The Night Crew

his neck. Two plainclothes cops, one male, one female, were watching the man at the body. As Anna came up, they both turned to her.
    The woman cop wore designer jeans with a crisp white blouse, and carried a blue blazer folded over one arm. Her round retro-chic sunglasses might have been stolen from one of the three blind mice. She was dark-haired and darkcomplected, a little taller than Anna, with a square chin and square white teeth. She carried an automatic pistol in a shoulder rig.
    Her partner was a large man, balding, gray-haired, a little too heavy, with deep crowsfeet at the corners of his eyes. His clothes were straight from JCPenney, and his black wingtips and pant cuffs would be filled with sand.
    Like the woman, he’d taken his jacket off, and carried what appeared to be an antique Smith & Wesson revolver on his belt. There was an odd body language between them, Anna noticed. When they moved, even a foot or two, the guy tracked her, but the woman was unaware of it.
    The man smiled, and the woman wrinkled her nose, as though Anna were a smudge on an antique table.
    ‘‘I’m Jim Wyatt,’’ the cop said. ‘‘This is my partner, Pam Glass.’’ The woman nodded, cool behind her glasses. Wyatt frowned, then said, ‘‘Do I know you? I’ve met you . . .’’
    ‘‘I do TV news, cop stuff,’’ Anna said. ‘‘You’ve probably seen me around.’’
    Wyatt nodded, grinned again, the openness of a good interrogator: ‘‘That’s it. You were at that raid on the burglary ring, God, couple years ago. They thought the guys had killed that woman on Marguerita . . .’’
    Anna pointed a finger at him, felt as though she was babbling. She didn’t want to look at the body; she’d do anything to delay it. ‘‘You were the guy who kicked the door.’’
    A good piece of tape: the cops filtering across a yard to the target house while a neighbor’s dog went crazy, barking; Wyatt drawing his gun, waiting for others to get in position, but not waiting too long, because of the dog. Then he turned the corner of the house with two guys in body armor and they took down the door.
    Creek had gotten the good shots and the cops’d taken three men, a woman, and two hundred pieces of stolen electronic equipment out of the place, everything from home blood pressure kits to cell phones and bread machines. There really hadn’t been much danger, but the tape was nice.
    Stalling: Don’t be Creek, don’t be Creek
    . . . ‘‘That was me,’’ Wyatt said, flattered that she remembered, pleased to meet her again. He’d been a hero for several hours. ‘‘Are you still doing the TV stuff?’’
    Anna nodded: ‘‘Yeah, same stuff, cops, fires, fights, accidents, movie stars.’’
    ‘‘A lot of police officers don’t like to be called cops,’’ Glass said, breaking in.
    ‘‘I know,’’ Anna said. She glanced toward the blanket— an army blanket, olive drab. The man squatting next to it was doing something to an exposed paper-white ankle. Looked too small to be Creek, and too white. No shoe or sock. The skin wrinkled by the water. The victim’s face was still covered by the blanket. To Wyatt, she said, ‘‘I hope to God this isn’t my friend.’’
    ‘‘His ID said Jason O’Brien . . .’’
    She almost fell down. Jason? She’d never thought of Jason. A sense of relief flooded through her, followed instantly by a sense of shame, that she should be so relieved.
    Wyatt said, ‘‘Are you all right?’’
    She caught herself. ‘‘Aw, jeez . . . Jason?’’
    ‘‘He had a card that said to call you,’’ Glass said.
    Wyatt, looking down at the blanket, said, ‘‘So you’re pretty close?’’
    ‘‘Not close, but he’s a friend. He was our backup camera, our second camera when we needed one. He used to call me Mom,’’ Anna said. ‘‘He’s a kid—was a kid.’’
    ‘‘Did you see him yesterday?’’
    ‘‘Yeah. He was shooting with us last night. He split around eleven.’’
    ‘‘You didn’t see him after that?’’ Glass asked.
    ‘‘No.’’ Anna explained about the animal rights protest and the jumper, and Glass and Wyatt nodded. They’d seen the stories. ‘‘So what do you think?’’ Anna asked. ‘‘Drugs?’’
    Wyatt shook his head: ‘‘Wasn’t drugs: why’d you think it was?’’
    Anna shrugged. ‘‘Jason did a lot of dope, I think. He got weird.’’
    ‘‘All your friends do dope?’’ Glass asked.
    ‘‘A couple,’’ Anna said. She wasn’t