Without a Doubt - [14]

I caught sight of my baby’s head bobbing behind the crocheted curtains of the picture window. The sight of him always gave me a rush of joy.

No sooner had I gotten into the house than a tiny hand grabbed mine and dragged me down the small flight of stairs to the crudely appended addition that was my bedroom. I called it the Swamp. Whenever it rained, water cascaded down the wall behind my four-poster bed, causing mold to grow. I was allergic to it. During the rainy seasons, spring and fall, I was sick all the time with respiratory infections. There seemed to be nothing I could do to get rid of either the dampness or the mold.

There on a patch of well-discolored wall behind the bureau was an evil-looking arachnid the size of a pinball. She was starting a web, apparently at home in the squalor.

Oh, swell.

For the millionth time, I told myself, “We gotta get outta this place.” What invariably followed was the dismal realization that we had nowhere to go. I was struggling just to make the mortgage payment on this dump.

Thoughts like these usually triggered an orgy of self-reproach. But not tonight. I found, to my surprise, that I was in an indestructibly good mood. True, the cops had cut loose the suspect in a double homicide when they had a mountain of evidence to hold him. True, they were holding me at arm’s length. But you work with what you’ve got.

The fact of the matter was, I loved having a new case. A new case is like a secret lover. You think about it. Plan for it. It infuses unrelated events with a sense of purpose. We ordered in Chinese food that night, and as we struggled with chopsticks, I found myself mentally composing witness lists. That’s how it’s supposed to feel. Mind and heart engaged, neither tripping over the other. I hadn’t been that happy in a long time.

G od, Do We Look Like Morons

“Marcia, it’s crazy here!”

It was the delicate, nervous voice of Suzanne Childs on my car phone. I’m weaving in and out of lanes, trying to balance the handset against my cigarette. The damned window on the driver’s side won’t roll up. I’m struggling to hear her over the traffic.

“You won’t believe what’s going on!”

“Calm down, Suzanne. Just calm down.”

Suzanne is our conscientious and permanently agitated media relations director. This is her third call to me that morning, and every one has been urgent. The press was hounding Gil for details about the Simpson case, she said. Please-did I have any more info I could pass along?

“Geez, Suzanne,” I told her. “You probably know more than I do.”

Which was true. I’d caught some of the press coverage on TV the night before, and right there in my car, the drive-time radio waves were inundated with breathless news breaks about the double murder at the home of the famous former “football great,” as the L.A. Times described our suspect in a long page-one story. The alarming part of all this was that the news reports were telling me all sorts of things I didn’t know, turning up witnesses I hadn’t even heard of. That meant that every attention-hungry wannabe within broadcast range of L.A. was going to be coming forward with “evidence.”

When I reached the office about half an hour later, Suzanne was waiting for me. “Do you think you could call Phil or Tom?” she asked anxiously.

I already had. Several times. They weren’t calling me back. I motioned Suzanne to follow me into my office, tossed my purse and files on the floor next to my desk, and picked up the phone to dial RHD. No luck.

“Let’s talk to Gil right now,” I said to her, hoping that by pooling our information, we could stay abreast of events until I could get with the detectives. We walked to Gil’s office, which was unfortunately located right next to the pressroom. Frances, the guard who sat by the door to the D.A.‘s office, was staring at a gang of reporters who milled around with jittery energy. As soon as they sighted me, the vultures descended. I waved them off.

“Has it been like this all morning?” I asked Suzanne.

“They’re driving us nuts,” she moaned.

We’ve got to get a handle on this, I told myself. It’s gonna spin out of control.

Gil was on the phone. When he saw me, he beckoned me in.

“Close the door,” he said.

Our first meeting on the Simpson case. I should remember it more clearly than I do. David was there; I know that. He stood with arms folded tightly, as he does when he’s under stress. Some of the brass were there, I believe. Frank Sundstedt and Bill Hodgman. Everyone looked agitated except Gil. He sat behind his desk, wearing his usual mask of composure. He looked toward me, a signal to begin the briefing.

Briefing. What a joke. I barely had more than the top-of-the-hour drive-time reports. But I plunged in gamely.

“Here’s what we know about the second victim,” I told them. “Ronald Goldman. Twenty-five years old. Would-be actor who works part-time as a waiter at Mezzaluna.”

I’d never been to Mezzaluna, but I’d noticed it driving through Brentwood. One of those trendy West L.A. bistros where tourists go in hopes of sitting next to Michelle Pfeiffer.