'Okay, but this is absolutely it. You call me again, I'm hanging up.'
'Thanks, Sally, and don't get hit by the flower truck 'cause it's on its way.'
'Don't send me flowers, just stop calling.'
He heard the keys clicking as she entered Ray's name into the computer. After a moment she came back on the line. 'He had a den in Southwest. Get a pencil, these are his cubs…'
Shane grabbed a pen out of his pocket and turned over the manila folder. 'Go.'
'A full pack. There's six: Lee Ayers, John Samansky, Coy Love, Joe Church, Don Drucker, and Kris Kono. Don't call again.' And he was listening to a dial tone. No good-bye, no good luck, just a click and a buzz.
But he'd hit the lottery. The connection between all these first-year officers was Ray's police den.
A few years back, the LAPD had instituted an innovative concept called den policing. The department had discovered that it was difficult to go from civilian life into police work. After graduation from the academy, rookies were assigned a den leader to help them make the transition. As civilians, many of them had never experienced the discrimination and hatred that some elements of society aim at its sworn badge carriers. Often, particularly in the first year on the job, officers were totally unprepared for the abuse heaped on them. It was difficult not to respond when someone called you a pig and spit on you or your police car. Many cops ended up losing their tempers and resorting to violence. The idea of a den was to have a veteran officer who had perspective on the problems of police work assigned as a kind of emotional coach to help these rookies through their transition year. Den leaders were not commanding officers or watch commanders; they were not responsible for the officer's performance, only for his emotional stability.
Suddenly Shane could understand why these cops were hovering over Ray's death. He had been their coach; their confidant, their police department godfather. It was a piece of connective tissue that jerked the hostile emotional attitudes of the six officers into focus.
But it still left several more difficult questions unanswered: Why was Chief Brewer using Ray's old den to lean on him, and why were they all facing charges at Internal Affairs? What was the Hoover Street Bounty Hunter connection, and why were these six officers all involved in broken cases concerning that one Hispanic Southwest Division gang?
Shane sat there at the table, deep in thought. After a minute the narrow-shouldered wisp of a man who had given him the folder was hovering again. 'You through with that?' he asked.
'Yeah.' Shane handed back the folder, with the names of Ray's den still scribbled on the back. The clerk hurried away with it.
Shane was not sure what to do next or where to go. He couldn't return to IAD; he was dodging Mayweather. He didn't want to go home and just sit, taking the chance that the deputy chief would send a patrol unit out there to arrest him.
Finally, because he couldn't think of a better course of action, he decided to check in with DeMarco Saint.
It was not even ten-thirty in the morning when he got there, and DeMarco was already drunk. Shane was standing in the defense rep's living room, watching him struggle to get up off his sofa. He almost made it but fell awkwardly, catching himself painfully by an elbow on the coffee table.
'Whoa…' the defense rep said as he tried once more, this time managing to stumble to his feet. Two young boys, about fifteen, were lounging on the sofa on each side of him, watching the proceedings with glazed indifference.
'The fuck's wrong with you?' Shane asked, looking at his teetering defense rep. 'How can you be wasted? It's not even noon.'
'Had a few bubblies. Hit me harder'n I thought.' DeMarco grinned. 'Shane, meet the guys Billy an' Mark. Guys, meet Shane. They just moved in. Been sleeping under the fuckin' pier. I'm helpin' 'em out.'
They looked right through him, no change of expression. He wasn't even a blip on their radar. Anybody in a tie over thirty was in a parallel dimension and didn't exist for them.
'We gotta talk. Let's go.' Shane grabbed DeMarco's arm and tried to drag him out of the house. The two fifteen-year-olds rose up to protect their new landlord.
'Sit down!' Shane growled menacingly, and they did.
'S'okay,' DeMarco slurred. 'Lez go… jus' don' yank on me.
They left the house and walked out onto the sand. It was a bright Southern California day. DeMarco groaned painfully as the sunlight hit him, and he shaded his eyes, wavering badly as he walked. They were twenty yards away from the house when Shane spun him and faced him.
'How can you be fucking drunk, man?'
'Relax, will ya? I was up half the night workin' on your case.
Haven't even been t'bed yet. No food… s'why the brews snuck up on me.'
'Have you interviewed Barbara, prepared a witness list, contacted Mayweather or Halley to get their sworn affidavits and a copy of the DFAR, sent anything to the subpoena control desk?'
'I… I'm…'
'The answer is no, 'cause I've been with Barbara and you haven't even called her yet. She's gotta be priority one 'cause if she changes her statement, I'm dust. You gotta lock her in with an affidavit, secure her testimony before you mess with the rest of it. Since I know you know that, you've done nothing.'
'Hey, Shane… will y'calm down? Okay, just calm down.' DeMarco took a step forward and lost his balance and fell down. 'Oops,' he said, grinning. 'Somebody's moving the beach.'
'Dee, I was down at IAD this morning. I bumped into Sergeant Hamilton, who is running through my life with spikes on. She's got a box full of every mistake I ever made, even down to my old Patrol Division TAs. She's giving me a fucking sigmoidoscopy, while you're out here getting hammered. We only have eight more days, then we go in front of the board.'
'Relax. Okay?' He was trying to get up and not having much luck, so Shane knelt down beside him.
'How can I relax? I'm on the block.'
'I don't think Alexa Hamilton really wants to prosecute you. Okay?' He was smiling stupidly.
'That isn't what you said before. You said she'd been in Southwest supervising a patrol watch and came back to Internal Affairs specifically to take my case, that she volunteered for it.'
'When I said it, I was trying to duck the case, but now that I have it, I think otherwise.'
'She's the queen of the Dark Side. Whatta you mean, she doesn't want to prosecute me?'
'Why d'you think ya won the BOR sixteen years ago?'
'We won because you caught her key witness lying.'
'We won 'cause Alexa threw the fuckin' case.' He belched and then tried to stand, but again didn't make it.
'She what?'
'She threw th' fuckin' case, went in the tank, intentionally bricked it.'
'You never said that before. If she dumped it, you would've told me.'
'Hey, winning cases was how I kept my rep hard back then. I din' wanna share the glory. Wha' good's it to win a tough board if the prosecuting advocate throws the fuckin' case? 'Sides, she swore me to secrecy… Said she'd get busted if I tol'.'
'I want facts, Dee. I want the whole story. If you're bullshitting…'
'Not shitting.' He sat back and took a deep breath to clear his head, then went on. 'She comes to me like two days 'fore the board and tells me the chief advocate himself, the fuckin' Dark Prince, got a statement from Ray that was devastating to your case.'
'Wait a minute. Ray was on my side.'
'Grow up, man. Ray was on Ray's side. He didn't wan' any part of your problem, and his statement contradicted yours. Since he was your training officer, it was gonna flat fuckin' sink you.' He took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes. 'Alexa said she wasn't gonna include Molar's affidavit in the discovery material. Said since the DA took Ray's statement personally, he would insist Ray be called to testify, but Zell wouldn't be aware that Ray's affidavit had accidentally on purpose been left out of discovery.' Now he was grinning stupidly again. 'She said I should object an' get his testimony stricken, because she had failed to include it, makin' Ray's testimony inad… inad…' he belched 'inadmissible at the hearing. Thas wha' happened.'
Shane was confused. It didn't add up.
