April Smith - Good Morning, Killer

BERRINGER: I never told them it was Ana.

RAUCH: You never told them it was Ana Grey who fired at you three times in a row ?

BERRINGER: I never gave her up.

RAUCH: Is that because, until the end, you were doing your best to protect Ana Grey? Because you cared about her, Detective Berringer?

BERRINGER: The police department investigators and the FBI already had information that implicated her when they questioned me.

RAUCH: You mean, you were shot and Ana Grey was immediately a prime, number one suspect?

BERRINGER: I didn’t say that. I don’t know how their investigation was going.

RAUCH: Thank you, that’s all.

The court stenographer’s fingers worked at a rhythm of their own. From the same fashion era as Judge McIntyre, she wore a white blouse, a blue blazer, a pleated skirt with polka dots and white high heels. After his performance, Rauch’s shoulders hung at an exhausted angle, drooping like a Dickensian scrivener’s. Andrew’s face was pasty and filmed with sweat. The judge turned his head like a turtle inside its tender jowls.

In the rear of the courtroom, his brother watched with patient, kindly interest.

On cross-examination, Devon tried to impeach the witness, using incidents I had told him to paint Andrew as an angry, burned-out peace officer prone to violence — one hundred pounds heavier, nine inches taller — who had attacked a petite female with intent to inflict great bodily harm because he was angry at women, having never been able to sustain an intimate relationship or marriage. He meant to silence me — why else would he have charged a loaded gun? I had defended myself, according to my training.

Devon emphasized that in the struggle I, too, had been critically injured, with a severe pelvic infection that could still possibly lead to sterility. Andrew was surprised by hearing that, said he had not known, and deftly used that surprise to express regret at his actions.

Even as Devon maneuvered himself elaborately back into his seat, grimacing with effort, we knew the argument had not worked. Andrew had come across as affable and sincere. The women-hating thing just did not play. We had hinted at darker motives but had no proof.

What we did not know was that I was not the only one in that courtroom who was trapped between the good face of the law and the bad. Andrew had become ensnared by the shooting in a way that went beyond the events in my living room. Although for one teetering moment he had shown conflicting emotions up on the stand, he had regained his resolve, for he must have known the only way for him to survive, as I had scrawled in frustrated silence to Devon across the yellow legal pad, was to bury me in a pack of “LIES!!”

The ER doctor, a knockout Brazilian woman, slender and beautiful as a model although she said she was running on four hours of sleep, described Andrew’s injuries and how they were treated. She confirmed he had been receiving heavy doses of morphine when he stated that he had been shot by bandits, but later, even when he was lucid, she said she never heard him mention my name in connection with the shooting.

“True or false?” I wrote facetiously on the pad.

As Devon predicted the very first night, the prosecution rolled out a chorus line of cops unanimously insisting I was jealous, violent and obsessed with Andrew Berringer. The guys who had been in the kiosk testified I had been “emotionally distraught,” searching for Andrew at midnight on the Promenade. We heard outrage from Detectives Jaeger and Winter about how I’d humiliated Andrew in a public restaurant, and then, remorseful, “bullied” my way after hours into the ICU. Lieutenant Barry Loomis, sporting the walrus mustache and a Betty Boop tie, described me as “behaving in a manner that was suspect” when we spoke on the phone while Andrew was in the hospital. He said “bells went off in his head” when “out of the blue” I guiltily asked whether the weapon had been recovered, although on cross-examination admitted anyone in law enforcement would want to know the same thing. In his version of the confrontation in the Boatyard, I came at the senior detective like a bloodsucking harridan. He omitted the fact that he had been teasing Andrew and egging us on.

“Loomis just killed us,” Devon whispered, and as soon as we broke for lunch, he hobbled out ahead of the crowd, to personally escort Juliana Meyer-Murphy and her mother. She would be our first witness after the prosecution wound up its case.

Andrew and I avoided eye contact or any other kind of contact during the awkward scramble from the courtroom. I was very engaged with the zippers on my briefcase, anyway.

A small crowd had gathered in the corridor, looking out a window. In the street, five stories below, a car in the middle lane had unaccountably flipped over on its roof. There were no other wrecks, no barricades or obstacles or pedestrians that might explain how a two-thousand-pound vehicle could turn completely upside down.

“Do you think that’s a Honda?” someone said.

“Could be. My wife just bought a Honda. She loves it.”

“Have you seen the new ones?”

“No, are they pretty much like the old ones?”

I had no appetite. I went back and sat in the empty courtroom. Twenty long minutes later, Devon’s associate entered alone.

“Where’s Juliana?”

“Oh,” said the jumpy young attorney, who had not yet learned from the master how to lie, “no problem.”

“Where’s Devon?”

“I think he’s grabbing a cup of coffee.”

“Is there a hang-up?”

“No, not at all. Just a last-minute pep talk. They’ll be up in a minute.”

The associate smiled the vacant, noncommittal smile of a subordinate covering badly for his boss.

“Do me a favor? If Devon shows up, tell him I went to the ladies’ room.”

I walked demurely through the doors, then hit the stairway.

There was only one place to get coffee inside the building, and that was the dilapidated cafeteria, but when I arrived out of breath the grill was closed and the place half deserted.

Afraid I had missed them, I was about to run back upstairs but noticed through the rear doors of the cafeteria there was a patio. Sure enough, a cappuccino cart. A few courthouse workers sitting on wire chairs were taking their breaks, bent over sliding leaves of newsprint or sitting back with heads tilted toward the sun, hands wrapped around the universal paper coffee cup.

Juliana, wearing dark glasses and a heartbreaking little pink suit, legs crossed, long dark hair blown out straight and looking about twenty-five years old, was sitting in the shade with her mother. Devon had pulled a chair close and was speaking intimately. Juliana’s arms were folded and she appeared to be staring straight ahead, turning guardedly as I neared.

“Hi, Juliana. Great to see you.”

“Good to see you, too.”

“Ana,” said Devon, “you’re not supposed to be here.”

“I just want to say thank you. Can’t I say thank you?”

“No, you cannot be seen talking with a witness!”

But I was already shaking Lynn Meyer-Murphy’s hand. I think it was the first time I had smiled in about a month and the fresh breeze blowing through the courtyard smelled like spring.

“Thank you for coming and for bringing Juliana. I know this is hard for her and I really, really appreciate it.”

“Ana,” said Devon, standing up so his chair moved back with a scrape, “go back upstairs.”

A long time ago I had stood on the threshold of the Meyer-Murphy home, shaking the hand of a woman wearing mismatched clothing who was deeply in shock. Her eyes squinted and her affect was blank, but after a brief moment’s nod toward her discomfort, I was impatient to get inside and go to work. Now it was Lynn’s face that was composed, and her fingers that withdrew first and went to the calfskin shoulder bag and took out the car keys.