Linda Brown was one of the highest paid officers on the Santa
Monica police force. A short, athletic woman, Brown had cracked
the glass ceiling for women in the department's motorcycle unit.

After three years of hustling a bike on the streets of Santa
Monica, she moved into the vice and narcotics division where she
quickly made the rank of detective.

Friends on the force described Brown as driven and private. It was not unusual for her to work an eight-hour day as a detective, then change into a uniform for a patrol shift.

In 1994, she started dating Kevin Cummings, a fellow officer and former running back in the Canadian Football League. They took weekend trips and Brown showered her beau Cummings with expensive gifts. But Cummings was married. And when
he showed no signs of being prepared to leave his wife, the
relationship turned stormy - each accusing the other of stalking
and making harassing phone calls. Something had to give.