plate.
“Have some lunch,” offers Rosalind.
“I’m okay.”
“I didn’t think you’d mind,” Barbara says of the tape.
“Hell no, I just hope you charged admission.”
We watch a close-up of Randall Eberhardt’s distraught face as I brush past him and the camera follows us down the hall. You’d think my buddies would cheer me on like they did the morning after I made that California First bust, but instead there is an uncomfortable tension in the viewing room, the way I guess it has to be when someone leaves a group and the group goes on without her.
“This will be very good for you, Ana. You look like a leader,” Barbara observes.
“Not like I’m about to wig out?” I turn in Donnato’s direction but he is back in the shadows sipping coffee. His silence is nagging. It seems like a long time since the potluck when he was fooling around, calling me Annie Oakley in black lace.
“No,” says Barbara, “it looks like you’re in control of a tight situation.”
“Pardon me,” chuckles Duane. “But this is not the invasion of Normandy, they’re enterin’ a doctor’s office, what’s he gonna do, zap ’em with his X-ray machine?”
Frank and Kyle give a couple of halfhearted guffaws.
“The media was there and Galloway made
“Why so?”
“People around here are finally realizing that women can do the job.”
Another silence. Nobody wants to get into that.
“Duane thinks it’s a dog case,” I explain.
“There is no case,” says Duane. “Galloway and the Director are jerking each other off.”
“You’re jealous,” Barbara fairly purrs, fingering the pearl around her neck.
“Show me a case. What evidence was recovered from the search and seizure?”
Although I am pleased to see Duane irritated, I have to admit to everyone that we found nothing in the office to implicate the doctor and, in fact, the Assistant U.S. Attorney is scrambling to figure out if there’s anything to charge him with at all.
“See what I mean? Another pathetic dog-and-pony show.”
“In today’s world of media events and photo opportunities everything’s for show,” Kyle says slowly and reasonably. “Ana did what was required for the six o’clock news. It’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it.”
The tape is over. Rosalind gets up and turns on the lights.
Duane Carter spreads his scrawny knees and leans his chair way back on its rear legs.
“I’d be scared shitless if I were you. The case is still open and you’ve got
Luckily I’m already there. I’d been thinking about Mason’s behavior when she came to our office and that night over dinner. The dilated pupils, the shaky hands, the discordant energy when she returned from the rest room had been working the back of my mind.
“We know Mason’s an abuser,” I cut in sharply, trying not to look at the aggressive display of crotch. “I’m running criminal checks on everyone on her staff. She’s doing drugs again and she’s getting them from somewhere.”
Duane suddenly tips the chair forward. Its front feet land with a snap. “Don’t you get it? They’re pulling your chain just to keep the pretty lady happy.”
“To keep her manager happy.” Donnato sends me a piercing look that says
This seems to make Duane happy. “You’ll be riding robbery again in a week and I, for one, can’t wait to welcome you back.”
He saunters out. Kyle shakes his head.
“Don’t say it,” Barbara warns.
All I do is give his empty chair a tiny little nudge with my toe.
“I’m a big girl now.”
Donnato slides the Tupperware bowl and the pair of black salad tongs into a shopping bag.
“Keep at it,” he tells me with about the same personal interest he would show in the guy mopping the men’s room floor.
I follow him out. He shoves the bag under his desk and looks up, not entirely pleased to find me standing above him.
“So how is Rochelle doing in law school?”
“She loves it.”
“But?”
“It’s an adjustment.”
“Sounds like more than that.”
He sighs impatiently. “It’s hard on everyone, okay? Suddenly she’s not around for the kids — I’m supposed to jump in and be Superdad, but how do I do that when I’m here until eight o’clock at night?”
“So who made the salad?” I say kiddingly.
“I did, that’s how bad it is.” He starts to twirl a silver letter opener around on his desk. “Law school is good for her. She should have done it a long time ago.”
However, one flick of a forefinger and the thing spins like a knife-sharp Ninja star.
I hesitate.
“You know Duane could be right. The Mason case could fall apart and I’ll be back riding with you, giving you a hard time, could you stand it?”
In the nanosecond it takes him to decide what to say, all hope dies.
“They’ve got me partnered with Joe Positano now.”
“Who is Joe Positano?”
“Rookie transferred from Atlanta. He would have been at lunch but he couldn’t wait to get his California driver’s license, poor ignorant son of a bitch.”
“That could change.”
“What could?”
“Joe Positano. If I came back.”
Again, the killer pause.
“Who knows?” Donnato says emptily, reaching for his shoulder holster and pulling his weapon out of a locked desk drawer. I feel awful.
“Are you still mad at me because of the undercover thing?”
Donnato puts his sport jacket on over the shoulder holster.
Abruptly, “No.” Then, relenting, “So what are you going to do?”
For a moment I hold his look.
“Return a humidifier,” I say.
There is nothing more. He gives me a laconic wave goodbye, and we separate.
• • •
I am sitting on a bench in the Century City Shopping Center finishing a Butter Brittle Bar from See’s Candies, a treat I used to sneak after school, and feeling depressed about every element in my life except the fact that at my feet is a new humidifier inside a glossy box tied up with string, so I will no longer wake up with a sore throat those Santa Ana mornings when the humidity is zero.
Small comfort.
The conversation I had with Poppy’s doctor was bleak. We are looking at months of increasing debilitation and pain. He advised me to take it one day at a time, which in a situation like this is all the human spirit can bear. And although I’ve tried not to focus on it, hearing about my father has brought that particular sorrow close enough
