City of Lies

‘Something like that. I believe she may have said something about spending all your time with a man she still knows nothing about and has never met.’

‘Jesus. I never should have mentioned Max to her.’

‘Uh, duh? Don’t ask, don’t tell, is my motto. Tie me to a water board at Gitmo. Call out the dogs. I say notzing,’ he said in his best Sergeant Schultz impersonation from the old television show, Hogan’s Heroes.

‘You know the only reason you get away with that is because I tell Mom what’s going on with you.’

‘No, you tell her what she wants to hear about what’s going on with me. The dude featured in the fictional tales of those phone calls is a complete and utter tool.’

Ellie did have a tendency to convey to their mother a brighter version of her and Jess’s lives. In the fairy-tale world that Ellie had created for her mother’s benefit, Ellie was a well-adjusted woman who just happened to be a cop, who had girlfriends, dates, and hobbies. She was nothing like the father, and her mother’s husband, who had given everything to the job. And in these stories Jess’s band, Dog Park, actually got paid to play standing-room-only gigs, and a lucrative record contract was waiting for them around the next corner.

‘You should have picked up, Jess. Just to make her feel better.’

‘And you should stop coddling her, and allowing her to hold you hostage with your daily calls. But that’s not up to me.’

Instead of responding, Ellie took another sip of her drink.

‘So,’ Jess said, filling the silence, ‘I may have met the stupidest woman on the planet yesterday.’

‘Hmm, I don’t know. The competition in that arena can be pretty stiff.’