Page 40 of Return of the Spider
“Come in, Cross,” he said. “Shut the door behind you.”
I did, getting the distinct feeling I was headed to the principal’s office again.
“I’m thinking I made a mistake in hiring you, bringing you on this way,” Pittman said.
“Chief?” I said, feeling a surge of fear that he was about to fire me.
Face flushed, the chief of detectives said, “You do understand the concept of jurisdiction, don’t you? Or don’t they teach that at the police academy or in psychology PhD programs?”
“I understand the concept, sir.”
He glared, then slammed his hand on the documents on his desk, sending several flying. “Then why in God’s name did you try to take over someone else’s crime scene last night?”
“I—I didn’t try to take it over,” I said, stammering. “I was just—”
“You were just telling detectives in another jurisdiction what to do and how they should do it! I got a goddamned call about you at six thirty this morning from the Prince George’s County sheriff himself! He’s seriously pissed, and I don’t blame him.”
I did not know what to say. I figured Chief Pittman didn’t really want to hear my explanation, and anything I said to defend myself would likely make him even angrier.
I puffed out my cheeks, blew the air out, and said, “I understand your concern, Chief. I just get carried away trying to make things happen in cases I care about deeply. Like the Talbot case.”
When Pittman spoke again, his voice was several decibels lower. “The Talbot case is only your second case, Cross. You’ve been on the team less than a month. And now it’s not just the younger officers in the department who are upset with you. I’ve got senior detectives and top brass wondering whether I hired a loose cannon.”
“You didn’t. I promise you, Chief. I… I was just thinking that—”
“I don’t care what you were thinking, Cross. You’re still on probation. One more stunt like last night and you’re out. Got that? Dismissed.”
I went back to my desk feeling like I’d blown everything I’d ever dreamed of, sensing that all eyes in the squad room were on me, and wishing I’d never gone out the door last night, that I’d stayed home under the spell of Maria and Damon.
When I sat down, I found an envelope from Ellen Bovers at the FBI containing a videocassette with the footage I’d requested from the Chain Bridge camera on the DC side of Canal Street. I could have gone into the conference room and watched it on the video player there, but instead, I stewed, unable to stop thinking about my talk with Chief Pittman. It made me ill.
From the time I decided to get serious about academics in high school, I had prided myself on excellence in the classroom, in the clinic, and in my research. I had made a habit of not only succeeding in those worlds but flourishing in them.
I am not flourishing either here or at home these days,I thought.I am flailing.
Rather than giving in to a growing sense of confusion, doubt, and fear that I was not enough, that I was not a detective who understood the criminal mind better than most, I called an all-stop to the rush of my thoughts.
Martha Warner, my adviser and clinical professor at Johns Hopkins, once told me that when confused, fearful, or upset, one should stop and recognize that the emotional crosscurrents are often created by not facing up to one’s own role in whatever the crisis at hand is.
Reflect on yourself, not others,Martha always said.See clearly what error you might have made, what hurt you might have caused, and take responsibility for it. Your confusion and fear will fade away.
So I did that for quite a while. I saw how I’d left Maria when she needed me, left Damon when he needed me. I went to the police lines at the Beltsville shooting and asked the detectiveswho’d been there all day to let me in to look, and when they refused, I told them about the Talbot shooting and how I thought there might be a David Berkowitz copycat on the loose.
Matthew Brady, the lead detective on the case, looked at me like I had two heads and ordered me to leave the area.
“Fine,” I’d said. “Don’t believe me, Detective. But please call me when your ballistics report comes in.”
Sitting there in the conference room, I remembered Brady, a lumbering guy in his fifties with a cynical, seen-it-all attitude, walking away from me with the middle finger of his right hand held high.
CHAPTER
29
When john sampson returnedto the office with a thick tongue and a slightly swollen left jaw, I was in the conference room watching grainy video footage of the intersection of the Chain Bridge and Canal Street taken on the night of Talbot’s murder.
I was trying not think about my—to put it frankly—arrogance of the night before. I was going back to basics and humbly doing the raw legwork. I felt that was my best chance to break the Talbot case and get back in Pittman’s good graces.
“Hey, shunshine, why the long face?” John slurred as he came into the conference room. “I’m the one with a mouthful of Novocain.”
