“All right, we got it.” A cop maybe half my age stepped in.

“Just give me a second here,” I said.

“No, sir,” he answered. “We are to take the suspect into immediate custody.”

I turned away from Mary and kept my voice low. “What do you think I’m trying to help you do here?”

“Sir, my instructions are clear, and unequivocal. Please step away. This is our arrest.”

My only alternative to giving in was a truly ugly scene. I thought seriously about it, but knew my argument wasn’t with the arresting officers—it was with their boss. Anyway, the damage was already done.

Within seconds, they had Mary Wagner on her feet and were pushing her out the door. The stained dish towel lay crumpled on the floor, where a long red smudge marked the linoleum.

“First aid!” I yelled after them, not that they could hear me anymore, not that they gave a damn about what I had to say.

I swear, I wanted to hit someone. My frustration and anger boiled over, and I knew where to take it; I wheeled on the nearest sergeant.

“Where the hell is Maddux Fielding?” I shouted at the top of my voice. “Where is he?”

Chapter 93

Chapter 93

“BACK OFF, CROSS!”

Fielding said it before I even reached him. He was out on the sidewalk in front of Mary Wagner’s house, conferring with one of his arresting officers.

The block had been transformed from suburban normalcy into the kind of police scene most people never see, or want to.

A dozen or more black-and-whites clogged the street, most of them with their flashers still rolling.

Bright-yellow crime scene tape was being strung across the chain-link fence, and a barrier of sawhorses bracketed the property, holding back a fast-growing crowd of lookyloos who wanted to see a little true-crime history in the making.

Mary Smith lived right in that house. Can you imagine? In our neighborhood?

I saw that a couple of news vans were already on site as well. I wondered if Maddux Fielding had prearranged a little coverage for his Big Get, and it made me even angrier.

“What was the purpose of that?” I yelled at him.

All I could see was his smug expression as he grudgingly turned to look at me.

“You compromised a key interview, not to mention her personal safety and mine. Both unnecessarily. I could have been shot. She could have been shot. You made a carnival out of this arrest. You’re a disgrace to the LAPD.”

I didn’t know or care who was listening in; I just hoped it was embarrassing to Fielding. Maybe this was a language that he spoke. His face remained inscrutable.

“Agent Cross —”

“Do you know what you may have just done to your chances for a confession?”

“I don’t need one!” he finally shouted over me. “I don’t need one because I have something better.”

“What are you talking about?”