehow or another Jeremy was with them. He must have met them in Denver after his parents threw him out. I can't imagine—"

"Whoa, hold on," Lee interrupted. "When did his parents throw him out?"

"About eight months ago, around the beginning of February. Jeremy came to see me a few days later and he was so cold he was shivering. I begged him to stay, told him he could live with me and go to school in Boulder. He thanked me but said he couldn't, that he had to make his own way. I gave him a down sleeping bag, all the cash I had, which was about four hundred dollars, and a check for another thousand that he either lost or threw away. I told him he was always welcome. He slept on the couch that night and was gone by the time I woke up." She shrugged helplessly. "I don't know what else I could have done. He was sixteen. I didn't want to call the police. Finally, I phoned my sister but she refused to discuss it. I think Leonard was standing next to her, like he always does. Anyway, all she said was that Jeremy wouldn't follow their rules anymore."

"Any ideas what those rules were?"

"Oh God," Peggy snorted. "Leonard had a million stupid rules. Let's see, no alcohol of course, no swearing, no card playing, no television except for Christian shows, no dating girls outside the church, that kind of thing. Last time I was there, they were dragging him to services almost every night."

"So Jeremy finally had enough."

"I guess so. But I can't imagine how he ended up associating with skinheads. He wasn't like that. Leonard was full of hate, but Jeremy wasn't."

"That's easy. He was on the street. Kids on the street need protection. They need a 'family.' If they're desperate, they can't afford to be choosy." Suddenly, the clock on Lee's desk gonged again, reminding her—as if she didn't know—that time was passing. She closed her notepad, set it down, and then placed her pen beside it. "I'm sorry, but I've got a number of appointments this morning, and you'll be late for work if you don't leave soon." She drummed her fingers while she thought. "I have to meet your nephew before deciding whether to take his case. Sometimes there isn't a fit, and with a murder case, there has to be. Ultimately, Jeremy has to trust me enough to do what I tell him."

"Makes perfect sense," Peggy said, handing Lee the white card she'd tried to slide under the door.

Excerpted from Her Kind of Case by Jeanne Winer. Copyright © 2018 by Jeanne Winer. Excerpted by permission of Bancroft Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.