“You got a mouth on you,” Junior said.
“I bet that’s what Sherman said about you too.”
Junior’s arms braced on the lawn chair, and he lifted his bulk a few inches, then slipped back into the chair. Too drunk to make good on his attempt at bravado.
“Bitch, get outta here.”
“Bitch? Oh, it’s ‘bitch’ now? You haven’t seen me release the bitch on you, you fat worthless piece of white trash.”
Junior’s eyes widened slightly, then he began to laugh. A whiskey cough made his face turn red, and when he recovered, he said, “I like you.”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re all friends here. What can you tell me about Sherman?” John asked. He wanted to defuse Paula before she went off like an IED at an Iraqi crossroad.
“No harm in me telling you. Sherman was supposed to come through on a promise, and he’s late. He’s got some powerful dudes looking for him now.”
“This have anything to do with the black bag he picked up from you,” John said.
“Hypothetically?” Junior slurred.
“Sure, hypothetically,” John responded.
“Well then, if some friends of mine, say, gave me some money to give to Sherman to buy something and he didn’t come through—then he’s in a world of shit.”
“And you too,” Paula finished.
“Hypothetically, fuckin’ A,” Junior said.
John pointed at the heavy lug-soled boots Junior wore. They bore metal toecaps with dark river mud and what looked like bloodstains.
Junior tracked John’s line of sight.
“What?”
“You have those fancy metal things on the toe of your boots.”
“So?”
“What’s that about?”
“Keeps your boots from wearing when you shift your ride.”
“And for kicking ass?” Paula added.
“There’s that,” Junior said.
“That mud come from the river? You been hanging out down there?” John said.
“Ain’t no crime if I was. It’s a free country.”
“We’re gonna need to take a look at those,” John said.
“The fuck you are.”
“You’re gonna hand them over with a smile, or we’re gonna pull ’em off you,” Paula said.
“You think the Aryan Brotherhood would like one of our patrol units camped out here day and night? That might put a crimp in business, don’t you think?” John asked.
Paula nodded. “But it might help with that whole neighborhood decay problem Junior is so concerned about.”
“I bet it would cut down on traffic and all the unsavory elements driving by.”
“If the Brotherhood doesn’t get their profit out of this place, I don’t think they’d care—would you, Junior?” Paula asked.
“Whatever.”
“When they find out that their business went under because a lowlife wouldn’t give up a pair of worn-out boots, well, I’m sure they’ll understand.”
“They wouldn’t care,” Junior said. Flop sweat began to form on his creased brow.
“But they’d probably—hypothetically—care that you ratted out the details of the drug operation to the cops?”
Junior looked confused. “What? What are you talking about?”
Paula glanced over at the door guard and said louder than she needed to, “I can’t promise you protective custody, but for what you’ve given us, the federal prosecutors will have no trouble handing down a RICO indictment.”
Junior’s face pruned up as he tried to follow along.
“Thank you, Junior. It takes a strong man to go up against the Aryan Brotherhood like that.”
The door guard stiffened.
Junior finally got it. “I ain’t done no such thing.” He looked to his man at the door. “I didn’t do nothing.”
“Word will get around that you did. And your friend over there doesn’t look too happy about the prospect of crossing the Brand,” John said.
“Give us the boots,” Paula continued.
Junior struggled to reach his feet and tugged the laces loose. “Man, you ain’t right.”
Paula pulled on a pair of latex gloves, took the first boot, and held it at arm’s length. “God, these stink.”
“Where’d you get these boots?”
“We get them at a cycle shop in Southside. Perry’s.”
“We?” Paula asked. She looked at the doorman’s identical boots.
She took the second boot from Junior. “We’ll get these back to you.”
A broken yellow toenail poked through the hole in a dingy sock and Junior sat back in the lawn chair again. “Now nobody needs to tell nobody about any bullshit informant bullshit.”
“Not if it’s bullshit,” Paula said.
John and Paula returned to their car, and by the time they’d pulled away from the house, the doorman was in the garage having a heated exchange with Junior.
“You’re still gonna have a patrol unit parked outside, aren’t you?” Paula asked.
“Absolutely. Think of it as our contribution to urban renewal.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
“I swear I can smell those boots from here,” Paula said. Junior’s stained leather boots were sealed in an evidence bag and locked in the trunk, but the threat remained.
John pulled the sedan into an empty spot as far from the main entrance to the police headquarters as possible. He kept it running as he popped the trunk release.
“Stay here while I run these boots in for Karen Baylor to take a look.”
“I’m not a dog you can tell to stay in the car. I’m coming with you.”
John took her elbow. “IA probably has the DNA results—your DNA on the bodies—now. We don’t have time to try to explain that to Sammy Kamakawa.”
Paula didn’t jerk her arm away. Instead, she took his hand and held it briefly. “I haven’t done anything, no matter how it looks. You don’t need to cover for me. I don’t want you to get caught sideways because of me.”
“That’s what partners do,” John said.
“Sherman wants me to react, and so far, that’s all I’ve done. He’s been calling the shots and I let him. No more. I’m doing this by the book.”
Paula got out of the car and grabbed the evidence bag with Junior’s boots from the open trunk. She held them out and said, “Junior fits the general description of the man Bullet said he ran into out on the river road, right?”
John stood by his car door and locked up the sedan. “He does. You want to pull Bullet in, have him look at some photos and see if he can ID Junior?”
“If Karen can pull Burger’s blood off these, it puts us that much closer. And we know that Junior and Sherman shared a cell in Folsom.”
“Junior is taking care of the potential witnesses for Sherman? DA Clarke will have to listen to that,” John said.
“We can make the case—that’s all we can do.”
Inside, the detectives found Karen processing evidence from what looked like a very nasty crime. A once gray sweat shirt, now black from the blood that soaked the fabric, was spread out on a table before her.
“Detectives,” Karen said, “make a note that alcohol and tree trimming do not go together.”
“Ouch. Chainsaw?” John asked.
“Yep. His wife handed him the chainsaw and she ‘may have’ pulled the trigger as it plunged into his stomach—three times.”
“Damn, did he make it?”
“Yeah, he did, but I have my doubts about their marriage.”
Paula placed the evidence bag on a nearby table. “Could you check these out? They may have blood from our vic.”
Karen pulled off her latex gloves and put on a fresh set to avoid cross contamination. She selected a small vial that held a clear liquid and a swab built into the cap.
“I had the phenolphthalein out for chainsaw boy.” Karen uncapped the vial and scraped the swab across the stain on Junior’s boot. She replaced the swab and shook the vial,
raising it to the light.
“No catalytic reaction. The Kastle-Meyer test would have pulled the hemoglobin from the blood, if it were present. That stain is not human blood.”
“Dammit,” Paula said.
“Junior wasn’t there.”
Paula stared at the boots. “Can you analyze the mud in the soles and tell if it came from the Garden Highway crime scene?”
Karen thought for a second. “I can narrow it down to the general area. Will that help?”
“Definitely.”
“What are you thinking?” John asked.
“If we can identify Junior as one of the guys Bullet overheard, we can pressure him to give up what he knows. He’ll roll on Sherman.”
John nodded. “Yeah—yeah, that fits.”
“I might have to cut a section out of the leather and sole for testing. Will that be a problem?” Karen asked.
“None whatsoever,” Paula said. A slight smile creased her face before disappearing. “How did the IA Captain take the DNA news?”
“Actually, I haven’t had time to get around to that.” She pointed at the bloodstained sweat shirt. “Seems that something keeps getting in the way.”
“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but please don’t jeopardize your job and your med school admission over this.”
“It’s not fair,” Karen started.
“That’s not what this is about. Do me one favor? When you do get those results out, give them to Lieutenant Barnes first, okay?”
Karen nodded.
John and Paula left the lab area, and John made a path for the back door. Paula stopped. John saw her bite the corner of her lip, the way she did when she was sorting something out.
“We should get back out there,” John said.
“I need to do something first.” She went in the opposite direction.
John lost sight of her as she shut the door after she went in Lieutenant Barnes’s office. He went to his desk, grabbed a file, and pretended to read while watching the lieutenant and his partner talk.
He glanced at the file—the prison documents on Sherman’s correspondence and movement since he was sentenced. How could one man generate so much paper? John knew how—convicts were quick to appeal, complain, and litigate anything. The paper was a defense against the constant stream of—
John sat straight. “That’s it.” He spread the documents on his desk and separated them into piles. One for classification, one for correspondence, and one for movement. That last pile was thicker than the others by double.
The stack of body receipts for Sherman’s out to court appearances was an inch thick by itself. All the out to court demands were accompanied by a minute order from department 140 of the superior court. But Paula had verified before that his case was never called.
John looked at two of the body receipts side by side and noticed another identical factor. “Son of a bitch.”
He took the body receipts and threw open the lieutenant’s door.
“Wallace. Sergeant Wallace was the transport officer for every one of Sherman’s court appearances.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
It took less than five minutes to confirm that Sergeant Wallace was on duty and was finishing up booking in a prisoner at the main jail. His shift was scheduled to end in an hour.
John and Paula circled the area around the jail and located the silver Ford pickup registered to Wallace two blocks away. John parked on a side street where they could watch the truck.
“So what’d you and the lieutenant have to talk about?” John said, breaking the silence.
“I needed to know that the lieutenant still believed in me, trusted me even in the light of all this crap. I’m not sure I trust me. I needed to hear it from him. I told him everything I know and told him to expect something pretty damning from Karen.”
“He hasn’t pulled you off on admin leave. That has to mean something. Besides, isn’t it enough that your own partner trusts you?”
“You don’t have a choice,” she said. A gathering of people waited at the crosswalk, three blocks down. Paula squinted. “You didn’t think to grab the camera, did you?”
“Backpack, in the back seat.”
She leaned over the seat and grabbed the camera. The telephoto lens focused in on the pedestrians. One of them wore a black Sacramento sheriff’s uniform. “There’s our man.”
They waited until he was a few yards away from his truck before they approached.
“Sergeant Wallace. We need to talk,” Paula said, holding her badge up.
“That so?”
“And I’d rather not do it out here on the street.”
“What’s this about, anyway?” Wallace asked.
“We need your help on an old case,” John said.
Wallace cocked his head. “Really? Which one?”
“Let’s take a drive and we’ll talk it over,” John said. He gestured to their car.
“I’ll follow you,” Wallace said.
Wallace gave the appearance of cooperation when he agreed to go with John and Paula. That appearance was short-lived. When they arrived at the detective bureau, Wallace told them to get his union representative or he wasn’t going to say another word.
It took more than an hour for Parker, the union rep, to sober up and creep out from some watering hole. A telltale odor of booze swept in the door with Parker when he arrived. A terminally pissed-off ex-cop, John got the sense Michael Parker popped from the womb an angry man. A perpetual scowl, tight jaw, and sarcastic demeanor were a package of unpleasant times for everyone.
“Parker, I didn’t know you repped for the sheriff’s department,” John said.
“What you don’t know could be measured in metric tons. What are we doing here? And why are you interviewing Sergeant Wallace and not the sheriff’s internal affairs unit?”
“We’re not conducting an internal affairs investigation. We were going to talk to the sergeant when he said he wanted you here first.”
“I want it noted that Sergeant Wallace came here on his own free will.”
“Noted.”
Paula led them to a small break room, deliberately not one of the rooms used for interrogation, to keep Wallace as compliant as possible. A table near the back kept them out of the traffic hitting the microwave and vending machines. Paula pulled out a chair and set a file and notebook on the table.
Parker dropped into another chair. He unbuckled his belt and let his gut breathe. “So let’s get on with it.”
After everyone had settled, Paula ran a hand across the file. Everyone’s attention went to the internal affairs stamp on the front. It was Parker who bit first.
“I thought this wasn’t an IA witch hunt against the sergeant?” Parker said.
Wallace eyed the file under Paula’s hand. Something in his expression darkened. He’d seen his share of IA files.
“Do you smoke?” Paula asked.
Wallace tilted his head. “What?”
“What the hell does his need for a smoke got to do with anything?” Parker asked.
“Just making sure the sergeant’s need for a smoke break is attended to.” The word smoke was loud and clear. “Sergeant, how long have you known Charles Sherman?” Paula continued.
“I dunno, why?” Wallace asked.
“Sherman, the ex-cop?” Parker said.
“Or former prison inmate,” John added.
“You can’t say how long you’ve known Sherman? I mean, you guys go back to Solano County, and you both worked the SSPNET task force.”
“Yeah, so?” Wallace said.
“I’m just saying you know him, is all,” Paula said.
“So?”
“When’s the last time you saw Sherman?” Paula asked.
“Last time I worked with him was about two, maybe three years ago.”
Paula leaned forward. “That’s not what I asked. I don’t care when you worked with him. I asked when you last saw him.”
Wallace shrugged. “Couldn�
�t say.”
“And why’s that?” John asked.
“Listen, I have nothing to do with him. He’s why I got out of the task force. I saw what he was doing, and I didn’t want to get caught up in all the bullshit.”
John pulled the prison body receipts from a file and pushed them, one at a time, across the table. He let Wallace stew for a minute before he spoke. “These prison records say something else. You definitely had something going on with Sherman.”
Wallace picked up one of the receipts, glanced at it, and pushed it back to John.
“I picked up a prisoner, so what?”
“You knew who you were picking up at the prison?”
“I go where they tell me to go and pick up who they tell me to. Simple as that.”
“And you picked up Sherman six times over the last year?”
“If you say so.”
“According to the prison records, you were the only transport officer to pick up Sherman for his court appearances. Is that unusual?”
Wallace shrugged.
“So what? Prison inmates go out to court all the time,” Parker said.
“How’s that work exactly?” Paula asked.
“The court issues an order for removal, and the sheriff’s department picks them up,” Parker responded.
“That’s right. Except, in this case, all the removal orders from the court were fakes. There were no court appearances, and Sherman was never booked into the jail for holding. So how’s that work?” Paula glanced from Parker to Sergeant Wallace.
“I just transport who they tell me to. It ain’t my job to call the court and see if they still need them or not,” Wallace said.
“So where did you and Sherman go? You didn’t book him into jail. So was it a nice romantic moonlight drive?” Paula said.
“I pick ’em up and drop ’em off. If someone’s telling you they don’t have any booking record, then that’s on them, not me.”
“Where is Sherman?”
“How the hell would I know?”
“Because you picked him up from the hospital and took him to your place,” Paula said.
“As a favor.”
“I thought you didn’t have anything to do with him,” John said.
Bury the Past Page 16
