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  “Well,” Brad said, “are you going to tell me or do I have to beat it out of you?”

  Carolyn was tempted to lie, tell him that if he persisted in assigning her Metroix, the same thing would happen that had occurred with Downly. There were other competent officers in the agency. No matter how heavy the workload, though, someone had to do it. Knowing it was Carolyn gave Brad a sense of security. After the Downly incident, she would have expected him to back off. Obviously, that wasn’t the case, and it wasn’t how the man operated. He liked to live life on the edge. Doing things the easy way, he’d once told her, was boring.

  “I finished dictating the Dearborn shooting yesterday,”

  Carolyn answered. “I recommended the aggravated term as we discussed. The Perkins robbery has already been filed. As for the Sandoval shooting, I’ve summarized the facts of the crime. I interviewed the defendant at the jail last week. I’m seeing the victim, Lois Mason, this afternoon. Since Sandoval has two priors for assault with a deadly weapon and the DA filed under three strikes, he’s going down for the count.”

  “Great,” Preston said, one side of his mouth curling into a smile. “That means one less asshole on the street. I can’t believe Sandoval shot an old lady to steal her purse.”

  “She fought back,” Carolyn reminded him. “I have a few other minor things on the burner, and that’s it.” Being efficient had its drawbacks. She ended up doing twice as much work as many of her fellow officers. “I guess you can slap me with anything that comes in, Brad. You will anyway.”

  “I don’t have a choice,” he said, relieved that he’d heard at least some good news for the day. He had twelve new cases that had to be assigned, and no officers available to handle them. At least four of the twelve would end up with Carolyn Sullivan’s name on them. Now all he had to do was find someone to investigate the remaining eight.

  “Keep me posted on Downly,” Carolyn told him, standing to leave.

  “Everything’s going to be fine, baby,” Brad tossed out. He began thumbing through a thick stack of phone messages from the week before. He stopped and looked up. “The file said Metroix tried to get himself transferred to the prison hospital by claiming he was a paranoid schizophrenic. Every psycho I’ve ever run across knocks himself out trying to convince you he’s sane. A man who’s been in prison this long is dangerous. Watch your back.” He paused and then added, “And start carrying your damn gun.”

  “I’ll start carrying my gun when you stop calling me baby and sweetheart,” Carolyn snapped back. “You’re my supervisor now. Whatever happened between us is history.”

  “Cut me some slack,” he said, placing his hands behind his neck. “We may not be seeing each other anymore. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. I can’t sleep with someone I supervise.”

  “I hear you’ve been putting the make on Amy McFarland,” she told him. “Doesn’t the same rule apply to her that applied to me? I suggest you clean up your act before you get hit with a sexual harassment suit.”

  Carolyn had worked with Brad Preston since the day she’d been hired. Before making the mistake of sleeping with him, she’d wondered why he had never married. After their affair had ended, she’d noted a specific pattern. Preston liked the thrill of the chase. Once he got the girl in bed, it was only a matter of time before he lost interest. Amy McFarland had been on the job for less than three months. Carolyn didn’t trust her.

  “I’m not chasing after Amy McFarland. Amy and I kid around now and then. What’s the big deal? You used to be fun, Carolyn. Are you jealous because I got promoted? I’ve got five years’ seniority on you. I should be running this agency. Instead, I’m not much more than a glorified clerk. I’d change places with you in a minute if it wasn’t for the money.”

  “That’s baloney, Brad,” Carolyn said, her face set in defiance. “With all the real estate you own, you could walk out the door right now and live better than the average person. Your father was a wealthy man.”

  “Cheap shot,” he told her. “Nothing says we can’t have lunch together. Stop by around noon.” She was about to walk off when he raised an arm to stop her. “Oh, I scheduled Metroix for two. We need to get a fix on this guy right away. Harrison’s up there in years. That doesn’t mean he isn’t a tough son of a bitch. We screw up on this one, and both our careers will go down the toilet.”

  “Forget lunch,” Carolyn said, glaring at him over her shoulder as she was about to step through the doorway. “I don’t have time for lunch. I have a maniac for a boss.”

  Brad tilted his pencil toward her. “You’re feisty. I like that in a woman. Maybe I’ll ask to be reassigned and we can pick up where we left off.”

  “Not on your life,” Carolyn said, pulling his door closed behind her.

  Chapter 2

  Back in the cubicle that served as her office, Carolyn’s stomach began gurgling with acid. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was already past one o’clock. She’d consumed six cups of coffee and hadn’t eaten since the night before.

  Opening the bottom drawer of her desk, she reached for her emergency rations—a stash of protein bars, along with a six-pack of bottled water. She only liked the protein bars that contained peanut butter, and they were hard to find. Her phone rang and she answered it, dropping the Balance bar on her desk. She heard the distinctive voice of her thirty-one-year-old brother.

  “I’m having some people over tonight,” Neil said. “Nothing fancy. Some wine and cheese. We’re trying to decide what paintings we should put in the show next week. I’d like your opinion.”

  “You know I have school on Monday nights,” Carolyn told him. “Why weren’t you at Mother’s yesterday? You didn’t even call. I tried your cell. It was busy.”

  “I’m sorry,” Neil told her. “It completely slipped my mind. Was Mom upset?”

  “Not really,” Carolyn told him. “You’re the golden boy, the contemporary Michelangelo. The only way you could have risen higher in Mom’s eyes was to become a priest.”

  “God forbid,” he said, laughing. “I’ll call her now and try to make amends. Are you all right? You don’t sound good.”

  The previous year, the county had issued everyone headsets. Carolyn pulled hers out and put it on so she could eat while they talked. “Did you read this morning’s paper? The man who raped the eight-year-old girl was my probationer.”

  “Jesus,” Neil said, “how can you work with these bastards?”

  “Working with them isn’t the problem; it’s controlling them.”

  “Don’t worry, sis,” he said. “You’ll be a lawyer before you know it. Another five years and you can be a judge. Then you can make all the decisions. You know that client of mine, Buddy Chambers, the big divorce lawyer? I was talking to him the other day. He knows all about you. He thinks you’d make a great judge.”

  “I was joking when I said I wanted to be a judge,” Carolyn told him, embarrassed. “Please don’t talk about me to your friends. I’ll be lucky if I pass the bar exam.”

  She depressed the off button on her headset. They were so close that they both knew when a conversation was over. To save time, they seldom said good-bye. People thought it was strange. Their father had been dead for five years. Since his death, the family had developed a heightened awareness of one another. When either Carolyn, her mother, or her brother had some type of problem, one of the three would invariably call. Several of their friends thought they communicated over the Internet, using Instant Messenger or some other similar computer program. No, she told them. They didn’t use the Internet and they weren’t psychic. Their ability to sense one another’s needs arose from the oldest and most powerful force in the universe—love.

  Neil’s world was very different from Carolyn’s. He might not be another Michelangelo, as her mother boasted to her lady friends, but he was an extremely talented artist. His career was finally taking off, and Carolyn was happy for him.

  Yanking the headset off and returning her attention to Dani
el Metroix, Carolyn read through the file again. He’d attacked three teenage boys outside of a bowling alley. Two of the boys had incurred minor injuries. Metroix had allegedly caused Tim Harrison’s death by intentionally pushing him in front of an oncoming car. Metroix had been unarmed at the time, and there were no eyewitnesses outside of the victims. The driver of the car hadn’t seen anything until the moment of impact. Metroix had been tried and convicted of second degree murder.

  A crime of this nature, basically a fistfight among four young men in the same age bracket, Carolyn thought, should have been pleaded as involuntary manslaughter. The boy’s death had more than likely been an accident. What made it a crime, regardless of who was responsible, was that the death had occurred during the commission of a felonious assault. The DA, however, was charged with determining what type of offense would be filed against the perpetrator. The two surviving boys had sworn under oath that Metroix assaulted them and intentionally shoved the victim into the path of the car.

  One of the things Carolyn couldn’t understand was why the three boys hadn’t overpowered Metroix. Three to one was pretty good odds, and these particular boys had been football players. She reached inside an envelope affixed to the back of the file and brought forth a stack of mug shots taken the night of the crime. Metroix’s face had been a mass of bloody pulp, the look out of his eyes dull and disoriented. The police reports indicated the only injuries the surviving boys had suffered during the fight were a few minor bruises.

  “Your two o’clock appointment is here,” Kathy Stein said over the intercom. “Where do you want him?”

  “Oh,” Carolyn said, “put him in room four. His name is Daniel Metroix, right?”

  “Yeah,” the woman said gruffly, her voice deeper than most men’s. “That’s what he said. Want me to check his ID?”

  “No, no,” Carolyn said. “That won’t be necessary.”

  She waited a few moments, giving the receptionist time to walk Metroix to the interview room. The Court Services Division of the Ventura County Corrections Services Agency encompassed the entire third floor of the building, and was located directly across from the courthouse. The jail was under the same roof, but there was no entrance inside the main building. Prisoners, however, could easily be moved from the jail to the courthouse via an underground tunnel.

  The partitioned offices where the probation officers worked overlooked the parking lot and courtyard. On the opposite side of the floor were rows of small rooms. Each room contained a table and four chairs as well as a phone that the officers used for on-line dictation to the word processing pool. The rooms were also used to conduct interviews. In most instances, the individuals interviewed were not on probation or parole. They were convicted offenders released on bail pending sentencing, victims, or other persons related to the specific crime the officer had been assigned to investigate. If the defendant had been denied bail, the probation officer would interview the subject inside the jail. Having the jail located in the same complex saved time for everyone involved in the criminal process.

  The officers assigned to court services generally possessed different skills than the officers who supervised offenders. Of vital importance was the ability to interpret complex laws related to sentencing, as Brad Preston had emphasized. The laws in the state of California were becoming increasingly more convoluted. An officer assigned to court services must be proficient at writing. On serious cases involving multiple offenses and victims, reports averaged somewhere between twenty and fifty pages.

  The Field Services Division, whose primary duty was to supervise offenders, had satellite offices scattered throughout the county. The officers in field services had enormous caseloads, to the point where they were clearly unmanageable. Failing to properly investigate a case could cause serious problems, yet in supervision, an oversight might leave an officer responsible for the death of a child, a battered spouse, or any number of tragic situations like the one that had occurred with Eddie Downly. Everyone in the agency was aware of the problem—there were simply not enough officers to supervise the constant influx of offenders.

  The situation in state parole was even worse as parole officers supervised individuals who had been released from prison, and the majority of these individuals had committed acts of violence.

  Carolyn thrust open the door to the interview room where Daniel Metroix was waiting. Once she was inside, she pulled the door shut behind her, her right hand still clasping the doorknob. Photographs didn’t always offer a good representation of a person’s appearance. The man seated at the small round table was wearing a light blue denim shirt, jeans, and a black leather belt. His feet were clad in what appeared to be new tennis shoes. His light brown hair was neatly cut. He’d obviously lifted weights while in prison, as she could see sinewy muscles beneath the fabric of his shirt. A far cry from the frail young man in the arrest photos, Carolyn thought. The look out of his eyes was flat and cold, then she noticed a spark of excitement.

  “How have you been?” he said, standing and extending his hand.

  Carolyn had no idea what he was talking about. Did she know this man? Although they weren’t that far apart in age, his records stated that he’d attended Tremont High, not Ventura High, the school she’d attended.

  Daniel dropped his hand to his side, obviously disappointed. “I’m sorry,” he said after some time. “We used to live in the same apartment building. It’s been so long, I guess you don’t remember me.”

  “No,” she said, curious now. “Where did you live?”

  “The subsidized building on Maple Street,” he told her. “I think it was called the Carlton West. Pretty fancy name for such a lousy building.” He dropped his eyes. “Anyway, that’s what my mom used to say. You lived a few doors down from us. You always wanted me to play with you.”

  “You’re mistaken,” Carolyn said curtly. “I never lived in that building.”

  She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table, gesturing for Metroix to do the same. She had kept her maiden name when she’d married. Brad was right about Ventura being a small town, but something about Metroix set her hair on end. The number of people she’d pushed along the road to prison was enormous. Metroix couldn’t hold a personal grudge against her, though, as she was in high school when he’d been convicted. Her picture was occasionally in the paper. Perhaps she’d investigated one of his former cell mates. Had he called one of his prison buddies and told him the name of his new parole officer? Could his talk about knowing her have been a way to cause her to let her guard down? With the Internet, you could find out information about anyone. She had lied when she said her family had never lived in the Carlton West apartments. But Metroix couldn’t have remembered her. She’d only been five years old at the time.

  Carolyn saw him staring at her left hand. She’d been divorced for seven years now.

  “What did he do?”

  “Who?”

  “Your husband,” Daniel said. “What did he do to make you stop loving him? You used to be married, didn’t you?”

  “I don’t discuss my personal life at work,” Carolyn said, knowing she needed to establish a position of authority at once. She placed his file on the table and opened it, removing a piece of paper listing the terms and conditions of his parole. “You’ve been placed on parole for a period of thirty-six months,” she said. “As a condition of your parole, you are to report to this office on a monthly basis. Do you understand?”

  Daniel nodded, tilting his chair back on its hind legs.

  “You are to submit to home visits with or without advance notice.”

  “What if I don’t have a home?”

  “Where are you living?”

  “I just got into town,” he told her.

  “But you were released two weeks ago.”

  “I wanted to do some sight-seeing,” Daniel said. “I spent some time in L.A. My release papers said I didn’t have to report here until the end of the month. All I had to do was call and set up an a
ppointment. When I called, a lady told me to come in this afternoon.”

  Great, Carolyn thought, reminding herself that this was a parolee. After spending most of their life inside an institution, some of them committed suicide. “You can’t live on the street. If you don’t have a place to stay or necessary funds, you’ll have to stay in the shelter.”

  Daniel reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. “A guy on the bus gave me the address of a motel. As soon as I leave here, I’ll get a room. It’s called the Seagull, over on Seaward Avenue. What do you think? Is it worth checking out?”

  “I’m not a travel agent. Call and let me know if this is where you’ll be staying. I’ll need to check your living situation.” Carolyn pulled out her Palm Pilot. She had a paper to turn in tonight at law school, and she doubted if she’d have time to complete it. She had planned on working on it during her lunch break. “We’ll set the appointment for five-thirty tomorrow evening.” That way, she thought, she could stop by on her way home from work. And with daylight saving time, it would be light out.

  “Fine,” Daniel said with the disinterest of a man who was used to having people order him around.

  Leaving her Palm Pilot on the table, she read off another condition of his probation. “You have both alcohol and drug terms.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you’re not allowed to frequent bars or any establishments where alcohol is served.”

  “I don’t drink.”

  “Then you won’t have a problem,” Carolyn said. “You also have to consent to drug testing whenever I feel it’s necessary.”

  “You mean illegal drugs?” Daniel asked, placing his chair upright. “I’m taking medication for my illness.”