“You’re a forensic psychologist and a cop. Makes you curious.” Rivas leaned back in his chair. “Eddie’s father was a big-shot defense lawyer in San Francisco back in the seventies and eighties. You might have heard of him—James David Mahler.”

“Oh, yeah. I read about him in college. Handled some famous case, right?”

“Eventually, but he started small. Made his bones defending little guys. Then he’s named public defender for a homeless man named Michael Becker accused of killing a Swedish tourist who wandered into the Tenderloin at night. Eddie’s father proves the lead homicide investigator fabricated evidence. It’s a huge deal. National news.”

“Didn’t it expose corruption in the SFPD?”

“That’s right. It’s a whole political thing. After that, James David becomes a high-profile attorney, specializing in cases of the downtrodden versus law enforcement. In another big case, he defends two African Americans accused of killing a police officer.”

“He was, like, a fixture in San Francisco, wasn’t he? Did Eddie grow up there?”

“No. With his public exposure, Eddie’s dad doesn’t want his family in the city. So Eddie lives in Santa Rosa with his mother and his older sister, Diane. Mother dies when the children are young. They essentially grow up parentless. The kids resent their father for abandoning them. Both of them act out. Diane was one of the top middle-distance runners in the county, but she hooks up with some lowlife and starts shooting heroin. Eddie gets into fast cars, some weed.”

“One happy family.”

“Money and prestige don’t always protect you, Eden. Anyway, one night Eddie’s stopped for speeding, mouths off to the cop. The cop shoves his head onto the car hood, breaks Eddie’s nose. He knows that if he tells his father, his old man will bust the cop and sue the department. If Eddie hates the cop, he hates his father more. Eddie doesn’t say anything, but he never forgets that moment, the way the cop treated him. The officer’s anger and the anger it planted in Eddie.”

“And he still became a cop?”

“I’ll get to that. After high school, Eddie goes back East to Princeton. Start of his second year, Diane relapses. OD’s on smack and dies. Back in town, Eddie meets the cop who first arrested Diane when she was sixteen. They spend some time together while Eddie’s dealing with his grief. Turns out this cop kept track of Diane after that arrest. Got her into Narcotics Anonymous, arranged for sober-living housing, made sure she stayed with the program. When she disappeared from the housing, the cop went looking for her in the neighborhood, talked to people, block after block. Eventually found her body behind an empty garage downtown.”

“What happened to Eddie?”