I lay awake in the holding cell at the San Clemente station house for much of the day and night, slowly sobering up, certain I’d breached my bail conditions for the thing with the sheriff’s car, waiting for the moment the cops found the gun in my glove compartment.
Which is why I wasn’t surprised when one of the younger cops came in and called my name. This was it. I’d be marched to some interview room and quizzed about my role in Farah’s death.
“Yeah,” I said, getting to my feet slowly, trying to control my nerves and minimize the crashing pain of my headache.
“You’re getting out of here,” the cop said, unlocking the tank gate.
For a moment I thought I hadn’t heard right.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re being released.”
Suddenly everything seemed sunshine bright. I shuffled forward unsteadily, dazed and bewildered. I deserved to be punished. Why was this fresh-faced officer releasing me? He was betraying every principle of the oath he’d sworn to uphold the law. Was it a trick?
He let me through the gate, and we walked along a corridor lined with offices, an equipment store, and a briefing room until we reached the booking area, which looked completely unfamiliar to me.
An older cop at the desk gave me back my phone, car keys, and wallet. He didn’t seem happy about my release, but I wasn’t going to tell the guy I agreed with him.
If this is what passes for law and order in the United States, then we have truly lost our way, I thought.
I signed a couple of slips of paper, and the older cop eyed me coolly.
“You can go.”
I nodded, still a little surprised and uncertain, and turned for the door. The clock on the wall said 8:43 a.m. If I got my hustle on, I could be back in LA by lunchtime.
I staggered out of the station house into bright day and felt the tender kiss of a cool ocean breeze. I was on a hill, high above the surrounding buildings. Palm trees lined the approach road, and there were more lush trees on the streets to my west, which fell away in tiers as they approached the ocean. The vast blue of the Pacific met the sky in the distance, and as I squinted at the beauty of the scene, I couldn’t help but think I’d died in that barroom brawl and somehow gotten a ticket to someone else’s paradise.
There was movement to my left.
“Mr. Collard?” a woman said.
I turned to see the speaker lurking in the shadows just beside the entrance. She was about five-six, slim, with black hair pulled into a loose tail. She wore boots, linen trousers, and a dark blouse.
“Maybe,” I said, suddenly aware of the mucus filling my mouth.
Had I been sick at some point? I needed a glass of water.
“My name is Detective Rosa Abalos of the Los Angeles Police Department,” she replied, and her words were like sparks from a cattle prod and shocked me out of my stupor. “I’m investigating the murder of Walter Glaze.”