Jonathan Kellerman - Silent Partner

I lay on the bed, let the TV run down, and listened to noise. Bass thumps from the jukebox of the bar next door, so loud it seemed as if someone was being hurled against the wall in two-four time; angry laughter and truncated street-talk in English, Spanish, and a thousand undecipherable tongues, canned laughter from the TV in the adjacent room, toilet flushes, faucet hisses, movement cracks, door slams, car horns, a scatter of sharp reports that could have been gunshots or backfires or the sound of two hands applauding. And backing it all, the Doppler drone of the freeway.

An Overland symphony. Within moments I was robbed of twelve years.

The room was a sweatbox. I stayed inside for three days, subsisting on pizza and cola from a place that promised to deliver hot and cold and lied about both. For the most part I did what I’d been avoiding for so long. Had pushed away by chasing the inadequacies of others, throwing down cloaks over mudholes. Introspection. Such a prissy word for scooper-dips deep into the wellspring of the soul. The scooper honed sharp and jagged.

For three days I went through all of it: rage, tears, tension so visceral my teeth chattered and my muscles threatened to go into tetany. A loneliness that I would have gladly anesthetized with pain.

By the fourth day I felt sapped and placid, was proud I didn’t mistake that for cure. That afternoon, I left the motel to keep my appointment: a sprint down the block to the sidewalk paper rack. The remaining quarter down the hatch and the evening edition was mine, gripped tightly under my arm, like pornography.

Bottom left of page one, complete with picture.

L.A.P.D. CAPTAIN CHARGED WITH SEXUAL MISCONDUCT RESIGNS

Maura Bannon

Staff Writer

A Los Angeles police captain, accused of having sexual relations with several underage female Police Scouts while on duty, resigned today after a police disciplinary board recommended dismissal.

The three-member Board of Rights panel ordered Cyril Leon Trapp, 45, terminated immediately from duty and recommended retroactive loss of all L.A.P.D. pensions, benefits and privileges. In accordance with what both Trapp’s attorney and a police spokesman described as a negotiated settlement, Trapp agreed to register as a sex offender, forfeit appeal of the board’s decision, sign an affidavit agreeing never again to work in law enforcement, and pay “substantial financial restitution, including full fees for medical and psychiatric treatment” to his victims, suspected of numbering over a dozen. In exchange, no criminal charges are being filed, an alternative which theoretically could have included indictments for statutory rape, narcotics abuse, sexual abuse of a minor and multiple misdemeanors.

The offenses to which Trapp pleaded no contest, took place over a five-year period during which he served as a sergeant in the department’s Hollywood Division, and may have continued while he was a lieutenant at the Ramparts Division and at the West Los Angeles Division, where he was promoted to captain, last year, following the sudden heart attack death of the previous captain, Robert L. Rogers.

While at Hollywood, Trapp’s name also surfaced in connection with the burglary scandal in which police officers broke rear windows of stores and warehouses on their patrols, tripping burglar alarms, then notified the police dispatcher that they were handling the call. The officers proceeded to loot the premises, using police cruisers to cart away stolen goods, then filed false burglary reports. No charges were filed against Trapp, who was characterized by prosecutors, at that time, as a “cooperative witness.”

With regard to the current case, Trapp was accused of luring female scouts into his office under the guise of offering “career guidance,” plying them with beer, wine, “premixed, canned cocktails,” and marijuana before making sexual advances. Allegations of fondling were made in thirteen cases, with actual intercourse believed to have taken place with at least seven girls, ages 15 to 17. Though the Board of Rights refused to specify what led to the investigation of Trapp, a police source reports that one of the victims experienced emotional problems due to the molestation, was taken for counseling, and revealed to her therapist what had happened. The therapist then informed the Department of Social Services, who contacted the L.A.P.D.

Corroboration of the charges was received from several other victims. However, none of the girls was willing to testify in court, leading the District Attorney’s office to conclude that successful criminal prosecution of Trapp was “unlikely.”

When it was suggested that the settlement constituted a slap on the wrist for an individual who could have been sentenced to a substantial jail term, the board chairman, Cmdr. Walter D. Smith, said, “The Department wants to make it very clear that it will not tolerate sexual misconduct of any sort on the part of any officer, no matter how high-ranking. However, we are also sensitive to the emotional needs of victims and couldn’t force these girls into the psychological trauma of testifying. The board’s action today guarantees that this officer will never again work in law enforcement and will lose every cent he has earned as a police officer. To me that sounds like a pretty good deal.”

Trapp’s attorney, Thatcher Friston, refused to divulge his client’s future plans, other than to say that the disgraced officer is “expected to leave the state, maybe even the country, to work in agriculture. Mr. Trapp’s always been interested in poultry farming. Now perhaps he’ll have a chance to try it.”

I read it once more, tore it out of the paper, and folded it into a paper airplane. When I finally landed the plane in the toilet, I left the motel.

I went home, felt like a new tenant, if not a new man. Was sitting down at my desk ready to plow through accumulated papers when a knock sounded at the front door.

I opened it. Milo came in, wearing his police ID tag on the lapel of a brown suit that reeked of squad-room smoke, glaring at me under black brows, his big face clouded.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“Out.”

“Out where?”

“I don’t want to get into it right now.”

“Get into it anyway.”

I didn’t speak.

He said, “Jesus! You were supposed to be making a few calls- doing the safe stuff, remember? Instead you disappear. Haven’t you learned a goddamned thing!”

“Sorry, Mom.” Then, when I saw the look on his face: “I did do the safe stuff, Milo. Then I disappeared. I left a message with my service.”

“Right. Very comforting.” He pinched his nose. “ ‘Dr. Delaware will be out for a couple of da-ays .’ ” Unpinch:

“ ‘Where to, honey?’ ” Pinch. “ ‘He didn’t sa-ay.’ ”

I said, “I needed to get away. I’m fine. I was never in danger.”

He swore, punched his palm, tried to use his height to advantage by looming over me. I went back into the library and he followed me there, digging deep in his coat pocket and pulling out a crumpled piece of newsprint.

As he started to unfold it, I said, “Saw it already.”

“I’ll bet you have.” He leaned on the desk. “How, Alex? How the fuck ?”

“Not now,” I said.

“What, all of a sudden it’s let’s-play-hide-and-seek time?”

“I just don’t want to get into it right now.”

“Bye-bye, Cyril,” he said, to the ceiling. “For the first time in my life, wishes come true- it’s like I’ve got this goddamned genie. Problem is, I don’t know what he looks like, who or what to rub.”

“Can’t you just accept good fortune? Kick back and enjoy?”

“I like making my own fortune.”

“Make an exception.”