“We don’t need to get into that.”
“I’d like to know.”
Galloway and Rick exchanged a look.
“Your attorney will be able to tell you,” said Rick.
I folded my arms. We had hit a wall. Now I understood why they were ready and alert. A bulletin was out for my arrest and they had been waiting for the call that my car had been located.
Galloway said, “How did you think you would get away with it?”
“I wasn’t thinking.”
“You were reacting?”
“Look, guys, I would never say this to anyone else … This is really hard … but, okay, I just thought … It sounds pretty dumb now … I thought we had a lovers’ quarrel, I mean, a
Rick’s body flinched against the wall.
“He didn’t give you up, Ana.”
“He didn’t?”
“The tip came from a female employee of the Santa Monica Police Department.”
“What’s her name?”
Before Galloway could intervene, Rick said, “Margaret Forrester.”
I laughed. I just laughed.
“She have a hard-on for you?”
I shrugged. How do you describe someone who gets herself banned from a dry cleaner?
“She’s very pretty and very crazy.”
“That could work to your advantage.”
It was hard to listen. Hard to think.
“How is Andrew doing?”
“He’s awake and talking.”
“Really? That’s fantastic!”
“Well,” said Rick, scratching his cheek, “maybe.”
“Oh come on, you think he’s going to flip? Tell me you don’t believe in true love.”
Rick just chuckled. “My impression of him was that he had a major chip … But I can see what you saw in the guy.”
“Thank you.”
After a moment Galloway said, “There are always two sides, Ana. We want to hear yours.”
“With respect, I think I need an attorney.”
“Yes, you do.”
“What attorney,” I said, “would you recommend?”
“Devon County.”
County was a former cop turned lawyer who represented law enforcement personnel, all the big high-profile cases. Police corruption. Murder.
“You must think I’m in big trouble.”
They were waiting.
“I’ll give Mr. County a call.”
“We’ll do our best to cooperate with him.”
“Thank you.”
“And get you out of here ASAP.”
“Thank you.”
“Get you a doctor.”
“Great.”
Now Galloway paused. “You know you can’t come back to work until this is resolved?”
I nodded.
“We have to take your weapon and credentials.”
“I understand.”
Galloway drew the pad closer. “Are you ready to make your statement? Want to take a break?”
I hung my head.
“I just want to apologize for whatever disgrace I have caused the Bureau.”
Galloway smiled gently. “Don’t give away the store.”
Over here,” said Pickett, when they had left. We stood before an old wooden cabinet. He pulled a slip from a drawer.
“Special handling,” he told the custody assistant. “The lady is an FBI agent.”
Her eyebrows went up.
“Special handling,” I said. “Is that good, or bad?”
Pickett didn’t answer, concentrating on the form. The pen paused.
“Any ‘observable physical oddities’?”
“Me,” I asked, “or you?”
He snorted.
“Not usually this much fun around here, is it?” I quipped.
They took my fake lizard belt, scuba watch accurate to fifty feet, amethyst ring and gold loop earrings, the leather purse and contents, minus my credentials, which had been plucked out for Galloway and Rick. They might as well have removed my spleen. I signed for my possessions, then we moved to a computer/scanner to enter my fingerprints into the files of the Department of Justice, Sacramento and county.
“You guys are high-tech. All we get are ink pads.”
The custody assistant was spraying a screen in the control panel with window cleaner.
“She can roll a perfect set,” said Pickett.
The young woman smiled shyly. I was staring at the machine as if it were a huge hypodermic syringe. When I was a kid I once ran out of the doctor’s office before he could give me a tetanus shot.
“Ana.” Pickett shrugged with that big-eyed cop look I knew so well. “We got to do this.”
Afterward, we went back into the booking cell so I could call Devon County.
“Make as many calls as you want,” he said. “It only works collect.”
There was one battle-scarred phone with an unduly short cord, to prevent death by hanging.
They put me in a four-bunk cell. There were no other arrestees, but even if there had been, they would have kept me isolated. That’s what they meant by “special handling.” They did not mean the seatless stainless steel toilet or the mattresses made of fire-resistant polymer, or the ham and cheese sandwich and warm apple juice. Those were standard. Knowing the price of wounded pride, they had also put me on suicide watch.
I could not bear to touch the mattresses so I sat on the edge of a lower bunk. The ceiling was very far away. They put it high up to make you feel helpless and small. I thought of Juliana, holding on to the stuffed leopard.
I knew nothing. How long I would be here. If I would go to prison. If the famous attorney would get the message and be paged and take the case and show up. I didn’t even know the time.
I sat in the badness. There was no other place to go. I sat and rocked and whinnied and pleaded with God to make the terrible feelings go away, but they gripped me in the windpipe with caustic despair. There was nothing else. No voices to distract, just a deep infant panic for which I do not believe we have yet devised a comfort, one that could possibly equal that annihilation. I had no religious words so I stared at my socks.
I stared at my socks against the ugly turquoise floor and imagined, for diversion, the powers of the colposcope, that with my sight I could penetrate the creamy cotton weave, see through to the spaces. Suddenly I ached for Juliana and the closeness of our morning conversations. Why had I not reached out more? Called her,
