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  “No,” she cried, crawling back to the boy’s side. “He can’t be dead. He’s so young.” She lunged at the boy’s body, thinking if she could just get his heart beating, they could patch him up at the hospital. The paramedic grabbed her around the waist from behind and pulled her away.

  “There’s nothing you can do,” he said, waving his partner over with the stretcher. “From what the other officers told us, you’ve been trying to resuscitate him for over twenty minutes.”

  Rachel sat on her knees. Her hands and uniform were smeared with the boy’s blood. She peered up at Grant, Ratso, and Jimmy Townsend huddled around her in a small circle. “Are you happy now. Grant?” Townsend said, watching as they loaded the boy’s body onto the stretcher.

  “What did you say, huh?” Grant snarled, grabbing Townsend by the neck. “Say another word and you’re dead.”

  “Take your hands off me,” Townsend said, struggling to pry Grant’s fingers off his neck.

  Kneeling forward, Rachel placed her forehead on the cold asphalt, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed. No one had ever died in her arms before. She’d seen dozens of dead bodies during the past two years, both adults and children, but she’d never held a dying teenager, never had one look at her and call her mother with his last words.

  Flashes of the shooting passed through her mind, Grant pulling the boy in front of him just as the other boy fired the gun. It had all happened so fast Had she really seen Grant using an innocent bystander as a human shield?

  Rachel’s mind flew back in time. She saw the circle of brilliant light in front of the Easy Eight Motel, felt the cold gust of night air brush across her naked body. Nathan Richardson had held her in front of him, using her as a shield against the police officers’ guns he knew were waiting for him. The man had been a kidnapper and a pedophile, though, a far cry from a police officer.

  The rest of the men who had responded were marching their youthful prisoners to their respective police units. Grant reached down and offered his hand to Rachel. When she ignored him, he dropped it back to his side. “Pretty hairy scene,” he said, the muscles in his face jumping. “I’d already patted that kid down. I don’t know where he got the damn shooter. I guess one of the other kids handed it to him just before he started firing. We’re just lucky someone else wasn’t killed out here.” He stopped and popped his knuckles, looking off into space. “I took a shot at the little prick, but I missed. He was smart. As soon as he fired, he hit the deck.”

  Rachel slowly raised her eyes, making no attempt to mask the hatred she felt for Grant Cummings. Through the fabric of his uniform, she could clearly see the outline of his bulletproof vest.

  “Come with us,” one of the paramedics said to Rachel. “You can ride in the ambulance. You need to get that injury on your head treated. I think you’re going to need a few stitches.”

  “I’ll drive myself,” she said, her eyes still trained on Grant. Could she have been mistaken? It was dark. With only one streetlight illuminating the area, it was hard to see anything that well. As Grant turned to speak to Ratso, though, her doubts disappeared. She knew what she had seen. Grant had purposely positioned the boy to protect himself. Seeing the sharp edge of his bulletproof vest pushing against the fabric of his police uniform, Rachel felt her blood begin to boil. Grant had broad shoulders and a narrow waist. When he wore his vest, his physique became more squared off and bulky.

  Rachel didn’t speak. While the men were conversing among themselves, she stood and walked back to her police unit.

  c h a p t e r

  ELEVEN

  “You can use this phone,” the ER nurse said, directing Rachel to a seat behind the counter at the reception station. The clock on the wall read 1:05. “Just make sure you keep it brief.”

  Once she got Sergeant Miller on the phone, she said, “I’ve got the victim’s ID. His name is Timothy Hillmont.” She stopped speaking, her fingers trembling on the boy’s school identification card. He was just fifteen years old. He wouldn’t turn sixteen for nine months. “Listen, I need to talk to you,” she said before the sergeant had a chance to respond. “Something awful happened out there tonight.” She craned her head around, seeing all the people assembled in the waiting room behind her. Every bed in the ER was full, and dozens of people were still waiting to be seen by a physician. “I don’t want to talk over the phone,” she continued. “I’ll tell you what happened when I get to the station.”

  “How’s your head?” he said. “I hear you got clobbered with a beer bottle.”

  Rachel fingered the bandage at the back of her head, trying to rearrange her hair to cover it. “Five stitches,” she said. “Nothing serious. Do you have a pen? I’ll give you the boy’s address so you can send someone over to notify his parents. According to his ID, they live on Ridge Road. Several reporters have been snooping around here at the ER, trying to find out what went down. If you don’t get someone to the kid’s house right away, his parents are going to hear the news on television.”

  “You’re at Presbyterian, right?” the sergeant asked.

  “Yes,” she said, propping her head up with one hand. “Why?”

  “Ridge Road is only a few miles away,” Miller told her. “Go ahead and handle the notification. When you’re finished, I’ll speak to you in the conference room.”

  “Can’t someone else do it?” she said, dreading the thought of facing the boy’s parents.

  “What’s the big deal?” he barked. “You’ve made death notifications before. Sometimes you act like a fucking rookie. I’ve got my whole watch tied up at Juvenile Hall booking prisoners, or back at the station writing reports. You’re it, Simmons.”

  She cupped her hand over the receiver. “I’ve never made a notification on an officer-involved shooting,” she whispered. “Don’t you think someone else should handle it, maybe a lieutenant or a captain? You know, someone who wasn’t involved. What if the parents start asking questions?”

  Sergeant Miller’s voice took on a sharper edge. “This is not an officer-involved shooting. I don’t know where you come up with this stuff. We didn’t take the kid out. One of the rioters shot him. Weren’t you there, Simmons? Don’t you know what happened out there?”

  “I know more than you think,” Rachel said, slamming the phone down in his ear.

  By the time Rachel pulled up in front of the Hillmont residence on Ridge Road, it was 1:45 Sunday morning. She spotted a light burning in the back, but the rest of the house was dark. Even though she had handled other death notifications, she had never gone out alone, and never when the victim had been as young as this one. She reached for the door handle to exit the car, then froze. Were the parents awake, she wondered, just sitting in there waiting for their son to come walking through the door? She felt that by remaining in the car, she was somehow delaying their misery. A dozen questions raced through her mind. Did they have other children? Had the boy ever been in trouble before? Was there a father inside the house, or was the mother a single parent like herself?

  “God,” she exclaimed, her fingers tightening on the steering wheel. She was the messenger of death, a speeding missile set to destroy the lives of people she had never met. She remembered the phone call from the hospital the night Joe had passed away. How could she ever forget it? It had been the one night she had left the hospital to spend time with her daughter. She had promised her husband she would be by his side at the end. It would be many long years before she would rid herself of the guilt.

  She walked up the narrow brick walkway, lined with blooming rosebushes. Everything about the house seemed surreal. It was all too perfect, almost like a page ripped out of a magazine. The manicured yard, the flowers, the little white fence around the front yard, even the way the moon was dangling right over the rooftop, as if she could reach up and grab it. This was the kind of house she dreamed of purchasing someday.

  The image of Grant pulling the boy in front of him kept appearing in her mind. Had he acted on instinct? Did he for
get he was wearing his vest? Or was the fearlessness he usually exhibited nothing more than a cleverly concocted act? Was Grant Cummings the coward she suspected he was—a man who would sacrifice another person’s life in order to protect himself?

  She rang the bell and waited. After some time had passed, she heard a woman’s high-pitched voice, then a few moments later, she heard heavy footsteps. A tall, distinguished-looking man with graying hair and puffy eyes cracked the door open and peered out at her. He was dressed in a bathrobe.

  Rachel took her badge out of her back pocket and held it up close to his face. “I’m Officer Simmons with the Oak Grove PD,” she said. “May I come in? There’s been…” She started to say an accident, but it didn’t apply. The door opened wider, revealing a dark-haired woman in her middle fifties with her hand pressed over her mouth. Dressed in black stretch pants and a long overblouse, Liz Hillmont had a pair of reading glasses perched low on her nose.

  “Oh, my God,” she exclaimed, “it’s Tim, Larry. Something’s happened to Timmy.”

  “Maybe it would be better if we spoke inside,” Rachel said, moving forward a few steps into the doorway.

  The man’s brows furrowed. “Yes, of course,” he said, stepping aside and motioning for Rachel to enter.

  The mother was already crying, tears streaming down her face. Rachel pictured her in a back room of the house where she’d seen the light burning, reading a book as she waited for her son to come home. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” she said.

  “Yes,” she said, having to cough the word out like a piece of dislodged meat. “I’m sorry.” It was as if the woman had known in advance. She didn’t ask if her son had been arrested, or if he’d been injured in a traffic accident, the first things that should have popped into her mind. Rachel suspected that with the weird premonition that all mothers seemed to possess, the woman had known her son was dead the moment Rachel stepped onto her porch.

  They were standing in the small entryway, the front door still open behind them. As Mrs. Hillmont collapsed into her husband’s arms, Rachel caught the scent of roses floating past her in the night air. She thought of funerals and the sickening, too-sweet smell of flowers. These people would be there soon, she thought, selecting a gravesite, a funeral home, sobbing as they watched their son’s casket lowered into the ground.

  “How did it happen?” the father said, his arm around his wife’s waist.

  “There was a fight in front of the Majestic Theater,” Rachel said. “One of the boys had a gun.”

  “D-did he suffer?” the mother said, her words catching in her throat. With one hand she clutched her husband’s robe, as if she would slide to the ground if she released it.

  “No,” Rachel said. “It was very quick. The bullet punctured his lung. I was with him when he died.” She started to tell the woman that her son had asked for her, but she knew it would only intensify her agony. Later, she thought.

  “Where is he?” the father said.

  “His body is still at the hospital right now, but they’ll be transferring him to the medical examiner’s office in the next hour or so,” she told him. “We’ll need one of you to confirm his identity. He was carrying his school ID on his person, but we still need a relative to officially confirm it’s your son. We can either go to the hospital right away, or—”

  “We’ll go now,” the mother said, a frenzied look on her face. “Wait here while I get my purse.”

  The woman could not give up hope that the police were mistaken. Rachel could read it in her eyes. Once his wife had left the room, Mr. Hillmont coughed several times in what Rachel thought was an attempt to keep from crying. His grief was etched on his face, though, and his skin had turned an ashen shade. “Does he…” He stopped, sniffed, then continued. “Does he look bad? I mean, maybe Liz shouldn’t see him. He’s our only son, you see. We had another son, but he died.”

  “The bullet entered here,” Rachel said, pointing to one side of her chest. “His face isn’t disfigured. I think it’s better if your wife sees him now, though, rather than wait and have to make the identification later. A hospital is a better environment than a morgue, don’t you think?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wanted to snatch them back. A hospital was a place where they took sick people. A morgue was strictly for the dead. Accepting the death of a loved one happened over a period of time. No one could instantly absorb the finality of such an event.

  The man slumped against the wall, grabbing his chest. Rachel was afraid he was having a heart attack. After a few moments, he seemed to snap out of it. “Excuse me,” he said stiffly, “I’ll need to get dressed.”

  Rachel stood at the pay phone in the women’s locker room. It was after eight in the morning, and she was on the phone with Tracy. “I can’t come home for a while,” she said, knowing her daughter was alone at the house.

  “Why not?” Tracy said. “I was supposed to go to Magic Mountain today with Sheila and her parents. They’re on their way over here to pick me up right now.”

  “Ask Lucy if she’ll watch Joe until I get there,” Rachel said, having forgotten about her daughter’s plans.

  “I just saw her drive off in the station wagon to go to church.”

  “You’ll have to stay with Joe until I get there, then,” Rachel said, sighing deeply. Her head was throbbing, but right now it seemed to be the least of her problems.

  “Sheila and I planned this a long time ago,” her daughter said. “You promised me I could go. Why can’t you come home? Are you going to another beach party? Maybe I’d like to go to a party too, but I’m always stuck looking after Joe.”

  “I’m not going to a party,” Rachel said, trying not to take offense at her daughter’s sarcastic tone. “A young boy was killed last night. I have to work late to finish my reports.”

  “Why did you even have Joe?” Tracy shot out. “You never spend any time with him.”

  “I-I…” Rachel was speechless. Her daughter had never spoken to her this way before. When she finally collected herself, she realized she was listening to a dial tone.

  Grant Cummings, Sergeant Miller, Jimmy Town-send, Fred Ramone, Rachel, and Ted Harriman were all assembled around the conference table, located a few doors down from the chief’s office. Whenever a major incident occurred. Chief Bates insisted that the officers involved be put through a debriefing session before they sat down to write their reports. The chief felt it was better to find out where their stories differed before the men put them into writing. Among the cities in Ventura County, Oak Grove had the lowest crime rate. The cases they presented to the DA seldom fell apart during prosecution. Chief Gregory Bates was certain the debriefing he put his officers through was partly responsible for the success of their cases in the courtroom.

  In a symbolic gesture, Rachel had taken a seat at the end of the table, far away from the other officers. She sat stiff-backed and sullen, her eyes glued to Grant Cummings’s profile.

  The scene at the hospital had been worse than Rachel had anticipated. Mrs. Hillmont had appeared fairly composed on the ride over. Rachel had the impression that she was a strong person. When she’d seen her son’s body, though, the woman had become hysterical, throwing herself on top of him and screaming that she wanted to die. The men from the medical examiner’s office had arrived shortly thereafter, compounding the tragedy. They had other stops to make, they said. They wanted to take the body immediately, and insisted that Rachel get the mother and father out of the room, even if she had to physically restrain them. Rachel had refused, ending up in a shouting match with the two morgue attendants while Mrs. Hillmont screamed and cried over her dead son’s body.

  She took in the men assembled at the table. Everyone had changed into street clothes, basically T-shirts and jeans. She had worn her only set of extra clothes to the beach the day before, and had nothing left in her locker to wear. She was still dressed in her blood-splattered uniform, her hair hanging in thick, matted strands to her shoulders.

 
Everyone in the room, with the exception of Sergeant Miller, had been present at the Majestic Theater. Although additional units had responded as well, they had not arrived until after the shooting and were not included in the debriefing. The sergeant had been having breakfast at Denny’s when the fight had broken out.

  Ted Harriman was seated directly across from Grant Cummings. Knowing how he felt about Grant, Rachel linked eyes with him across the table. She knew Harriman was honest, and that the ex-Marine was not afraid to speak out if the situation called for it. If he could substantiate Rachel’s story, it would make things a lot easier.

  Jimmy Townsend was slumped in his seat, his arms resting on his ample abdomen. Rachel recalled his bitter comment to Grant while the paramedics were working over the boy. She knew he had witnessed the shooting. He had been only a few feet away from her at the time. Would he tell the truth? It was a difficult call.

  “Okay, troops,” Sergeant Miller said, “let’s go through the events of last night step by step. Who was the first unit on the scene?”

  Grant raised his hand.

  “Grant drives like a maniac,” Townsend said, scowling and jumpy. “That’s why he always gets there before everyone else.”

  “When you’re in trouble, Jimmy boy,” Grant snapped, “you never mind me exceeding the speed limit. I’ve bailed your fat ass out about fifteen times in the past year alone.”

  “We’re not here to discuss who gets to the scene first,” Miller said, sensing the tension mounting in the room. “The sooner we get our stories together, the sooner we’ll be able to get out of here and go home. What was happening when you got there. Grant?”

  “You know,” he said, glancing over at Rachel, “it wasn’t a complex situation, Sarge. Just your typical gang of rowdy kids. It’s getting close to graduation time, so they’re already out drinking and raising hell. We’ve had problems at the Majestic before. When they were showing the Rocky Horror Picture Show, we had fights there every Saturday night.”