how many cops' careers they wreck.'
'And it's not?'
'No, it's not. Don't you think we're drowning in all the politically correct bullshit that goes through this division? The Gay and Lesbian Alliance gets pissed because some cop gets tough trying to bust a two-hundred- pound angel-dusted bull dyke who's brandishing a hammer. The arresting officer ends up putting the bracelets on but has his head opened up in the process. Instead of filing a resisting-arrest charge on the hammer-wielding debutante, the cop gets accused of gay bashing. It's a big news story. Lots of angry meetings in West Hollywood. The L. A. Times does a blue-death dance on the front page, and our fearless leaders dump the whole thing into our basket…
'Or some gangbanger caught standing over a dead body with a smoking MAC-Ten accuses the arresting officer of beating him in the station I-room. The EMTs are called, and the banger doesn't have a mark on him. But the special-interest groups take it to the press racial violence, forced confessions, cops on the rampage. It's a big deal, and everybody knows all the banger is doing is getting back at the cops who busted him. It's total bullshit. My own IOs are telling me the board won't float, but the perp's a minority. The Glass House and the mayor fold like deck chairs, and the whole mess is back in my office.
'After a while you start to sort out the really bad ones, maybe drop a few key pieces of manufactured evidence overboard, impeach one of your own lying wits if you have to, lay back a bit, try and even things out so good cops don't end up paying the price for somebody's political agenda.
'Then along comes a Rodney King, where the cops were dead wrong, and you gotta go to war, kick some ass. The police need policing. A department without self-investigation is bound to become corrupt.'
She drained her drink, the ice cube clinking on her teeth. She set the glass down hard on the table, telling him the lecture had ended. 'Is that all? Can I go now?'
'Tell me about Calvin Sheets.'
'I told you. Calvin was terminated by a good friend of mine, a current advocate named Susan Kellerman. Susan and I were both sergeants in Southwest Patrol, and I recommended her for Internal Affairs. She's not there two weeks and she gets Calvin's board. He was threatening her life with anonymous phone calls all during the investigation, but she couldn't prove it was him. She called me and asked what she should do. I took a ride out to Calvin's house and gave him a heads-up talk. It wasn't pleasant.'
'What happened?'
'I just said it wasn't pleasant. Okay?'
'Did Susan tell you everything about his case?'
'In detail. As a matter of fact, I got so mad at Sheets, I worked it for free. Did some IO work in my off-hours to help her.'
'What was he charged with?'
'He was shift commander on the Coliseum detail and was keeping bogus time sheets. He had officers listed as 'on duty' who weren't even there. They were kicking back salary and overtime to him. It was a mess more than ten cops involved. His whole shift was signing their own arrest reports 'cause Sheets wasn't around. On top of all that, he was off working a second job at the movie studio, doing security work.'
'For Logan Hunter.'
'Yeah. The cops on his detail called him Dream Sheets because he was so tired when he finally got to the Coliseum, he would just sleep in his office. He was running the sloppiest PED team I ever saw. His Prostitution Enforcement Detail at the Coliseum was watching the games while the hookers were running wild. There were more blow jobs going on in the parking lot than at a swingers' convention. The Coliseum Commission was enraged. We had dozens of letters from those guys. Calvin's board took two days, and Susan got his tin. Eight of the ten cops he was supervising got terminated with him. Two rookies survived but were given six-month mandatory suspensions. It was a disaster for the city. Calvin called me up after he got terminated… told me he would pick a time when I wasn't looking and pay me back with interest. I can hardly wait for him to try. Total sleaze.'
Shane sat across the table, absentmindedly twirling a red swizzle stick between his fingers.
'Stop playing with that, will you? It's making me nervous.'
He put the stick in the ashtray. 'Doesn't any of this seem strange to you? Add what I have to what you just told me, and it starts to reek. All these Internal Affairs cases, Ray's den and the H Street Bounty Hunters… a banger named Sol Preciado was doing assaults at the Coliseum; Calvin Sheets was failing to supervise his PED team down there, his fingerprints were on that videotape box, in an Arrowhead house where I think prostitutes were screwing guys that Sheets and Ray were blackmailing…'
'You've gotta connect the dots, Shane. You haven't done that. It's called police work.'
'I know, but don't you think a lot of this is damn strange?'
She sat looking at him for a long moment. Finally she nodded her head slowly. 'Drucker's case is going to a board tomorrow.'
'No, it's not. Mayweather just got an extension pushing it back to the twenty-third. If you're so concerned about policing the police, why not work on this?'
'Because I'm on the other side of your case. I'm prosecuting you. How on earth can I help you?'
'I won't tell if you won't.' He grinned.
'Tell you what, tomorrow I'll ask a few questions, just for the hell of it.'
'I think we should talk to Sol Preciado. He's a witness in Drucker's case. Why don't we go out to juvie and sit him down.'
'When were you planning for us to do that?'
'Now. Let's do it now. You've got an advocate card; the jail warden won't question it. Let's get him in an I- room at juvie hall and play 'I've Got a Secret.' Bluff him, see what he knows.'
She sat looking at him, not answering or reacting to the suggestion.
'If we get nothing, I promise I'll leave you alone.' Then he added, 'You won't have to see me again till my board.'
'We've gotta get one thing straight first,' she said. 'I want an unequivocal promise that you're not gonna use what I just told you about your old BOR against me.'
'Alexa, I was never gonna use that. You may think I'm an asshole, but at least I'm an asshole with principles. You did me1/2 a favor. I won't forget it. Whatever you decide now, as far as I'm concerned, nothing happened back then.'
'Okay, then let's go do some jailin',' she said.
They each took a car and followed each other all the way out to the juvenile jail in Downey.
Trouble was, once they got there and asked that Sol Preciado be brought to an interrogation room, they found out he was no longer a guest of the city. Earlier that afternoon a door had been mysteriously left open in the back of a court transport vehicle and the fifteen-year-old gangbanger had escaped again.
Shane and Alexa took the creaking elevator back down to the lobby and walked out of juvenile hall into the harsh Xenon lights of the parking lot.
'This kid has more jailbreaks than Dillinger,' she said.
'They pushed Drucker's board back to get time to arrange for this. They let him go so he wouldn't be around to testify,' Shane said. When she looked over at him, he added, 'I'm telling you, it's been like this ever since I shot Ray. Somebody is pulling strings, making shit happen. It's been orchestrated better than the Philharmonic.'
'You're being paranoid,' she concluded.
'I'm being framed,' he corrected.
Chapter 27
I'm making arrangements for you to go back to your mom on Monday,' Shane said.
They were sitting in his backyard chairs, Chooch with his feet up on the low picket fence, leaning way back, trying to look as though he couldn't give a shit. 'Make any arrangement you want, but I won't be here on Friday,'
