When Vince was through talking that day, one of the grand jurors said, “Explain to me, to all of us, why in the world didn’t you at some time go to Mrs. Reinert and warn her?” And by now Vince knew he’d spend the rest of his life being asked that question. And by now he knew that even when the words were not being uttered, the eyes were asking it.

The Onion Field made a real writer. And then I knew it was over, I couldn’t be a cop anymore.

But Team Policing and the Basic Car Plan had created lots and lots of new jobs for officers of staff rank. Therefore lieutenants made captain, captains made commander and commanders made deputy chief, and everyone had all the time they needed to think up new things for the working cops to do aside from catching crooks, which most of the new captains, commanders and deputy chiefs knew nothing about.

I hadn’t done anything in six years; I was just vegetating.

You listen to me, Treadwell. You’re an office pogue. You never been anything but an office pogue. You don’t have the slightest idea what goes on in a working police division. But you keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told and I’ll see to it that you’re a captain someday and you can have your own station to play with. You don’t and I’ll have you in uniform on the nightwatch in Watts. Understand me, Treadwell?

I enjoy adapting my own work, or anybody’s work. I like to adapt books.

Mike Cabral’s task force came to believe that John Orr was responsible for the vast majority of all the arsons they were studying, and by way of unverifiable proof, they pointed to the astounding statistic that showed a 90 percent drop in brush-fire activity since his arrest. In the county foothill area, brush fires had averaged sixty-seven a year clear back to 1981. After his arrest the average had dropped to one per year.

If you take 67 brush fires times 10 years, that’s almost 700 right there. Those brush fires are incredibly dangerous, all those homes going down proved that.

Sometimes the boy wished they could sit and that words would flow. But when they sat, eyes would turn shyly away. Father and son usually fell silent. It was ancient inherited shame of fathers and sons.

I’m sure I took some licks at the system, and at trials and lawyers in general. I’ve seen enough of them for so many years both as a cop and a defendant in defamation cases.