Good Morning, Killer

by April Smith

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 had not worked. Andrew had come across as affable and sincere. The women-hating thing just did not play. We had hinted at darker motives but had no proof.

  What we did not know was that I was not the only one in that courtroom who was trapped between the good face of the law and the bad. Andrew had become ensnared by the shooting in a way that went beyond the events in my living room. Although for one teetering moment he had shown conflicting emotions up on the stand, he had regained his resolve, for he must have known the only way for him to survive, as I had scrawled in frustrated silence to Devon across the yellow legal pad, was to bury me in a pack of “LIES!!”

  The ER doctor, a knockout Brazilian woman, slender and beautiful as a model although she said she was running on four hours of sleep, described Andrew’s injuries and how they were treated. She confirmed he had been receiving heavy doses of morphine when he stated that he had been shot by bandits, but later, even when he was lucid, she said she never heard him mention my name in connection with the shooting.

  “True or false?” I wrote facetiously on the pad.

  As Devon predicted the very first night, the prosecution rolled out a chorus line of cops unanimously insisting I was jealous, violent and obsessed with Andrew Berringer. The guys who had been in the kiosk testified I had been “emotionally distraught,” searching for Andrew at midnight on the Promenade. We heard outrage from Detectives Jaeger and Winter about how I’d humiliated Andrew in a public restaurant, and then, remorseful, “bullied” my way after hours into the ICU. Lieutenant Barry Loomis, sporting the walrus mustache and a Betty Boop tie, described me as “behaving in a manner that was suspect” when we spoke on the phone while Andrew was in the hospital. He said “bells went off in his head” when “out of the blue” I guiltily asked whether the weapon had been recovered, although on cross-examination admitted anyone in law enforcement would want to know the same thing. In his version of the confrontation in the Boatyard, I came at the senior detective like a bloodsucking harridan. He omitted the fact that he had been teasing Andrew and egging us on.

  “Loomis just killed us,” Devon whispered, and as soon as we broke for lunch, he hobbled out ahead of the crowd, to personally escort Juliana Meyer-Murphy and her mother. She would be our first witness after the prosecution wound up its case.

  Andrew and I avoided eye contact or any other kind of contact during the awkward scramble from the courtroom. I was very engaged with the zippers on my briefcase, anyway.

  A small crowd had gathered in the corridor, looking out a window. In the street, five stories below, a car in the middle lane had unaccountably flipped over on its roof. There were no other wrecks, no barricades or obstacles or pedestrians that might explain how a two-thousand-pound vehicle could turn completely upside down.

  “Do you think that’s a Honda?” someone said.

  “Could be. My wife just bought a Honda. She loves it.”

  “Have you seen the new ones?”

  “No, are they pretty much like the old ones?”

  I had no appetite. I went back and sat in the empty courtroom. Twenty long minutes later, Devon’s associate entered alone.

  “Where’s Juliana?”

  “Oh,” said the jumpy young attorney, who had not yet learned from the master how to lie, “no problem.”

  “Where’s Devon?”

  “I think he’s grabbing a cup of coffee.”

  “Is there a hang-up?”

  “No, not at all. Just a last-minute pep talk. They’ll be up in a minute.”

  The associate smiled the vacant, noncommittal smile of a subordinate covering badly for his boss.

  “Do me a favor? If Devon shows up, tell him I went to the ladies’ room.”

  I walked demurely through the doors, then hit the stairway.

  There was only one place to get coffee inside the building, and that was the dilapidated cafeteria, but when I arrived out of breath the grill was closed and the place half deserted.

  Afraid I had missed them, I was about to run back upstairs but noticed through the rear doors of the cafeteria there was a patio. Sure enough, a cappuccino cart. A few courthouse workers sitting on wire chairs were taking their breaks, bent over sliding leaves of newsprint or sitting back with heads tilted toward the sun, hands wrapped around the universal paper coffee cup.

  Juliana, wearing dark glasses and a heartbreaking little pink suit, legs crossed, long dark hair blown out straight and looking about twenty-five years old, was sitting in the shade with her mother. Devon had pulled a chair close and was speaking intimately. Juliana’s arms were folded and she appeared to be staring straight ahead, turning guardedly as I neared.

  “Hi, Juliana. Great to see you.”

  “Good to see you, too.”

  “Ana,” said Devon, “you’re not supposed to be here.”

  “I just want to say thank you. Can’t I say thank you?”

  “No, you cannot be seen talking with a witness!”

  But I was already shaking Lynn Meyer-Murphy’s hand. I think it was the first time I had smiled in about a month and the fresh breeze blowing through the courtyard smelled like spring.

  “Thank you for coming and for bringing Juliana. I know this is hard for her and I really, really appreciate it.”

  “Ana,” said Devon, standing up so his chair moved back with a scrape, “go back upstairs.”

  A long time ago I had stood on the threshold of the Meyer-Murphy home, shaking the hand of a woman wearing mismatched clothing who was deeply in shock. Her eyes squinted and her affect was blank, but after a brief moment’s nod toward her discomfort, I was impatient to get inside and go to work. Now it was Lynn’s face that was composed, and her fingers that withdrew first and went to the calfskin shoulder bag and took out th
e car keys.

  “Are you leaving?”

  “We’ll be up in a minute,” Devon assured me.

  “What’s the matter, Juliana?”

  “I’m having a panic attack,” replied the girl.

  I saw her rigid carriage was effort, not composure. Her face was flushed and beneath the defiantly crossed arms her chest was heaving.

  “It’s okay. It will pass,” she said bravely.

  “Ask for a recess,” I told Devon. “The witness is ill.”

  “Juliana wants to go for it now,” my lawyer replied urgently.

  “I’d rather get it over with,” Juliana said, breathing through her nose.

  “What do you think?” I asked her mother.

  “I’ve been told to let her make her own decisions,” she said in a voice that was raw with self-pity.

  Lynn was also wearing a suit, royal blue, and the two looked as if they should be lunching at Café Pinot, except for the obvious anger crackling between them that made it hard to imagine them even sitting at the same table. Despite her equanimity, Lynn was clutching the car keys so tightly her knuckles had turned pink.

  “But she’s sick,” I protested.

  “I’m not sick. It’s just a panic reaction to being in a big room in front of people. It’s a feeling, not a fact. The fact is, I’m safe. I’m safe here,” Juliana repeated, apparently as she had been taught.

  “Let’s roll,” said Devon, looking at his watch. “This judge likes to go home at four.”

  Juliana and her mother stood up.

  “No,” I said, “no. Thank you, but no.”

  “No, what?”

  “I don’t want Juliana to testify.”

  Devon, used to all manner of sudden turns, adroitly steered into the skid.

  “I know how protective you feel of Juliana, and you’ve spoken very touchingly of your concern that she’ll be further traumatized by going up there and talking to the judge—”

  “She’s in no shape to do this.”

  “She wants to. Don’t you, Juliana?”

  Juliana nodded, clutching a tiny black handbag in front of her, as if about to fall off her feet.

  “Listen to what this young woman is telling you.”

  Devon stood with one hand on the round wire table to take the weight off his bad leg. The awkward posture thrust his upper body forward, made him look gracelessly eager.

  “Do they know the prosecutor has a right to cross-examine?” I said. “Do they know he can question her about the rape? He’ll make her relive it and he’ll put the blame for being raped, for being kidnapped by Ray Brennan, on her.”

  “No,” said Lynn, looking back and forth to Juliana. “Nobody told us that. What would that have to do with—”

  “I am acting in your best interest.” Devon’s voice was raised, he was plenty steamed. “I am defending your freedom. That’s what I do. It’s in your best interest to have Juliana on the stand, testifying on your behalf.”

  “And how you get her there doesn’t matter?”

  Devon spoke deliberately, sarcastically, annunciating every word: “She-says-she-can-do-it.”

  “She has no idea. You’re putting her up against Mark Rauch? No,” I said. “No way! He’ll malign her character,” turning back to Lynn, “so the judge won’t take what she says seriously. I can’t believe you weren’t briefed on this! He’ll make her look like a pot-smoking disenfranchised spoiled Westside kid looking for kicks who got in over her head. Who’s been bullied into testifying by the big bad scary FBI agent and her lawyer. Maybe it will set her back, maybe it won’t, but look, I shot the guy, there’s no question that I shot him—”

  “Shut up, Ana,” said Devon County, former LAPD. “You’re fucking yourself, excuse my language.”

  Juliana shrugged. Her mother looked confused.

  “You’d rather go to trial?” asked Lynn, dubious. “Because, well, that’s what Mr. County said. He said, if the judge thinks you shot this policeman for a not very good reason—you’ll go to trial, right? And maybe go to jail.”

  A thousand replies sprung up at once. “I’ll take that risk.”

  “We have to get back,” interrupted Devon, grabbing his crutch and making for the glass doors. Awkwardly, he held them open, challenging us to follow. Only Lynn walked on ahead.

  “Mom?” called Juliana, waiting uncertainly, holding on to the mini purse.

  She turned. “It’s up to you.”

  “Since when has anything ever been up to me?” Juliana catcalled back.

  Lynn’s lips compressed and her eyes were blinking rapidly.

  “You told me to stay out of your life.”

  “Ladies?” Devon implored.

  “He’s talking to you,” Lynn repeated, in a voice as jagged as a shard of glass, suddenly a weapon capable of cutting.

  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.

  Transcript of Proceedings page 205

  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 my job.

  RAUCH: You’ve worked with FBI agents before.

  FORRESTER: Yes.

  RAUCH: Was Ana Grey any different?

  FORRESTER: No offense to the nice people I’ve met at the Bureau, but Miss Grey had a chip on her shoulder. She thought she was better than you.

  page 215

  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.