of respect, he was getting there. Ours had proven to be a mutually beneficial relationship, with me, the young prosecutor, learning from the older homicide investigator. Over time, we had grown in respect for one another’s abilities, and our friendship had grown after the many nights we shared, standing around at murder scenes, spending weeks and sometime months sifting through evidence and, later, savoring beers with other detectives at our favorite bar after we had finally brought our man down. In some aspects, our job was like that of hunters, but our prey walked asphalt and concrete and usually carried a gun.
“We have a multiple murder at Fran’s Market. Just got the call from sheriff’s dispatch. Get on the horn, Bill, and find out what’s going on. They didn’t seem to know much, just asked for us to respond.” We knew Fran’s Market was a small rural market, located on the outskirts of Fresno. We had been there before, almost three years before, during another murder investigation. I knew Bill would call in and then fill me in the details on the way.
“I’ll pick you up, boss.”
“I’ll be outside, Bill. We have to move.”
I knew what Bill was thinking as soon as he put down the phone. Like the kid needs to say “we have to move.” When do we not? We always have to move when we get a call. Bill put down the phone and walked into his home office to get his service weapon, a nine-millimeter automatic. He never carried it anymore unless he was going to a homicide scene or to an arrest. Most people think cops carry their service weapons all the time. Some do, usually the young ones and always the ones in uniform, but with detectives, the older they get, the more most of them just put it in the glove box when they are driving or they use a small revolver or automatic that can be carried in an ankle holster or, more comfortably, in the small of the back.
Bill always laughed at the television cops who pulled out some cannon they carried in a shoulder or hip holster. You only had to sit in a car with a gun stashed somewhere on your body to realize how uncomfortable it could be. Besides, a gun on your hip or in ruined your clothes. And Bill liked his clothes to look good. “For the ladies,” he would say. As for the shoulder holster, we had all heard stories about the guy who pulled his gun out of his shoulder holster and shot his partner standing next to him as he swung the gun around. Bill would leave the shoulder holster to Dirty Harry. But this was a homicide—Bill’s service weapon would be with him at all times on his hip, as would the .380 Walther PPK in his ankle holster. Bill always carried a backup when he went into the field. Old habits die hard. “So do cops who don’t carry a backup,” Bill would add with a small smile.
“In my forties,” Bill liked to say if someone asked. A tall, African-American man, he looked younger than his years, and he was definitely older than he would admit. He would never tell his exact age. Bill had coffee-colored skin and a well-formed mustache that he liked to rub when he was thinking. His given name was Willie, but nobody called him that except guys with whom he had ridden patrol with as a young man. Now he was “Bill.” For some reason, the younger guys hadn’t liked calling him Willie. It seemed to make them uncomfortable, political correctness being what it was, even back then. They assumed that his given name was William rather than Willie, so they just made him Bill. He knew they were trying to be respectful and had grown accustomed to Bill. If you asked him his name, he would size you up and decide whether he was a Willie or a Bill. Although I had reached the point where I could call him Willie, I called him Bill.
Before he became a D.A. investigator, Bill had been a member of the sheriff’s department homicide unit. After a while, he realized that working nights and weekends was taking a toll on both his marriage and himself. That’s why he had come to the D.A.’s office, for regular work hours and weekends free. But that had its downside, too. It could get pretty boring just interviewing witnesses. When he was offered the chance to work the D.A. homicide unit as primary investigator, he jumped at the chance, although it meant he still had to work some nights and weekends. But it was a good compromise. And I knew he had decided I wasn’t bad to work for. Actually, he thought I was pretty good for a young guy. At least that’s what he told others behind my back. He also said I was a little cocky—all right, a lot cocky—but with cops that fit right in. Anyway, I didn’t think I was all that cocky. I did think I was good, but that was different. At least, I thought it was different.
Bill pulled the heavy automatic from its holster. He dropped the clip and pulled back the slide. He always carried one in the pipe and a full clip. The chambered-round ejected. He slipped the clip back and chambered another round. Then he dropped the clip and loaded the round that had been ejected and shoved the full clip back in the butt of the automatic. He opened his briefcase and checked for his extra clip, his cuffs, and his flashlight. He was ready. He already knew it was going to be a long night.
Bill pulled up, watching me pace back and forth in my driveway. He would have been disappointed if “the boss” wasn’t outside waiting. He knew there was no point in telling me to wait in the house until he got there; I would never do it. I was always outside pacing and looking at my watch.
Bill smiled. It was a homicide. The victim would be on the floor waiting for us. He or she wasn’t going anywhere. Besides, there would be homicide investigators at the scene when we got there. The D.A.’s job was to assist the homicide investigators at the scene. We weren’t the primary investigators. Still, there was always a little adrenalin surge when you rolled into a homicide scene.
The first time Bill called me “boss,” I laughed. I knew what he thought of me. When I first arrived at the D.A.’s office, I didn’t know anything, just like most young deputy district attorneys fresh out of law school. But I listened and I learned.
I remember the first time I went down to the Identification Bureau. The “I” Bureau we called it. These days, there are whole television shows built around the people at the “I” Bureau. They call them “Crime Scene Investigators” or “CSI.” I guess “CSI” sounds more exciting, but as far as I’m concerned it’s the “I” Bureau. If they had a television show called the “I Bureau,” people would probably think it was about the local department of motor vehicles. I can hear it now, “I work for the ‘I’ Bureau,” and people will wonder if they can get their driver’s license photo fixed. I told one of the “I” Bureau techs, Jessie, to “run the print for a match.” She had a big stack of fingerprint cards, a magnifying glass, and a latent print card with the unknown perp’s prints. That was how they did it back then; they would take out a stack of print cards with some common characteristics and compare them by hand and eye to the latent print lifted at the scene. I remember that Jessie looked at me and smiled the way you do at a child who still believes in Santa. “Well it might take me a little while—what did you say your name was again?” That’s the first time I realized I had made an ass out of myself with seasoned investigators. Lesson learned. This wasn’t like television.
Things were different now. The difference for Bill was that now I was no longer fresh out of law school. I still listened and I knew I still had things to learn, but I also had come to know things he didn’t know, and he tolerated that. There was even his grudging concession that took me by surprise one morning when over a mug of coffee he observed that for a lawyer I might not be totally useless. When I told him to do something, it was usually after he had either politely and obliquely suggested it or we had discussed it. In a way, it had become a game between us—I would occasionally say the right thing before he suggested it, and this was happening more and more frequently. We had become a team. In law enforcement parlance, “a team” means that you take turns buying donuts, but it also means a lot more: like the unwritten rule that the other guy is the one who watches your back and you watch his.
Becoming chief of homicide for the district attorney was my dream. It was the top of the line for a trial prosecutor. Oh, you might be the district attorney, but when you were the chief of homicide you were at the top, as far as trial prosecutors were concerned. You got the biggest cases and you tried the toughest ones. And, while you always
