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woman inquired. “There was no need to kill everyone.” And, since that woman had a seat on the city council, some people listened.
    A day later, Lee had reason to be concerned as she stood in front of the living-room window and waited for the car that would take her to police headquarters and a final meeting with the shooting review board. It was raining outside, and judging from the large number of umbrellas, it looked like the press knew what was about to happen.
    One of the reporters pointed up the street, and the rest turned to look. Having spotted the car, Lee made her way back through the apartment, opened the door, and locked it behind her. Then it was necessary to make a mad dash down the stairs and through the gauntlet of media. Cold raindrops hit her face, reporters shouted questions, and the crowd was starting to close in when Jenkins appeared. He used his bulk to clear a path for Lee, and she followed him to an open door and the backseat of an unmarked police car. Two yelps from the siren cleared the way. “Sorry,” Jenkins said, as the sedan pulled away from the curb. “They’ll lose interest soon. Things will return to normal then.”
    Except for Conti,
Lee thought to herself.
Things will never return to normal for him.
“So what’s coming down?” Lee wanted to know. “Good shoot or bad?”
    Jenkins shrugged. “I’ll find out when you do . . . But it looks righteous to me.”
    Lee looked out at the rain and back again. “And the funeral?”
    â€œIt’s scheduled for tomorrow.”
    â€œI plan to attend.”
    Jenkins nodded. “I figured you would.”
    â€œThen I’m going back to work.”
    â€œThat depends on what the shooting board says,” Jenkins replied.
    There wasn’t anything else to say, so they didn’t. Rain rattled on the roof, and the wipers continued to squeak until they entered the parking garage. “We’ll get out here,” Jenkins said, as they stopped at the checkpoint. “No point in going all the way to the dungeon.”
    Lee got out, flashed her ID, and followed Jenkins into the lobby. Other officers were there, and even if they didn’t know Lee personally, they knew of her. “Hang in there,” a detective said. “It was a clean shoot. And there’s no damned way they can say otherwise.”
    Lee hoped that the optimistic assessment was correct as the elevator carried them up to the seventh floor, where a conference room had been reserved. As Lee entered, she saw that Chief of Detectives Lacy was present, along with Deputy Chief McGinty, a member of the Internal Affairs (IA) team, the lead detective representing Homicide, and the attorney provided by the Los Angeles Police Protective League. He was a morose-looking individual who seemed like a funeral director in his black suit. Would she need his services? Lee hoped not as she took a seat halfway down the table.
    The IA rep started the meeting with a lot of legal blah-blah. Lee ignored most of it but a couple of things stood out. Two security guards had been gunned down inside the bank, and three motorists had been struck by stray rounds. All of which served to justify what she’d done even if she hadn’t been aware of it at the time.
    There was another item of interest as well. Something that hadn’t been confirmed until then. “Based on our investigation,” the IA cop said, “all of the bank robbers were members of the San Jose Death Heads. They’re believed to be responsible for two other robberies, both of which used the same MO. The scumbags appear out of nowhere, take control of the target through the use of overwhelming force, and demand gold instead of numoney.”
    After that, the homicide detective read the official ticktock of what had occurred from the moment Lee radioed in to the point where backup arrived on the scene. More than that, she illustrated the