4th of July (3 page)

“Honey, the way I hear it, you had no other choice.”

Joe’s rough cheek brushed mine.

“My pager number is right by the phone. Lindsay? Do you hear me? I’ll be back in the morning,” he said.

“What, Joe? What did you say?”

“Try to get some sleep, Lindsay.”

“Sure, Joe. I will. . . .”

A NURSE NAMED HEATHER Grace, a saint if ever there was one, had secured a wheelchair for me. I sat in the wheelchair beside Jacobi’s bed as the late-afternoon light poured through the window in the ICU and pooled on the blue linoleum floor. Two bullets had tunneled through his torso. One had collapsed a lung, the other had punctured a kidney, and the kick he’d taken to the head had broken his nose and turned his face a brilliant shade of eggplant.

This was my third visit in as many days, and though I’d done my best to cheer him, Jacobi’s mood remained unrelentingly dark. I was watching him sleep when his swollen eyes flickered open to slits.

“Hey, Warren.”

“Hey, Slick.”

“How’re you feeling?”

“Like the world’s biggest horse’s ass.” He coughed painfully, and I winced in sympathy.

“Take it easy, bud.”

“It sucks, Boxer.”

“I know.”

“I can’t stop thinking about it. Dreaming about it.” He paused, touched the bandages over his nose. “That kid popping me while I stood there holding my dick.”

“Um. I think it was your cell phone, Jacobi.”

He didn’t laugh. That was bad.

“No excuse for it.”

“Our hearts were in the right place.”

“Hearts? Shit. Next time, less heart, more brains.”

He was right, of course. I was taking it all in, nodding, adding a few strokes in my own mind. Like, would I ever feel right with a gun in my hand again? Would I hesitate when I shouldn’t? Shoot before thinking? I poured Jacobi a glass of water. Stuck in a striped straw.

“I blew it. I should’ve cuffed that kid —”

“Don’t even start, Boxer. It’s we shoulda—and you probably saved my life.”

There was a flash of movement in the doorway. Chief Anthony Tracchio’s hair was slicked across his head, his off-duty clothes were plain and neat, and he was gripping a box of candy. He looked like a teenager coming to pick up his first date. Well, not really.

“Jacobi. Boxer. Glad I caught you two together. How ya doing, okay?” Tracchio wasn’t a bad guy, and he’d been good to me; still, ours was no love affair. He bounced a bit on his toes, then approached Jacobi’s bed.

“I’ve got news.”

He had our full attention.

“The Cabot kids left prints at the Lorenzo.” A light danced around in his eyes. “And Sam Cabot confessed.”

“Holy shit. Is this true?” Jacobi wheezed.

“On my mother’s head. The kid told a nurse that he and his sis were playing a game with those runaways. They called it ‘a bullet or a bath.’”

“The nurse will testify?” I asked.

“Yes, indeed. Swore to me herself.”

“‘A bullet or a bath.’ Those little fuckers.” Jacobi snorted. “A game.”

“Yeah, well, that game’s over. We even found notebooks and collections of crime stories in the girl’s bedroom at home. She was obsessed with homicides. Listen, you two get well, okay? Don’t worry about nothin’.

“Oh. This is from the squad,” he said, handing me the Ghirardelli chocolates and a “get well” card with a lot of signatures. “We’re proud a ya both.”

We talked for another minute or so, passing along thanks to our friends at the Hall of Justice. When he was gone, I reached out and took Jacobi’s hand. Having almost died together had forged an intimacy between us that was deeper than friendship.

“Well, the kids were dirty,” I said.

“Yeah. Break out the champagne.”

I couldn’t argue with him. That the Cabot kids were murderers didn’t change the horror of the shooting. And it didn’t change the notion I’d been harboring for days.

“I’ll tell you something, Jacobi. I’m thinking of giving it up. Quitting the job.”

“C’mon. You’re talking to me.”

“I’m serious.”

“You’re not going to quit, Boxer.”

I straightened a fold in his blanket, then pushed the call button so a nurse would come and roll me back to my room.

“Sleep tight, partner.”

“I know, ‘Don’t worry about nothin’.’”

I leaned over and kissed his stubbly cheek for the first time ever. I know it hurt to do it, but Jacobi actually smiled.

IT WAS A DAY that had been ripped from the pages of a child’s coloring book. Bright yellow sun. Birds tweeting and the flowery smell of summer everywhere. Even the pollarded trees on the hospital green had sprouted flamboyant hands of leaves since I’d last been outside, three weeks before.

A lovely day, for sure, but somehow I couldn’t reconcile life as usual with my creeping feeling that all was not well. Was it paranoia—or was another shoe about to drop?

Cat’s green Subaru Forester cruised around the elliptical driveway at the hospital entrance, and I could see my nieces waving their hands and bouncing up and down in the backseat. Once I strapped into the passenger seat, my mood lifted. I even started singing, “What a day for a daydream —”

“Aunt Lindsay, I didn’t know you could sing,” six-year-old Brigid piped up from the backseat.

“Sure I can. I played my guitar and sang my way through college, didn’t I, Cat?”

“We used to call her Top Forty,” said my sister. “She was like a human jukebox.”

“What’s a joooot box?” asked Meredith, age two and a half.

We laughed and I explained, “It’s like a giant CD player that plays records,” and then I explained what records were, too.

I rolled down the window and let the breeze blow back my long yellow hair as we drove east on Twenty-second Street toward the rows of pretty pastel two- and three-story Victorian houses that stair-stepped up and across the ridgeline of Potrero Hill.

Cat asked me about my plans, and I gave her a big wide-open shrug. I told her I was benched pending the IAB investigation of the shooting and that I had a whole pile of “injured on duty” time I might put to good use. Clean out my closets. Sort out those shoe boxes full of old photos.

“Here’s a better idea. Stay at our house and recuperate,” Cat said. “We’re off to Aspen in another week. Use the house, please! Penelope would love your company.”

“Who’s Penelope?”

The little girls giggled behind me.

“Whooooooo’s Penelope?”

“She’s our friend,” they chorused.

“Let me think about it,” I said to my sister as we turned left onto Mississippi and pulled up to the blue Victorian apartment house I called home.

Cat was helping me out of the car when Cindy loped down the front steps with Sweet Martha running in front of her.

My euphoric doggy almost knocked me over, licking me and woofing so loudly I only hoped Cindy heard me thank her for taking care of my girl.

I waved good-bye to everyone and was bumping up the stairs fantasizing about a hot soak in my shower and a long sleep in my own bed, when the doorbell rang.

“Okay, okay,” I grumbled. My guess? I was getting flowers.

I clumped down the stairs again and flung open the door. A young stranger wearing khakis and a Santa Clara sweatshirt stood at the threshold with an envelope in hand. I didn’t believe his cheese-eating smile for a second.

“Lindsay Boxer?”

“Nope. Wrong address,” I said perkily. “I think she lives over on Kansas.”

The young man grinned steadily—and I heard the clatter of that other shoe dropping.

“KILL,” I SAID TO Martha. She looked up at me and wagged her tail. Trained border collies respond to many commands, but “Kill” isn’t one of them. I took the envelope from the kid, who backed away with his hands in the air. I slammed the door shut with my cane.

Upstairs in my apartment, I took what was clearly a legal notice out to the glass-and-tubular-steel table on my terrace, which had a staggering view of San Francisco Bay. I carefully eased my sorry butt into a chair.

Martha settled her head onto my good thigh, and I stroked her as I stared out across the hypnotic swells of glinting water.

The minutes ticked by, and when I couldn’t stand it any longer, I opened the envelope and unfolded the document.

Legalese jumped all around the “writ, summons, and complaint” as I tried to find the point of it. It wasn’t that hard. Dr. Andrew Cabot was suing me for “wrongful death, excessive use of force, and police misconduct.” He was asking for a preliminary hearing in a week’s time in order to attach my apartment, my bank account, and any worldly goods I might attempt to hide before the trial.

Cabot was suing me!

I felt hot and cold at the same time as a sense of profound injustice roared through me. I replayed the whole scene again. Yes, I’d made a mistake by trusting those kids, but excessive force? Police misconduct? Wrongful death?

Those murdering kids had had guns.

They’d shot me and Jacobi while our weapons were holstered. I’d ordered them to drop their guns before I returned fire! Jacobi was my witness. This was a clear-cut case of self-defense. Crystal clear!

But I was still scared. No, actually I was petrified.

I could see the headlines now. The public would set up a howl: sweet-faced little kids gunned down by a cop. The press would lap it up. I would be pilloried on Court TV.

In a minute or so, I would have to call Tracchio, get legal representation, marshal my forces. But I couldn’t do anything yet. I was frozen in my chair, paralyzed by a growing notion that I’d forgotten something important.

Something that could really hurt me.

I WOKE UP IN a sweat, having thrashed my Egyptian cotton sheets to a fine froth. I took a couple of Tylenol for the pain and a sky blue Valium the shrink had given me, then I stared at the pattern the streetlights cast on the ceiling.

I rolled carefully onto my uninjured side and looked at the clock: 12:15. I’d only been asleep for an hour and I had the feeling I was in for a really long night.

“Martha. Here, girl.”

My pal jumped onto the bed and settled into the fetal hollow I made with my body. In a minute, her legs twitched as she herded sheep in her sleep while my brain continued to churn with Tracchio’s new neatly hedged version of “Don’t worry about nothin’.”

To wit:

“You’re gonna need two attorneys, Boxer. Mickey Sherman will represent you on behalf of the SFPD, but you’ll need your own lawyer to defend you in case . . . well, in case you’ve done something outside the scope of your job.”

“Then what? I’m on my own?”

I was hoping the drugs would tumble my mind off the hard edge of consciousness into the comfort of slumber, but it didn’t happen. Mentally, I ticked off the remains of the day, the meetings I’d set up with Sherman and my lawyer, a young woman called Ms. Castellano. Molinari had recommended her highly—and it means something when you get a rave review from the deputy director of Homeland Security.

Once again I concluded that I was taking good care of myself, given the circumstances. But the coming week was going to be hell. I needed something to look forward to.

I thought of Cat’s house. I hadn’t been there since she had moved in right after her divorce two years ago, but the images of where she lived were unforgettable. Only forty minutes south of San Francisco, Half Moon Bay was a little bit of paradise. There was a crescent-shaped bay with a sandy beach, redwood forests, and a panoramic ocean view, and it was warm enough in June to relax on Cat’s sunporch and bleach the ugly pictures from my brain.

I simply couldn’t wait until morning. I called my sister at quarter to one. Her voice was husky with sleep.

“Lindsay, of course I meant it. Come whenever you like. You know where the keys are.”

I fixed my thoughts on Half Moon Bay, but every time I nodded off dreaming of paradise, I snapped awake, my heart racing like a cyclotron. Fact was, my looming court date had taken hold of my mind and I couldn’t think about anything else.

THUNDERCLOUDS GRAZED THE ROOF of the Civic Center Courthouse at 400 McAllister, and a lashing rain soaked the streets. Having dispensed with my cane this morning, I leaned against Mickey Sherman, attorney for the City of San Francisco, as we climbed the slick courthouse steps. I was leaning on him in more ways than one.

We passed Dr. Andrew Cabot and his lawyer, Mason Broyles, who were giving an interview to the press beneath a cluster of black umbrellas. The only blessing was that there were no cameras pointed at me.

I grabbed a quick look at Mason Broyles as we passed. He had hooded eyes, flowing black hair, and a wolfish curl to his lip. I heard him say something about “Lieutenant Boxer’s savagery” and I knew he was going to gut me if he could. As for Dr. Cabot, grief had turned his face to a mask of stone.

Mickey pulled open one of the heavy steel-and-etched-glass doors and we entered the foyer of the courthouse. Mickey was a cool old hand, respected for his doggedness, street smarts, and considerable charm. He loathed losing and rarely did.

“Look, Lindsay,” he said, furling his umbrella. “He’s grandstanding because we have a great case. Don’t let him get to you. You have a lot of friends out there.”

I nodded, but I was thinking about how I’d put Sam Cabot in a wheelchair for life and his sister in the Cabot family plot for eternity. Their father didn’t need my apartment or my pathetic little bank account. He wanted to destroy me. And he’d hired just the guy to do it.

Mickey and I took the back stairs and slipped into courtroom C on the second floor. In a few minutes it was all going to happen inside this small, plain room with gray-painted walls and a window looking out onto an alley.

I’d stuck an SFPD pin in the lapel of my navy blue suit so I’d look as official as possible without wearing a uniform. As I took a seat beside him, I reviewed Mickey’s instructions: “When Broyles questions you, don’t give long explanations. ‘Yes, sir; no, sir.’ That’s it. He’s going to try to provoke you to show that you’ve got a quick temper and that’s why you pulled the trigger.”