Paige Burdelon was delighted to learn of Cynthia's plans. "You have to stay with me," she enthused over the phone. "Since Biffy and I split, I rattle around this big condo like a stranger in my own home. Come on, Cyn, we'll have a blast, I promise."
Cynthia accepted happily, and went directly to Paige's from LAX airport.
* * *
The police department lecture series, six hour-long sessions scheduled over two weeks, began the day after Cynthia's arrival. Her audience, gathered in a large conference room at the LAPD headquarters, comprised eighty selected officers from the department's eighteen divisions, all of varying ranks and ethnicity, with about two thirds in uniform, the remainder in plain clothes. Currently the LAPD was attempting to convert a single area-wide force, for many years directed despotically from the top, into a group of localized forces with friendly community liaisons. At the same time the department hoped to put behind it a painful era symbolized by a bellicose ex-chief, Darryl Gates, the Rodney King travesty, and the Simpson debacle. M1ami's comparable transformation, which began much earlier and with considerable success, was respected nationwide as a prototype worth copying.
As Cynthia expressed it to her audience in an opening statement, "Just as in medicine, where the emphasis nowadays is on prevention, so should it be in police work. That's why the job of community relations has become so important. On the face of it, our job is simple: we must teach people to take precautions that decrease their chances of becoming victims of crime; at the same time we have to keep our citizens, especially kids, from being drawn into r crime. We haven't always done that, which is why critics believe that our bulging prison populations are not a sign of our success, but a symptom of our failure."
The audience stirred; some even groaned at the last remark. Cynthia added crisply, "I am not here to placate you, but to make you think."
She was also thinking herself somehow with her mind divided . . . the interminable wait. . . lying awake nights, imagining that man entering Bay Point . . . finding her parents . . .
She pushed those thoughts away, going on to describe Miami's Community Relations programs, ranging from the CATE (Crimes Against The Elderly) Detail, through the Gang Detail helping kids, so they didn't join one; neighborhood crime watches; a Missing Persons/Juvenile Detail among the busiest functions; a Crime Prevention Detail, and a dozen more.
"Of course," Cynthia added, "while community relations is a current hot button in police work, we also let the public know that for those who do insist on committing burglary, rape, arson, homicide, we're skill in the business of solving crimes with sharper investigative tools and tougher penalties."
The remark drew laughter and approving nods.
Despite the initial skepticism, Cynthia's speech was applauded loudly at the end, followed by many questions so many that her first lecture ran half an hour overtime.
As the group was filing out, one of the older officers, a heavily built uniformed commander with a lined face and graying hair, stopped beside her. "You're a determined lady," he said in a gravelly voice. "I'm one of the old guard, soon be out to pasture. Not saying I agree with your stuff; some I don't. But like you said, I'll go home and think."
Cynthia smiled; her own rank as major equaled an LAPD commander. "Thank you for that. Who could ask more?''
Winslow McGowan, a tall, reedy man about Cynthia's age, joined her and said, "Congratulations, it went well." He waited until they were alone, then added hesitantly, "Listen, Cynthia, it's none of my business, but ever since you arrived, you've seemed a bit distracted. Is everything okay, or have I messed up somehow with the arrangements?"
Cynthia was startled; until this moment she was convinced she had kept all private thoughts to herself. But McGowan was clearly a perceptive man.
"All the arrangements are fine," she assured him. "Absolutely no problems." But, she decided, she must be more careful.
* * *
Cynthia's concern with what was soon to occur three thousand miles away was eased by the whirlwind of activity Paige had organized. On their first morning together, Cynthia drove with Paige to work in her black Saab convertible, heading to one of the Universal sound stages, where a police thriller was being shot. They were cruising north on Interstate 405, the wind blowing through their hair.
"Just like Thelma and Louise," Paige laughed. She was tall and slim, with shoulder-length blond hair and blue eyes. "A generic L.A. girl" was the way she described herself.
"What's the movie we're going to see being filmed?" Cynthia asked.
"Dark Justice. It's a great story! A seven-year-old girl is murdered one night in an alley near the police station. The investigating detective is a good cop intelligent, a family man but the more that's uncovered, the more the evidence points to him."
"The detective killed the kid?"
"That's how it was written. The guy has acute schizophrenia, so he doesn't know he did it."
Cynthia laughed. "You have to be kidding.''
"No, really; it's fascinating. We have a psychiatrist on call to make sure our kooky bits are right."
"So what happens?"
"Tell you the truth, I don't know. The writers were told to change the ending after we landed Max Cormick for the role. His agent said it would ruin his career to play the murderer of a little kid. So I think we're going to make his partner the killer now."
"His partner? That's a bit predictable."
"You think so?" Paige sounded concerned.
"Oh, for sure. What about the detective's wife?"
"The wife! Of course. Wait a second." Excitedly, Paige picked up the car phone and hammered out a number. "Michael, listen. I'm here with an old friend who's a Miami cop. She thinks Suzanne should be the murderer."
A pause. "Hold on . . . Cyn, why would his wife be the murderer?"
Cynthia shrugged. "Maybe she's in love with someone else and wants her husband trashed. So instead of doing it herself, she sets him up so he'll be jailed for life or die in the gas chamber."
"Michael, did you hear that? . . . Okay, think about it."
Paige hung up the phone and smiled. "NOW I can take you to the best restaurants in town courtesy of the studio."
"What for'?"
"You're a story consultant."
* * *
Paige drove into the back lot of Universal Studios, stopping outside one of the large white sound stages. Inside, the cavernous space buzzed with activity. Cynthia looked around in amazement. It was as if a genuine detective office had been dropped into the middle of the building, then surrounded with lights, scaffolding, cameras, and a regiment of people.
She leaned into Paige's shoulders and whispered, "Do I get to meet Max Cormick?"
"Come." Paige led the way to a group of chairs, where the celebrated star was waiting for his next take. He was tall and confident, about forty, with slightly gray hair and hazel eyes.
"Max, good morning," Paige said. "I'd like you to meet Major Cynthia Ernst. She's from the Miami Police Department. "
He looked confused. "We have a cop from Miami in this?"
"No, no." Cynthia smiled. "I'm not an actress."
"Oh, sorry. It's just that . . . well, you look more like an actress than a cop."
"From all I hear, I'd make more money if I were."
The actor nodded with some embarrassment. "Yeah. Stupid, isn't it?"