It seemed impossible this same woman had sat on the kitchen floor and wept for her lost daughter.
“Lynn,” I asked, “what’s going on?”
She straightened her back and fixed her sunglasses. But before she could reply, if she were going to reply, Juliana said, “My parents are getting a divorce.”
The lazy sunshine, relaxed figures, polished fruit and chrome fittings on the espresso machine parked between two shaggy trees made a hopeful frame for an urban oasis, but it wasn’t, really, not for these two. Where there had been connection, now there was emptiness. Where there had been a family with all its gnarly, snotty, tear-filled, heated, cleaving, lustful, playful, painfully shared aliveness, now we had disembodied individuals hurtling into space.
You see, the actions of Ray Brennan had caused this to happen to the Meyer-Murphy family.
We are drawn to the nexus of violence. Everybody’s hot to reconstruct the crime scene — crawl inside the bore and ride the spiraling projectile; pilot the factors that brought so-and-so together with so-and-so at such-and- such a time and place. I have noticed small attention paid to the aftermath, the shock waves released into the human atmosphere, more deadly than the original event because they have a wider range; an infinite range, if you think about the physics.
“I am so sorry about your marriage, I cannot say.”
“A long time coming,” Lynn Meyer-Murphy sniffed.
“Mom?” said Juliana. “What should I do?”
“It’s up to you,” she repeated, tiredly this time. She was worn out by it and had nothing left. “I know you care for Ana and you want to help. That’s very admirable. I’ll support you. Whatever you want to do. I have a Xanax in my purse if you need it.” In response, Juliana raised her chin and marched toward the door that Devon County patiently still held open.
“No, I’m sorry,” I said, “it’s not for a fifteen-year-old to decide to put herself in harm’s way,” and stepped in front of Juliana and put my hands on hers. They were quivering with the tension of holding on to the purse.
“Please go home,” I told her gently. “If you want to do something, do that for me.”
Then I took her in my arms and told her that I loved her.
Upstairs, I put my forehead against the marble wall of the corridor, imploring Devon, “Why did you do that?”
“I came very close to firing you,” he said.
“The feeling was mutual.”
“Take it easy,” he said, echoing my own words to Lynn the first day of the kidnapping: “We’re only at the beginning.”
It was like a doctor telling you there are only five rounds of chemotherapy ahead.
“This morning was pure hell, Devon.”
“I know.”
“And now I get to be beat up by that poser Kelsey Owen. She’s nothing.” I felt weak and close to tears as I thought of Juliana and her mother, already on the freeway, driving away in the silent depths of the limo, “Nothing.” “Owen? Your friend from the Bureau? She wasn’t called.”
I rolled my head off the wall. “She wasn’t?”
“No.”
“Then who is their final witness?”
It was Margaret Forrester, and she had dressed for the occasion, in a tight-waisted black suit, black sheer hose and heels. The suit was not new, it had wide shoulder pads, but she looked intriguingly attractive, thick brown hair framing her cheekbones and one of her more dramatic creations — a choker of pink shells and purple stones — breaking up the black. Her nails were red. She sat up straight. She was the Thunder Queen.
Andrew did not return to the courtroom after the break so he did not hear her testimony, although he certainly would know what she was going to say.
FORRESTER: My job entails a lot of responsibility. I’m the widow of a police officer, and I have two small children at home, so I have to be thinking about a lot of things all day long. You have to be a “people person” and know a lot of rules and procedures and the way a police station operates.
RAUCH: In your job as police liaison with the FBI you worked with Special Agent Grey on the Santa Monica kidnapping. What was your experience?
FORRESTER: Difficult.
RAUCH: Difficult, how?
FORRESTER: She was demanding. Always wanting to do things her way. She had no understanding of how hard it is to do
RAUCH: You’ve worked with FBI agents before.
FORRESTER: Yes.
RAUCH: Was Ana Grey any different?
FORRESTER: No offense to the
RAUCH: Was it common knowledge at the police station that Ana Grey and Andrew Berringer were dating?
FORRESTER: I was shocked, but I wasn’t surprised.
JUDGE: He’s asking you if other people knew, not your personal reaction.
FORRESTER: Yes, Your Honor, it’s a fishbowl, everybody knows everything in a police department. I said I was shocked because Detective Berringer is such a quiet guy, a guy’s guy, and usually goes out with quiet women, but I wasn’t
COUNTY: Mrs. Forrester, your late husband and Detective Berringer were good friends, correct?
FORRESTER: Best of buddies. They did everything together.
COUNTY: How was your husband killed, Mrs. Forrester?
FORRESTER: He was attacked by a gang.
COUNTY: And did you receive any payments on his death?
FORRESTER: He had life insurance.
COUNTY: What about his pension?
FORRESTER: We were denied any pension my husband accrued after eighteen years of service.
COUNTY: Why is that?
FORRESTER: They ruled that he did not die in the line of duty.
RAUCH: What is the purpose of this line of questioning?
COUNTY: The relationship between Detective Forrester and Detective Berringer goes to the attitude of this witness. Mrs. Forrester, did you have a sexual relationship with Detective Berringer?
FORRESTER: No! Of course not!
COUNTY: After your husband died?
FORRESTER: No.
JUDGE: Take it easy, Mrs. Forrester.
COUNTY: It would be understandable that you would seek comfort with someone who knew you well, almost as well as your husband.
RAUCH: He is berating this witness.
JUDGE: Go on.
COUNTY: Do you recall an incident in the parking lot of the police station during which you were very upset because of an altercation with a dry cleaner?
FORRESTER: He was extremely rude to me.
