April Smith - Good Morning, Killer

Nobody was coming to get me because Detective Andrew Berringer had not turned me in.

I wanted it to be true. It would mean an ending of such happiness.

Lifted by the hope that he was actually protecting me, that we were still in this together, I rose from the couch and settled into the familiar depression in the rattan chair. The laptop sat on the glass table. I believed this was what Andrew was somehow telling me to do, yet logging on to the Bureau website created the most toxic self-loathing of the entire ordeal. I was planning to use classified material on detecting bloodstain evidence to cover up the crime. As it was loading, I came as close as ever to swallowing the gun. It would have made a pretty picture, with the FBI logo shining on the computer screen.

Between the supermarket and a pharmacy in the Marina I was able to get everything I needed. At a hardware emporium it cost almost a hundred bucks for wire brushes, nylon scrubs, wood putty, pine oil cleaner, garbage bags, disposable gloves and a rented rug shampooer.

There was not much blood splatter. I was able to scrub it up with ice water, cleanser and bleach, and then I put on Marvin Gaye and steamed the carpet and washed the floors. It is amazing how much dirt came up. Buckets of black water poured down the sink until the gold flecks in the floor tile winked. I scoured the coffee table and the walls. Threw the cotton bamboo cushion covers into the washing machine. Washed the sliding glass doors. Sprayed the kitchen tile a million times with mold remover, polishing it shiny with rolls of paper towels.

All this time I kept checking the clock, as if knowing the hour were reassurance that I was proceeding on course.

There were so many things to get rid of! The doormat. The vacuum cleaner bag. I unscrewed the swinging door with the bullet hole, and the hinges, loaded three bags of trash onto a disposable tarp in the trunk of the Barracuda and distributed the evidence in haphazardly chosen Dumpsters. Then I came back and sanded the marks where the hinges had been, and puttied, and sanded and puttied again. Tomorrow I would repaint the door frame.

At intervals, by the clock, I would call Andrew because there would have been another of those big black arrows pointing to the sudden halt in communication, and left a couple of messages: “Hi, it’s me, just checking in, give me a call.”

Since I could not go to a doctor without documenting my injuries, I took some old antibiotics and leftover Tylenol with codeine. There was fever and my pelvis ached. Peeing was agony. The toilet bowl went red. I waited until after midnight to sneak along the empty hallway, removing traces of the blood trail with my trusty brush and bucket. It took working until 4 a.m. to do all that housework because I was moving slowly and had to rest.

FD-823 (Rev. 8-26-97)

RAPID START

INFORMATION CONTROL

Case ID: 446-702-9977 The Santa Monica Kidnapping

Control Number: 5231 Priority: Immediate

Classification: Sensitive Source: Culver City Police Department

Event time: 11:27 PM

Method of contact: CDVDB (California Domestic Violence Data Base)

Prepared by: Ripley, Jason

Component/Agency: Kidnap and extortion squad, FBI, Los Angeles

Event narrative:

A seventeen-year-old female calls 911 to report her mother’s boyfriend is beating up the mother. Officers find only the girl at home. Suspect she has been abused also, but she vigorously denies it and denies even making the complaint. Report attached.

CULVER CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT

Culver City, California

Domestic Crime Unit

Complaint Intake

1. NAME Santos Roxy Angela

Last First Middle

2. ALIASES none

3. STREET ADDRESSES 3340 Keyes Drive Palms CA

4. RACE (check all that apply) Black White Hispanic Asian American Indian Other

5. DATE OF BIRTH 4/23/80

6. HEIGHT 5’6”

7. WEIGHT 123 pounds

8. HAIR COLOR Blond

9. OCCUPATION High school student

10. AFFILIATIONS WITH GROUP OR ORGANIZATION THAT MIGHT BE RELEVANT TO THIS CRIME? No

11. VICTIM mother, Mrs. Audrey Santos, age 35 OCCUPATION Cashier EMPLOYER Home Depot

12. OFFENDER Carl Vincent, age 30 OCCUPATION Lab Technician EMPLOYER unemployed

13. PREVIOUS ARRESTS unknown

14. TYPE OF ATTACK unknown

15. WEAPONS USED unknown

16. FREQUENCY OF ATTACKS unknown

17. HOSPITALIZATIONS unknown

Responding Officers: Stewart and Salerno

Officer’s Statement: Upon arrival at the home, the complainant denied making the 911 call that Carl Vincent, the mother’s live-in boyfriend, had attacked her mother, and instead refused to make a statement. Several broken bottles were found in kitchen garbage. Complainant denied they were result of a domestic dispute. Stated that her mother and the boyfriend were at the movies. Officers left the premises at 12:40 AM.

“Did you see this report?” asked Jason Ripley.

It was the following morning, no news of Andrew. I was sitting rigidly in the ergonomic chair, mind flip-flopping between chaos and a vacuum of black.

“What report?”

“A teenage girl in Culver City says the mother’s boyfriend is hitting the mother. Then she retracts the statement.”

I did not respond.

“You didn’t see this thing on Rapid Start, first thing this morning?” he asked incredulously. “I beat you! First time, ever .”

“I’m entitled to a late night,” said my shadow self with a leering grin.

The idea of the boss on a date seemed to embarrass the young man, and he began talking rapidly about his wife.

“Lunaria is like that, she’s a night bird, loves to party. I’m a farm boy, up with the cows.”

I nodded. I was supposed to know all the ins and outs.

“She’s still back at Princeton. Studying for the bar.”

“Right.”

“I think we’ve been together six days since I was transferred out here.”

Then I remembered: Jason had married chewing tobacco and whiskey money. His new father-in-law was CEO of some megacorporation that relocated from Illinois to Montvale, New Jersey. The two-hundred-thousand-dollar wedding had been covered by Vogue . In exchange, the family kept the girl close. Another of life’s mysteries. Jason was a shy farm kid, earnest as a mallet, but he was also no dummy, and as he handed over the printout of the report, my eyes fell with charity on the strawberry blond freckled skin below his rolled-up sleeve. If he were still an agent two or three years from now, he would also most likely be divorced.

“We might have something here,” he said of the 911.

My brain was frozen. “Why?”

“It’s within striking distance of the Promenade.”

“Mmm, twenty minutes away. With no traffic.”

“Brennan could be using an alias — Carl Vincent.”

“That’s it? That’s ‘something?’”

“No, no,” said Jason self-consciously. “I have a — theory.”

He used the word tentatively, as if he had not yet earned the right.

“Okay.”

“What if Brennan split from Arizona when the cops came after him for shooting ducks? He came here for a reason, whatever reason, we don’t know.”