Santa Monica police.
Yet there was also a hum, a sense of ordinary family life, not so different from the days of the blow-up pool in our threadbare backyard. Kids left their trikes out. There was a handmade tree house, an American flag. The lofty pines on adjoining streets were old, with large heavy cones. How peaceful it would be to push a baby in their fragrant shade. A child could walk to the public school, a teenage girl chill on the curb with her friends, even after dark. The cars that passed would carry TV celebrities or dot-com money or entrepreneurs; well-meaning professional folks, if somewhat disengaged.
Maybe. Let’s hope. Nine times out of ten.
The FBI team assembled on the sidewalk. The full-bore response was part of the “new politics” Rick was talking about, an effort to position the LA field office as responsive to the diverse communities it served — especially the wealthier communities, whose constituents hired lawyers to make their hurts known — as well as to reinvent our image as “good neighbor” to local law enforcement.
We were convincing — a clean-cut group, sporting an assortment of windbreakers and trench coats, cropped hair, ties, khakis, neat as flight attendants, the female installers wearing ponytails and lipstick. We looked like cops — what else could we be? Poised, scanning the quiet street in every direction.
Ramon Diaz, the twenty-eight-year-old tech wiz, said it first: “Surveillance is going to be a bitch.”
Every other house seemed to be under construction. Today we had a break because of the rain, but tomorrow there would be laborers’ vehicles and Dumpsters obscuring the sight lines, making it impossible to know who belonged where, what was different, if the bad guys were watching the Meyer-Murphy home.
“The street can be secured, people,” commented Andrew with a patronizing smile.
Heads turned toward the big guy in the leather jacket.
“Do I know you?” answered Ramon, giving it a little strut.
Ramon, like me, was new LA. My dad emigrated from El Salvador, my mom grew up here and was Caucasian. With long wavy black hair and pale almond skin, you would take me for white. Ramon, on the other hand, was pure second-generation Salvadoran, no doubt about it — dark complexion, step haircut and aviator sunglasses, drove a huge black mother truck, married to a Mexican dental assistant with lined lips and attitude.
Andrew made his business card appear between his fingers with a
“Santa Monica … I’m down for that,” Ramon acceded, shaking hands.
Ramon had only been playing, working out the tension, but as we marshaled toward the house he leaned in close so I could smell wintergreen gum.
“Why you siding with
Mrs. Meyer-Murphy opened the purple door with feverish anticipation.
“Officer Berringer!”
When she saw the rest of us her eyes narrowed and she began to blink rapidly.
“What’s all this?”
I stepped forward and offered my hand. “Ana Grey with the FBI.”
Mrs. Meyer-Murphy continued to squint as if she’d suddenly gone blind.
Andrew touched her shoulder.
“Remember, Lynn, I told you? We were bringing in the FBI?”
She’d been pumping my hand with both of hers. Autopilot. Cold, long fingers. She was tall and strikingly underweight, short black hair with short bangs that kind of triangulated out over the ears. Sassy. On a good day. She wore a mismatched yellow cardigan over a T-shirt and blue nylon track pants. She was tired and wired at the same time, sallow skin, and the circles underneath her eyes profound. She was in that state of fluid grief where tears just come and go. But now the nervous blinking stopped. She peered at me with all the spirit she could muster.
“Thank God you’re here.”
“We’re going to do everything possible to get your daughter home safely and quickly. May we enter the house, ma’am?”
“Please.”
She stepped back.
The gang, which had been pawing the driveway impatiently, trampled through the door.
It was like opening day at the big sale at Target.
In a matter of minutes they had fanned out through the house, hoisting metal briefcases and coils of wire.
Mrs. Meyer-Murphy stared. Strangers were chugging up her steps and opening her closets.
“What are they doing?”
“We’re taking over your home.”
Wide-eyed. “You are?”
“Where is your husband, Mrs. Meyer-Murphy? Who else is in the house?”
Inside the door a heap of helmets and Rollerblades sat underneath a hat rack. She led me through a living room dominated by a fireplace of river rock. Family pictures on the mantel. I would get to those. A Santa Monica uniform was leaning over a coffee table, reading off the top of a pile of newspapers that had spilled onto a rose- patterned rug. There were shoes all over the place, kid sneakers and grown-up running shoes.
“My little one’s at school,” said Lynn Meyer-Murphy. “I took her to school, was that wrong?”
“Not at all. I’ll send an agent over.”
The tears—“I didn’t know what else to do!”
“It’s okay, Mrs. Meyer-Murphy. Beautiful home.”
There were gingham-covered sofas, distressed-pine tables, quilts and old-fashioned brass lanterns — artfully arranged but incongruous. The country style of the inside seemed to have nothing to do with the Spanish style of the outside. Or maybe the purple door held a symbolism that I missed.
“This morning, around six o’clock, I actually drank a martini. Is that crazy?”
“Understandable.”
“But it had absolutely no effect.”
As we passed through an arched doorway I noticed a cluster of miniature watercolors — tiny corsets and hats and high-button shoes. Commercial quality, obviously trained.
“Those are nice.”
“They’re mine. I’m a clothing designer and my husband is the manufacturer. A good idea at the time,” she added dryly.
In the kitchen the husband was half seated on a bar stool, talking on the phone. Lynn threw up her hands at the sight of him.
“Ross. Get off.”
He held up an index finger, telling us to wait while he continued to talk, focused on the floor.
“Ana Grey with the FBI.” Badging him. “I need you to hang up the phone immediately.”
He lowered the receiver. “It’s my phone.”
I stayed cool. I did not engage his anger.
“The lines need to be clear in case your daughter calls.”
“Oh, really? I never thought of that.”
He had the body type where the fat goes to the shoulders, round and bulky on top, a waist pinched by a belt too tight for those fancy jeans, stocky powerful legs. Balding. A light beard, color indiscriminate, which he was rubbing up and down.
“This is my husband.”
“She’s Meyer,” he said dolefully. “I’m Murphy.”
I gave it a smile.
Ramon hustled in, whipping a screwdriver from his tool belt.
“The police already hooked something up,” the dad said, indicating a small tape recorder attached to the phone.
“I know, sir, but we have to install our own equipment.”
“How are we doing?”
