Good Morning, Killer

row of computer screens showing odd cascades of numbers.

“People?” he called.

We began to settle, in the close wood-paneled room with the soda machine droning on, next to a kitchen where someone was using a microwave. There was the black-and-white of Juliana holding on to the tree and a blown-up school portrait of her looking out in the tired ocher light, with the glassy expression of martyrs too young to have known the passion for which they died. At the last minute, Andrew appeared in the doorway. Two rookies stepped aside for the senior detective.

“Let’s start,” said Rick, ritually hanging his jacket on the back of the metal chair.

I took my place beside my supervisor. Forty-seven, a former navy pilot, Rick wore his mustache neat and blond hair clipped. He always looked tight, but today he was pretty well steamed. You could tell because he unclipped the handcuffs from his belt and started tapping them on his thigh.

We are all fussy about our handcuffs. You are issued one pair that can last your whole career if you’re smart enough not to lend them. Like any other tool, they become worn with handling and acquire an idiosyncratic feel, so you can tell which is yours just by touch. Nothing is more straightforward than a pair of handcuffs. In times of stress they are a comfort; you will often see several people in a high-intensity meeting worrying and working their little rings of power.

The only problem with handcuffs is sometimes they fall in the toilet bowl. If you are a woman, especially, this will happen when you’re in a hurry and you forget to lift them out of the back of your waistband before lowering your pants. Then you will hear behind you the unmistakable, heart-stopping sound of metal falling on porcelain.

All of us have heard it, more than once.

“What’s all this?” Rick asked of the brown paper snaking around the walls.

“Computers went down,” chorused several people.

He nodded grimly as if expecting one insult after another. “Now we’ve got a media leak, is that right, Ana?”

General groans and shifting in chairs.

“Right. The dad called channel five.”

Eunice chimed in. “He locked himself in the bathroom and used a cell phone. He believed that if he could get the daughter on TV, it would lead to her recovery.”

“Was it not explained to the gentleman there is a media blackout on this case because it might escalate the suspect?”

“Yes,” I cut in, “but he was crazed because his wife had just admitted that she had a boyfriend. She thought this guy might have taken Juliana for revenge. I asked Special Agent Jason Ripley to check him out. Jason?” I said it so harshly the poor kid jumped. He had been an agent only eight months — skinny and ginger-haired, still so eager he wore a three-piece suit every day.

“The suspect’s name is Ed Hobart.”

“He’s not a suspect yet,” I reminded Jason gently. Since when did I become a mother hen?

“The subject. Sorry.” His acne flushed pink. “Upstanding, churchgoing father of six. Mr. Hobart is a senior buyer in ladies’ fashions, who oversees a budget of five million dollars …”

My Nextel was vibrating, then the pager. It was Special Agent in Charge Robert Galloway, messaging me to return to the field office immediately.

“As for Mr. Hobart’s current whereabouts, the Seattle field office should be getting back to us within the hour …”

“Rick,” I said softly while Jason went on, “gotta go.”

“What’s up?”

“Galloway paged me twice.”

“What does he want?” Rick whispered back. “If it’s about the media leak, tell him we can handle channel five—”

We were talking with heads averted, so everybody knew something was going on. By now a lot of people packing guns had crowded into the room, including Andrew’s lieutenant, Barry Loomis, who wore a walrus mustache and a Superman tie, and Officer Sylvia Oberbeck, impassively chewing gum. She looked put together, just going on shift: heavy mascara and a freshly braided bun. At one point I tried to make eye contact, but she did not seem to remember who I was. There was the rustle of seashells, and Margaret Forrester suddenly pushed through, swinging the water bottle, stepping over legs.

“Damn! Computers still out?” Fanning herself at the collective menthol-scented body heat. “What did I miss?”

“Case closed, go home,” someone replied disagreeably.

“There’s been another development, Rick,” interrupted Special Agent Todd Hanley. He was a reliable sort. Narrow-faced, with horn-rimmed glasses, achingly serious, he wore tweedy sport coats and spoke only when it was relevant.

Maybe he was a spy.

“It also concerns the dad.”

Rick: “We are so past the damn dad.”

Nervous giggles. Bored, cynical looks.

“Just so you know, legal says Mr. Murphy has threatened to sue. Claims he sprained his back during the altercation with Special Agent Grey.”

Thirty sets of eyes went my way, including Andrew’s.

“What altercation?” I said defensively. “He tripped on a rug.”

Rick now was ratcheting the handcuffs with a rhythmic, grating sound.

“Oh, please,” I went on, “I admonished him about the cell phone, he took a swing at me and slipped on a Chinese rug. He was fine.”

“When he was barricaded in the rest room,” Rick seemed to have to ask, “why didn’t you call for backup? There was a surveillance team outside.”

“What were the ladies supposed to do?” cracked Andrew. “Bring in the artillery because the guy was taking a good, long shit?”

Amazement. Big laughs. Margaret squealing: “An-drew! I’m going to kill you!”

I wanted to crawl under the table. Don’t make this a fight!

Andrew must have stuck his head under the shower in the locker room because he looked refreshed. His thick dark hair was slicked back; he wore his shield on his hip, a hand-tooled leather gun belt and a fresh lilac blue shirt with a monogrammed cuff through which you could see the sculpted moves of his shoulders.

Still, I wanted to throttle him, especially when, as I pushed away from the table to leave, he said, “Where are you off to?” as if we were the only two people in the room.

“Back to the office.”

“What about ‘Arizona?’” It sounded like a code. People were watching us.

My gut clenched. “It’s premature to talk about ‘Arizona.’”

Margaret shook her hair and took a long throaty draw on the water. “Sounds like Ana doesn’t want to share.”

“It’s a promising lead but needs to be developed,” I said dismissively.

Andrew replied, “Bullshit.”

“It is bullshit,” I repeated, now confused. We had not discussed this. I was not ready to present some half- baked theory based on the statements of a crazy homeless person.

Rick: “Could you two clue us in?”

“Sure,” said Andrew. “The source is a transient named Willie John Black.”

It was a bad moment, as I feared it would be. Andrew’s own people guffawed and began offering comments on their encounters with Black, who apparently was famous in the world of social services for his movable collection of wire hangers, coils of nylon tied with the precision of a yachtsman, cereal boxes, gloves, strips of fabric, milk cartons and the occasional flag mounted onto a trio of bicycles tied together, upon which he had somehow secured a full-sized camping tent. They didn’t let him take it on the Promenade so he kept the thing parked in an alley