Three shirt deal ss-7 Page 15

  "You're really full of it," she said. But when I looked over, she was smiling.

  Chapter 26

  I had written down the text messages from memory in a spiral notebook and was reading from my notes. " 'Where R U? R U at Hickman's yet?'" I looked up at Secada. "That was from WW at twelve-oh-three a. M. Then MC said: 'Parked out front. Dark. Ready to roll.' Then at twelve-seventeen, WW's IM: 'Get in there. Get it.' No answer from Church. Then at twelve thirty-five, Church wrote: 'It went bad. Meet you at my place. This just turned into a three shirt deal.' End of transmissions."

  "You shouldn't have given the damn thing back to him," she said. "You know he's gonna destroy it, dump it in the river."

  "It doesn't matter. We're better off if he ditches it. That way it won't contaminate the case. Without a warrant, as evidence it was dust anyway."

  She sat for a moment frowning at that. Then she said, "Here's something else. While you were in the restaurant, the deep check I ran on Devine and Morales came back. There's a big connection between those guys." She looked at me to make sure she had my full attention. "Back in ninety-one, Brian Devine and Tito Morales were cops together. Partners. It was just before Brian Devine went to SIS. For almost a year, these two jamokes shared the front seat of an X-car."

  We rode in silence, both thinking about it.

  "Pull over for a minute. Let's see if we can at least get the timeline surrounding Olivia's murder to lay out right."

  "Okay," she said, and pulled her SUV up to the curb. We were only two blocks from Cartco. She set the brake and looked over.

  "Let's start with the givens," I began. "We know Tito Morales ended up as the winner of the million-dollar Bud Light rare. We also know Mike Church had knife cuts on his hand the day after Olivia was murdered, and that Brian Devine got to the crime scene six minutes after the nine-one-one call and became the primary investigator, even though he was a supervisor and shouldn't have personally worked the case. Then he and Deputy D. A. Morales, his old LAPD patrol partner, tag-teamed Tru Hickman in the Van Nuys Division I-room, telling him he flunked a lie test and walked in his mom's blood leaving a footprint. The kid panics and cops a plea. Anything else?"

  "This isn't exactly a given, but I agree with you that Tru probably wasn't in on it," she said. "He was such a meth head I can't see them taking a chance on letting him in on the scam. It's more likely their original plan was to get him to buy the beer, make sure he found the scrape-off, let him win the money, then just roll up and take it away from him later."

  "I agree. That was undoubtedly the plan 'til Church lost it and killed Olivia Hickman. Then Tru became more valuable to them as the murderer."

  She thought about it, then nodded.

  "Okay, so let's see how much of this we can arrange into some kind of reasonable order," I suggested. "Then when we're done we'll deal with what's left over."

  "Sounds good," she said. "Keep going, you're on a roll here."

  "Let's say the sequence of events begins that Saturday afternoon with Tru buying the beer and taking it home. Mike Church showed up an hour later to pick up the rare, but Olivia wouldn't give them the six-pack because Tru was on Antibuse. Big fight in the front yard witnessed by neighbors. Olivia calls the cops. Remind me to get Communication to time date that call." She nodded, scribbling in her own notebook. "Tru and Mike Church split from the Hickman house so they won't get arrested. Next Mike and Wade take Tru out and get him so tweaked on crystal he passes out. Church comes back to the Hickman house at Wade's instruction and, according to Wade's BlackBerry, at twelve-oh-three he tells Church to break in. Church breaks into the house at around twelve-thirty to get the beer."

  "Only their plan goes bad," Secada continued. "Olivia catches Church in the act of stealing the six-pack. He's roided to the gills, goes tropical, and kills her. Twenty stab wounds with a kitchen knife."

  "Exactly," I said. "Church ended up getting a bunch of knife cuts on his hands in the process. Strong physical evidence that was studiously ignored by Devine and Morales. But now they've got a problem because they can't use Tru to collect the prize. He's much more valuable to them as a murder suspect to take the heat off Mike Church." I paused and looked over to see if she had anything to add.

  "Up to there, I think it's pretty solid," Secada said. "They panic. They need help. So who do they call, Tito Morales or Brian Devine?"

  "Could've been either, but since we still can't tie Lieutenant Devine directly to the beer rip and since Morales ended up with the prize, let's say they called Tito. I can't for the life of me figure out how either Lieutenant Devine or Tito Morales end up as coconspirators with these two twenty-six-year-old sociopaths, but there must be a reason so let's put a hold on that.

  "We can put a hold on it but if we try and go after Morales we better not miss. He's probably going to be the mayor in three months. So we need the reason he's involved pretty soon."

  "I agree, but I don't have it yet. I don't believe it's because Morales needed campaign financing. There are too many players. Once the million gets split four ways there's hardly enough to get the job done." We pondered that for a minute. Finally, Scout shrugged.

  "Okay, so they call Tito," she said. "They tell him Mike went back for the six-pack and fucked it up, killed Olivia, and that the neighbors witnessed the Church-Olivia dustup earlier in the day, making it premeditated. Olivia's dead and Church is gonna be a prime suspect for the murder. Once that happens, the whole Bud Light rip is gonna be unearthed."

  "This is kinda working," I said. "We can't prove a shred of it, but as theory, it's great."

  We were both getting excited.

  "So now we need to bring Brian Devine onstage somehow. How did he end up getting there six minutes after the nine-one-one call? That's too lucky to just be a coincidence." Secada said.

  We sat quietly for several moments, both chewing on that, before Secada came up with the answer.

  "Let's say, after he gets the call from Church and Wyatt telling him Olivia's dead, Tito Morales calls his old cop friend, Brian Devine, who's still working in Valley Homicide. He gets Devine out of bed and tells him to go park a block from the murder scene and wait until Tru Hickman recovers from his meth blackout and wanders home. Once he finds his mother, they figure he'll probably call nine-one-one, and Lieutenant Devine is perfectly positioned a block away to jump the call."

  "That's probably exactly what happened," I said. "With the primary homicide investigator and the D. A. both in on it, Hickman didn't stand a chance." We both thought about it, looking for holes, but the structure hung together. "So how do we prove all of this?" I asked.

  "Haven't a clue."

  "The pieces that are still left over are the North Van Nuys bus company and this Transit P. D. full of tattooed police commissioners, most of whom are Vanowen Street Locos."

  "We also don't have the way they got around Promo Safe and the ex-Federal agent who witnessed Tru buy the beer," she said. "But I'm starting to like this a lot."

  "If a 'shirt' is a murder, and Wade's reaction tells me it is, then who are the other two corpses?" I said. "I think we need to start looking into Wade Wyatt and Mike Church's recent history of personal grief, see how many trips to Forest Lawn these two have made lately."

  "Shane, we're gonna both be suspended," she said. "We've got too many power players lined up against us. This isn't going to get finished, at least not by us. We're gonna get shut down."

  "Hey, Scout, no backing out. Don't forget it was you who got me into this. Besides…"

  "If you say, we don't need no stinking badges, I'll shoot you right here in the front seat of my own damn car," she said.

  "I was gonna say, the only good thing about these people is they're extremely powerful and they have too many face cards. They already know they're the winners."

  "How does that help?"

  "They won't be expecting us to attack."

  Chapter 27

  My union steward, Bob Utley, was seated in Sally QUInN'S chair across
from my desk when I got back to the fifth floor of Parker Center. Utley was one of those overweight guys with a Santa Claus face who looked so friendly I always felt like telling him my life story and what I wanted for Christmas. He was only a reserve officer now, but back when he was still on the job full time, he'd once walked into a bank in Glendale and foiled a holdup in progress. Guns flashed, and before it was over, he'd shot four guys and killed two. According to the security cameras, it all happened in less than forty seconds. Still the department fast-gun record. But the incident finished him as a street cop. He lost his edge after that, became a Protestant lay minister, and went into administrative affairs. Now he was spending a lot of his time as a Police Officer's Association steward. I liked him as my union rep because he was polite in internal reviews and didn't further exacerbate the messes I'd already made. Also, Bob knew his cop law. He could pick the inaccuracies out of a supervisor's report like raisins from a bran muffin.

  "Not much backup material here," he said, thumbing through the charge sheet I'd e-mailed him as I dropped my butt in the chair across from him.

  "It's an insubordination case where I never had any face time with the supervisor I supposedly dissed. That's bound to cut down on the affidavits and source material."

  "Who's your defense rep?"

  "Don't have one yet."

  "Mistake."

  "Yeah, well I think you and I can stumble through this review. Jeb Calloway's a good boss. He isn't gonna peel me. He knows this complaint is bullshit."

  "Listen, Shane, it's a big mistake to count on a supervisor's loyalty. This guy works for the command structure. His job here today is to kick your ass for Jane Sasso. If he fails to do that he's gonna end up getting his own sixth-floor enema. You need a defense rep."

  "Well, I don't have one, okay? I'm gonna get one later. If you think it's such a mistake, let's just postpone."

  "We can't postpone. You had three days' notice. You should've lined up somebody to represent you. I'm a lowly POA steward. I'm just here to protect your union rights. My job isn't to defend you against the actual charges."

  "We'll get through it okay."

  He looked unhappy. "You hope." He leaned back in the chair and said, "Let's just go through the essentials here, before we go in." He cleared his throat. "You got the transmittal letter and charge sheet by certified mail?"

  "No, it was hand delivered."

  "You got a signature receipt on that?"

  "My wife took the stuff. I wasn't home."

  Bob leaned forward in his chair. His head came up. "Good, good. That's a violation of your rights. You're supposed to be personally served and there needs to be a signature receipt with your name on it attesting to that fact. Your wife can't sign for you. That's one for our side."

  I smiled. He didn't. "The Skelly is scheduled for next Tuesday, ten working days from receipt of notice, so I'm putting a checkmark on that." "Right."

  "All copies of written material to be used in your case were supplied to you in a timely fashion?"

  "Got nothing but the charge sheet."

  "Okay." He pulled a fax out of the file. "What's this then? It was delivered to me an hour ago but isn't in the charge sheet." He read it aloud. "Failure of good behavior outside of duty hours, which is of such a nature as to cause discredit to the appointing authority. What's that?"

  "I don't know." I thought about it. "Okay. Maybe it was the thing on Abbot Kinney Boulevard."

  "The thing on Abbot Kinney? Be specific, man. What're you talking about?"

  "The head of the Valley Homicide unit, Lieutenant Brian Devine, pulled me over after work, then yanked me out of my car and after that it got a little physical. We both unholstered."

  "I'm sorry, what?! You drew down on each other?"

  "It was just for a minute."

  He groaned. "That's what it is then, but where's the affidavit from Lieutenant Devine?" He started shuffling through his folder. "It's not in here. You got it?"

  "No."

  "These fucking people. They're adding more charges after the transmittal letter. They can't do that."

  "Guess not."

  Then Jeb Calloway came out of his office and motioned to us. Bob and I stood, but he stopped me before we headed across the room to Cal's office.

  "Okay. He's gonna have some Legal Affairs talent in there. Maybe somebody from Operations or the Chief Adjunct's office. Keep your tone civil, Shane."

  "I'm always civil in these things."

  "You' re whatf" He looked appalled. "Don't make me go through the long list of shouted insults and threats of bodily harm I've witnessed." He shook his head and said, "Shake everybody's hands. Write their names down if we don't know them. We both have to keep track of everything that's said in there and by who. It could be extremely important later. Take your notebook. And, for God's sake, be polite. If the situation warrants, you can express frustration, but remain professional."

  "Yes, Mommy."

  We walked into Cal's office. The meeting consisted of a lieutenant named Arnold Shepard from Legal Affairs; a captain from Operations named David Detorsky; Jeb Callaway, my immediate supervisor; Bob Utley; and me. Bob looked relaxed and Santa-friendly as he eased his wide body into one of Cal's worn chairs.

  "Okay," Cal said. "This is your supervisor hearing, Shane. The purpose is for me to lay out the charges against you and to listen to anything you might want to say in clarification prior to the Skelly next Tuesday. At your Skelly you will get to tell your side of things in detail. What we're doing here is trying to determine if there's anything that has been left out, or needs to be deleted from this case for reasons not previously disclosed." He looked up from the cheat sheet he'd been reading and said, "Fair enough?"

  "Yep."

  "Okay. I see you don't have a defense rep. Are you arguing your own case?"

  "For now. Yes, sir."

  The captain from Operations shifted in his seat. He knew I might have grounds for a complaint over this later, regardless of the fact that it was my own doing. City law is full of weird legal conundrums. They had to be careful.

  "The charges against you are, one: refusal of a direct order from a deputy chief; two: malfeasance of duty…"

  "Excuse me," I interrupted. "But where did that malfeasance crap come from?" Anger in my voice. "What malfeasance?"

  "Let me just read the charges. Then you can talk," Cal said.

  "Yeah, but…"

  Bob Utley put his hand on my arm. Then he smiled calmly at Cal and said, "That'll be fine, Captain. Go ahead."

  "Three: making false and misleading statements during an inquiry," Cal continued, "and failure to cooperate with an ongoing investigation inside proper department channels."

  "That's the whole point," I jumped in. "The investigation wasn't ongoing. I. A. closed it despite a plethora of facts supporting a bad due-process complaint."

  Again I felt Bob Utley's hand on my arm. I looked at him and he turned his big, sad, hound-dog eyes on me. Eyes that said, Please don't do this. I nodded, shut my mouth, and turned back to Cal.

  "Lastly, there's this failure of good behavior charge stemming from actions taken outside the line of duty on another police officer in full view of the general public, causing discredit to the appointing authority-i. E., this department." Cal looked up. He was finished and glad to be through it.

  "We're challenging that failure of good behavior thing on the grounds that it wasn't part of the original charge sheet and was recently added," Utley said pleasantly. "Our position here is that as a result, it can't be part of this case. And due to lack of correct administrative procedure, should probably never be filed at all."

  "I, uh…" Cal looked at the Legal Affairs lieutenant.

  "We added that charge as an addendum," Lt. Sheppard said. "It saves going through a separate I. A. process all over again at a huge waste of tax dollars. You'll get the charge sheet and affidavit today."

  "Can't do it that way, Lieutenant," Utley said.

  "Wanta b
et?"

  "Yeah."

  Just as everyone started trading stink-eye, the door flew open, and Alexa came into the room holding a single sheet of paper.

  "Sorry I'm late," she announced.

  "Lieutenant," Cal said. "What are you doing here?"

  "I'm Detective Scully's defense rep," she said evenly. "He asked me yesterday and, as of a few hours ago, I've decided to accept. I was detained upstairs at a hearing that just let out." She sat in the remaining empty chair and nodded at the command staff gathered in Cal's office. She obviously knew them all.

  "I don't believe that as a division commander, you can represent him, Lieutenant," Sheppard said softly.

  "Yes, I can." She fixed hard eyes on him. "You don't have all the facts, so don't push this, Arnie. I'll dropkick you out that window."

  Man, I love Alexa when she gets like this. I fought to keep my expression stern.

  "Anyway, it really doesn't matter whether I can or can't because I'm filing a writ of mandamus on Shane's behalf to strike this whole proceeding," Alexa said.

  She handed the lone piece of paper to Cal, who looked down, holding the sheet like it just came off the bottom of a birdcage. Then he handed it to Captain Detorsky, who handed it to Sheppard. Each of them in turn stared at it in disbelief.

  "We're filing that pursuant to the Code of Civil Procedure one-oh-eight-five," she said. "The writ requests an inquiry into whether the department proceeded without, or in an excess of, its jurisdiction, and whether there was any prejudicial abuse of discretion. It is the contention of the accused that he was suspended without pay a full day before his supervisor's review and eleven days before his Skelly hearing, and that said action denied him his protections under Paragraph Six of the Police Bill of Rights."

  "He was suspended?" Sheppard sputtered. "By who?"

  "By me," Alexa said. "In my role as head of the Detective Division, I suspended him without cause, and in so doing, violated his rights of discovery and due process."

  She stood and motioned to me and Bob. "Come on, guys. We're out of here."