Good Morning, Killer

and tried to scrabble to my knees to beg his forgiveness, I don’t know what, but the sergeant flattened me with one hard cut and my nose rebounded off the asphalt as he recuffed the hands behind my back.

A low-rider had gotten past the perimeter and I could feel the vibration in the ground of its hammering bass. Pickett leaned in close, whispering a stream of filthy brutal threats. A nova was exploding in my kidneys and I didn’t care.

Seventeen

Pickett took a corner fast. Hands cuffed, I slid helplessly along the vinyl bench seat, which stank with an animal stink like fur. We had left the helicopters behind, but the radio still bubbled with confused dispatches from scattered posses chasing the slipstream of Ray Brennan.

“Nice going on the takedown, guys.”

Neither he nor his partner would reply. After a little while I said, “My cop boyfriend came after me. Did you know that before you tried to break my arm?”

“I know that if I were you, I would not make any further statements until I saw my people,” Pickett said in a monotone.

After that we hit the freeway and there was no more talk. I watched as factories and dwellings, streetlights, cranes and billboards, roofs, palm trees and riverines of cars slipped by, passing the window of the sheriff’s car in a smear of black-and-white, a movie shot you’ve seen a thousand times, gaining momentum like a train; leaving behind ten years of work and service to an ideal, until all the constructions that had lined the road blurred into a single run-on image.

The world was lost to me.

When I saw Galloway’s and Rick’s cars parked outside the Sheriff’s Department substation, I knew the past few days of anguish in suspended animation were over — and immediately longed for them to return. We entered by a side door that opened directly into the jail.

There were no windows, of course, and when the doors shut they remained shut, leaving no airflow, so you had the sense of walking into a large overlit supply closet. It was a cramped area dominated by a sprawling desk buried beneath logbooks, printouts, overflowing wire baskets and several TV monitors rotating surveillance shots of empty corridors. The cinder-block walls were painted lemon, trimmed with industrial turquoise.

“Ma’am!” called Pickett. “We have a house guest.”

It took a moment to locate the custody assistant in the forest of rules and reminders that were curling off the walls, but there she was, a small head of dark hair parted neatly down the middle, hidden behind the desk. She looked up and smiled, a young Persian woman in a dark olive civilian uniform.

“Yes sir!” she answered, echoing the tease in the sergeant’s voice, which had implied just the opposite of what he said: Not a house. Not a guest.

We stood aside as the custody assistant used an enormous old-fashioned brass key to unlock the booking cell, an empty ten-foot square rimmed all the way around by a smooth metal bench. Pickett walked me in and removed the handcuffs.

“Want a drink of water?”

“Sure.”

There was a plastic pitcher on a ledge outside the booking cell. The custody assistant poured a cup, then I was shown to an interrogation room the size of a pea, where Galloway and Rick were waiting. The ASAC sat on the other side of a brown-grained typing table while Rick stood against the wall. On the table was a yellow pad.

It was 12:35 a.m., still early enough for the faces of my bosses to hold the contours of the day. Rick wore a windbreaker and jeans. I imagined him getting the call, strapping on the gun, leaving his wife and two young girls and driving in from Thousand Oaks at ninety. Galloway looked like he had never taken off his work clothes, dressed in a white turtleneck and houndstooth sport coat, fingering a dead cigar. Both were tense and alert.

“Hi, guys,” I mumbled, sitting down.

Pickett closed the door and the three of us were locked into the most uncomfortable space I have ever known.

“I don’t know what to say. Sorry to bring you down here.” My voice left me. “This time of night.”

“Whatever happened,” said Rick, “we know the stress you’ve been under. We’ve all been there.”

“I’m really sorry about Brennan. He got away? Clean away?”

“We’ll find him. How are you?” Galloway asked.

“Not too good. We had a fight and Andrew kneed me in the groin. I think I have a really bad bladder infection,” and winced as I finally allowed the pain to roll up.

“We’ll make sure you see a doctor.”

“Okay.”

“Have you made any statements to anybody?”

“Not really, no.”

“There will be an OPR investigation,” said Galloway. “We want you to talk to the shooting team.”

I looked up. “Will that be you, Rick?”

C-1 usually investigated agent-involved shootings.

“I don’t know. It’s a bizarre situation. Since you — since we work together.”

“We’ll get a directive from headquarters,” Galloway said smoothly.

“I’m sorry, my mind is still going a mile a minute about Brennan. We had the takedown, it wasn’t Jason’s fault, it was the situation of two agencies going in opposite directions. The Sheriff’s Department showed up and everything went bad …” Rick’s hands were behind his back and pressed against the wall at rest position. His mustache and squared-up bulk made him look like a fireman, ready to rescue you.

“Ana,” he said, “stop. You’re out of it now. We’ll follow up.”

“All right,” I said reluctantly and took a sip of water. It was cold, with ice. “What do they have?”

“Your fingerprints on the gun. The fact it was fired recently. Matching bullet wounds in Detective Berringer’s body.”

It was like being buried under truckloads of heavy dirt. First one truckload. Then another and another.

“Despite what Andrew said?”

Galloway stirred. “The armed robbery bit? Well, he was out of it at the time, he was on morphine, then he slips into a goddamn coma.”

“You sound like a prosecutor,” I said, half joking.

“That’s what you’re going to face.” Galloway inclined his head and caught me in a penetrating stare. “I wish you’d come to me first.”

I didn’t answer. Then, “How long have you known?”

Galloway looked down at the cigar. You could smell the bitter wetness, like a puddle of dead leaves.

“There have been telephone calls across the top.”

Now I stared at him, deadpan.

“Santa Monica Police Department didn’t want to embarrass us, because we could turn around someday and embarrass them, so a political decision was made. When the arrows started lining up, a discussion took place above the investigator level. Their commander called me and explained the way it was starting to look to them, how they wanted this to stay confidential, but still keep the Bureau in the loop. At that point we were all stepping pretty lightly.” “Until?”

“Well, until forensic evidence from the gun.”

“How did you know it was mine?”

Galloway looked impassive. “As I say, your name had come up.”

“From Andrew?”