'I tried really, really, really hard to break it up before it got started.'
'Y'know, Shane, I love you, but you still have a lotta spots left that need smoothing off.'
'And you're slowly sanding them. I want you to know I'm extremely grateful.'
'Did the LAPD roll on it? Is this disaster gonna show up on a department green sheet downtown?'
'One of our black-and-whites was called, but Darren talked 'em out of doing anything.'
'Darren. Not you.'
'I was… in the toilet throwing up.'
'Shit.' Now she looked worried. 'You got knocked out?'
'I don't think I was puking because of a concussion. I think it was bad chicken wings. I feel really good this morning. Tip-top. The E. R. docs didn't even want to hold me.'
'Because you didn't tell them you were throwing up.'
'A lot of it is kinda vague. I've got blank spots.'
'Really.' She leaned back, tipping in her chair, still watching me.
'Be careful,' I said. 'I wouldn't want you to go over and hit your head, like I did.'
'Shut up, Shane.'
But I'd turned the corner, I could already hear a smile in her voice.
'It was just bad luck. We didn't know they'd be in there.'
She heaved a sigh. 'Look at me. Right in the eye.' She leaned forward and started checking my pupils. 'You're okay, I guess.'
She got up. I stood with her, but got a little dizzy when I did. To be honest, I might have picked up a mild concussion, but the less said here, the better.
She kissed me without passion; still angry, but she was late. 'Be home for dinner?' she asked.
'I think so. I'm trying to wrap up the Paula Beck thing today. Once the D. A. files and Zack comes back from Miami, we can move on to something else. I'll be on the fourth floor. Lunch?'
'I don't break bread with lawless brawlers,' she said.
'I was not brawling. I barely hit anybody.'
'Noon at the Peking Duck,' she snapped.
We left in separate cars. I drove my Acura, following her new blue Lexus until she sped up around the 10 Freeway and lost me in the heavy traffic.
I spent most of the morning on the fourth floor at Parker Center wrapping up the Beck investigation. I didn't think I had come up with enough on Paula for the D. A. to file the double-H. Even though the case was tragic, it really was just involuntary manslaughter. The D. A. could try and run his bluff, but if her public defender wasn't a complete moron he'd know it was a stretch. I finished the investigation report and handed it in to Cal, who glanced it over, then smiled at me.
'What happened at the Pew and Cue?' he said, his black, shiny, chrome-dome glinting purple in the overhead fluorescents.
'I wasn't there,' I said.
'It's all over the department. Somebody said you got knocked cold.' I kept my six-stitch lace-up turned from his view.
'Me?' I said. 'Wasn't there. Bum rumor.'
I had lunch with Alexa and we didn't say much. She picked at an avocado plate, which I could have told her was a bad menu choice at the Peking Duck. Stick to the Oriental dishes in that joint, the egg rolls and dim sum.
The rest of the day went slowly. I searched through our files on predicate felons, looking for a new target Zack and I could work when he got back. By six I was getting ready to pack it in, when my phone rang. It was Sergeant Ellen Campbell, who works as Alexa's administrative assistant.
'The skipper wants to see you,' she said brightly. The skipper was Alexa.
'On my way.'
I closed up my desk, logged off my computer, and rode the elevator up two flights to the sixth floor. I figured Alexa was going to suggest we make up over dinner. There was a Greek restaurant called Acropolis, in the Valley, she'd been wanting to try.
I walked down the thick, sea-foam green carpet that covered the corridors of the command floor, entered Alexa's outer office, and found Ellen, a perennially happy, freckled blonde sitting behind her desk. Most lieutenants aren't staff rank officers and don't have private secretaries, but Alexa was an acting division commander, and head of Detective Services Group. She reported directly to the Office of Operations, which was right below the Chief, so she was way up on the department flowchart.
DSG supervised all the detective bureaus, from Forgery and Missing Persons, to Special Crimes and Robbery-Homicide. Normally the head of DSG would be a captain or a commander, but Alexa had taken over the XO position a year ago as a lieutenant. She was made acting head by Chief Tony Filosiani after her boss, Captain Mark Shephard, had been shot and killed. Chief Filosiani liked her and was willing to leave her as acting head until she made captain, which, the way she was going, would probably be in another year.
Ellen was facing her computer as I crossed the office. 'Storms blowing. Wear your raincoat,' she said without looking up.
Alexa's digs were small. One window, no view. She had portable bookshelves on every wall. Tony Filosiani was a law enforcement junkie and read everything from student doctoral theses on criminology to medical volumes on forensic science. Alexa had picked up the trait. She had books and manuals piled everywhere. It was the new department. The rubber hose was in the Hall of Fame. Now we forced confessions with drops of DNA, luminous light, and blood-spatter evidence.
'Shane, sit down,' my wife said, looking harried. She glanced at her watch and I instantly knew we weren't going to dinner.
'What's up?' I asked.
'Big problems. ATF Internal Affairs just sent us over a copy of their findings on the Hidden Ranch shoot-out. They found SRT innocent of any wrongdoing.'
'What'd you expect?'
'Sheriff Messenger's in with Tony right now. He's pissed. The mayor is coming over with Enrique Salazar from the Board of Supervisors. The area SAC from ATF is on his way, too.'
'Look, Alexa, it's…'
'No. Stop talking for a minute and listen. We're going into a meeting on this in seconds. The ATF finding claims that they told the sheriff's warrant control office about the automatic weapons in Smiley's garage. Of course, the WCO denies it, and of course, there's no paperwork substantiating what ATF says.'
'Of course.'
'But Brady Cagel says they never write any paper on stuff like that when they give over a bust to another agency, and the fact is, he's right.'
'But what does this have to do with us? It's a sheriff's department-ATF spat.'
Her intercom buzzed. She picked up the phone, listened, then said, 'Right. Thanks, Ellen.' She hung up and said, 'Come on. Mayor MacKenzie's here. We're on.'
'Alexa, whatta ya mean we're on?'
'We've been ordered by the mayor to reinvestigate it.' And she was out of the office and down the hall.
I hurried to catch up, finally grabbing her arm before she got to Chief Filosiani's huge double doors. 'You're giving this to me?' Duh… Finally getting it.
'Look, Shane, I need you. This is the ultimate red-ball. Either way this goes, nobody is going to come out a winner. The best we can hope for is some kind of mitigating circumstance. But we probably won't get that lucky. The mayor doesn't want ATF to reinvestigate. He's not happy with their current finding and doesn't trust their objectivity. He also can't trust the sheriff to be unbiased. He knows there's going to be multiple lawsuits on the shoot-out from the neighbors and from Emo's family, so he came to us. We're your classic uninvolved third party.'
'Why me?'
'Three reasons. One: you're a great cop and you're fair…'
'Stop it. You'll make me vomit.'
