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Authors: Faye Kellerman
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interview her daughter.”
“How do I do that?”
Decker smiled. “Charm.”
I busied myself with my toast, eating quickly and without talking. The meal was essentially over in ten minutes. When I saw
Decker sneaking a look at his watch, I knew I should let him go. He had taken time off from work. It would be rude of me to
keep him longer.
I left a ten on the table. When he balked, I insisted. Decker walked me to my car, opening the driver’s door like the true
gentleman he was. I hesitated before getting inside.
“I don’t know if I can be charming, Decker.”
“It depends on how badly you want that gold shield,” he responded.
I didn’t answer.
Decker said, “Practice smiling in front of a mirror, Princess. It’ll help to wipe the sneer from your face.”
7
L ocated smack in the center of Hollywood just east of the famous Sunset Strip, Mid-City High connoted glamour to the uninitiated, but in fact, it was
a dispirited school in a depressed area. It compensated for its age by being big—blocks long with intermittent patches of
green lawn. The flesh-colored pink stucco building was constructed with lots of curved walls and glass-block windows—fashionable
architecture in the ’40s and ’50s. Some of the exterior was painted with patriotic or ethnic murals, other parts held smudges
of unwanted graffiti. A couple of smog-tolerant palm trees and clumps of banana plants rounded out the picture of old Los
Angeles. I jogged up the twenty-plus steps leading to the front entrance and pulled open the brick-colored doors.
I was no stranger there, having been sent before by the Department to deliver the “earnest” drug talks with the students.
Last year, I also manned the LAPD booth with George Losario on Career Day. We were deluged with working-class teenage boys
interested in excitement and power. The biggest problem for most of them was the high school diploma required by the Police
Academy. The dropout rate at Mid-City was substantial. George and I used the opportunity to encourage them to stay in school.
Quite a few of my colleagues had more than the requisite high school education. Some had A.A. degrees from community college;
others had B.A.’s. I had a master’s from Columbia. It made me an oddball with the other uniforms as well as an object of suspicion.
I was working really hard to overcome prejudice and had met with some success. I wasn’t complaining, and it wouldn’t help
if I did.
The hallways were crowded and sweaty with adolescent hormones and nonstop activity; school was now year-round in the L.A.
unified district. Noisy, old, tired, Mid-City was only several miles away from the cultured Hollywood Bowl Amphitheater, but
light-years away from the West L.A. area, where the privileged often eschewed the neglected public institutions in favor of
posh private schools. I had to hand it to my stepmother. Though Hannah was an outstanding standardized-test taker, Rina wouldn’t
ever dream of sending my half sister to a private
secular
school. Instead, she elected to send her to a private
religious
school—a seat-of-the-pants Jewish day school. She prized religious studies above all, and in return for her faith in God,
she was rewarded by not having to worry about entrance exams and interviews for my ten-year-old sister.
Jaylene Taylor held the title of Girls Vice-Principal. She was tall and big-boned with a broad forehead, long equine teeth,
and dark eyes. She wore a beige blouse that sat over navy slacks and sensible flats. When I told her why I was there, the
dark eyes narrowed and her mouth screwed up into a distasteful look.
“I can’t just hand out names of our students. Everyone has rights, even minors.”
Not technically true, but now was not the time to get legal.
“Besides,” Jaylene continued, “you don’t want pregnant students, you want girls who were formerly pregnant. You know the dropout
rate we have with pregnant
“How do I do that?”
Decker smiled. “Charm.”
I busied myself with my toast, eating quickly and without talking. The meal was essentially over in ten minutes. When I saw
Decker sneaking a look at his watch, I knew I should let him go. He had taken time off from work. It would be rude of me to
keep him longer.
I left a ten on the table. When he balked, I insisted. Decker walked me to my car, opening the driver’s door like the true
gentleman he was. I hesitated before getting inside.
“I don’t know if I can be charming, Decker.”
“It depends on how badly you want that gold shield,” he responded.
I didn’t answer.
Decker said, “Practice smiling in front of a mirror, Princess. It’ll help to wipe the sneer from your face.”
7
L ocated smack in the center of Hollywood just east of the famous Sunset Strip, Mid-City High connoted glamour to the uninitiated, but in fact, it was
a dispirited school in a depressed area. It compensated for its age by being big—blocks long with intermittent patches of
green lawn. The flesh-colored pink stucco building was constructed with lots of curved walls and glass-block windows—fashionable
architecture in the ’40s and ’50s. Some of the exterior was painted with patriotic or ethnic murals, other parts held smudges
of unwanted graffiti. A couple of smog-tolerant palm trees and clumps of banana plants rounded out the picture of old Los
Angeles. I jogged up the twenty-plus steps leading to the front entrance and pulled open the brick-colored doors.
I was no stranger there, having been sent before by the Department to deliver the “earnest” drug talks with the students.
Last year, I also manned the LAPD booth with George Losario on Career Day. We were deluged with working-class teenage boys
interested in excitement and power. The biggest problem for most of them was the high school diploma required by the Police
Academy. The dropout rate at Mid-City was substantial. George and I used the opportunity to encourage them to stay in school.
Quite a few of my colleagues had more than the requisite high school education. Some had A.A. degrees from community college;
others had B.A.’s. I had a master’s from Columbia. It made me an oddball with the other uniforms as well as an object of suspicion.
I was working really hard to overcome prejudice and had met with some success. I wasn’t complaining, and it wouldn’t help
if I did.
The hallways were crowded and sweaty with adolescent hormones and nonstop activity; school was now year-round in the L.A.
unified district. Noisy, old, tired, Mid-City was only several miles away from the cultured Hollywood Bowl Amphitheater, but
light-years away from the West L.A. area, where the privileged often eschewed the neglected public institutions in favor of
posh private schools. I had to hand it to my stepmother. Though Hannah was an outstanding standardized-test taker, Rina wouldn’t
ever dream of sending my half sister to a private
secular
school. Instead, she elected to send her to a private
religious
school—a seat-of-the-pants Jewish day school. She prized religious studies above all, and in return for her faith in God,
she was rewarded by not having to worry about entrance exams and interviews for my ten-year-old sister.
Jaylene Taylor held the title of Girls Vice-Principal. She was tall and big-boned with a broad forehead, long equine teeth,
and dark eyes. She wore a beige blouse that sat over navy slacks and sensible flats. When I told her why I was there, the
dark eyes narrowed and her mouth screwed up into a distasteful look.
“I can’t just hand out names of our students. Everyone has rights, even minors.”
Not technically true, but now was not the time to get legal.
“Besides,” Jaylene continued, “you don’t want pregnant students, you want girls who were formerly pregnant. You know the dropout
rate we have with pregnant
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