April Smith: Good Morning, Killer

I was skeptical. “Do you know the meaning of the words ‘Oh, please’!?”

“You were not supposed to leave the Donnato residence,” Devon replied severely. “You were not supposed to be working that case. You were suspended from the Bureau, remember?”

“Yes, and I’m going to get a letter of censure and be dinged big-time for violating Bureau policy, but, oh, please! If I didn’t knock on that door he would have done her.”

“Others could have done the knocking.”

“Not really. Nobody else was there !”

“You were warned.”

“I was warned ?” I hauled out of the leather cockpit armchair. “What is this, prep school?”

In fact Devon was tapping a pencil against the hood of a miniature BMW and frowning.

“Why did you have to be the first one in?”

“It was personal.”

“With you, everything is personal.”

“Damn right. He had her picture on his damn wall.”

“Whose damn picture?”

“Juliana Meyer-Murphy!”

“Good.” Devon bounced the pencil so hard it flew out of his hand. “And she really came through for you at the preliminary hearing.”

“ Ohhh, no,” I warned. “Don’t go there unless you really want to piss me off, and I’ll walk out so fast—”

“—You’re not walking anywhere.”

“—I told you not to call her as a witness—”

“—And I told you that you were looking at fifteen years.”

I picked up the pencil from the floor and slammed it down on his desk.

“I wanted that creep dead, or in jail, all right?”

“Well,” he said primly, “you achieved your goal.”

We glared at each other.

“Why am I on the defensive? You know, when we were in court at the prelim, I saw this kid, African-American, who was there with his mom on a drug charge. ‘Something wrong with this justice system,’ he said, and she hit him upside the head. Let me tell you, that boy is my bro now.” Devon pushed the BMW away in disgust. It hit the Porsche.

“It’s a no-brainer, Ana! Rauch doesn’t have a choice; this would be a slam dunk for any prosecutor. You violated bail on an attempted murder charge. Try to see that clearly. You handed it to him! The attempted murder charge is entirely different from the Santa Monica kidnapping. You don’t get extra credit for solving that case just because—” “The credits are nontransferable,” I interrupted sarcastically.

“That’s right. They’re nontransferable.”

We were at a dead end. I was going to jail because I had saved two lives. Devon sighed with deep irritation. I stared defiantly out the window.

“Rauch wants you in custody now. It’s newsworthy, coming on the heels of the arrest of a serial rapist.”

“Great.”

“He’s going for a warrant, the SOB.”

Devon raised himself up from the chair and loped slowly across the room.

“Hip bothering you?”

“Stress.”

“Tell me about it.”

We stood close together, mesmerized by the sparkling traffic; so close, the surface of my skin could sense the tight muscle mass of his worked-out upper body, and at the same time, the effort it took to balance his lower withered side without the crutch.

“Why don’t we sit?” I took his arm in a gesture of reconciliation. Lowering to the couch side by side, we were once more allies in the long winter of a treacherous campaign.

“The best use of our energy,” he said, “is to prepare for trial. Our task right now is to discredit their witnesses. The background reviews are on my desk. Take a look, see if anything pops.”

I sprung up and got it.

There were reports from Devon’s private investigators on the ER doctor who had testified, the thoracic surgeon, Lieutenant Loomis and two other Santa Monica detectives, Margaret Forrester, the Sheriff’s Department stiff who would no doubt say I resisted arrest …

“Margaret Forrester does okay for a police widow,” I said, staring at the bottom line on her IRS form.

“She’s got that business on the side.” Devon rubbed his bald pate. “What is it, jewelry?”

“Seashells. ‘Body ornaments.’ She nets thirty-eight thousand dollars a year?”

“Her stuff is carried by some big stores. Fred Segal. Barneys.” He caught my look. “Surprised?”

“I didn’t think Margaret could get it together to do something like that.”

“She had help getting started. Look at the financial statements.”

I sat beside Devon and his manicured fingertip showed me where. Fourteen months ago Margaret had made a deposit of $52,674 into a money market account.

“Where did she get the dough?”

“Her husband’s pension.”

“Are you sure?”

“The dates connect — the deposit was made a few months after he died.”

“But she stated in court that she was not eligible to receive his pension.”

Devon had both hands on a quad to support the leg while it stretched.

“The husband was killed by a gang.”

“He was killed off-duty, and they never proved it was a gang. It was never crystal clear to me how exactly the Hat died.”

“We’ll get it clear.” Devon made a note, glanced at his watch.

“How long do I have before the marshals show up at the door?”

“We’ll file for a hearing. It will be postponed.”

“How long,” I insisted, “can you keep the balls in the air?”

“I can’t say for sure—”

“Because Mike Donnato kicked me out of his house.”

Devon stopped writing. “When did this happen?”

“A couple of days before the Brennan thing went down.”

I told him about the threatening phone calls and Mike’s kids.

“You’d have to ask for new terms and conditions anyway.”

Devon looked seriously unhappy now. “I hate giving Rauch another fat one over the plate. Can you find someone else of equal stature to stay with?”

“You mean someone else from the Bureau who will vouch for me?”

Devon looked up. The blue stone in the pen matched the intensified blue of his eyes. He meant it. He was not being ironic.

“Is there anyone?” he asked.

Instead of ducking suavely into the Bureau garage, I had to wait in the visitors’ section of the outdoor parking lot, signal flashing, while a family of Russian immigrants squeezed into a slouching old yellow Mercedes sedan in the midst of a whopping intergenerational argument. I gave a toot and eight stormy faces glared at me with unified indignation. I guess that ended the argument.

Sprinting up the steps to the US Federal Office Building, I was ambushed once again by the same stomach-tightening anticipation I had felt every day on the job. Of course, they would not have let me past reception. Nor could I have tolerated the looks of rank curiosity, had I run into people I knew, hustling in a group to a meeting, peering out from behind an attachment they took for granted, or even begrudged, while I wanted nothing but to belong. Better to stay outside, lost in the impersonal scale of the flat-faced building, another ordinary citizen wearing ripped-in-the-pocket Levi’s and running shoes, entitled to the safeguards of democracy.

The Human Computer would take lunch between twelve and one, hurry across the sunshiny plaza into the fumes of the garage and down the cinder-block passage to the ancient and pungent gym. Now that I thought about it, why should hardworking agents be condemned to that claustrophobic space? Even the franchise health club across the street had a view of Wilshire Boulevard. They should do better. They deserved it.

They.

“Barbara!”

She was carrying the black Lancôme tote bag we both had gotten “free” the day we ditched work and went to Robinsons and spent hundreds of dollars on makeup.