The White Angel Murder

27

Stanton went home and flopped on the couch. He thought about turning on the television, the mindless banter might distract him, but decided against it. He just lay there, listening to the sound of traffic outside and children yelling as they got home from school.

He was twirling his keys in his hand when he suddenly realized that he hadn’t checked the mail in a long time. There was nothing he was expecting and he had no inclination to see anything anyone had sent him, but there was a purpose in it that he wanted right now. Like crossing something off a to-do list. He rose and went outside and downstairs to the line of metal boxes. He opened his and saw that the mailman had crammed everything inside, wrinkling and folding most of his mail. He pulled out the advertisements and mailers and threw them in the trash the complex provided next to the boxes. As he walked back to his apartment he flipped through the rest of the mail. It was primarily bills, one letter from the UCLA psychology department asking him to donate as an alum. There was a handwritten letter addressed to him with his last name misspelled. He opened it as he climbed the stairs.

Before anything else, the signature line screamed to him and the rest of the mail dropped out of his hand:

Sincerely,

Francisco Hernandez

*****

Stanton sat on his couch and read the letter twice before laying it on the table and going out to the balcony. He watched some children playing in the complex’s playground and then went inside and read it again.

I’m sorry it had to come to this. This fucking department don’t have room for cops like us. Assistant Chief Anderson was the one that told me not to put in that stuff about the vic and the cop.

Sincerely,

Francisco Hernandez

The return address was the Orange County address for Disneyland and no name was listed. Stanton folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. He knew Anderson. He came up through Vice; An eleven year stint when most detectives could only put in two or three. He was known in the department for his undercover work until he began to go prematurely bald and wrinkles began to show on his face. The end came when every prostitute on the street would greet him as “Officer.” He took a desk job after that and rose through the ranks with old fashioned brown-nosing and putting in long hours. But Stanton knew him to be a by-the-book policeman. There was a story that had come down about him: when he was a patrolman in Indiana he had promised his Captain that he would be back to the precinct at a certain time to chauffeur the governor to a function. He was running late and speeding to catch up. He glanced down for a second to change the radio and hit a cow in the road. The cow bounced off the car but not before shattering the windshield and emptying its bowels over the car.

Anderson, unwilling to break a promise to a superior, drove the remaining ten miles to the precinct, cow feces flying off the car and into his face. That was always how Stanton had pictured him; a serious expression over a face covered in cow dung.

Stanton picked up the letter and slipped it into his pocket before heading out the door and to his car.