White Sister (2006)

by Stephen - Scully 06 Cannell

  The smell was not quite as bad at the end of the tunnel because very few homeless people came this far in. The walls were damp and sweating with moisture, the air cool and moist. Something large scuttled past me, and I swung my light at a possum-sized rat scurrying toward the mouth of the tunnel a mile away.

  Then I saw him, all the way back at the very end at the corner of the wall, as deep in as you could go. John Bodine had finally found the end of the line. I spotted the white plaster cast first, then Chooch's red Harvard-Westlake sweatshirt. I moved quickly toward him. As I got closer I could see the information Rosey had received was correct. Bodine had been badly beaten. Blood ran down the side of his face. His lip was split and he was clutching his stomach with both hands. Dried blood caked his fingers and stained much of Chooch's sweatshirt. I knelt in front of him and looked into his dusty brown eyes. Then I raised the sweatshirt and saw a deep knife wound in his left side.

  "Ain't gonna put up with no more a your half-steppin', Scully," Bodine whispered. "See what you gone and done? I'm dying here and it's all your fault."

  "What the hell happened to you?" I said, shining the light on his knife wound. It looked deep but had stopped bleeding.

  "Ohhhh, man. This ain't no way to treat no prince," he moaned.

  "How long you been in here?" I asked.

  He looked at a watch on his wrist and whispered, " 'Bout six hours, I guess."

  It seemed strange that he would even own a wristwatch. I didn't remember him having one before. Then I took a second look. Of course it was mine the good one from the top drawer of my bedroom dresser.

  "This guy's been stabbed. Let's not wait for the EMTs and a stretcher. They hate coming in here; it's always a hassle," I said. "We gotta get him out now!"

  The four cops behind me moved up. I lifted John to his feet and Rosey and Dario made a seat for him on their forearms. "It's almost a mile, so we'll take turns carrying him," I said.

  Then we carted the Crown Prince of Bassaland out of the most miserable spot in L. A.

  Chapter 26.

  THE FIRST THING I noticed when we brought Bodine out into the sunlight was that somebody had hacked off his dreadlocks. What hair he had left was now unbraided and sticking out at strange angles, chopped and uneven. It made him look even crazier than he probably was. Lawrence Fischer and I were carrying him. As we hurried up Lucas Avenue toward my car, I asked him, "Who cut off your hair?"

  "I did. African prince don't be needin' no fancy man hair. It's a tribal thing," he ranted. "In Africa, you see a brotha with no hair, says he's a revolutionary, 'cause first thing a freedom fighter in the Bassaland goes an' does is breaks his muthafuckin' hair pick, 'cause a hair pick look just like a field tool, like for pickin' cotton. Be like a rake or some such. I say to hell with the rake and the pick and the whole exploitation of my African brothers." Naturally, I was sorry I had asked.

  We set his feet down so that I could unlock the car door. When we did that, he stopped talking about hair combs as a symbol of slavery and started screaming in pain.

  "What you bust-out-muthafuckas doing to me?" he shrieked.

  Gary and I loaded him into the front seat of the Acura. We must have opened the wound carrying him a mile out of the tunnel, because when he slid in he left a streak of fresh blood on the gray leather. I slammed the door shut while he was still braying insults at me and looked at Rosey, Dario, Adrian, and Lawrence, who were all now shaking their heads in disbelief.

  "That's the sorriest human being I've ever seen," Adrian Young said.

  "This is as far as we're gonna take it," Dario added. "We'll stay here and call in the tunnel DB. Wait for the coroner. But we aren't gonna get involved. Gonna have nothing more to say on it."

  "Thanks for finding him," I said.

  "Shane, you want some advice from a friend?" Rosey said.

  "Sure."

  "I wouldn't lone wolf this thing. You're gonna get caught in the net."

  "I'll be careful."

  Then I got into the car and pulled away from the taco stand.

  "Ohhh . . . OHHH! Watch them bumps. Got myself gizmoed here. Got guts an' shit hanging all out."

  "I'm taking you back to the hospital."

  "That be our thing, ain't it. First you downs me, then you clowns me."

  "How'd I down you? You stole my wife's computer. I need it back."

  "How'd you down me? Is that the question? 'Cause a you, I end up with four hundred in Benjies I shouldn't never have plus what I got for selling all your dumb-ass junk. Bunch a no-good quality-of-life criminals put me down with a hobo's birthday, take all the money. 'Cept for you, I never would a had all that coin in the first place."

  Tortured logic, but I pushed on. "What's a hobo's birthday?"

  "Put a blanket over your head and start hitting ya with a pipe till it blow out your candle."

  "Where's the computer, John? I need it. It's got important stuff on it."

  "It be G-O-N-E."

  "Where to?"

  "Man, I'm dying here. Why I gotta be constantly in da mix? Do we got to talk about this now?"

  "Yes!"

  "I pawned it at Jungle Jack's on Alvarado at Seventh. Next to the produce market."

  "You got the pawn ticket?" A crafty look came across his face. "Gimme the ticket, John. I'm not screwing around here."

  He fumbled deep in Chooch's loose jean pockets and finally pulled it out and handed it to me.

  Fifteen minutes later, I parked under the porte cochere at County-USC. I went inside the ER, found a wheelchair, got John out of my car, loaded him into the chair and pushed him into the waiting room. He was slumped over, bitching and moaning. His wound was still bleeding. Fresh blood was again seeping through Chooch's sweatshirt and beginning to puddle under the wheelchair. I tapped on the glass and got the nurse's attention. It was early afternoon and the ER wasn't busy yet.

  "I need some help here. This guy has a knife wound in the gut."

  She looked through the glass, saw blood was leaking all over her clean ER floor and quickly buzzed a male nurse through the door. He grabbed the wheelchair and started to push John into the back. Before he left, I got my watch back.

  I waited while they gave John a preliminary exam. I wanted to rush right over to Alameda and Seventh and retrieve Alexa's computer, but I also needed to make sure Bodine was okay. Thirty minutes later a pleasant-looking female doctor came out of the back and found me. She had some of John's blood on her ER smock.

  "That's one lucky dude," she said. "The blade missed his stomach by a fraction. Missed his large intestine by even less. It went in clean, nicked his bottom rib, and hit nothing but muscle and bone. If I was trying for that same track with a laproscope I doubt I could do it."

  "What are you going to do with him?"

  "We'll keep him overnight. He'll need some whole blood transfusions. He's lost a lot. From the smell of him, he doesn't have insurance, so he's gonna be a charity ward case."

  "He's a material witness in a murder. I want him to have good care. If he needs anything beyond just normal M. T., the City of Los Angeles will cover it." I showed her my badge. "He should have an admittance form from earlier yesterday when his wrist was broken and you guys set it. Put any charges with that and I'll make sure it gets covered."

  "Sure cusses a lot," the doctor said.

  "He's an African prince. That gives him verbal immunity."

  The doctor raised her eyebrows. "A prince? Really. Last royalty I got to treat was the Count of Crisco, but he was just a transvestite porn star."

  "Not the same thing," I told her. Then I wrote my new cell number on a business card and handed it to her. "I don't want him to leave here until I get back. If he tries, have somebody sit on him."

  As I was walking out of the ER waiting room, Alexa's story was on TV again. This tragedy had not only taken over our lives, but it was now becoming entertainment for the entire country.

  mystery at the lapd was the graphic scrawled across the TV screen. It di
splayed a collage of shots, including Alexa's shooting range still. A handsome news anchor with blond-tipped hair came on with a fresh angle.

  "A new break on the David Slade LAPD killing," he announced gravely. "Police are speculating that there may be yet another explanation for the murder."

  "Finally," I whispered. Then I watched as my own picture hit the screen.

  "In a new scenario floated this afternoon by sources close to law enforcement officials, Lieutenant Scully's husband, Detective Shane Scully, is now being called a person of interest in the execution-style murder of LAPD Sergeant David Slade. Shane Scully, a member of the LAPD's elite Homicide Special unit, has reportedly been picked up by detectives working on the Slade murder and whisked off to Parker Center in handcuffs, where he underwent a prolonged and intense interrogation conducted by acting Police Chief Michael Ramsey.

  The shot switched to a gray-haired man whose on-screen graphic identified him as retired LAPD homicide detective Chuck Bowman.

  "If reports are true, and Lieutenant Alexa Scully was romantically involved with Sergeant Slade, then her husband should certainly be considered a suspect in both acts of violence," the retired cop said.

  I didn't stick around to hear the rest. I sprinted to my car and pulled out. How could I have missed it? Of course, I was going to be a prime suspect. If I'd been working the case as a homicide dick instead of a grieving husband, I would have put that together in a heartbeat. Rosey's warning had been right. I was caught in the net.

  I decided as I drove away from the emergency room that I'd rather have the story be about me than Alexa. If they started focusing on me, maybe they'd stop pounding her. However, if I was a suspect, my movements were soon going to become seriously limited. I had to work fast. I decided to see how much trouble I was really in, so I picked up my cell and called Captain Calloway's direct line at Homicide Special.

  "Calloway," he said, coming right on.

  "Cal, it's Shane."

  "Hey." His voice sounded cool, but friendly. "Where are you?"

  "You hearing what these jerks on TV are saying about me?"

  "You need to come in, Shane. We need to talk."

  "Captain, you can't believe I did this any more than Alexa did. Slade and Alexa weren't having an affair. There's some other reason he was in her car."

  "Rafie, Tommy, and I don't buy any of this either, but now that it's come up we gotta deal with it. We'll get it straightened out, but you gotta come in."

  Yeah, right, I thought.

  Then he said, "We need your time line for yesterday, and if you have an alibi for your whereabouts when Slade got killed, we're gonna need that, too."

  "I can't come in yet. I'm trying to get Alexa's computer," I hedged. "I made a deal with Great White Mike to get it for him."

  "That can wait," Cal said. "Your alibi, if there is one, can't."

  "Don't worry, I have an alibi," I promised.

  "It better be solid."

  I didn't answer. I just hung up. The guy who could vouch for my whereabouts was lying in a hospital bed at County-USC with a knife wound in his gut, and all of his hair chopped off. He looked like he'd just been hit by a thousand volts of electricity. My alibi was raving like a lunatic, crazy as a shithouse rat.

  Chapter 27.

  JUNGLE JACK'S PAWN Shop was in an old wood-sided house, tucked between two large vegetable stands in the produce market near Seventh. The fly-specked front windows displayed canteens, army knives, and other people's dusty clothes hanging on chipped mannequins. When I walked inside, a bell over the door rang, and after a moment, a rail-thin elderly man wearing his glasses up on his forehead came out from the back. He had Einstein hair and skin so white that it appeared almost purple in the overhead fluorescents.

  "Don't break the circle, brother," he said listlessly, as he shuffled around behind the counter. On the street, the circle was your group of tights your buddies. The circle was supposed to protect you. But it was a worthless concept because on the Row, you couldn't count on support from anybody who wasn't pushing free meals, Bibles, or a campaign agenda. The old man stood looking me carefully up and down.

  "Cop," he finally announced.

  I pulled out my badge and showed him. He leaned down behind the counter and pulled out several sheets of paper.

  "I'm running a business here, least I'm trying to, but you guys in property crime never get tired a putting me through these inventory checks do ya. I gotta bring in part-time labor to compile all this stuff. Here's the list you bozos had me do yesterday. Ain't my fault an occasional serial number gets filed. If you take my paid-for inventory and store it over at the PAB, how'm I supposed to stay in business?" The PAB was the Police Administration Building Parker Center.

  "I'm not with property crimes." I fished John's pawn ticket out of my pocket and handed it to him.

  He pulled his glasses down off his forehead and looked at it. "Says here, Samik Mampuna." Then he looked up at me. "You don't look like no Samik Mampuna."

  "Sure I do. Use your imagination." I reached into my pocket and handed him a fifty. "Why don't we stop screwing around and you go get that computer out of the back?"

  "Gotta stay here twenty days. State law. Only guy who can pick it up 'fore then is the guy who pawned it. After twenty days it goes up for general sale. That's the rule. This ticket was bought yesterday, so you got yourself a few weeks to wait."

  He smiled, happy to finally be getting some payback on the LAPD.

  "But you're gonna make an exception in this case, Jack, or I'm gonna get a desk and set it up on the sidewalk right in front of your place and check the serial numbers on every toaster and TV that walks in here."

  He frowned at me. "Cops. All you people wanna do is mow my grass. Ain't nothing else you care about."

  "Right. That's us, the Jungle Jack detail. Now, let's go. I want the computer."

  He took a minute before moving toward the back of the shop. The laptop was my stolen property, but I knew this was going to be much quicker. To retrieve it on a fencing beef, I would need the numbers on the warranties, which were back in my desk in Venice Beach, not to mention a pound of LAPD paperwork and grief I didn't have time for.

  After another minute Jungle Jack returned carrying Alexa's laptop and charger. He set it on the counter and I turned it on. It was working, but the LOW BATT was flashing so I shut it down, closed it, and turned to leave.

  He stopped me and said, "That's three hundred fifty."

  He was a crafty bastard who sensed that I had reasons for not wanting to go through the department. I didn't have time to argue, and I didn't want him to file a complaint against me downtown, so I pulled some more fifties off the wad of cash I had taken from home and dropped them on the counter.

  "Don't break the circle, brother," he said as he picked up the cash.

  "Then don't break my balls," I replied and walked out the door onto the street with the computer.

  I needed a quiet place where I could work and didn't want to sit in my car parked at the curb. I drove a few blocks down Seventh to the old Ford Hotel. I parked in a side lot under a dusty palm tree, went inside, and paid the indifferent desk clerk twenty bucks. He handed me a key to a first-floor room that was at the end of a narrow, paint-deprived corridor. I let myself into a dingy rectangle with a window that faced a brick wall. I closed the door, set the laptop on the bed, and plugged it into the wall socket. Then I sat on the stained red bedspread and waited for it to boot.

  Most of what was on the computer was case-related, and contained a lot of correspondence from Alexa to her division commanders at the four bureaus. For the past month, she had been working on crime stats for all the detective divisions, attempting to evaluate the crime complaint to clearance rate percentages for each section she supervised. It was a tough problem, because some bureaus, like Central and South, had a lot of gang activity, which included stranger shootings, car jackings, and payback homicides. These cases were notoriously hard to put down and the detectives in t
hose divisions usually had a higher open unsolved percentage. The Valley Bureau, on the other hand, encompassed a lot of bedroom communities like Foothill and Devonshire, where detectives generally had a much easier go of it. When some jealous husband catches his wife with the golf pro and bludgeons her to death with his nine iron, it's pretty much bing-bang-boom! Gotcha.

  Alexa was attempting to balance all this for performance evaluations. She had the stats for each detective division that she supervised, divided into different criminal categories: Rape, Robbery, ag-assaults, Child or Spousal Abuse, Property Crime, and Homicides. The clearance rates for each division were broken down by both arrests and by how many of the cases the D. A. had agreed to file. On another page, there was a running total of cases tried and their eventual outcomes, how many busts resulted in convictions. She was tabulating not only the arrests, but also the the quality of the arrests. It was extremely comprehensive and I marveled at her thoroughness.

  As I scanned file after file, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. I found a Special Ops file and used her password to open it. dark angel wasn't listed. I kept opening and closing windows like mad, my fingers flying over the keyboard. By mistake, I opened an unsecured folder marked 2005 overtime deployment projections. It was hardly the place to store sensitive documents, but since it was already open in front of me, I scanned it. The first few files were statistics, spreadsheets, archived correspondence, and e-mails. All of it, as expected, dealt with manpower deployment and overtime projections. I was scrolling and scanning, not paying too much attention, when all of a sudden there it was, hiding in plain sight: the dark angel, file. It contained twenty or more e-mails from Alexa to David Slade and from Slade to her. All were sent within the last two months. As I began to read, my heart went cold.

  Dark Angel. . .

  My thoughts are always on you. We must meet tomorrow night. I can't go another day without holding you. You need to give me another floor score. I ache to see you. How 'bout Cryto 457?