“Hey,” she said.
“Hey. I just wanted to see him. Where’s Jon Junior?”
“He’s at day care.”
“Since when do you put him in day care?”
“Just a few times a week so I can do my yoga.”
“Melissa, we talked about this.”
“Not now, Jon. I don’t want to hear it. I have a life too. It can’t all be spent at home.”
Stanton looked down to Mathew who was hugging his leg. He had moonlighted early in his career as a bodyguard, a bouncer and even a night watchmen at a warehouse so that they would never have to put their kids in day care. He had done two years in Special Victims and had seen the videos of what happened when monsters were left alone with children and thought nobody was watching.
“Let’s go Matt.”
“I want to go with dad.”
“You’ll see him on the weekend. Come on.”
Mathew begrudgingly let go of his father’s leg and got into the car. He smiled and said bye and watched Stanton as they pulled away. Stanton turned toward his own car when he saw some boys in football uniforms assembled on the school’s field. On the sidelines the parents had gathered and were chatting. He walked onto the field and stood farther away than the other parents but close enough to listen in on their conversations. It was mundane and obvious but he ached to join them. To brag about his son’s time in the forty meter dash or how they had been practicing tackling in the backyard. But he knew that wasn’t his destiny. That was now Lance’s … if he wanted it.
27
Stanton went home and flopped on the couch. He thought about turning on the television, the mindless banter might distract him, but decided against it. He just lay there, listening to the sound of traffic outside and children yelling as they got home from school.
He was twirling his keys in his hand when he suddenly realized that he hadn’t checked the mail in a long time. There was nothing he was expecting and he had no inclination to see anything anyone had sent him, but there was a purpose in it that he wanted right now. Like crossing something off a to-do list. He rose and went outside and downstairs to the line of metal boxes. He opened his and saw that the mailman had crammed everything inside, wrinkling and folding most of his mail. He pulled out the advertisements and mailers and threw them in the trash the complex provided next to the boxes. As he walked back to his apartment he flipped through the rest of the mail. It was primarily bills, one letter from the UCLA psychology department asking him to donate as an alum. There was a handwritten letter addressed to him with his last name misspelled. He opened it as he climbed the stairs.
Before anything else, the signature line screamed to him and the rest of the mail dropped out of his hand:
Sincerely,
Francisco Hernandez
*****
Stanton sat on his couch and read the letter twice before laying it on the table and going out to the balcony. He watched some children playing in the complex’s playground and then went inside and read it again.
I’m sorry it had to come to this. This fucking department don’t have room for cops like us. Assistant Chief Anderson was the one that told me not to put in that stuff about the vic and the cop.
Sincerely,
Francisco Hernandez
The return address was the Orange County address for Disneyland and no name was listed. Stanton folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. He knew Anderson. He came up through Vice; An eleven year stint when most detectives could only put in two or three. He was known in the department for his undercover work until he began to go prematurely bald and wrinkles began to show on his face. The end came when every prostitute on the street would greet him as “Officer.” He took a desk job after that and rose through the ranks with old fashioned brown-nosing and putting in long hours. But Stanton knew him to be a by-the-book policeman. There was a story that had come down about him: when he was a patrolman in Indiana he had promised his Captain that he would be back to the precinct at a certain time to chauffeur the governor to a function. He was running late and speeding to catch up. He glanced down for a second to change the radio and hit a cow in the road. The cow bounced off the car but not before shattering the windshield and emptying its bowels over the car.
Anderson, unwilling to break a promise to a superior, drove the remaining ten miles to the precinct, cow feces flying off the car and into his face. That was always how Stanton had pictured him; a serious expression over a face covered in cow dung.
Stanton picked up the letter and slipped it into his pocket before heading out the door and to his car.
28
Assistant Chief Rodney C. Anderson was in the men’s room when Stanton checked in with his secretary. He took a seat on one of the couches and waited. There was a coffee table in front of him and issues of law enforcement magazines from across the country lay across it. There were a few issues of Guns and Ammo and a hunting magazine called The Happy Outdoorsman. On the cover was a man dressed in full camouflage hunting gear holding up the severed head of a buck. Stanton turned it over.
A few minutes later, Anderson walked up and said hello. He was tall and bald, slim at the shoulders with jowls that were just beginning to appear.
“I was told you need to speak to me, Detective.”
“I do. Mind if we talk in your office?”
“Not at all.”
His office was orderly and sparse. The only ornament that said anyone even occupied the space was a photo of Anderson and his wife on a boat. His arm was around her and he was smiling. It creased his face in a way that said he was not a man used to smiling.
Stanton was seated across from him and Anderson took his time settling into his high-backed leather chair. He sat rigid and folded his hands across the desk. Stanton knew instantly he was a man that had served time, a long time, in the military.
He took the letter out of the envelope and placed it on the desk. Anderson picked it up and read it. He didn’t flinch. Stanton was impressed that he showed no reaction at all. He just calmly placed it into his waste bin next to the desk.
“I assume he sent that to you recently?”
“I got it today. It was postmarked for yesterday, the day he was killed.”
“What are you suggesting, Detective?”
“Nothing, sir. I just wanted to talk to you about it.”
Anderson took a deep breath and his hands went to his lap. He leaned back in his chair, looking at Stanton, but he guessed anybody could’ve been sitting in that chair and receiving the same look.
“When I started in this department,” he said, “it was a whole different beast. There was … predictability in it. Most of the guys came from the armed services. Uh, were you in the service at all?”
“No, sir.”
“Helluva experience, Detective. Vietnam. You know I used to stick my rifle up and shoot without looking at what I was shooting at. I was an eighteen year old kid and what I did almost all day was shake.” He stood up and walked to a cupboard that was in a corner. He took out a clear bottle holding what appeared to be whiskey and poured a glass. He looked to Stanton. “A glass?”
“No thank you.”
He took three fingers of whiskey and came and sat back down. “Twenty-four hours a day, Detective, I shook. And I was always wet. If it wasn’t raining I was drenched in sweat. The humidity was something you can’t even imagine. The weather just stuck to you. You could taste it, it had a taste.” He took a long drink and placed the glass down on a coaster of the American flag he pulled out of a drawer. “Anyway, that’s all the past now. Most of the detectives I know up here want to get flashy positions so they can get the good jobs later. Guarding dim-witted celebrities or whatever. You know, that’s one of the hallmarks of a civilization in decline, when the celebrities are more revered than the day-to-day folks. Happened in Rome, happened in Gaul, happened to the French and English.”