Rosey then said, 'Ballistics just matched Alexa's gun to the shooting. It's all over the Glass House and you can bet somebody will leak it to the news in a matter of hours. These media activists are cranking up the pressure. It's already affecting the rank and file.' Then he looked over at Chikaleckio. 'Tell him about the morning roll call in Devonshire.'
'I had a regular Mason-Dixon line in there,' Chikaleckio said. 'Black cops all huddled up on one side of the room, white guys on other. The old wounds over Rodney King are tender. We don't need no more 'Gorillas in the Mist' B. S. Assholes like Reverend Leland Vespars will try and make this about race to raise money for his Harmony Coalition. He'll be on us like a quart of blue paint. And you're just makin' it worse, Scully. You need to go home.'
'Alexa's computer was stolen out of my house yesterday. The chief has directed me to get it back.'
Rosey leaned forward, looking at me carefully.
'I swear, Rosey. I'm under Ramsey's orders.'
'This man is playing you, Rosencamp,' Chikaleckio said.
'I've known Shane for twenty years,' Rosey replied. 'He's not a liar. Hear him out.'
'They're already calling Alexa a racist on TV,' I said. 'Rosey, you've known her since the Academy. You know she's not a racist. Whatever's going on here, she didn't kill Slade execution-style and then try to commit suicide. There's another explanation.'
'Why did he come to you, Rosey?' Dario asked.
My friend didn't answer.
'I'll tell ya why,' Chikaleckio continued. 'If he gets the president of the Oscar Joel Bryant Association working with him to prove Alexa's innocence, it's like we're endorsing him. We'll be saying the black cops on the department don't believe she killed Slade. It's a media play. He's using you, man.'
'Shut up and let me think,' Rosey said. It was quiet for a moment before Rosey said, 'If there's one thing this town doesn't need, it's allegations that the head of the Detective Bureau is a race hater when she's not.'
Dario sat quietly, staring at me before saying, 'It ain't about you or your wife, Shane. It's about cops of color not getting a square shake in the field, with the promotion board, or down at PSB. There's not a police force in America where you don't have this same double standard.'
'If OJB is gonna stand for anything, we gotta be who we say we are or none of it matters,' Rosey argued. 'All these black activists want is more strife 'cause it gets them airtime, money, and votes. They want us to all be victims because if we aren't, what the hell do we need them for?'
Dario leaned forward. His gun leather creaked as he put his muscled forearms on the table. 'Who stole Alexa's computer? Tell us what happened.' I could hear the skepticism in his voice.
I told them about Jonathan Bodine. How I hit him with my car and ended up taking him home with me. After I was finished, they both just sat there, staring.
'We're supposed to risk lookin' like assholes 'cause a this homeless guy and a computer, which may have nothing on it?' Chikaleckio said.
'Last night, right after they found Slade in her car, I dropped by Alexa's office. I went into her computer. All of her e-mails had been purged. But in her Special Ops files, one had been transferred. It was labeled 'Operation Dark Angel.' '
Rosey perked up. 'Dark Angel… that was David Slade's nickname in the Academy.'
I nodded.
'That doesn't mean that file's on her computer,' Dario said.
'Her office computer said: File transferred to AHC. There's no AHC acronym in the department directory, but I've been thinking about it, and I believe it stands for Alexa's Home Computer.'
We all sat in silence.
'One crazy homeless guy in a city of ten million?' Rosey finally said.
'I was hoping you could make it an off-duty project. Get some of the guys at OJB to help. I need to sweep the cardboard condos on the Nickel, from Alameda to Main. Check the parks and SRO hotels. This guy doesn't leave a forwarding address. His street handle is Long Gone John 'cause he's a thief and moves around a lot. I'd do it myself, but I'm just one person and I also need to stay close to Alexa right now.'
I told them what he looked like, and described Chooch's Harvard-Westlake sweatshirt. After I'd finished, Rosey looked at the muscle-bound sergeant sitting next to him.
'We gotta do this, Dario,' he said.
It took a while, but after several minutes, Chikaleckio finally agreed.
Chapter 23
I relieved chooch at ten o'clock. Nothing new on Alexa, but I made arrangements with him to return the following morning. He told me that Luther had called the ER and planned to move Alexa to UCLA tomorrow if she remained stable. Then he hugged me and headed back to the USC football dorm.
I stretched out on the sofa in the trauma ward and watched the story of Slade's murder evolve on TV. My wife had graduated from a victim to a person of interest. As Rosey and Dario feared, the ballistics match from her gun had all but sealed a guilty verdict in the media.
'Questions keep coming back to one fact,' a concerned CNN news anchor said. 'Why would the head of the Detective Bureau's gun and handcuffs be used as instruments in the death of her own detective?' This was followed by a shot of David Slade at fifteen, looking angry, all decked out in gang colors, scowling under a blue head wrap. i 20
'David Slade grew up on the mean streets of Compton, California,' the anchor continued. 'Despite poverty and numerous brushes with the law, he had aspirations for a better life. Early gang affiliations threatened his future, but he tore himself out of that downward spiral and at age twenty-one, joined the LAPD.'
Now Slade's handsome, clean-cut Academy shot replaced the scowling, angry one to demonstrate his magnificent transformation.
'Slade became a force for good, maintaining a residence in Compton where he gave back to the community and served as a role model for other gang-influenced children. All of this was tragically snatched away yesterday in one dreadful moment of violence.'
Shots now appeared of Slade slumped forward in Alexa's car on Mulholland.
'… dead in the front seat of his commanding officer's personal car. Shot with her gun, restrained with her handcuffs.'
Now a shot of Alexa appeared. They'd chosen one of those macho firing range photos the department takes. In the picture Alexa was wearing a black flack vest and plastic shooting goggles; her hair was pulled back under an LAPD ball cap. She was crouched low in a Weaver shooting stance, her 9mm clutched in both hands, looking mean and determined.
'On the other side of this senseless tragedy is Lieutenant Alexa Scully,' the anchor said. 'Privileged, beautiful, and the youngest bureau commander in LAPD history. She was only a thirty-five-year-old lieutenant when promoted to acting head of the Detective Bureau by the LAPD's then incoming Chief of Police Tony Filosiani. Lieutenant Scully's career was highlighted by postings in Internal Affairs, followed by a transfer to L. A.'s hottest division, the old South Central Bureau, where she also saw action on the same mean streets where David Slade once flirted with crime as a child. What angry forces led these two officers to that place where one now lies dead and the other dying? For more on this, CNN Special Correspondent Ann Richardson Brown has a story of passion and civil unrest.'
An African-American correspondent took over. She was standing outside the gates of the police academy at Elysian Park.
'Against a backdrop of racial strife in L. A., it appears that much more was going on between these two police officers than just a command relationship.'
Still shots of Alexa and Slade at the Academy appeared on screen, followed by candid photos of a police graduation party, where Alexa and Slade, both in their early twenties, were pictured together.
I couldn't take any more. I could see they were leading up to a relationship gone bad story followed by a
