Good Morning, Killer - April Smith [100]
I opened the car door and got in. I reached over to close the door and she followed me out there and wouldn’t allow me to close it. I said I had to get help. She said, “Where are you going? Stay here, I’ll take care of you.” I just started to drive, I figured she’d get out of the way, and I guess she did because I closed the door and drove away from her location.
Everything was like a dream, from the time I was shot. I felt as if I were getting ready to die. I saw I had the gun and it was pointed toward me on the seat. It scared me but I couldn’t do anything about it, I just kept driving, started to recognize where I was. I was wheezing, sucking air, couldn’t breathe very well. I saw the hospital and pulled in. From that point on, I have no idea what went on. I think I passed out in the ER.
I’ve had a lot of injuries from sports and street duty, but this was the most painful of my life. I had a tube draining blood from my lung into a bucket. Tube in my throat. Tube in my nose. I didn’t get any sleep. It was the most miserable time I had, ever. It was just terrible.
RAUCH: Do you remember what you told investigators at the hospital when they asked what happened, how you were shot?
BERRINGER: For the first three days I was on constant medication because of my injuries, and for a while I went into a coma. I wasn’t fully aware of what I said until I got out of the hospital a week later. I couldn’t remember anything.
RAUCH: You said you were shot in a holdup that went bad. Why did you say that?
BERRINGER: I have no idea. It must have been the drugs.
RAUCH: At what point did you tell the investigators you were shot by Ana Grey?
BERRINGER: I never told them it was Ana.
RAUCH: You never told them it was Ana Grey who fired at you three times in a row?
BERRINGER: I never gave her up.
RAUCH: Is that because, until the end, you were doing your best to protect Ana Grey? Because you cared about her, Detective Berringer?
BERRINGER: The police department investigators and the FBI already had information that implicated her when they questioned me.
RAUCH: You mean, you were shot and Ana Grey was immediately a prime, number one suspect?
BERRINGER: I didn’t say that. I don’t know how their investigation was going.
RAUCH: Thank you, that’s all.
The court stenographer’s fingers worked at a rhythm of their own. From the same fashion era as Judge McIntyre, she wore a white blouse, a blue blazer, a pleated skirt with polka dots and white high heels. After his performance, Rauch’s shoulders hung at an exhausted angle, drooping like a Dickensian scrivener’s. Andrew’s face was pasty and filmed with sweat. The judge turned his head like a turtle inside its tender jowls.
In the rear of the courtroom, his brother watched with patient, kindly interest.
On cross-examination, Devon tried to impeach the witness, using incidents I had told him to paint Andrew as an angry, burned-out peace officer prone to violence—one hundred pounds heavier, nine inches taller—who had attacked a petite female with intent to inflict great bodily harm because he was angry at women, having never been able to sustain an intimate relationship or marriage. He meant to silence me—why else would he have charged a loaded gun? I had defended myself, according to my training.
Devon emphasized that in the struggle I, too, had been critically injured, with a severe pelvic infection that could still possibly lead to sterility. Andrew was surprised by hearing that, said he had not known, and deftly used that surprise to express regret at his actions.
Even as Devon maneuvered himself elaborately back into his seat, grimacing with effort, we knew the argument