Good Morning, Killer - April Smith [126]
The sweetness of victory barely lasted twenty-four hours, when Devon County summoned me to his Beverly Hills office to say that I was going to jail because my participation in the takedown of Ray Brennan had been in violation of the bail agreement.
I was skeptical. “Do you know the meaning of the words ‘Oh, please’!?”
“You were not supposed to leave the Donnato residence,” Devon replied severely. “You were not supposed to be working that case. You were suspended from the Bureau, remember?”
“Yes, and I’m going to get a letter of censure and be dinged big-time for violating Bureau policy, but, oh, please! If I didn’t knock on that door he would have done her.”
“Others could have done the knocking.”
“Not really. Nobody else was there!”
“You were warned.”
“I was warned?” I hauled out of the leather cockpit armchair. “What is this, prep school?”
In fact Devon was tapping a pencil against the hood of a miniature BMW and frowning.
“Why did you have to be the first one in?”
“It was personal.”
“With you, everything is personal.”
“Damn right. He had her picture on his damn wall.”
“Whose damn picture?”
“Juliana Meyer-Murphy!”
“Good.” Devon bounced the pencil so hard it flew out of his hand. “And she really came through for you at the preliminary hearing.”
“Ohhh, no,” I warned. “Don’t go there unless you really want to piss me off, and I’ll walk out so fast—”
“—You’re not walking anywhere.”
“—I told you not to call her as a witness—”
“—And I told you that you were looking at fifteen years.”
I picked up the pencil from the floor and slammed it down on his desk.
“I wanted that creep dead, or in jail, all right?”
“Well,” he said primly, “you achieved your goal.”
We glared at each other.
“Why am I on the defensive? You know, when we were in court at the prelim, I saw this kid, African-American, who was there with his mom on a drug charge. ‘Something wrong with this justice system,’ he said, and she hit him upside the head. Let me tell you, that boy is my bro now.”
Devon pushed the BMW away in disgust. It hit the Porsche.
“It’s a no-brainer, Ana! Rauch doesn’t have a choice; this would be a slam dunk for any prosecutor. You violated bail on an attempted murder charge. Try to see that clearly. You handed it to him! The attempted murder charge is entirely different from the Santa Monica kidnapping. You don’t get extra credit for solving that case just because—”
“The credits are nontransferable,” I interrupted sarcastically.
“That’s right. They’re nontransferable.”
We were at a dead end. I was going to jail because I had saved two lives. Devon sighed with deep irritation. I stared defiantly out the window.
“Rauch wants you in custody now. It’s newsworthy, coming on the heels of the arrest of a serial rapist.”
“Great.”
“He’s going for a warrant, the SOB.”
Devon raised himself up from the chair and loped slowly across the room.
“Hip bothering you?”
“Stress.”
“Tell me about it.”
We stood close together, mesmerized by the sparkling traffic; so close, the surface of my skin could sense the tight muscle mass of his worked-out upper body, and at the same time, the effort it took to balance his lower withered side without the crutch.
“Why don’t we sit?” I took his arm in a gesture of reconciliation. Lowering to the couch side by side, we were once more allies in the long winter of a treacherous campaign.
“The best use of our energy,” he said, “is to prepare for trial. Our task right now is to discredit their witnesses. The background reviews are on my desk. Take a look, see if anything pops.”
I sprung up and got it.
There were reports from Devon’s private investigators on the ER doctor who had testified, the thoracic surgeon, Lieutenant Loomis and two other Santa Monica