Jane. I came out of a coffee shop just as she did it and caught her. She started yelling curses at me. If somebody had tried to mug her, I was prepared to risk my life to stop it. She didn't understand that my job was to protect and serve her.
Of course, I also knew that in her eyes I didn't exist. As a man, I was invisible. All she saw was the uniform, and it was a symbol of something she hated. What distressed me was that this virulent hatred spanned fifty years and two ethnic boundaries, from that ten-year-old Hispanic boy in Van Nuys, to the black grandmother in Carson.
Rodney King and the O. J. case were part of it. The Rampart scandal put it in overdrive. We were not Blue Knights to some of these citizens, but a gang in blue-thugs with life-and-death power, who kicked ass, took names, and didn't care if we got it right, as long as we got it down. Hook'm, book'm, and cook'm. A bad bust probably just takes another guilty asshole off the street, so don't sweat it. It was the total collapse of an idea I once treasured.
Years ago I thought I should make a difference. Be a one-man cleanup crew. One afternoon I spotted the same old woman carrying groceries in Carson and I followed her home. I guessed her age was about sixty, but she looked almost a hundred. When I knocked on her door she opened it to the length of the chain lock. Our emotional and intellectual view of each other was as narrow as that inch-wide slit.
'Go away,' she said, seeing my uniform. 'They all dead.' Then she slammed the door.
Two days later, while I was patrolling the same area, I saw her again. She was struggling with an especially large armload of packages. Her ankles were swollen, her face shiny with sweat as she toiled along. I rolled up beside her, got out, and opened my squad car door. 'Can I give you a ride home, Ma'am?' I asked.
She stood at the side of the curb and looked at me with contempt. 'I told you, they all dead,' she said, exasperated. 'You killed ever' one. Now you think I be gettin' in dat damn po-lice car?'
'But I didn't kill them,' I said. 'I never met them.'
'You po-lice, ain't ya? Two boys and one baby girl-my grandchildren, all dead, shot by po-lice.' And then she spat again, this time on me. I felt it spray across my face and run down into my collar.
I got back into my car, drove half a block away and parked. I was shaken by the incident. I didn't know why the police had shot her grandchildren or even if they had a valid reason. But I knew it didn't matter. A valid reason or a legal justification wouldn't change the hatred in that woman's ancient, yellow eyes. I could have carried her groceries twice a week for the rest of my life and it wouldn't begin to make up for those three dead children.
Protect and Serve. I tried to live up to that increasingly difficult motto. But I was flawed. I was vulnerable to anger and ego like everyone else. I had emotional prejudice and a parochial moral view, which I tried to overcome. On the street, I tried to be color-blind and situation-neutral. Yet, with each passing year I became more fatigued by the effort.
I would have given a year's pay to have that old woman forgive me for the deaths of three children I never even knew, and that puzzled me. Why should it be so important? Why should I invest so deeply in something I wasn't a part of and couldn't change?
But I did. I guess somewhere deep down I still needed my uniform to validate me. Maybe I needed it for identity or for a sense of belonging. Maybe I had chosen to be a cop because I respected the values in the manual; and when all those values got skewed I didn't have the guts to get off the ride. I still wanted to do the right thing. I still wanted the people I served to know I cared. But more and more, nobody cared if I cared. I had been absorbed into the mix, unable to rise above the perceptions of others. Now I feared SEB and SRT were on a course that would only make it worse, and that was what was darkening my mood and ruining my day.
I looked up as Nan Chambers walked into the restaurant. She saw me and headed in my direction on those strong muscular legs, her cut arms swinging, spiky hair bristling, turning heads all over the room as she crossed toward me.
'Your office told me you were going to be here,' she said, answering my unspoken question like a gypsy mind reader.
'We need to come to an understanding,' I said. 'You can't write about that crime scene we found across the street, at least not yet. That's gotta stay between us, Nan. And if you left any prints at that apartment, get ready for a visit from the feds.'
'I didn't leave any prints,' she said, and slid uninvited into the booth across from me.
Then she reached into her purse and pulled out a leather wallet, opened it, and slid it across the table. I read:
Sgt. Josephine Brickhouse LASD
Pinned under the creds was a star.
Chapter 19
Don't take it so hard,' Jo Brickhouse said. She had just repacked her badge and was leaning her muscled forearms on the table. 'Besides, from what I've seen so far, you could use the help.'
'I don't want any help. At least, not from you.'
'Scully, we live in a democracy. Tony, Bill, and I say yes. You say no. This was voted on. Three against one. You lose. Get over it.'
'That's not a vote, that's three coyotes and a poodle deciding on what to have for dinner.'
I put a dollar down for my coffee, then got up and headed out of the restaurant. I didn't see her green Suburban parked in the lot, so I turned and looked through Denny's front window. She was still inside buying something at the counter. I got into my Acura feeling completely sandbagged. I'm generally not this damn gullible. I guess my feelings were hurt, or my pride-something.
She came through the swinging door of Denny's, opened my passenger side, and slid in carrying a caffe latte to go.
'Take your own car. I'm not a taxi service,' I snapped.
'I was dropped. Don't have wheels. That SUV was a department plain-wrap. Vice needed it back, so I'm with you. You can drop me at the L. A. substation at EOW.'
She closed the door, slamming it harder than I like, then started to pour about six packets of Equal into her latte. 'Okay, Scully, we need to get something straight before we partner up. I have some issues.'
'I'll bet lying isn't gonna be one of them.'
'I'm gay. I don't sleep with guys, and you're not the priceless piece of ass that's gonna change that, so put your fantasies away, stay on your side of the car, and we'll do fine.'
'Then a blow job's out of the question?'
'You can stow that sarcastic bullshit. I've been in law enforcement for over ten years. I've learned it works a whole lot better if I get this out of the way, up front. I pack a nine-millimeter Glock with thirteen in the clip. I'm a range-qualified sharpshooter and I have two black belts, one in karate, one in tae kwon do. Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I'm a pussy. I don't want to be your backup. We can take turns on cover, or flip for it, whatever. But I'm not your CHCO.'
'My what?'
'Coat-holder and communications officer.'
'In case you're interested, you're coming off like a complete asshole.'
'I can be that, too. But deal straight and you get the best. Pull any horseshit, and you can go ahead and bring it on down, frog-boy, 'cause I won't put up with it.' Then she shot me that dazzling smile and took a sip of latte. 'These are good. Sure you don't want one?'
I put the car in reverse and backed out a little too fast, but she was really pissing me off. Male pride. I mean, I'm happily married, but come on-you shouldn't knock what you haven't tried. I turned onto Lankershim and drove toward the sheriff's forensic lab.
Jo Brickhouse was looking around the front seat and up on the dash. 'Where's your murder book on Greenridge?' she asked. 'You didn't give those goat-fucks from ATF your notes, did you?'
