the body snatchers took her away.
All of a sudden his partner advanced toward the young mother. Sheila’s wide-set dark brown eyes looked black now, and her
face had gone very pale around the mouth. Trembling with rage, Sheila Montez said, “You… ignorant… pathetic… little —”
She didn’t get a chance to say more because Aaron Sloane leaped forward, grabbed his partner by the arm, and dragged her outside,
from where he could hear the young mother sobbing loudly. And there on the sidewalk in the darkness, Sheila tried to say something
to him. She tried, but her fury utterly overwhelmed her and she started to weep. Aaron put his arms around her for a moment
and she didn’t resist, her body shuddering against him.
He saw the headlights as another patrol unit drove up, and he said, “Come on, partner, let’s get you back to our shop.”
While she was sitting in their car, trying to control the tears, Aaron waved off the second patrol car, indicating that no
assistance was needed, returned to the duplex, made the calls, and did the paperwork until the coroner’s van arrived.
Later, Sheila apologized to Aaron Sloane for what she wryly called “the Montez meltdown.” She also told him about her own
dead baby, and a little bit about her bad marriage to the sergeant from Mission Division, something she’d never spoken about
with any other officer, male or female, at Hollywood Station. She did it because she had to, and she could only hope that
Aaron Sloane was that most rare of creatures, a partner who could actually keep a secret in the gossip-riddled world of street
cops.
“What happens in our shop stays in our shop,” Aaron Sloane at last said to Sheila Montez, trying to reassure her when he saw
the anguish in her eyes.
As for Aaron Sloane, he realized that he had been her confessor that night only because he was there, such being the strange
and unique intimacy that can develop quite by chance within a police partnership. But in this case, it was an intimacy that
set his heart racing. And being true to his word, nobody but Aaron Sloane ever learned what had happened to imperturbable
Sheila Montez the night she stood in silence beside a dead baby’s crib.
THREE
T HERE WAS MORE THAN THE USUAL amount of complaining going on at the midwatch roll call the next afternoon, especially concerning Officer Hall from Watch
3, who had been bitten on the thumb by a gay hooker on Friday night. His taller brother, who worked Watch 5, had started the
gripe session on behalf of his little brother. The cops called them Short Hall and Long Hall. The prisoner wouldn’t consent
to a blood test, so a search warrant would have to be obtained in order to take the prisoner’s blood. The cop’s vacation had
to be postponed, and Long Hall was so livid that Sergeant Murillo assigned him to the desk, feeling that he might go all junkyard
dog if turned loose on the streets.
Long Hall said to Sergeant Murillo, “Twenty years of fighting ’roided-up street savages and my brother gets taken down by
Tiny Tim with a germ in his ass. They shoulda just cut his thumb off so the AIDS bug couldn’t crawl up his arm.”
Everyone in general was grouchy too because they were only able to field six cars, what with the perennial personnel shortages
at LAPD. The midwatch should’ve had a dozen. It was to be expected, given that the bulk of the probationary rookies were on
Watch 2 and Watch 3, leaving the Watch 5 midwatch to the saltier cops. And then someone mentioned the name of the despised
US district judge who for more than six years had been ramrodding the federal consent decree, under which the LAPD was compelled
to function as a result of the Rodney King riots and the so-called Rampart scandal a decade earlier.
The federal jurist had publicly commented that a recent criminal case involving a series of home invasions where drug dealers
were ripped off by a trio of cops, two from LAPD,
All of a sudden his partner advanced toward the young mother. Sheila’s wide-set dark brown eyes looked black now, and her
face had gone very pale around the mouth. Trembling with rage, Sheila Montez said, “You… ignorant… pathetic… little —”
She didn’t get a chance to say more because Aaron Sloane leaped forward, grabbed his partner by the arm, and dragged her outside,
from where he could hear the young mother sobbing loudly. And there on the sidewalk in the darkness, Sheila tried to say something
to him. She tried, but her fury utterly overwhelmed her and she started to weep. Aaron put his arms around her for a moment
and she didn’t resist, her body shuddering against him.
He saw the headlights as another patrol unit drove up, and he said, “Come on, partner, let’s get you back to our shop.”
While she was sitting in their car, trying to control the tears, Aaron waved off the second patrol car, indicating that no
assistance was needed, returned to the duplex, made the calls, and did the paperwork until the coroner’s van arrived.
Later, Sheila apologized to Aaron Sloane for what she wryly called “the Montez meltdown.” She also told him about her own
dead baby, and a little bit about her bad marriage to the sergeant from Mission Division, something she’d never spoken about
with any other officer, male or female, at Hollywood Station. She did it because she had to, and she could only hope that
Aaron Sloane was that most rare of creatures, a partner who could actually keep a secret in the gossip-riddled world of street
cops.
“What happens in our shop stays in our shop,” Aaron Sloane at last said to Sheila Montez, trying to reassure her when he saw
the anguish in her eyes.
As for Aaron Sloane, he realized that he had been her confessor that night only because he was there, such being the strange
and unique intimacy that can develop quite by chance within a police partnership. But in this case, it was an intimacy that
set his heart racing. And being true to his word, nobody but Aaron Sloane ever learned what had happened to imperturbable
Sheila Montez the night she stood in silence beside a dead baby’s crib.
THREE
T HERE WAS MORE THAN THE USUAL amount of complaining going on at the midwatch roll call the next afternoon, especially concerning Officer Hall from Watch
3, who had been bitten on the thumb by a gay hooker on Friday night. His taller brother, who worked Watch 5, had started the
gripe session on behalf of his little brother. The cops called them Short Hall and Long Hall. The prisoner wouldn’t consent
to a blood test, so a search warrant would have to be obtained in order to take the prisoner’s blood. The cop’s vacation had
to be postponed, and Long Hall was so livid that Sergeant Murillo assigned him to the desk, feeling that he might go all junkyard
dog if turned loose on the streets.
Long Hall said to Sergeant Murillo, “Twenty years of fighting ’roided-up street savages and my brother gets taken down by
Tiny Tim with a germ in his ass. They shoulda just cut his thumb off so the AIDS bug couldn’t crawl up his arm.”
Everyone in general was grouchy too because they were only able to field six cars, what with the perennial personnel shortages
at LAPD. The midwatch should’ve had a dozen. It was to be expected, given that the bulk of the probationary rookies were on
Watch 2 and Watch 3, leaving the Watch 5 midwatch to the saltier cops. And then someone mentioned the name of the despised
US district judge who for more than six years had been ramrodding the federal consent decree, under which the LAPD was compelled
to function as a result of the Rodney King riots and the so-called Rampart scandal a decade earlier.
The federal jurist had publicly commented that a recent criminal case involving a series of home invasions where drug dealers
were ripped off by a trio of cops, two from LAPD,
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