Stephen Cannell - At First Sight

"I'm Detective Sergeant Apollo Demetrius," the handsome cop said, pulling out a badge and showing it to Chick. He motioned toward the second man. "This is my partner, Detective Charles Watts."

"Police?" Chick asked, trying to look and sound confused, like, "What on earth would the police want with us?"

"May we come in please, sir?" Apollo Demetrius asked.

Chick nodded and stood aside. The two policemen entered his antique and crystal plush-pile foyer and stood in the entry for a minute, looking at the expensive layout. Chick could almost read their thoughts: This guy has money. He's got lawyers on speed dial so be careful.

"What's this all about?" Chick asked, arranging what he hoped was a look of mild consternation on his face.

"Is your wife Evelyn Best?" Demetrius asked.

"Yes, she is. Why? What's wrong?" Chick had cautioned himself not to go for the Academy Award here and overact, but he needed to show some concern and perhaps just a dash of impending fear. It's not every day two cops show up at your front door asking about your wife. He thought he'd hit just the right note-confused, startled, but not yet overly alarmed.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news," Demetrius continued. "You might want to sit down." Chick waved this off, so Demetrius went on. "Your wife was killed in what appears to be a carjacking around six-fifteen this evening. She was shot in the head behind a hair salon in Van Nuys." These words passed over the detective's sensuous lips like velvet bricks. Brutal information delivered as smoothly as a pickup line in a singles bar.

"She was… she was… what?" Chick looked at them, his mouth agape. He put his hands to his face, then dropped his head into them. How little is too little? How much is too much? Don't overdo it… Don't underdo it. It was a hard balance to strike. Since he felt absolutely nothing, it all had to be performance. Instead of concentrating on real feelings, he was focused on behavior, which he knew might cause him to come off as emotionless and mechanical.

He moved away from the matinee-idol detective, trying to get some distance from the man's probing stare. He knew he was being carefully evaluated by both cops, and it made him tense. His body language seemed stiff and jerky, even to him. Then he had a sudden wave of flop-sweat. Was he already fucking this up?

"Are you okay? Can we get you anything? Some water?" Demetrius asked.

Chick sort of shook his head, breathing through his mouth, trying to look like he was in some kind of emotional free fall.

"Why would anybody…? It can't be… Are you sure it was her?"

"Yes. Her stylist, Edward Paul, heard the shots, identified the body, and pinned the time of death for us. He saw your wife's murderer driving off in her car, but didn't get a good look at the shooter. The car was just turning the corner. She was already dead in the parking lot behind his salon when he found her."

A strange incongruous thought flickered. Mr. Eddy's last name was Paul… He'd never known that. So why not Mr. Paul? That was what went through his head, but he sobbed and said, "Oh… oh… my God… Oh… no, not Evelyn… " Too much? Too little? He was flying blind. He was hyperaware of his every movement, like a bad actor in a high school play.

"We have some questions," Demetrius said. "I hope you won't take this the wrong way, but we need to establish where everyone was. Could you tell us where you were about six o'clock?"

"Right here. I was right here in the house." Trying for shock and dismay. Maybe pulling it off, maybe bungling it badly.

"Can anybody confirm that? Was anybody here with you?"

"Uh… no… Well, my daughter was… " Chick paused. "I mean, she's here."

"Can you get her, please?"

So Chick got up, and with what he hoped was an anguished expression on his face, walked down the hall to his daughter's room. The plain-looking detective followed so he could monitor what was being said. Chick found Melissa sprawled on her bed, still zonked. That girl had honed the art of sleeping to a razor's edge. She could sleep through a cat fight, or more to the point, through a crystal meth raid.

"Melissa, wake up," he said, shaking her by the shoulder.

"Lemme alone," she growled, and rolled over, facing the other way. "Can't I get a moment's peace in this fucking house?"

Great, Chick thought, let's show this eavesdropping detective what a tight, happy little family we are.

"Your mother has been murdered," he said bluntly, going for maximum effect, trying to shock her into some sort of grieving response. He saw her breathing stop, saw her back freeze, then after ten seconds or so, she rolled over and looked at him.

"Huh?" Her eyes were slits of unpleasantness, her hair a two-day nest of bad grooming. Her face glittered with metal as she studied him with sleepy, suspicious eyes.

"Somebody carjacked her at Salono Bello. Shot her dead… took the Mercedes. The police are here." He said it softly, sounding sad while at the same time trying to get the gravity of the situation across to her.

"No shit?" she said, struggling to sit up.

No shit was hardly the appropriate response. "Oh, my God," or "Oh no, not Mom, please." But Melissa's first words were "No shit?"

She was hopeless. But at least she was sitting up now, looking at Chick. "How the fuck?" was her next stab at communication.

"I just told you. She was carjacked. Shot." He plowed on. "The cops want to talk to us. Get out of bed."

She scowled at him. "The police? I didn't do anything." Then she got up, put on her robe, and stood in the darkened bedroom. "Did they also shoot that shithead, Mickey D, I hope?"

Chick didn't answer, but thought, Good going, Meliss. Exactly what we needed.

The plain-looking cop retreated from his listening post in the hall as Chick led his scowling child back into the living room and made the introductions. "This is Melissa… Detective Demetrius, and Detective… what was it again…?"

"Watts," said the ordinary-looking cop.

"I already told her what happened," Chick said, then realized that this was all becoming very matter-of-fact, so he added, "My God… my God… I still can't believe… "just to let them know he was in major heartbreak here, in deep shock at hearing the horrible news.

"We're trying to establish where your father was at the time of the incident," Demetrius said. "Can you attest to his whereabouts this evening, say, starting any time after 4 P. M.?"

"How the fuck would I know?" Melissa said. She was scowling while looking at them, but Chick could read her like the morning paper. She was already trying to figure out what this murder would do to her life. Would it change anything? Would her credit card get frozen?

"Your father said he was here," Demetrius added. "Can you confirm that?"

"I was asleep," she scowled. "How the hell would I know?"

It wasn't going at all the way he'd planned. Chick thought her attitude was atrocious, and he could read shock at her behavior on both cops' faces. But they had a job where they witnessed the worst of mankind, so they waited patiently without comment. Chick didn't want to prod her, but Watts was writing everything down in a spiral crime book, and Chick desperately needed Melissa for his alibi, so he tried to jog her memory.

"Wait a minute. Didn't I come in earlier to wake you up for your date? What time was that? Do you remember?"

"Huh?"

At this rate, they wouldn't even need a trial. They might as well just drag the electric chair over here and plug it in.

Chick tried again. "Remember, I woke you up? I think it was about… "

"Let her tell it, please," Demetrius interrupted.

"Okay, yeah… I guess I remember." Melissa was snapping out of it. A look of feral shrewdness came into her eyes. "Six o'clock or six-oh-five… something like that. He came in and woke me up for my date."