A Good Bunch of Men Page 2

  “Your partner jumped on it, hoss, said he’d be happy to take it as a one-man response.”

  I chuckled, but not from being amused.

  “He hates being on call,” I said. “The asshole will probably unplug the poor broad, make sure we’re credited for a murder just to get us out of the rotation for the weekend. I don’t put anything past Floyd.”

  Sylvia rolled her eyes. “You guys are sick.”

  I could use the break myself, I thought, but didn’t bother saying so. Thinking how ironic it was that when I first came to Homicide, it had been difficult to sleep for the anticipation of being called out in the middle of the night. After a few years, it began wearing on me, never knowing when the call would come or what kind of mess we would inherit. Just another asshole, or a dead kid? Some murders mattered more than others. Some murders weighed more than others.

  “Shit, hoss,” Davey said, “last I saw, Floyd was headed out the back door, ice chest in hand. My guess is he’s got a six-pack iced down for end of watch.”

  As Sylvia reached to answer another call, she said, “You guys are all alcoholics.”

  “Easy, hoss,” Davey said, looking at Sylvia and smiling. “There’s no reason to be casting stones here. A guy can get thirsty doing this job.”

  “So, what are we doing?” Lieutenant Jordan asked as he joined us at the desk, straightening his tie and adjusting the clip as he stepped alongside me. He liked the hanging, dangling, fancy gold tie clips. Most of us barely buttoned our collars or snugged up the knots of our ties, much less bothered with clips. The ones who did generally wore a simple sheriff’s star, or maybe a bulldog-the Bureau mascot-or the numbers 187, the California penal code for murder. He reached for a cookie but changed his mind. I glanced at his feet: black wingtips, but they were polished, definitely not the pair from the restroom.

  “We’re still trying to figure that out,” I said.

  “Have one, Lieutenant,” Sylvia said, “they’re homemade.”

  “No thanks, watching my weight.”

  “They’re low-carb,” I said, reaching for another.

  “You want this thing?” Lieutenant Jordan asked, looking over the top of narrow reading glasses, his blond brows pushing wrinkles across a tanned and freckled forehead.

  “Apparently, my partner does. I say we go have a look, that won’t hurt anything. She doesn’t die, you can put us back in the rotation. Chances are-“

  “You feel like gambling,” he said, “it’s up to you. She doesn’t die, you guys will be back up for murders tonight.”

  “Yeah, but if she does die,” I said, “we get a walkthrough. I could use one right now. No follow-up, no court . . .”

  “You got it, big boy,” Lieutenant Jordan said.

  So, there we stood, gambling on death like vultures. It was my move, but the lieutenant held all the cards. Davey sat content, not much invested in the hand, Sylvia seemed to be disgusted by her fellow mankind.

  “Piece of cake, hoss,” Davey said, “couple hours at the scene, bang out a short report, and you’re having a cold one . . . out of the rotation for the weekend and another case in the Solved column.”

  Sylvia rolled her eyes as Davey took another call.

  When he hung up, he turned his attention back to me as he pulled the Dead Sheet from the tray, a form used by the desk crew to document every death case that comes through the bureau. He hovered a pencil over it, waiting.

  “What d’ya think, hoss, you want it?”

  “Fine,” I said, “We’ll take it.”

  The drive from downtown Los Angeles to Malibu didn’t take long, the red excuse me light flashing from the dash of my Crown Victoria as I headed west toward the coast. Floyd had a head start, but I wouldn’t be far behind. He would likely be taking it easy, not a worry in the world, probably listening to a rock station, thinking about everything other than the impending death investigation. While I raced across the southland, monitoring traffic reports and plotting my route, crowding the left side of the fast lane in an effort to clear the way. I thought about the woman who was fighting for her life, trying to hold on, in no hurry to join her husband. Their agendas were apparently very different. Then I considered the possibilities, how the case would be handled depending on her fate, and for a moment felt bad that in essence, I was betting on her death.

  Nothing against her, I thought, now feeling a little guilty about being indifferent to her destiny. But, I reasoned, she’d likely be a vegetable if she did survive, and then die in a few months or years anyway. God had the master plan, right? It wasn’t up to me, but since it directly impacted my life, was it a terrible thing to hope the good Lord called her home? Then I thought of the damned shrink again and wondered what she would say about these ideas. I decided it was best not to worry about any of it; the poor old lady would die, or she wouldn’t, it wasn’t up to me. And there’d be no sense in mentioning this dilemma during my next session with the doc.

  I hit the siren a couple times to alert the driver ahead of me, who apparently didn’t know that a red flashing light meant MOVE!

  Two black and white sheriff’s patrol cars idled in the street, marking the location in traditional crime scene fashion with emergency lights flashing and a stretch of yellow tape across the driveway and sidewalk of 1455 West Sunset Place. As I pulled to the curb, I noticed a female deputy with her hair in a bun walking toward Floyd’s car, her dimples offsetting the businesslike hairdo required by department regulations. Experience told me I’d be working this one mostly by myself, my partner easily distracted by dimples and a nice smile.

  “I’ll talk to the deputy,” Floyd said as he stepped out of his car and pushed his fingers through his hair, facing me just long enough to say it. He added, “You can take care of the scene, right?”

  He turned with a big grin and headed for Dimples.

  Pretty Boy Floyd. The looks of a Baldwin brother and the testosterone level of a Brahma bull. Add alcohol and prepare for everything from adult entertainment to Floyd-made disaster. It would be hours, or the end of her shift, before my partner refocused.

  “I’ll tell you what, slick,” I called out to his back, “why don’t I go ahead and take care of the scene.” Asshole.

  2

  SOME DETECTIVES ABANDONED their pagers after the Homicide Bureau issued cell phones. I preferred the little beeping device and took it everywhere I went, like a sidearm and the American Express. The phone could stay in the car; if they wanted me, they had to page me first, which was an effective way to screen my calls. The only downside was the middle-of-the-night wake-up calls, as the pager only had two settings: vibrate or an obnoxious beeping. Only one of which had any chance of waking me.

  “Who is it?” asked my better half as the device came to life.

  I looked over at the nightstand where the pager sat next to my badge and gun, not far from the alarm clock. The display light flashed as it continued to sound off in the otherwise quiet, moonlit room.

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed and grabbed the pager, frantically pushing buttons until it stopped beeping. Then I gathered myself enough to focus and pushed the button again to illuminate the display: 187.

  When a gang member receives a 187 page, it’s usually a threat. When a homicide detective gets one, it’s time to go to work. Maybe a gangster had received one first.

  “It’s the office,” I said around a yawn.

  “You’re getting called out?”

  “Looks like it.”

  I arched my back through a series of audible pops.

  Valerie sat up in bed, her arms wrapped around a pillow.

  “I thought the Malibu case took you out of the rotation.”

  “It should’ve,” I said. “I guess we get another, because that’s my luck. Would you mind starting the coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  Valerie scurried from bed wearing panties and an oversized Dodgers t-shirt. She grabbed a robe and wrapped herself in it as she disappeared into the hallwa
y.

  I sighed, stretched, and sat on the edge of the bed, now staring at the enemy. It read: 2:17.

  Once the Malibu case became a murder, the unfortunate wife having succumbed to multiple gunshot wounds, I assumed we were out of the rotation. As such, I had not planned on being called out in the night. Normally, during an on-call period, I would have a suit, shirt, and tie set out, along with fresh underwear and socks in an effort to avoid the middle-of-the-night mix-and-match routine. But sometimes the callouts came without notice, the nature of our work being completely unpredictable.

  The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau is centralized to serve the entire county—28 patrol stations spread across 3,000 square miles of land—from a single office located near downtown Los Angeles. Each of the individual patrol stations functions almost as an independent police department, with the captains of those stations essentially assuming the role of Chief of Police. In addition to the patrol responsibilities in its assigned jurisdictions, each station has detectives who handle robberies, burglaries, rapes, frauds, and other miscellaneous crimes. However, when a death occurs, the call is made to Homicide Bureau’s 24-hour line to report the case, and a team is dispatched to their location. The local deputies secure the scene and witnesses and await the arrival of Homicide.

  To handle the caseload of such a large and populous county, the Homicide Bureau is staffed with approximately 80 investigators. Most of these investigators are assigned to one of six teams, each team having approximately 12-14 investigators and a lieutenant. Those investigators are paired into two-man teams, or partners. Each of the six teams is rotated through on-call periods, which generally occur every ten calendar days. The pairs of partners are placed in a call-out order by the team lieutenant, generally based on who caught a case during the last rotation. There were always exceptions to the rule, such as when an investigator was unavailable, tied up in court or on vacation. In that case, the investigator and usually his or her partner would be pulled out of the rotation. But generally, each team would have five or six pairs of partners in every rotation to handle murders throughout the county for their on-call period of a few short days. All too often, there were more murders than the five or six pairs of partners could handle, so detectives would sometimes be recycled, meaning that even though they had already caught a case during a particular rotation, they’d be up for another. Or the next team would be activated early to an on-call status, if the situation required it.

  Being called out twice in an on-call period didn’t occur often, so I never planned for it and always hoped against it.

  Valerie returned to the bedroom, stepped out of her slippers and robe, and slipped beneath the covers as I still sat clearing my head and collecting my thoughts.

  “Coffee’s started,” she said.

  “Thanks. I better call the desk, then grab a quick shower.”

  She looked cozy with her dark hair draped over a pillow, her brown eyes showing sympathy as she watched. “You want me to pick out a shirt and tie?”

  “It’s okay. You might as well get back to sleep.”

  I hated her going through my shirts and ties, picking out several and replacing them in random order, not light to dark and from left to right as arranged.

  My cell phone sat plugged into the adapter and cradled against the dash of the Crown Vic, right where it sat when I parked just a few hours earlier. It illuminated when I started the car, showing six missed calls in the display, all from my partner. He’d lose his mind if he couldn’t reach me at any given moment. Some people would try calling once, maybe twice, but then they’d wait for a callback . . . not Floyd.

  The green digits on the clock read 2:49. I estimated my arrival at the South Los Angeles crime scene to be approximately 3:30. With that I pulled out of the driveway, steering with my left hand which also gripped a mug of coffee, while hitting the speed dial of my beloved partner’s cell with my right.

  “What in the hell is your problem?”

  “Where the hell are you, dickhead?”

  “Just leaving the house.”

  “What’d you do, take a bubble bath?”

  “Where are you?” I asked, ignoring his sarcasm.

  “Almost there. Not entirely sober, but I’m handsomely dressed and damn near back in our old stomping grounds. You should see the suit Cindy picked out for me.”

  “I’ll never get that.”

  “What?”

  “That your wife picks out your clothes.”

  “There’s lots you don’t get, Dickie, that’s for sure.”

  “What’s the story on this?” I asked, “I only got the basics from the desk.”

  “Our victim’s a hooker, works Long Beach Boulevard. She may have been strangled, is about all I got. What the hell’s taking you so long tonight? Shit, Dickie, I’m damn near there.”

  I ignored his question. “We know her?”

  “Who, the hooker? Probably . . . don’t we usually? The scene’s right in the middle of that stretch we used to work whores, I think right near the El Pollo Grande, off the strip, the way I got it. Name didn’t ring a bell though, Susan Wright . . . Pollo actually sounds good right now; I’m starving.”

  The memory of working hookers brought a smile to my face. Me and Floyd, undercover, two dirty-looking white boys—by design, at the time—cruising in a white Super Sport Monte Carlo confiscated from a drug dealer. It had amazed me at times that we were being paid to do the job.

  “I wonder how late they stay open.” Floyd said.

  I recalled one night when we pulled alongside a black lady who strutted down the sidewalk, wearing a short denim skirt and heels. I had slowed as Floyd leaned out and asked, “Hey baby, how much?” I could still see the look she gave us, her hands on her hips as she said, “How much what?” all pissed off. Floyd tapped his bare wrist and asked, “How much time is it?”

  We didn’t wear watches or wedding rings when working undercover. Handcuff keys were buried in our pockets, never dangling from a keyring beneath the ignition. Hookers stayed alive and out of jail by developing street smarts, and part of street smarts included sniffing out undercover cops. Sometimes we drove around with beers between our legs to enhance the cover, and because we could.

  I had pulled away from the curb at Floyd’s urging—Get me the hell outta here!—as the would-be hooker continued to voice her displeasure in colorful language. Floyd’s parting shot had something to do with free advice about the way she had dressed.

  Those were the days, I thought, as Floyd continued with the conversation, now saying through my earpiece, “. . . and if they’re closed, maybe we can hit El Tecazo; I think they’re open all night. What do you think, Dickie?”

  Still recalling those days, I thought, man, it had been a good time, that was for sure. Very little stress, or so it seemed, and no middle-of-the-night call-outs or bloody crime scenes. The dress code of the day was whatever the hell we felt like wearing; shorts and t-shirts were not a problem. I looked back at that time in my career the way a young man remembers high school, seeing now how good he had it though at the time he couldn’t wait to finish, get his life started, get out of the house.

  But you can never go back.

  Floyd continued, saying, “Dickie, why are you ignoring me?”

  I tugged at the knot of my necktie and glanced at the clock on the dash. “I’ll see you in twenty.”

  Floyd, not known for patience, said, “Hurry up.”

  A red and blue sequined miniskirt, red pumps, and black fishnet stockings removed any doubt as to the chosen profession of our latest victim, Susan Wright. Susie-Q was her street name, we were told. I guessed her to be in her mid- to late-twenties, though she appeared forty; I had learned to factor in the miles. The track marks on her inner arms—scars and scabs caused by intravenous drug use––provided insight into her lifestyle and proffered a second reason she may have been killed, the first of course being her profession. If not a serial killer or demented client who did her in,
maybe it had been a pimp or dealer. These ladies of the night had many ways to end up dead. One minute they’d step into a van, just trying to make a buck, and the next thing they knew they’d wake up dead.

  Floyd stood next to a uniformed patrol deputy on the outskirts of the crime scene, a small area cordoned off with yellow tape streaming across the sidewalk, part of the street, and an entrance to the dark, narrow alley behind a row of businesses.

  “Nice of you to join us,” Floyd said as I approached the two of them.

  “Thanks, partner.”

  I introduced myself to the deputy and shook his hand. Then I nodded toward the victim on the sidewalk and asked Floyd, “You have a look yet?”

  “Waiting on you, Dickie.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  Floyd held a cup of coffee in one hand as he reached inside his dark blue suit with the other to retrieve a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. The glasses weren’t likely a necessity for one of the youngest guys at Homicide, probably more to enhance his look: mature, intelligent, distinguished . . .

  . . . Drunk?

  “Dude, you smell like a brewery.”

  “I had some beers, get off my balls.”

  “Some?”

  “Some six or eight,” he said. “I thought we were out of the rotation.”

  “Let me talk to the brass, anyone shows up.”

  “Your lieutenant called before you got here,” Floyd said, “see if we needed anything. Said he was headed out to Lancaster on an officer-involved shooting. Some nutcase with a machete hacked up a motel clerk, then came after the deputies when they showed up. Six deputies, all locked and loaded, handguns and shotguns pointed at the dipshit, and he takes them on with a machete. You can figure out the rest of that story.”

  “Some crazy shit up there, you know it?”

  “All them inbred people, desert rats. Those are your people.”