Vertical Coffin s-4 Page 8

  "I'm Kimmy Fox." She smiled at me. Her smile was dazzling, her square teeth, bright and even as a row of porcelain tile. "I live right down the road. The two-story Regency on the right." She pointed at a house with a manicured yard.

  I looked down and saw that she was holding two, ash-dusted brass cartridges. Evidence that sheriff's CSI had missed. "Looking for souvenirs?" I said as I reached for the shell casings. She handed them to me reluctantly.

  "I still can't believe all this happened," she said.

  "Did you know Mr. Smiley well?"

  "As well as you can know somebody like that. He was kinda strange. He had this way of looking at you. Like you were a thing… or just property. It was very off-putting."

  "You see him with his dog? I understand he walked a dog every morning."

  "I'm sorry?"

  "A black Rottweiler."

  "Oh, yeah. Everybody knew that dog. Vicious. I'm a mom, and I was always worried he'd get loose. I have morning carpool this year, so I saw him out walking that beast a lot when I was heading out." She smiled again. "My kids are on midsemester break. Little rascals conned me into two days at Disneyland this morning." She looked at her watch. "Guess I should get going."

  "You ever see mounds of dirt piled in the backyard in June or July? I understand he was building a bomb shelter last summer."

  "How could you miss it? Who builds a bomb shelter anymore? That was a sixties thing." Then she smiled at me. "Could I have those back?" she said, looking at the cartridges in my hand.

  "Sorry. It's evidence."

  "Oh… okay. I was just going to show them to my husband. He was curious about all that stuff in Vincent's garage-the guns and boxes of ammo." She started to fidget. "I'm sorry if I did anything wrong coming up here. They took down the crime tape, so I figured it was okay. The guy lived just down the street from us. Then last week, he goes completely nuts, starts shooting up the neighborhood. It's just-I needed a way to close the door on it, is all."

  "I understand."

  She nodded. "Well, better get going, I have teacups to ride."

  "Ride carefully," I smiled.

  She walked away from me, picking her way out of the ashes, then down the walk on strong, muscular legs.

  There was something about her that seemed familiar, but I couldn't pin it down. I watched as she drove her Suburban up the street and parked in her driveway half a block away. I turned back and surveyed the burned-out house, wondering how the mindless insanity that had caused all this could live in such a peaceful neighborhood.

  Chapter 11

  THE ARGUMENT

  You're coming at it from the wrong direction," Alexa said. "You're wasting precious time investigating Vincent Smiley's death. He's not the problem anymore."

  We were finally at the Acropolis restaurant in the Valley, sitting at a patio table, but our plates of moussaka were untouched and cooling as we argued.

  "Honey, if I don't start there I won't even know what questions to ask."

  "You've only got two, or possibly three outcomes. Either ATF knew about the automatic weapons and C-four in that house, withheld information critical to the safety of the deputy serving the warrant, and they're lying, or they shared the information with the sheriff's warrant control office like they said, and the sheriffs are lying."

  "What's the third?" I asked, because I sure couldn't see it.

  "ATF was just on their way back from a training day like they claimed, and heard the shoot-out on the radio and nobody's lying."

  "They couldn't hear it without that TAC frequency in their truck."

  "Right. And you can't prove it's not there, because you can bet by now that truck has the frequency installed. Besides, you didn't have a warrant to search the damn thing."

  "Picky, picky, picky."

  "Hey, Shane, no kidding. You're on the wrong path here. Vincent Smiley isn't the problem."

  "He had a dog-a Rottweiler, and the sheriffs didn't find the remains."

  "So what?"

  "It's a loose end. I don't like loose ends."

  "It's nothing."

  "If he had boxes of C-four, where did he get them? It's so regulated by the government there's not even a black market for that stuff."

  "I don't know Shane, but it's not what you're supposed to be investigating."

  "He wore Kevlar and built a bomb shelter. He was hacked into a secure military computer called Cactus West. People who wear Kevlar and build bomb shelters do it because they want to stay alive. I don't think Smiley was trying to get the cops to kill him."

  "We have death-by-cop suicides wearing body armor all the time. Look at the North Hollywood bank shoot-out. Those guys knew they were gonna die. Smiley built his bomb shelter almost ten months ago. Things change. Maybe he took a bad hit of acid. Maybe he was dusted on PCP and went off the rails. Look, the only reason LAPD is on this thing in the first place is because the ATF shooting review cleared their SRT, and the mayor thinks it's a bad finding. Stick to that."

  "If it's a bad finding, then give it to our Professional Standards Bureau." Our new, media-friendly name for Internal Affairs. "They're good at scoping out OIS mistakes." I continued. "What the hell am I doing with it anyway?" I was raising my voice a little, and the people at the adjoining tables were beginning to look over at us with annoyed expressions.

  "I can't give it to Professional Standards. It's not an LAPD shooting. And you're the only one Bill Messenger will accept. Don't make it more than it is. Just do the job."

  "Is the moussaka not to your liking?" the maitre d' asked. He had drifted over to our table, displaying an elegant presence. His manner and tone made it clear that he thought we were destroying the restaurant's classic ambience.

  "It's fine," I snapped.

  "Bag it," Alexa barked.

  The maitre d' waved a waiter over. He cleared the plates while both of us tried to calm down. After he left I leaned toward her and lowered my voice. "Alexa, you've been a cop for almost as long as I have."

  "Are we gonna start comparing pedigrees now?" she hissed.

  "In all those years, how many times have you seen somebody who wants to be a cop start by filing applications with the Arcadia P. D.?"

  She was silent for a long time. "So?" she finally said.

  "So, my guess is that Smiley started out by applying to the LAPD or the sheriff's department, then, once he failed those entrance requirements, he worked his way down the list to the smaller departments. Santa Monica, Pasadena, Glendale, Arcadia."

  "Again, so what?"

  "Since Arcadia wouldn't give us their psych package on him, how about we look in our own academy apps? We do preliminary psychological tests. Maybe he's in there."

  "Why do you keep coming back to him? For God's sake, Shane, do you think he's still alive or something?"

  "No. I trust the DNA match. What I think is, maybe a sheriff or ATF agent knew something about Smiley, or maybe Smiley had something on one of them. He gave the Arcadia P. D. a DNA sample, maybe he raped some cop's sister and this was disguised payback. Maybe he had knowledge about some cop's misdeeds and needed to be silenced. Somebody is lying about that warrant, and I'm looking for the motive. I just want to keep my options open."

  "Maybe ATF just screwed up and that's why they're lying," she said, voicing the solution both the LASD and LAPD were rooting for.

  "I still want to see if he ever applied to our academy."

  "Shane, don't make me order you to do this my way."

  "And don't force me to disobey my division commander's direct order. At the center of this, something's very wrong. Smiley hates cops, but he's walking around pretending to be one? He has boxes of C-four, nobody knows where it came from. The vest, the bomb shelter, it's all inconsistent. It needs to be looked at."

  She studied me for a long moment. "I'm standing on top of a land mine here. I don't need you to tell me how much powder is in the mine. I need you to disarm the damn thing."

  "Honey, you're coming at this from a totall
y parochial position. You already have a theory and you want my investigation to confirm it. That's not the way to go about it."

  She sighed and her expression softened.

  "I'm through investigating Hidden Ranch anyway," I said to mollify her. "I'm now working my way from the center out. Sheriffs are still in control of all the lab and CSI evidence. I talked to a labbie in their forensics division named Robyn DeYoung. She's the evidence tech for Hidden Ranch and she isn't too eager to follow through on any of my requests. That has to change. I want them to look for the dog and the bomb shelter."

  "Okay. I'll make you a deal. I'll unstick that, and I'll see if Smiley's in our academy apps, but you have to start concentrating on whether ATF or the sheriffs are lying."

  We both sat back in our chairs and stared across the linen tablecloth like fighters who had gone into neutral corners.

  "I can't promise you anything," I said. "I gotta take this where it leads." Then I smiled and said, "Still love me?"

  "Jesus!" she snarled.

  "An easy mistake. But no, I'm Shane," I teased.

  We got home at ten and found Chooch studying in his makeshift room out in the garage. "Have fun?" he asked.

  Neither of us answered.

  I got a beer while Alexa went to work in her office, answering e-mails. I was sitting in the living room, trying to focus on the eleven o'clock news, when Delfina came in and stood in the doorway.

  "Shane?" she said, and I glanced over at her. She had her hair pulled back in a barrette and was holding our adopted cat, Franco, stroking his orange and white fur softly.

  "How you doing, Del?" I said. "Thought you had a big chemistry test tomorrow." She was a junior, and chemistry was definitely not her best subject.

  "I do," she smiled, "but I need to talk to you about Chooch."

  I grabbed the remote and turned the volume down.

  "Come on."

  I led her out onto the patio. She followed silently behind. We settled into two chairs in my favorite spot overlooking the narrow canals with their Disneyesque bridges. She put Franco down and immediately the marmalade cat began to wind around my ankles.

  "I've been talking to Chooch about that job coaching kids," she said.

  "What's he think?"

  "A lot of things are bothering him right now. He's afraid if he doesn't stay with his own football practices at Harvard-Westlake his coach will get angry and not play him, even when his foot heals. I told him that is not so. He is much better than his replacement. But he is unsure. He's also afraid if he takes over Mr. Rojas's team and doesn't do a good job you'll be disappointed. He wants you to respect what he does, but he is torn. He's afraid to make a decision. I'm telling him no decision is the same as a decision, because they'll get somebody else to be the coach. He needs to make up his mind."

  "What do you think?"

  "I'm worried about him, Shane. He's not like before. He's not the happy person now. I think it's very important that he does something to take his mind off his troubles."

  "It's why I suggested this in the first place."

  "I think I can get him to say yes," Delfina said softly.

  "How?"

  "I'm his chavala." She gave me a knowing, worldly smile. "I think, if you tell them now that Chooch will coach the team, I can get him to say yes in a day or two. Then we will have done a good thing."

  "But we will have done it behind his back."

  "He is un marvilloy you know that. But he is also sometimes acting the spoiled little boy. This will be good for him and for others. Sometimes with boys you must give them just a little push to help them decide. You get the job, and I will get the coach."

  I smiled at her. Franco looked up and meowed loudly. So, of course, with both of them so vocally on the record, there was nothing much I could do but agree. "Yo te acuerdo" I said.

  It was late, but I took a chance and called Sonny Lopez. He was still up. When I threw Chooch's name at him he thought it was a great idea, and said he'd check with the league office and get back to me.

  An hour later Alexa and I were slamming around in our bedroom, getting ready for bed. Finally she got in on her side and I got in on mine. We pulled the covers up and I snapped off the lights.

  "Yes," she said.

  "Yes, what?"

  "Yes, I still love you." Then she rolled over and looked at me, propped up on one elbow. I could just barely see her in the ambient light coming through the window. A beautiful, dark-haired vision. "It isn't about you and me, it's about tactics," she said.

  "Honey, I know you're getting pressure from Mayor Mac and Salazar, as well as Tony and Bill. I know you think I just wasted one whole day reinvestigating things that didn't need to be investigated. But this is how I do it. If I don't put all the jigsaw pieces on the table, I'll never solve the puzzle."

  She scooted over, put her arms around me and held me tight. "I just hate arguing with you," she said softly, "even when you're wrong."

  I held her, smelled her hair, and felt the soft textures of her body. I decided I'd rather make love than war.

  So that was what we did.

  Chapter 12

  POLICE MADNESS

  When we got there Billy Greenridge from SRT was dead in a vertical coffin. His feet were still inside the living room, his large body spilled headfirst across the threshold, half in and half out of the front door of his house. The back of his head was a pulpy mess, dripping blood and brain matter onto the oleander bushes that grew just under the railing.

  It was nine-fifteen the following morning.

  The house was a small, wood-shingled, California Craftsman in the Rampart Division. Rampart is inside LAPD jurisdiction, so, although Greenridge was a fed, for now it was an LAPD crime scene. However, if they pressed, I knew ATF could take it away. He was their murdered agent.

  Alexa and I arrived in separate cars from Parker Center. We parked and found three LAPD tech vans already on the scene, along with four LAPD black-and-whites. There were two unmarked cars with federal license plates. I recognized the ATF ASAC, Brady Cagel, already up on the porch looking down at his dead agent. Eight LAPD blues and two other men not in uniform formed a choir around the body. As I approached, I realized that the two non-uniforms were also members of SRT. Gordon Grundy was on Cagel's right, tall, square-headed, and rawboned. His stoic face looked like someone had painted a straight-line mouth and gunmetal eyes on a block of granite. Next to Grundy was stocky Ignacio Rosano, whom I remembered from the bar fight. I'd learned he was called Nacho. The LAPD uniforms were trying to get the three feds off the porch, but the Justice Department agents didn't seem inclined to cooperate.

  "Here's our division commander." One of the LAPD blues said, pointing at Alexa as we walked up.

  Brady Cagel pulled out his shield and badged us. "You guys don't belong here," he said, "I'm claiming the crime scene."

  "All my uniformed people who don't have a reason to be up here right now, get off this porch and secure the street out front. One of you stay here and start an incident log. The rest of you tape off a staging area, then wait by your cars." Alexa issued instructions and seven uniformed officers turned and left the porch. One of the cops remained behind, opened a notebook and started the crime scene attendance sheet. The CSI techs faded back into the house.

  Brady Cagel and his two feds held their ground. "This is a dead federal agent," he said. "That makes it our investigation, according to Title Eighteen of the U. S. Code of Crimes and Criminal Procedures. I have somebody from our homicide division on his way."

  "It's in our jurisdiction," Alexa said. "There's also a strong possibility that this is connected to the death of Deputy Sheriff Emo Rojas, which we've been ordered to investigate by Mayor MacKenzie. Until you file a jurisdictional claim and get a favorable ruling, it's gonna stay our case." Alexa looked right at Cagel. "So, for now, you three guys get off this porch, or I'm instructing my officers to come back up here and arrest you for interfering in an active homicide investigation and obst
ructing justice."

  "What horseshit," he growled.

  "Get moving or face the consequences," she warned.

  Cagel gave it a moment's thought, looked at the eight LAPD officers twenty feet away, realized he was badly outnumbered, then motioned to his two teammates and they stepped back and headed to their cars.

  Alexa watched as they walked across the street. But they didn't leave. Cagel was already on his cell phone, probably calling the U. S. Attorney for a legal opinion. Just then, another unmarked vehicle with government plates pulled in. I recognized two more members of SRT: Bill Wagner, who was nicknamed "Ringo," and Bob Zant, called "Happy." This collection of catchy nicknames stood across the street in a tight huddle, looking like a terrorist cell getting set to run a play.

  "The case will end up getting transferred, unless I can get the U. S. Attorney to block the Title Eighteen," Alexa said softly.

  "How's he gonna come down on our side?" I asked. "We're municipal. He's federal."

  "Mayor Mac has to convince him we have a potential SWAT war going on here." Alexa for the first time put into words what everyone feared. "We need a neutral homicide team working this, and right now we're it. So let's do it right. If we do end up transferring the case, I don't want a lot of complaints about the way we handled the preliminary investigation." Then she looked around the crime scene. "Where the hell is my homicide team?"

  "Rampart homicide dicks and the M. E. are en route," one of the crime techs said.

  An LAPD crime photographer was already inside taking pictures. I could hear his motorized camera firing off frames. I took a quick tour of the two-bedroom house. It was furnished with bad art and vinyl furniture. It looked as if Greenridge lived alone. No female accessories in the bedroom, bath, or shower.

  Finally, a Rampart Division homicide car slid to the curb and the last cop I wanted to see working this murder hauled his obese, 280-pound ass out of the D-car and started to waddle up the walk. Lou Ruta was fat, red-faced, and out of shape. He'd gained at least twenty pounds since we'd tangled at Carol White's murder scene last year. He struggled up the front steps gasping like a torn windbag, until he finally caught sight of me.