Good Morning, Killer

It was the following morning, no news of Andrew. I was sitting rigidly in the ergonomic chair, mind flip- flopping between chaos and a vacuum of black.

“What report?”

“A teenage girl in Culver City says the mother’s boyfriend is hitting the mother. Then she retracts the statement.”

I did not respond.

“You didn’t see this thing on Rapid Start, first thing this morning?” he asked incredulously. “I beat you! First time, ever.”

“I’m entitled to a late night,” said my shadow self with a leering grin.

The idea of the boss on a date seemed to embarrass the young man, and he began talking rapidly about his wife.

“Lunaria is like that, she’s a night bird, loves to party. I’m a farm boy, up with the cows.”

I nodded. I was supposed to know all the ins and outs.

“She’s still back at Princeton. Studying for the bar.”

“Right.”

“I think we’ve been together six days since I was transferred out here.”

Then I remembered: Jason had married chewing tobacco and whiskey money. His new father-in-law was CEO of some megacorporation that relocated from Illinois to Montvale, New Jersey. The two-hundred-thousand- dollar wedding had been covered by Vogue. In exchange, the family kept the girl close. Another of life’s mysteries. Jason was a shy farm kid, earnest as a mallet, but he was also no dummy, and as he handed over the printout of the report, my eyes fell with charity on the strawberry blond freckled skin below his rolled-up sleeve. If he were still an agent two or three years from now, he would also most likely be divorced.

“We might have something here,” he said of the 911.

My brain was frozen. “Why?”

“It’s within striking distance of the Promenade.”

“Mmm, twenty minutes away. With no traffic.”

“Brennan could be using an alias — Carl Vincent.”

“That’s it? That’s ‘something?’”

“No, no,” said Jason self-consciously. “I have a — theory.”

He used the word tentatively, as if he had not yet earned the right.

“Okay.”

“What if Brennan split from Arizona when the cops came after him for shooting ducks? He came here for a reason, whatever reason, we don’t know.”

“We don’t know.”

“No. But we’ll find that out.”

“Good.”

“Meanwhile,” Jason continued, “he’s a manipulator. He finds another roost. See,” he said excitedly, “here’s my theory: I think the girl is the one getting beat on.”

“Did the officers find evidence of abuse?”

“I don’t know, but I have a call in to Child and Family Services. She’s close in age to Juliana. I just think she’s protecting this fool.”

“Afraid of him?”

Jason nodded earnestly and pulled up a chair. We sat knee-to-knee, amidst cartons of files and odd discarded office debris, like a broken Venetian blind lying underneath the next desk.

“Here’s another thing. Brennan enacts his ritual to relieve some life stress, right? Well, it says here this guy is an unemployed lab technician. It could be a photo lab. Maybe he’s unemployed because he got fired.”

The young agent was leaning forward, elbows on thighs, light blue eyes fixed on mine. Suddenly I felt foolishly affected, almost teary, because of the fact that Jason Ripley once had been a ginger-haired little boy and left his mother and learned to tie a tie. That’s how whack I was.

“I think it’s worth talking to the girl,” he continued seriously.

“Convince me. Then we’ll both take a ride.”

It was a weak lead and I didn’t care what he did with it. I was feeling stoned, sleep-deprived, and the low abdominal pain was coming back. He stood uncertainly.

“Is the case still alive over at Santa Monica?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think they’ll give us someone else? Or are they out of the picture by now?”

“What are you talking about?”

He looked even more uneasy, not sure if I had been mocking him all along — if there were substance to his theory, or if he’d made a mistake in bringing the report to my attention. I let it play. This would be a little test. Either young Jason would work his butt off to prove his point about the connection between this young girl, Roxy Santos, and Ray Brennan, or he would back off and fade away. New Jersey or the stars.

“I mean,” he pressed on, “we might need someone else over at the police department because of what happened to Detective Berringer.”

Chemical material burst inside my chest.

“What happened to Detective Berringer?”

Quick. An alibi. What did I say about being late last night?

“He was shot.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I think it was yesterday? Or maybe the day before?”

“How is he?”

Before Jason could answer, I began to cough. Dry throat. Closing up. Don’t retch. Breathe.

“Are you okay?”

I gulped the last of some cold, sugary coffee, wiggling my fingers to show everything was fine.

“Berringer?” I gasped.

“In the hospital,” Jason answered.

“Wow. That’s terrible. How is he?”

“I don’t know—”

“How did it happen?”

“Armed robbery.”

“No kidding.”

“He was off duty and a couple of guys just came up to him.”

“Catch the guys?”

“No.”

“How do they know it was armed robbery?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Andrew said that?”

“That’s what he said in the hospital.”

“Sorry, I don’t know why I’m smiling, there’s nothing funny about this.” I tried to suppress a giggle and look fierce. “How come nobody told me? I thought I was senior agent on this case.”

That made him nervous again.

“Sorry about that, I definitely should have come to you right away. I heard them talking in the radio room —”

“It’s okay,” stroking his arm. “Now I know.”

Now it was safe to call Lieutenant Barry Loomis.

“I can’t believe it,” I said over again.