Jonathan Kellerman: Billy Straight

It was adherence to duty that brought about the temporary switch.

Wayne Carlos Freshwater crawled out at night, scoring weed and crack and pills on Hollywood side streets, killing prostitutes. No way was he going to be found when the sun shone.

Over a six-month period, he’d strangled four streetgirls that Petra and Stu knew about, the last one a sixteen-year-old runaway from Idaho who he’d tossed in an alley Dumpster near Selma and Franklin. No cutting, but a pocketknife found at the scene yielded prints and led to a search for Freshwater.

Incredibly stupid, dropping the blade, but no big surprise. Freshwater’s file said his IQ had been tested twice by the state: 83 and 91. Not that it had stopped him from eluding them.

Male black, thirty-six years old, five-foot-seven, 140, multiple arrests and convictions over the last twenty years, the last for an ag assault/attempted rape that sent him to Soledad for ten years-cut down, of course, to four.

The usual sullen mug shot; bored with the process.

Even when they caught him, he looked bored. No sudden moves, no attempt at escape, just standing there in a rancid hallway, pupils dilated, faking cool. But after the cuffs went on, he switched to wide-eyed surprise.

Whud I do, Officer?

The funny thing was, he looked innocent. Knowing his size, Petra had expected some Napoleon full of testosterone, but here was this dainty little twerp with a dainty little Michael Jackson voice. Neatly dressed, too. Preppy, brand-new Gap stuff, probably boosted. Later, the jailer told her Freshwater’d been wearing women’s underwear under the pressed khakis.

The ten-year Soledad invitation had been for choking a sixty-year-old grandmother in Watts. Freshwater was released angrier than ever and took a week to get going again, ratcheting up the violence level.

Great system. Petra used the memory of Freshwater’s moronic surprise to get herself smiling as she completed the report.

Whud I do?

You were a bad, bad boy.

Stu was still on the phone with Kathy: Home soon, honey; kiss the kids for me.

Six kids, lots of kissing. Petra had watched them line up for Stu before dinner, platinum heads, sparkling hands and nails.

It had taken her a long time to be able to look at other people’s kids without thinking of her own useless ovaries.

Stu loosened his tie. She caught his eye, but he looked away. Going back on days would be good for him.

He was thirty-seven, eight years Petra’s senior, looked closer to thirty, a slim, nice-looking man with wavy blond hair and gold-hazel eyes. The two of them had been quickly labeled Ken and Barbie, even though Petra had the dark tresses. Stu had a taste for expensive traditional suits, white French-cuffed shirts, braided leather suspenders, and striped silk ties, carried the most frequently oiled 9mm in the department, and a Screen Actors Guild card from doing bit parts in TV cop shows. Last year he’d made Detective-III.

Smart, ambitious, a devout Mormon; he and pretty Kathy and the half-dozen tykettes lived on a one-acre spread in La Crescenta. He’d been a great teacher for Petra-no sexism or personal garbage, a good listener. Like Petra, a work fiend, driven to achieve maximal arrests. Match made in heaven. Till a week ago. What was wrong?

Something political? The first day they partnered he informed her he was thinking about shifting to the paper track eventually, going for lieutenant.

Preparing her for good-bye, but he hadn’t mentioned it since.

Petra wondered if he was aiming even higher. His father was a successful ophthalmologist, and Stu had grown up in a huge house in Flintridge, surfed in Hawaii, skied in Utah; was used to good things.

Captain Bishop. Deputy Chief Bishop. She could imagine him in a few years with graying temples, Cary Grant crinkles, charming the press, playing the game. But doing a solid job, because he was substance as well as style.

Freshwater was a major bust. So why didn’t it matter to him?

Especially because he was the one who’d really solved it. The old-fashioned way. Despite the Joe Clean demeanor, nine years had made him an expert on streetlife, and he’d collected a stable of low-life confidential informants.

Two separate C.I.’s had come through on Freshwater, each reporting that the hooker killer had a heavy crack habit, was selling stolen goods on the Boulevard at night and scoring rock at a flop apartment on Cherokee. Two gift-wraps: precise address, down to the apartment number, and exactly where the dealers’ lookouts hung out.

Stu and Petra staked out for three nights. On the third, they grabbed Freshwater as he entered the building from the back, and Petra got to clamp the cuffs.

Delicate wrists. Whud I do, Officer? She chuckled out loud and filled the arrest form’s inadequate spaces with her elegant draftsman’s hand.

Just as Stu hung up his phone, Petra’s jangled. She picked up and the sergeant downstairs said, “Guess what, Barbie? Got a call from the park rangers over at Griffith. Woman down in a parking lot, probable 187. Tag, you’re it.”

“Which lot in Griffith?”

“East end, back behind one of the picnic areas. It’s supposed to be chained off, but you know how that goes. Take Los Feliz like you’re going to the zoo; instead of continuing on to the freeway, turn off. The blues’ll be there along with a ranger car. Do it Code 2.”

“Sure, but why us?”

“Why you?” The sergeant laughed. “Look around. See anyone else but you and Kenny? Blame the city council.”

She hung up.

“What?” said Stu. His Carroll amp; Company foulard was tightly knotted and his hair was perfectly combed. But tired, definitely tired. Petra told him.

He stood and buttoned his jacket. “Let’s go.”

No gripe. Stu never complained.

I pack up my Place Two stuff in three layers of dry cleaner’s plastic and begin walking up the hill behind the rocks, into the trees. I trip and fall a lot because I’m afraid to use the penlight until I get deep inside, but I don’t care-just get me out of here.

The zoo’s miles away; it will take a long time.

I walk like a machine that can’t be hurt, thinking what he did to her. No good. I have to put it out of my mind.

Back in Watson, after trouble with Moron or any kind of difficult day, I used lists to keep my mind busy. Sometimes it worked.

Here goes: presidents, in order of election-Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Quincy Adams, Jackson, Martin Van Buren.. the shortest president.

Oh shit, here I go again, down on my knees. I get up. Keep going.

Back in Watson, I had a book on the presidents, published by the Library of Congress, with heavy paper and excellent photographs and the official presidential seal on the cover. I got it in fourth grade for winning the President Bee, read it about five hundred times, trying to put myself back in time, imagine what it was like to be George Washington, running a brand-new country, or Thomas Jefferson, an amazing genius, inventing things, writing with five pens at one time.

Even being Martin Van Buren, short but still boss over everyone.

Books became a problem when Moron moved in. He hated when I read, especially when his chopper was busted or Mom had no money for him.

Little fuck with his fuckin’ books, thinks he’s smartern everyone.

After he moved in I had to sit in the kitchen while he and Mom took up my sleeper couch watching TV. One day he came in the trailer totally blasted while I was trying to do homework. I could tell because of his eyes and the way he just kept walking around in circles, making fists and opening them, making that growling noise. The homework was pre-algebra, easy stuff. Mrs. Annison didn’t believe me the one time I told her I already knew it, and she kept assigning me the same work as the rest of the class. I was speeding through the problems, almost finished, when Moron got a container of bean dip out of the fridge, started eating it with his hands. I looked at him, but just for a second. He reached over and pulled my hair and slammed the math book on my fingers. Then he grabbed up a bunch of notebooks and other textbooks and ripped them in half, including the math book, Thinking with Numbers.