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“But I’m also very adaptable. Had to be to get along with my parents. I can learn, Rina. Because I really want to do this. I’ll make it. I’d like his help and blessing. But if not, I’ll make it anyway. If he can’t deal with it, too bad.”
She sat back.
“I love my father, but there are times he is just impossible. So domineering! So bossy! How do you deal with him?”
“He’s a good man.”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t. I just said he was a control freak. You know, I’m not excusing Mom. But my dad is just … such an imposing man. I guess she felt just so … swallowed up. I don’t know how you put up with him.”
Rina shrugged. “I’m not much of a fighter.”
“I wish I were like that. I just refuse to be stepped on.”
“I didn’t say I get stepped on.”
Cindy blushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean … God, I’ve got a big mouth. I guess I’m more like Mom than I’d like to believe.”
“I do express myself, Cindy. I’ll stick up for what’s important. Which I’ve learned isn’t too much. This baby boomer generation on down … all of us … we’ve become so … confrontive. Stand up for yourself! Speak your mind! Tell it like it is! All this righteous anger … I find it very loud.”
“Better that than being walked on.”
“No one wants to be a shmatta … a dishrag. But sometimes it’s a good idea to keep your mouth shut. Think if it’s worth the effort. And yes, I freely admit to being occasionally two-faced. There have been times when I had agreed with your dad to do things his way, then turned around and did it the way I wanted. Most of the time, he forgot what he had been so insistent on. And the couple of times he was cogent enough to call me on it, I played dumb. I’m sure some psychologist would call me sneaky or tell me I have low self-esteem. Or tell me I was paralyzed by my domineering mother and an unapproachable father or something or other. I call it being practical. Because in the end, I get what I want and he saves face.”
“I don’t think Gloria Steinem would approve of your methods.”
“Oh, forget about Gloria Steinem! She never nursed a husband through cancer, only to watch him die. She never labored in childbirth. She was never a widow with two small children. She’s never been married to a police lieutenant. She never had a hysterectomy at thirty. And she’s not an Orthodox Jew. So she has no concept of shalom bais—peace in the house. Which, in my humble opinion, is to her detriment!”
Cindy looked at her. “You’re tough.”
“Tough enough to handle your dad.” Rina sat down next to Cindy. “And so are you.” She gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You’ll work this out. You’ll be okay.”
“If I ever learn to keep my mouth shut.”
“Cindy, youth is impulsive, thank God. Like you said, it was the reason you were conceived. It’s what made me run off and get married at seventeen, then go have a baby a year later, then have yet another before my first son was out of diapers. It’s what made me enter into a heartbreaking relationship after my husband died, knowing it was doomed from the start. And it’s what made me ignore raised eyebrows in my community when I started dating your father. Within days of meeting him, I was head over heels in love. Impulsive yes. But it worked out.”
Cindy said. “Yes, I am impulsive. But this wasn’t an impulsive decision. It’s really what I want.”
“How could you know?” Decker retorted. “You haven’t the slightest notion what it is to be a cop.”
Both women turned around as if he had intruded in their conversation. Fine with him! Let Rina handle it! Tempted to escape and go burn the Porsche out at 120. Instead, he sat back down on the couch, rubbed his temples.
“How about this? We talk this over calmly. I tell you what being a cop is all about. You ask me questions. If you’re still gung-ho … after I get done with you … then you can go ahead and join.”
“What happened to you in ten minutes?” Cindy asked.
Rina said, “He overheard me talking about how much I loved him and it made him feel guilty for his outbursts.”
Decker grumped, “Got it all figured out.”
“True or false.”
Decker ignored her, turned to Cindy. “Well?”
Cindy said, “Daddy, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to talk to you about my decision. I’d love to hear about your experiences and your insights. But I’m in the Academy regardless.”
“That’s being very pigheaded.”
Rina interjected, “Peter—”
“She’s acting like a mule.”
“There’s no reason to name-call—”
“Why is she afraid of hearing the truth?” Decker said.
Cindy said, “Listen, guys, I’m really tired. I want to go home.”
“You tell your mom about this?”
Cindy sighed.
“You haven’t told her?” Decker began to pace. “Great. I don’t have enough garbage in my life dealing with friggin’ mass murderers—”
“Dad, I’m really sorry about that. It must be terrible. And I certainly don’t mean to add to your stress—”
“But you’ll do it anyway.”
No one spoke. Cindy sighed. “I’m going. We’ll talk later. When everyone’s calmer.” She smiled at her father. “Good night.”
Abruptly, Decker stopped walking, plunked himself down in a chair, and stared out the window, his eyes a thousand miles away.
“She said good night, Peter.”
“Good night, good night,” he muttered.
“Give her a hug, for godsakes.”
Cindy waited a beat. When Decker didn’t move, Rina said, “Peter, did you hear—”
“Yes, I heard you.”
Cindy felt her eyes start to moisten, but quickly she held back the tears. “That’s okay, Rina. Everyone needs their space. Even parents.”
Again, she waited a moment. When Decker didn’t move, she bade Rina good night and left quietly. Soon the car’s engine faded to nothingness. Rina broke the silence.
“You should have given her a hug, Peter,” Rina rebuked him. “Your intransigence was nasty. God forbid, suppose she has an accident or something. How would you feel?”
“Horrible. I’d never forgive myself.”
“So how could you let her leave like that!”
He turned to her, his own eyes moist. “Because … I was afraid if I hugged her, I would have never let her go.”
10 (#ulink_d32573d7-ea5b-5f61-b298-0fab99b20d79)
The temperature in the office was arctic. Why did the city feel it necessary to keep the station house in a deep freeze? Or maybe it was just Decker’s mood. Because things weren’t going well. He sat at his desk, looking out at a wall of eyes. His Homicide team arcing around him. Protective. Like a moat. His brain pounded. With any luck, ibuprofen would work its magic. He nodded for Oliver to begin.
Scott scanned his notes, hand raking through his black hair. “Loo, we’ve gone through Estelle’s room to room, wall to wall, floor to floor, ceiling to ceiling. Neither Dunn nor I could find enough empty magazines at the scene to account for all the bullets and casings.”
Decker’s eyes glanced at the newspaper on his desk. A couple of days had passed, but Estelle’s was still front-page news. He spoke quietly. “Would it help if you looked again?”
“We were very thorough.” Marge smoothed out the leg of her beige pants. She wore lightweight fabrics today—white cotton shirt, viscose pants. But if the weather continued its cooling trend, it would be time for the wools. “I’ll show you our grid maps if you want. Right now it doesn’t look like much … a mass of dots.”
“We marked every place where we extracted a bullet or found an empty casing,” Oliver explained.
Bert Martinez twirled the ends of his bushy mustache, his stocky frame bowing the seat of the folding chair. “Whole damn case is starting to smell fishy. Anyone show the Loo Harlan’s autopsy report?”
Decker sat up. “When did that come in?”
“You were in a meeting with the mayor, city council, and Strapp,” Marge said. “We tried paging you …”
Decker grimaced. He’d forgotten to pick up a new pager.
“How’d that go?” Oliver was concerned. “Are our asses on the line?”
“Why should our asses be on the line?” Martinez asked. “We’ve got the perp … of sorts.”
“Lawsuits, right?” Oliver said. “Police should have showed up sooner, right? If they had, more lives would have been saved, right? What was time of arrival on that one? Something like two minutes?”
“First cruiser arrived in two-twenty-eight,” Webster said.
Oliver said. “Am I right, Deck?”
“Close.”
“No matter what happens, we’ll get blamed. Earthquake could drop the city into the center of the earth, it would be our fault.”
“For the time being, the Detective division isn’t a point of concern.” Decker paused. “But if this turns out to be … how should I say this? If this is something more than a straightforward mass murder, the focus will shift to us. Who has that autopsy report?”
“That would be me.” Webster handed the folder to Decker, his blue eyes focused, alert. Today, Tom was dressed in a black suit, sunglasses dangling from his jacket pocket. Looked more FBI than LAPD with his permapressed Anglo good looks. Suave manner. But Decker didn’t hold it against him. Webster was a damn good cop.
Decker thumbed through the pages, eyes working like strobes. “What should I be looking for?”
Webster drawled, “The bullet that killed Harlan Manz. It was fired at a range consistent with a distance of around two to two and a half feet—”
“What!” Decker raced through the report. “Where?”
“Page eleven or twelve. I marked it with a pencil.”
Decker fast-forwarded to the paragraph. Read it once, then read it again. He sat back in his chair, ran a hand down his face.
Martinez said, “I called up the morgue … asked if they were sure about that distance.”
“And?”
“They were sure. Said that if the gun had been fired at a closer range, more damage would have been done to the brain.”
Webster said, “Bigger entry and exit holes, more tearing and ripping, more extensive powder burns on the hands and temple.”
“So when Harlan fired, he looked something like this?” Oliver made a gun with his fingers, extended his arm from his shoulder, then flexed his wrist so that his fingers were pointing back to his temple. “What’s this, guys? About three feet?”
“Anyone have a measuring tape?” Marge asked.
Decker pulled one from his desk, gave it to Marge.
Marge measured. “Thirty-seven inches. Bend your elbow a little bit, Scotty.”
Oliver complied, his elbow making a hundred-and-fifty-degree angle. “Now I’m pointing over my head.”
“So lower your arm.” Martinez got up, positioned Oliver as if he were a Gumby. “There. About like this. That looks like two and a half feet.”
Marge measured. “Thirty-one inches to be exact.”
Webster said, “Now point to your head.”
Oliver did so, maintained the pose. They stared at him.
Marge said, “Might be me, but I think he looks awkward.”
Martinez said, “He looks ridiculous. You want to pop yourself, you put the gun to your temple. You don’t hold it two feet away.”
Marge said, “You know, I could understand someone holding the gun away from his head if he had doubts or wasn’t used to a firearm. Almost like an avoidance thing.”
“Maybe at a little distance,” Martinez said. “But not in the position Scotty’s in. Unless you like contorting.”
“Maybe he had short arms,” Marge suggested.
“Not that short,” Martinez answered.
“Could it have been a misfire?” Oliver asked.
Martinez made a face. “You mean he was aiming for someone and caught himself in the head?”
“No. I mean the gun just accidentally went off.”
“Catching him square in the temple?” Marge was dubious.
“Excuses, excuses.” Webster shook his head. “Why aren’t we saying what we’re all thinkin’?”
