Detective Andrew Berringer followed in his wake, looking grim and uncomfortable in an olive double-breasted suit as if, I feared, his stitched-up wounds were aching under whatever bandages they still keep on several weeks after surgery. I wasn’t supposed to look, but I could not help watching how he walked so heavily, listing to one side, thinner, slower, paler, sapped. Despite our preparations, his presence was jolting and I think I gave a little cry, as I felt Devon’s hand compress my forearm, tighter, telling me those tears had better not run down my cheeks, so I kept my eyes wide and stared at the thermostat switch until they absorbed.
In contrast to Rauch’s dark melodrama, Devon was playing the wounded policeman hero, a role he had fine- tuned over the years. The handicap sticker on his mondo black BMW assured great parking spaces, and he had no objection to being pushed in a wheelchair when the family went to Disneyland. People in wheelchairs went to the head of the line, he told me, so his kids could always get on the rides first.
It was therefore no ethical leap for him to assign two young attorneys to solicitously carry the briefcases while Devon hobbled ahead, and for them to make a big show of settling the maestro, opening books and fetching water as if he were some ailing Marlon Brando, laying his crutch as reverently as a vintage carbine M1 on top of the defense table.
I wondered how the judge facing south and his mirror image facing north would view these charades and turned to see the one sitting with the spectators was smiling with delight.
Rauch was in fact carrying the burden of the day. The prelim is a mini trial heavily weighted by the prosecutor’s presentation. It is his job to convince the judge the charges are compelling enough to warrant a jury to hear them. Usually the defense does not put on witnesses, which meant Juliana Meyer-Murphy would not be called unless we were pushed to the wall. Since the judge would not allow a pure character witness to testify, Devon’s ploy was to use Juliana to corroborate times — and then edge into how I had saved her life. Just knowing she was downstairs waiting in the cafeteria with her mom caused shivers of apprehension on her behalf and a gushy, emotional gratitude.
The bailiff called the court to order. As the attorneys sniffed and pissed (Devon yawning ostentatiously during Rauch’s opening statement), a cold disappointment seized my heart. Smart and skilled as they were, they were about as inspiring as two mongrel dogs squaring off. You knew exactly what was going to happen. The ruffs went up, the growls and snaps. Justice had nothing to do with it. This was blood sport, and the goal was to win at all costs.
I had my game face on, and my heart was hammering. Andrew, on the other hand, was looking more and more relaxed, joking with the prosecutor, with whom, as a detective testifying in a criminal court, he would have often waltzed to the same tune. Although forbidden to look at him, I was still foolishly hoping he would sneak a helpless glance at me, and when there was not the slightest subtle nonverbal acknowledgment, I felt a flare of anger and betrayal, as Devon’s theory that
“Is that him?” whispered one of the courthouse secretaries who had gathered in a giggly group in the front row. “He is pretty cute.”
The girls in their nylon dresses and cheap platform heels were all aflutter with their game. When hunks were sighted anywhere in the building they would call one another and duck away from their desks and rush courtroom to courtroom to check out the goods, their flushed childlike excitement revealing how much they did not yet know about men and women.
CRIMINAL COURT OF LOS ANGELES
PRELIMINARY HEARING
DEPARTMENT C
444-8743—Bailiff — H. Solanas
The Honorable Wolfson H. McIntyre
Attempt 187
BERRINGER: I told her I wanted to do the right thing.
RAUCH: What was the right thing, Detective Berringer?
BERRINGER: To end the relationship. I knew it would be hard for her because she had become dependent on me.
RAUCH: Can you give us an example?
BERRINGER: She’d call all the time when I was on duty. Show up at my house. Have a breakdown and come to me for solace — which I was happy to give — but then it started to get crazy, and I realized, this woman is obsessed, she’s making it impossible.
RAUCH: What kind of breakdowns, Detective?
BERRINGER: Angry, saying she was depressed and life wasn’t worth living, she didn’t want to be a federal agent anymore.
RAUCH: How did you react to that? When she said she wanted to kill herself because things were bad at work?
DEVON: Objection.
JUDGE: I can hear what the witness is saying without embellishment from you, Mr. Rauch.
RAUCH: Sorry, Your Honor.
BERRINGER: I worried about her. I talked to her about not quitting her job. I said we’d break the case. But it got to the point where I couldn’t deal with it inside myself anymore. Toward the time of the shooting incident, I was becoming extremely uncomfortable with the relationship.
RAUCH: Have you witnessed this sort of behavior before, in your professional life?
BERRINGER: Sure, I’ve seen depressed people, suicidal people, schizophrenics, alcoholics, the whole gamut.
RAUCH: Did Agent Grey fit any of these categories?
DEVON: Your Honor, Detective Berringer does not hold a degree in psychiatry.
JUDGE: Get to the point, Mr. Rauch.
BERRINGER: I think I can short-circuit this, Your Honor.
JUDGE: Do us all a favor.
BERRINGER: Ana was having a lot of trouble at work. We were both involved in a very stressful case. It was a case of rape and kidnapping of a juvenile, and it would be upsetting to anyone. It was upsetting to me. The victim was brutalized, we believe by a sadistic serial rapist, and quite frankly, the Bureau wasn’t getting anywhere close to solving this thing, and Ana was the lead agent, so she was under a lot of pressure. I understand that, I really do.
RAUCH: As a law enforcement professional, you’ve been there?
BERRINGER: I’ve been there, but she couldn’t handle it. She was falling apart.
RAUCH: What did you observe?
BERRINGER: As I stated, she became obsessed with me.
RAUCH: Why you?
BERRINGER: Well, I’m such a handsome guy. Sorry, Your Honor, I don’t mean to joke, it’s not a joke by any means, but — I don’t really know. I was there, I guess. We were working together. You know how it is.
RAUCH: You mean the long hours, the forced intimacy …
BERRINGER: She’s an intelligent, attractive woman, and I guess — we got along. We understood each other. We were both uninvolved, free adults, and we knew what we were doing — or at least, I thought she knew. It was just a casual thing.
RAUCH: Did Agent Grey agree it was casual?
BERRINGER: I don’t know.
RAUCH: Can you go back to this obsession? Give us more examples, if you would, please.
BERRINGER: She’d show up at bars, where I went to unwind after work with my fellow officers, and she was
