Good Morning, Killer

by April Smith

  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 he had attempted to murder me began to work on this paler, more languorous Andrew, who was seeming somehow not quite so delicate as cunning.

  “Is that him?” whispered one of the courthouse secretaries who had gathered in a giggly group in the front row. “He is pretty cute.”

  You still look good, Andrew, I agreed, darting my eyes away. You could still do it to me, old pal.

  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

  Transcript of Proceedings page 4

  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 … demanding …

  RAUCH: Are you all right, Detective?

  BERRINGER: Yes. I’m sorry, I—

  RAUCH: Take a moment. Is this testimony difficult for you?

  BERRINGER: Give me a minute.

  RAUCH: I’m surprised, Detective. You often testify in court. In fact, that’s part of your job. Is this case different?

  BERRINGER: I’m fine, let’s go on.

  RAUCH: Why is it different, Detective Berringer? Is it because you cared about Ana Grey?

  JUDGE: We’ll take a fifteen-minute recess.

  RAUCH: Are you ready to resume, Detective Berringer?

  BERRINGER: Yes, I apologize, Your Honor.

  JUDGE: No need. Go on.

  RAUCH: You were giving an example of Ana Grey’s obsession with you.

  BERRINGER: Ana said she wanted the nine hundred dollars back that she loaned me to fix my Harley. She picked the time to tell me this while I was at the Boatyard Restaurant in Santa Monica with my fellow officers, relaxing after work. She confronted me in front of them and the other patrons. It was embarrassing for the Santa Monica Police Department, which I take a lot of pride in, and to me personally. She verbally abused a woman friend of mine, also a police officer, who was known to everyone at the table, and made remarks about this woman’s character that were potentially damagin
g to her professional reputation.

  RAUCH: This is Officer Sylvia Oberbeck?

  BERRINGER: Officer Oberbeck.

  RAUCH: What is your relationship to Officer Oberbeck?

  BERRINGER: We are friends, colleagues, we came up together, she’s an excellent policewoman, and I have the highest respect for the way she does her job.

  RAUCH: Are you romantically involved?

  BERRINGER: We have been. In the past.

  RAUCH: Did Ana Grey know you were romantically involved with Officer Oberbeck in the past?

  BERRINGER: Yes.

  RAUCH: What was her reaction?

  BERRINGER: She went out of control.

  RAUCH: What do you mean by “out of control”?

  BERRINGER: She followed Officer Oberbeck and me in her car—her official Bureau car—and tailgated us up to speeds of one hundred miles per hour on the Marina Freeway. She pulled up behind us to the bumper of my car. She was very aggressive, revving her motor and honking the horn, forcing us onto the shoulder. When she got out of her car she was agitated. She said, “I know you were fucking this bitch and this is a perfect example.” Officer Oberbeck was terrified. I was pretty scared myself. She was pounding on the window and throwing rocks and ultimately tried to scald Officer Oberbeck with hot coffee.

  RAUCH: I’m sorry, I’m lost, you were on the freeway and she had hot coffee …

  BERRINGER: She had a cup of coffee in her hand when she got out of the car and she threw it.

  RAUCH: What happened to Officer Oberbeck?

  BERRINGER: The window was closed, it didn’t touch her, but that’s an example of how out of control Ana was. Completely out of control.

  RAUCH: Was she out of control the night you came to her apartment to break it off?

  BERRINGER: At first she was sad, upset, whatever, said she couldn’t take it, we had to make this work out, it was the only good thing she had left in her life.

  RAUCH: What did you say?

  BERRINGER: I said, baby, I love you, I care about you, but that’s just not going to happen. That’s not where I am right now. I’ve been married twice, I want my freedom, I told you from the beginning.

  RAUCH: How did she respond?

  BERRINGER: Again, she became more and more agitated. She’d been crying for a while—excuse the expression—she was really pissed off.

  RAUCH: Officer Berringer, why did you go to Agent Grey’s apartment that night?

  BERRINGER: She paged me.

  RAUCH: Where were you?

  BERRINGER: I needed to do some cardio training, so I was running the steps in Santa Monica Canyon when the pager came through. The signal wasn’t strong enough—reception isn’t good in the canyon—but I was eighty-five percent sure it was her, because she’d been trying to call me all day, so I ignored the page and finished the workout, and as I’m driving in my car, on Ocean Avenue, I became aware of someone pulling up in back of me, fairly close, putting on their brights. At this point I assumed it was Ana because I’d had that experience before, of her following Officer Oberbeck and me. She pulled up beside me, made eye contact, and gave me a hand motion that meant, Follow me. She then pulled in front of me and I proceeded to follow her to her apartment in the Marina. She pulled into the garage, and I pulled into the visitor’s spot outside her place, and we walked in together. She went into the kitchen to get something to eat. She wore running tights and running shoes and a spandex top and a jacket on top of that and she had her hair pulled up. She said, “Hi.” I said, “Hi. What’s going on?” And we had a general conversation. She offered me a drink, I said no. She said, “What’s going on, where have you been? I’ve been paging you.” She wasn’t being aggressive at that point. I said I’ve got things on my mind. She said, “Like what?” I said I wasn’t comfortable with the relationship anymore. She put her arms around me and told me she wanted to move in together. I told her that wasn’t in the cards.

  RAUCH: Then what?

  BERRINGER: She started blaming me for everything that was wrong in her life. She got on this theme of everyone screwing her over, including everyone at work. She said I was screwing her over and she was tired of it. I saw things going south real quick and I didn’t want a confrontation. Her arms were still around me. I said, “What do you want me to do?” She said we could start over. I told her no.

  She became infuriated. She was breathing hard. She was tense all over and you could see her going off the scale, the most upset I’ve ever seen her. Then she came back to me for the last time. “What are you trying to tell me?” she said.

  I didn’t have anything else to say, so I started walking toward the exit, and she turned away in the other direction, to the coffee table. I never made it to the door. I was looking back to see what she was doing. I wanted to make sure nothing was going to be thrown at me. She bent down and stood up and suddenly there were two bright flashes, and it was as if someone shot me with a drug. I don’t remember hearing the gun.

  RAUCH: But you knew you were shot. What were you thinking?

  BERRINGER: I was thinking, I know I can win this.

  RAUCH: Can you explain why you thought that?

  BERRINGER: It might sound corny, but Teddy Roosevelt said, “Those who are willing to enter the arena are always preparing themselves for the battle.” I’m a police detective and I take my job seriously and I like to think I’m always prepared. First of all, you know your body’s going to help you out. Fear is your body responding in a high state of arousal. Fear is okay. What you want to avoid is panic and indecision.

  RAUCH: You did not panic?

  BERRINGER: I thought, Okay, this is just like in training. Everything was moving slowly. It was like when I was knocked unconscious once when I got hit riding the Harley. Everything was woozy except I had this incredible tunnel vision. All I saw was Ana taking aim with the gun for round two.

  RAUCH: And you were how far away from Agent Grey?

  BERRINGER: I was almost to the door. I was in the dining room area. She was back near the coffee table, near the fireplace on the other side of the room.

  RAUCH: So you were at least fifteen feet apart.

  BERRINGER: Correct.

  RAUCH: Go on.

  BERRINGER: I felt a burning along the lower right side and noticed my shirt was just beet red, full of blood, and I ran toward her.

  RAUCH: Why did you run toward her and not out the door?

  BERRINGER: That’s my training. In my training guns are made for distance. You run from a knife but not a gun. I could have gotten hit in the back. I tried to get the gun from her. I kept saying, “Don’t shoot me. Why are you trying to kill me?” I got my hand on a piece of the gun, but she was pulling away. She fell over the table between the table and the couch. I’m still maintaining a piece of the gun, the barrel. I stumbled over the table myself and ended up wedged between the table and the couch. She was lying down and I was kneeling with one leg on the couch. The gun went off again, to my right thigh, above the kneecap. I said, “You’re going to kill me, I’m going to die.” I was feeling pretty bad. I’ve seen people die for a lot less than what I had. I was feeling like I’m getting ready to check out. I ended up with the gun and went toward the exit of the residence. She remained crouched in a fetal position, to see if I’d turn the gun on her—which I didn’t—and I went out to my car.

  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.