The Hornet’s Nest. Patricia Cornwell

of a Mercedes 300E that was wrapped around a tree. Everyone was tense and upset as a

siren screamed, and police had set up a barricade, blocking off the street. Brazil parked

his BMW as close as anyone would let him. He ran towards red and blue lights and

rumbling engines.

West arrived, and cops moved saw horses to let her through. She spotted Brazil taking

notes. He was dazed by horror as Raines and other paramedics lifted another bloody

dead body out of the Mercedes and zipped it inside a pouch. Rescuers lowered a victim

next to three others on pavement stained with spilled oil and blood. West stared at the

totaled Charlotte cruiser with its hornet’s nest emblem on the doors. She turned her

attention to another cruiser not far away, where Officer Michelle Johnson was collapsed

in the back seat, holding a bloodstained handkerchief to her devastated face as she

trembled and shook. West swiftly walked that way. She opened the cruiser’s back door

and climbed in next to the distraught officer.

“It’s going to be okay,” West said, putting an arm around a young woman who could not

comprehend what had just happened to her.

“We need to get you to the hospital,” West told her.

“No! No!” Johnson screamed, covering her head with her hands, as if her plane were going down.

“I didn’t see him until he was through the light. Mine was green! I was responding to the ten-thirty-three, but my light was green. I swear. Oh God! No, no. Please. No. Please,

please, please.”

Brazil was inching closer to the cruiser and heard what Johnson said. He stepped up to the door, and stared through the window, watching West comfort a cop who had just smashed into another car and killed all its occupants. For an instant. West looked out. Her eyes met his and held. His pen was poised and filled with quotes he now knew he would never put in any story. He lowered the pen and notepad. Slowly, he walked away, not the same reporter or person he had been. Brazil returned to the newspaper. He walked in no hurry and not happy to be here as he headed for his desk. He took his chair, typed in his password, and went into his computer basket. Betty Cutler, the night editor, was an old crow with an under bite She had been pacing and waiting for Brazil, and swooped in on him. She began her annoying habit of sniffing as she spoke. It had occurred to Brazil that she might have a cocaine problem. "We got to ship this in forty-five minutes," she said to him. "What did the cop say?" Brazil began typing the lead, and looking at his notes. "What cop?" he asked, even though he knew precisely who she meant. "The cop who just wiped out an entire family of five, for Chrissake." Cutler sniffed, her lower teeth bared. "I didn't interview her." Cutler, the night editor, didn't believe this. She refused to believe it. Her eyes glittered as she gave him a penetrating stare. "What the hell do you mean, you didn't interview her, Brazil!" She lifted her voice that all might hear. "You were at the scene!" "They had her in a patrol car," he said, flipping pages. "So you knock on the window," Cutler loudly berated him. "You open her door, do whatever you have to!" Brazil stopped typing and looked up at a woman who truly depressed him. He didn't care if she knew it. "Maybe that's what you would do," he said. When the paper thudded on his front porch at six o'clock the next morning, Brazil was already up. He had already run five miles at the track. He had showered and put on his police uniform. He opened the door, snatched the paper off the stoop, and rolled off the rubber band, eager to see his work. His angry steps carried him through the sad living room and into the cramped dingy kitchen where his mother sat at a plastic-covered table, drinking coffee held in trembling hands. She was smoking and momentarily present. Brazil tossed the paper down on the table. The front page, above the fold headline,