Finally Tim said, “Marshal, sir, my leg’s going numb.”
Tannino looked up at Bear, ignoring Tim. “Call the paramedics. Have him brought to County. Book him there.” He walked out, closing the door quietly behind him.
His face drawn and weary, Bear picked up the phone and called for an ambulance.
46
A three-day stint at the USC Medical Center Jail Ward got Tim’s leg back in working order. The bullet had missed all major vessels, which Tim had already surmised from the fact that he hadn’t bled out on Monument Hill. His right seventh and eighth ribs were bruised but not broken.
Since Robert’s and Mitchell’s deaths had taken place on Monument Hill, they charged him with crime committed on federal property to keep the case, murders and all, in their backyard rather than turning it over to the state courts. Plus, Tim’s confrontation with Bear at Yamashiro was filed as assaulting a federal employee, another federal hook. The appointed PD pled him not guilty at the postindictment arraignment; Tim watched the proceedings glumly from a wheelchair.
In the news Dumone’s name was mentioned only tangentially; evidently the “Vigilante Four” didn’t have the same ring. The nature of Tim’s involvement was kept under tight wraps, though that only seemed to whet the appetites of reporters and journalists.
Tim’s new temporary residence, the Metropolitan Detention Center, was an adjunct to the Roybal Building, part of the cluster of buildings where he used to report to work. A high-rise with slit windows like squinting eyes, the detention area was cold and harshly lit, the lowest loop of Tim’s inferno. Since he was a former law-enforcement officer, they celled him separately on Eight North, not leaving him to fend for himself in the general population. His ward in the Special Housing Unit, consecrated by the likes of Buford Furrow, who’d shot up the North Valley Jewish Community Center, and Topo, Mexican mafia godfather, was bare and clean. A single bed and an unlidded stainless-steel toilet. No hot water. The ceiling was low, so he soon acquired a stoop.
He wore a blue jumpsuit, a green windbreaker, and cheap plastic sandals that creaked. At 11:00 A.M. he had an hour for exercise, during which he could throw some weights around in the tiny pen or play basketball. Solitary H-O-R-S-E was less than invigorating; he usually just lifted and rehabbed his injured leg.
The federal guideline for first-degree murder was life to death. Federal guidelines, as that drunken public defender had pointed out to Tim, were notoriously inflexible. By his own count, Tim was up on at least three counts of murder one and implicated in three other deaths, not to mention the laundry list of additional felonies he’d picked up along the way, including obstruction of justice, conspiracy to commit murder, assault of a federal agent-to wit, a United States deputy marshal-illegal possession of firearms, and illegal possession of explosives. Tim figured he’d better get used to his current lifestyle. Frozen 7-Eleven burritos twice a day for the rest of his life.
A trial date had been set, he was told, for May 2, which gave him seventy-eight days.
The second week the congenial corrections officer politely took Tim from his cell and led him to the visitor area. Dray was seated when he entered the room, regarding him through the shatterproof glass.
She picked up the phone, and Tim followed suit.
“The photos,” she said. “Those awful photos. Of Kindell. With Ginny. I turned them over to Delaney.”
Tim chewed the inside of his cheek. “They won’t be admissible. I obtained them illegally.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m the peace officer, and I obtained them legally. From a civilian. You.”
Tim’s mouth moved, but no sound came out.
“The case is reopened. The arraignment was this morning. Prelim’s in five months-the PD’s scared, so he’s taking his time this go-around. Aging the case.”
Tim felt a tear swell at the brink of his eye. It fell, trailing down his cheek, dangling from the line of his jaw until he swiped it off with his shoulder.
They stared at each other for a moment through glass and embedded chicken wire.
“I forgive you,” she said.
“For what?”
“Everything.”
“Thank you.”
Her eyes were starting to water, too. She nodded, pressed a hand to the glass, and walked out.
•The COs offered him books and magazines, but Tim passed his days lying on his bed, reflecting quietly. They let him stretch his workout time in the exercise room to a few hours a day, which helped cut through some of his despondency. He ate poorly and slept well. He spent a lot of time thinking about his murdered daughter.
Lying on the cracked vinyl pad of the bench press one day, he finally had it-a single pure memory of Ginny, not of the loss of her, just her, untainted by rage or hurt or pain, laughing openmouthed. She’d gotten into a pomegranate; her chin was stained, and her happiness, even recollected, was contagious.
•The day before his pretrial motion, the corrections officer tapped gently on his door. “Rack, wake up, buddy. Your new lawyer needs to see you.”
Tim’s attorney, a weary man with droopy features, had gone on a fishing trip to Alaska and elected never to return. Another PD burnout to add to the ash heap.
“I don’t want to meet my lawyer.”
“You have to. Come on now, you’ll get me in trouble.”
Tim rose and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He splashed cold water over his face, smoothed down his hair, and brushed his teeth with a rubber-handled toothbrush. Pausing at the door, he regarded his blue jumpsuit. “How do I look, Bobby?”
The CO smiled. “I keep saying. It’s a good color for you.”
Tim was led down a hall into a dark conference room with no windows save a tiny square of shatterproof glass in the door. Bobby nodded reassuringly and opened the door for him.
Tannino was sitting at the head of the table, hands laced. In a neat row to his left sat Joel Post, the U.S. Attorney for the central district, Chance Andrews, the presiding federal district judge, and Dennis Reed, the Internal Affairs inspector who’d stuck up for Tim on his shooting review board. Bear stood shouldered up against the wall, one foot crossing his shin and pointing down into the concrete. Opposite them all sat Richard, the public defender Tim had protected from the bouncer that night in the club off Traction.
The door swung shut behind Tim. He made no move to the table.
“I hope one of you brought a cake with a file in it.”
Tannino unfolded his hands, then refolded them, his face maintaining its unamused cast.
“The thing is…” Bear shuffled a bit against the wall, not quite making eye contact. “The thing is, I forgot to read you your Miranda rights.”
Post leaned back in his chair, emitting a barely audible sigh.
Tim let out a short bark of a laugh. “I can give you my statement again.”
“As your new court-appointed defense attorney, I would strenuously advise against that,” Richard said.
“You’re my…?”
Richard nodded.
“This is ridiculous.” He raised his voice to talk over Richard’s objections. “I wasn’t even in official custody yet in Bear’s office-he didn’t have to read me my rights.”
Richard was standing, his face red and impassioned. “You were clearly in custody. There was a warrant out for you. You turned yourself in. You were not free to leave. They tape-recorded Deputy Jowalski’s intercom call to Marshal Tannino’s office claiming you were in custody, and when the marshal came over to take your account, he closed and locked the door. You were then held for questioning, even denied medical attention.”
Tannino regarded Richard as he might the remains of a cockroach smeared in the tread of his loafers.
“How about my conversation with Bear at Yamashiro?” Tim said. “That’s certainly fair game.”