Good Morning, Killer

by April Smith

  I had woken up at four with absolute clarity. The clarity was that I would capture and mutilate Ray Brennan. I would hammer nails into his brain. Shoot him in the kidney so he’d remain alive while strung up by his heels and slowly skinned. Why should I let you live? I would ask, and when he tried to answer I would stuff his throat with paper towels. I didn’t care for trophies—nipples, fingers, testicles or scalp—I wanted ruined pieces hacked to bits and hacked again, nerve cells active to the twitchy end, and when it ended he would become whole and I would start again with better methods—electric shock and caustic lye—again and again because fantasies are perfect.

  I was sipping Baileys Irish Cream and warmed-up milk. Across the path, in the diffuse glow of vintage-looking street lamps, thousands of sailboats huddled close, sighing gently, rocking in their berths. Alternating currents lurched within my body, pitching like the tide; first calm, then whirling violent images of revenge.

  A quiet ringing stirred like the wind chimes overhead. It took a moment to understand it was the Nextel, stuck inside the pocket of my robe, muffled by layers of terry cloth and quilt. Voice mail had already been activated by the time I dug it out.

  “Um, hi, um, it’s me, and I was wondering if—”

  “Juliana?” I cut in, puzzled.

  “Oh my God! Did I wake you up? Oh my God! I thought this was your office—”

  “No, no, not at all. I always get up when it’s still dark.”

  “So do I.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I just wake up.”

  “How come?”

  “Usually a nightmare.”

  “Did you have a nightmare tonight?”

  Juliana hesitated. “This is stupid.”

  “Nothing is stupid. Things just happen,” I told her. “I’ve been having nightmares, too.”

  “Really? That is so amazing.”

  “Daytime nightmares, you know?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  There was silence. I gripped the phone, as if behind the pale beige curtains everyone else was dead and Juliana my last connection to the living world.

  “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Really. Nothing. I was just chilling, watching some dumb movie on TV, I don’t even know what it’s about.”

  “How’s school?”

  “I stopped going. I hate that school.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Stay home and watch TV.”

  “Juliana, can I ask you something personal? Are you still seeing the therapist?”

  “Yes, I’m seeing the therapist.”

  “How is she?”

  “She’s pretty tight.”

  “Okay. That’s good.”

  Then there was another silence. “So,” she ventured, “is it still dark where you are?”

  “Yes. It’s dark.”

  “Do you know when the sun’s going to come up?”

  “Well, it’s coming. You can be sure of that. Do I know when? You mean, like, what exact time?”

  Her voice had become just about inaudible. “How long.”

  “Hold it. Let me look.”

  She heard me getting up and panicked. “Where are you going?”

  “Just getting the paper.”

  “What for?”

  “They have it in the paper every day. Sunup, sundown, when the moon comes out, high tide …”

  With the phone still to my ear I unlocked the door and lifted the LA Times off the mat. At this hour the corridor seemed cold and unfamiliar as a hotel. I was glad to turn back to the warm stillness of the apartment.

  “Here it is. The sun will rise at five-twenty-three a.m. Not so long to go.”

  Juliana didn’t answer.

  “I’ll tell you what,” I said. “You look out of your window, and I’ll look out of my window, and we’ll see who sees the sunrise first.”

  “Okay.” She seemed to come to life. “The first time we see even the tiniest drop of sun—”

  “The first.”

  “—it counts.”

  We agreed. The smallest, faintest ray of light would count.

  I stayed with Juliana until dawn, when she finally became sleepy and said she was going to bed. I wished her good night even though I was about to start my day. It would not be the last time Juliana called in the secret hours of the early morning. But instead of inputting a transcript into Rapid Start, I erased the voice mail recording and kept our conversations private; held them and treasured and stroked them like the tolerant stuffed loon.

  Now a different portrait dominated the investigation. We had received the marine corps photo ID of Richard Brennan. A color copy looked out at the war room, another was pinned up on my bathroom door with inked-in donkey ears, just so I could look at the bastard every day and tell him, “We will cut your heart out.”

  The photograph was not dissimilar to the composite, which showed short dark hair and a strong neck. Now you could see the power in the face came from the high forehead and big jaw, which conveyed a solid, all-American arrogance, like a college football player from the fifties. You expected him to be wearing a white crew sweater. The nose was pert and the mouth compressed as if he were biding his important time—I’ll stand here and let you take my picture—while the eyes half closed in drowsy contempt, as if this world were beneath consideration. Or maybe that was just the way the flash went off.

  Ray Brennan fit the profile—husky, good-looking, overconfident. With longer hair and a softer attitude you understood how he could unhinge a girl like Juliana: a diamond blade slicing through a rooftop door, a knife through butter.

  Instantly my range of contact expanded like a radar field to include State College, Pennsylvania, where, according to the records, Richard (Ray) Brennan was born. My working day was taken up with faxes and phone calls to Quantico and the Philadelphia field office, trying to figure out which of the cool businesslike voices I could trust with my baby, then working to get everybody on the same page with respect to the most efficient way of obtaining information. Another timeline was begun, a trail through time, that would detail the moves of Brennan’s life—lead us west to Tempe, Arizona, through the mirror maze of his psyche, to a bench on a Promenade three blocks from the Pacific Ocean, and finish at that trailer park or ratty little house in whatever mean and shabby sprawl, where we would, inevitably, take him down.

  I just can’t sleep.”

  “I know, Juliana.”

  “What time does the sun rise?”

  “Five-forty-four. But it sets at seven-ten. The days are getting longer. What are you doing?”

  “Painting my nails.”

  “What color?”

  “Mango Ice.”

  As the identity of the prime suspect came into focus, I felt myself emerging from the emotional commotion of the kidnap to the clarity of the hunt. Every day brought exhilarating twists you knew would slam into an unexpected climax—the shocking waterfall at the end of the ride. For example, we had the stats on every 1989 dark green Dodge van registered in Arizona and California. Eliminating the owners by gender and age, there were only a dozen under thirty-five and male. Improbable? You had to believe in your own logic. You had to choose a source of power, or become immobilized. That is why, when I was ready to cash out and close the books on Andrew, I chose the Boatyard Restaurant. The prosecution made it look like I went there only to humiliate him, but logic would say the opposite: after the incident on the Marina Freeway, wasn’t it a safer bet for both of us to meet in public?

  He was at the bar, drinking with Barry Loomis and a couple of cronies from the department. It was a loud, bright, old-guard kind of joint that smelled of sawdust and beer-soaked timbers, where the steaks were overrated but it didn’t matter because the waitresses were slim as trapeze artists, spinning platters of creamed spinach and onion rings at an impossible pace. I think the place
must have been there forty years. They say it really was Sal Mineo who carved his name into the table at the far booth.

  Andrew was a regular. No wonder he liked the timeless atmosphere, since he was always bitching and moaning about how things changed. How the new recruits, who lived in far-flung developments sometimes an hour and a half away from Santa Monica, did not subscribe to drinking after shift. Hell, they even refused to work overtime, which the veterans considered to be free money. Their work ethic sucked—they wanted to go home and have fun! To them law enforcement was a two-year gig on the way to something else, no longer “a life”—while Andrew and his contemporaries had made one deliberate choice a long time ago, and stuck to it, with what he considered to be a vanishing standard of honor.

  When I came up to the bar, he was retelling the legendary story of an arrest of a bunch of drug dealers in a ludicrously bad neighborhood in Compton. The dealers lived in a house with a lot of dogs behind big gates.

  “We pull up to the gate and somebody says, ‘Where the hell are the bolt cutters?’ Somebody else says, ‘The sheriff will have them.’ Well, the sheriff’s car is gone. No bolt cutters. So now we’re into Keystone Kop anarchy. Guys are hopping the fence and getting hung up on the spikes. They could have been shot. Runners are going out the back door—this is what you’re talking about when you talk about two agencies cooperating,” Andrew was saying as I approached.

  His look shifted instantly from unaware to cautious. Here comes another strange and unpredictable female in my life. It broke my heart to see that on a face I had held between my hands and kissed.

  “Don’t worry.” I smiled. “I’m not here to make a scene.”

  “Sit down, have a drink.” He offered his bar stool, made introductions to the other detectives. There was Jaeger, who looked like a three-hundred-pound beagle made of melting lard, and a rigid African-American named Winter, both in jackets and ties. They would testify against me at the trial.

  “No thanks, I just wanted to talk to you.”

  “What about?”

  “The nine hundred dollars.”

  This was not the speech about intimacy and commitment I had rehearsed in the shower, but when it sprang out, the number seemed right, a searing response to the way in which he had reduced our lovemaking and closeness and adventure and laughter to another sum in a meaningless progression of conquests.

  “Oh, okay.” He laughed. I think he was drinking scotch. “I’ll give you your nine hundred dollars.”

  “Good.”

  “Now will you have a drink?”

  “I’ll just take a check. You can postdate it, that’s all right.”

  Andrew said dismissively, “Why don’t you chill?”

  Barry Loomis was leaning in. “How’s it going?” he asked. “I got the fax about this scum Brennan.”

  “See?” I said sweetly. “We’re keeping you in the loop.” To Andrew: “Come on, you must be making lots of overtime.”

  “This is not the time and place.” Andrew’s face was turning dark, uncomfortable with his boss so close to the heat.

  “Let’s just be done with it and then I’ll go.”

  “Don’t go,” said Barry, looking to make it worse, whatever it was. “The Dodgers are on.”

  “You want to mail it to me?” I persisted.

  “What?” Barry chortled. “The results of the test?” and clapped Andrew on the back.

  Clown.

  “What did you spend it on?”

  “I told you,” Andrew said, “the Harley.”

  Barry and I rolled our eyes at each other, both long-suffering victims of our mutual pal’s obsession.

  “Ohhh,” we said in unison. “The Harley.”

  Andrew shrugged stiffly. “Had to fix the muffler.”

  Barry nodded sympathetically. “He had to fix the muffler.”

  “I know. He treats that pile of crap better than he treats his ladies—plural.”

  At this, Jaeger and Winter broke up. One of them howled, “You go, girl!”

  “Look,” said Andrew, hunched even farther over the bar, “I’ll call you. We’ll work it out.”

  “Really?” I did not go. “When was the last time you called me?”

  Barry, teasing: “What’s the matter? Why don’t you call the lady?”

  “You know what?” Andrew stammered, clamping down on the violence he must have felt pushing out of his throat. He drew out his wallet, pulled some bills, and threw them in my direction while the others started to holler and hoot.

  “I’m not the whore, Andrew. I don’t go down on senior detectives on Sunday morning in a car.”

  Barry was bent over double, Jaeger and Winter smirking and snorting and turning away. Andrew was appalled at this betrayal, sucker-punched by his best friend, and for a moment I was ashamed. But as the fury started to work the lines of his forehead, I held his eyes: See this? This was me when I saw you with her.

  But it did not make anything even or okay, it just made me sick.

  “I’ll see you,” I mumbled, and turned away.

  Disoriented, I threaded through the bar crowd and in between the whirling nineteen-year-old waitresses, down the hallway, past the rest rooms, to the rear lot. I hadn’t even parked back there. I just wanted to get out fast into the humid cool night air.

  “Don’t fuck with the Harley.”

  Hopeful at hearing his voice, I turned with disappointment to see that Andrew had left the leather jacket inside, which meant he wasn’t following so quickly because he wanted to talk or reconcile; he really thought I’d trash his bike.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” I said. “See?”

  It stood unscathed inside the chain-link.

  “Where’s your car?” he demanded.

  “On the street. What do you care?”

  “I want to know what you’re doing back here,” he said suspiciously.

  My arms raised and lowered incredulously. “What do you think? Getting out of your way. Isn’t that what you want?”

  “What is this bullshit about the nine hundred dollars? You had to bring that up in there?”

  I put my hand on my hip. “You going to pay me, or what?”

  “Is that what it all comes down to for you, too? Money? Is that the gig with women?”

  I was so angry I could hardly speak. “I don’t know, Andrew, you tell me. You’re the one who slept with the biggest gold digger of all time. After her husband dies. Very classy. I gave it to you for free. Everything! Free and clear,” I screamed suddenly, in the middle of the alley.

  Andrew ripped the lid off a garbage can and tried to throw it, but it was chained and the whole damn thing fell over, lobster shells and all kinds of crap, and just as ridiculously I pointed my finger at him as if lightning could shoot from it, threatening: “Stay away from me.”

  It took a long drive around the Marina just to stop trembling. I pulled into the Ralph’s and stared into the lighted mirror on the visor, wiping mascara from the blackened crevices underneath my swollen eyes. Drawn to the lights and somnambulant figures beyond the windows of the anonymous market, I took a cart and walked the dead-cold aisles. Regular, bright rows of products put me in a trance.

  I had carried the bags up from the garage, unlocked the door and placed them on the counter. It was ten o’clock. I went into the bedroom to change into sweats before putting the groceries away. I had just walked into the room and turned on the light when I noticed some movement in the mirror. I turned around and there was Andrew Berringer, standing in the doorway.

  Fear curled inside my gut.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Did you ever hear of knocking?”

  My first thought was that my duty weapon was in my bag where I had thrown it on the bed.

  “The door was open.”

  “It was not.”

  My heart was racing.

  “How do you think I got in here?” But then he waved the whole thing off in disgus
t. He saw the picture of Ray Brennan on the open bathroom door. “What is that sorry son of a bitch doing there?”

  “Just to keep it alive.”

  “One sick puppy.”

  “Him,” I joked, “or me?”

  He went into the living room and sat down on the love seat and turned on the TV. My respiration calmed. I knew this man, his smells, the baseball cap collection, each one hanging on a hook above the dark wood bureau in his father’s home, an empty bachelor shrine to his dad, in Sunset Park. He had come here to talk, he said.

  “Want something to drink?”

  “No thanks.” He didn’t look at me. “I need safe passage.”

  “You have safe passage.”

  “Okay.” He swallowed. “We both know, from everything that’s happened, that it’s time to end it. I’ll pay you back the money in installments.”

  “What am I, a credit card?” I tried to keep it light because I was going to cry all over again.

  “I told you I was no good in the relationship department.”

  “Oberbeck I can understand. Sort of. At least she’s got tits. But Margaret Forrester?”

  “Good old Margaret.” His teeth were clenched. “Always stirring the pot.”

  “Tell me the truth and we’ll be clean. Look me in the eyes and tell me. Be warned: I’ll know if you’re lying. I’ve been trained.”

  He looked at me. He had gotten up and was leaning against the wall near the kitchen. I was standing near the fireplace.

  “I didn’t sleep with Margaret Forrester.”

  He held my gaze, but that doesn’t mean a thing. The only way to quantify deception is with a polygraph machine. He knew that. It was a standoff.

  “She’s a ganja head,” he added after a little while. “Gets stoned two and three times a day. It’s a ‘spiritual practice.’”

  “And nobody knows this at the department?”