AfterNet 01 - Good Cop Dead Cop

last year?” “Can you tell us how you made it through the crack?”
    Yamaguchi shied from the lights of the TV cameras and the flashes of the photographers. She held up her hand to shield her eyes from the lights.
    “Uh … yeah, he’s here. He’s the one who went into the crack and found the boy. And yes, he was hired last year. His name is Alex Munroe. Look, could you please stand back. I’ve lost contact with Alex and I think you’re blocking him.” She made a motion to her right and the reporters hurried to make a space while the cameras turned to point at the empty area beside her.
    “OK, everyone move back, give them some room,” a commanding voice said. Yamaguchi recognized the officer, who was actually pushing back some of the reporters, as Barbara Chavez, the department’s public affairs officer.
    Once she felt enough space had been created, she walked back to Yamaguchi, leaned close to her and whispered, “It’s Linda Yamaguchi and Alex Munroe, correct?” She nodded.
    Turning back to the reporters, Chavez said, “Let’s ask the questions one at a time.”
    “Whoa, she’s a take charge sort,” Munroe said to his partner.
    Chavez picked a reporter and motioned for him to ask a question.
    “That crack between the buildings measured eleven inches. How did Officer Munroe make it through?”
    “Shit, that was eleven inches? Tell ’em I got stuck a couple of times … but I realized I was only giving 110 percent so I reached down inside myself to come up with the extra 90.”
    “I can’t tell them that,” she said to him silently.
    “Then tell them that there’s no ‘I’ in team.”
    “Uh, Alex says that he got stuck a couple of times but that he … just thought about the kid and that once he got stuck, he thought his best chance was to just keep moving forward.”
    “Next question,” Chavez said, picking someone at random and pointing.
    “Do you think anyone other than a disembodied person could have effected this rescue? At least in such a timely fashion?” a woman asked into her microphone and then thrust it back at Yamaguchi.
    “Effected the rescue? Timely fashion? She sounds like a press release,” Munroe said.
    Yamaguchi realized that he was going to be almost no help. She opened her mouth to respond but Chavez had already jumped into the gap. “I certainly think Officer Munroe made it possible to rescue Jason … expeditiously,” she said.
    “What about your role, Officer Yama … guchi?” someone asked. She couldn’t see who had spoken. “What were you doing to help your partner?”
    Chavez touched her on the shoulder and whispered to her. “Don’t sell yourself short. Say exactly what you did.”
    “Uh, I … Alex went into the space between the two buildings and I lost contact with him. My terminal …” She showed her terminal to the reporters. “My terminal has a limited range. We communicate through the terminal. You must have seen these before?” The reporters and Chavez nodded and their assent gave her confidence. “OK, once he went in the crack, I didn’t know if he was stuck or not. I mean, it was pretty brave going in there. The dead don’t like being confined, you know. I mean, who would. But he went in and I don’t know how he did … oh, he said he had to kind of run at it and get in as far as he could. So then he was trapped …”
    They were able to leave 15 minutes later and went back to their car. Yamaguchi opened the door for Munroe, let him in and went to the driver’s side, but she had to wait a minute while other police cruisers and news vehicles cleared the scene. As soon as she got inside, he asked, “So what got into you?”
    “What? I don’t know to what you might be referring,” she said, while searching distractedly for a tissue. She found one and gave a good blow.
    “You’re on a high. You’re glowing. And I mean that literally. Your cheeks are flushed and in infrared you look like Our Lady of the Press Conference.”
    “Hey, I got on a roll. They were eating it up.”
    “Yeah, I really liked the part where you battle the giant snake and I snatch the jewel from the statue of the monkey god.”
    “Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” she said, although she was already starting to worry that she had gone too far. “Besides, you were feeding me lines. ‘I was trapped. I couldn’t move forward or back and I didn’t know how long I’d been stuck.’” He said nothing. “Anyway, I’m sure it was OK. Chavez seemed to like