The Bad Shepherd Read online

  “Maybe. Mostly, the job is keeping them out of trouble and out of the papers. Nothing illegal, of course; they break the law; they’re on their own. But you know that there are a lot of guys on the force that’ll give dudes a hard time when they find out they’re famous.” There was a sullen edge to Bo’s words.

  “Some of that they have coming though. Remember all the shit Nikki Sixx used to pull? He pissed on a squad car and then tried punching the officers out.”

  “That is not a good example,” he said, laughing. “Those guys are fucking crazy.”

  “So, Early Warning got the opening for Van Halen? Man, that’s rad.”

  “Yeah. I think the concert is going to be out of this world. What do you think of 1984?”

  Mitch shrugged and gave the long “eh.” “I’m not sure yet. Some of it totally rips, but it has a little too much synth, I think. Wasn’t as rushed as Diver Down, but I feel like it doesn’t have the same punch that they used to.”

  They talked about music for the rest of the first round about the bands they used to see, who made it, and who fizzled out.

  “So what about you?” Bo asked halfway through their second beer.

  “I’m back down in Southwest. Working CRASH. You remember Dave Ellison?”

  “He was the Lou Ferrigno-looking guy, right? The meathead?”

  Mitch laughed. “A little bit, yeah.”

  “Yeah, I remember. Man, he had a stick up his ass.”

  “He’s not that bad. Good guy, actually, when you get to know him.”

  “That’s what everyone says about assholes,” Bo said flatly.

  Mitch had forgotten about his partner’s knack for grudge holding. Former partner, he corrected himself. “Anyway, I’m detailed to CRASH from Narcotics. I guess the idea is that they’re finding so much drugs in the gangs now they wanted to integrate some narcotics detectives so they could conduct more detailed investigations. Pilot program with just us and Seventy-Seventh Street right now.”

  “Is it working?”

  “Is anything? Jesus Christ, Bo. You wouldn’t believe it. It’s literally the Wild West down there.” Mitch shook his head and signaled for another couple of beers. “Gang bangers are packing MAC-10s and Uzis. We’re starting to see AK-47s now too, stuff that somehow got shipped over from Vietnam. Not much good a six-shot Smith and Wesson is going to do against that. But the drugs, though. Heroin and weed are always going to be in the ghetto, but rock cocaine has pretty much taken over, and that shit is scary. It’s cheap, a quick high, and addictive as all hell. They’re bringing it in and baking it and selling it faster than we can track it. We’re pretty sure that at least one of the Crip sets has a direct line into one of the Columbian drug cartels, so they’re not even bothering to go through Miami anymore.” Mitch shook his head and looked down at the table. “You ask if it’s working; man we don’t even know where to start. We’re just pissing in the wind.”

  The server set two fresh beers down. Mitch thanked her and continued, “We were onto this one, though. We’d found a house where they were manufacturing it. That’s the thing now is that they get some shit shack and camp out there while another crew just mixes and bakes it round the clock. We were getting close to finding out where they were getting their shit from when this Courtyard Massacre thing hit. That happened in our area; me and Dave were actually one of the first cars on the scene.” Mitch’s voice dropped off abruptly. How could he even describe it? When he came back, he sounded far away even to himself.

  “They were just kids, you know? The guys who did the drive-by were using automatics and shotguns. You don’t want to know what that does to a child.” His voice warbled. Mitch took a long drink, hoping in vain that it would banish the things he saw when his eyes closed, the images that haunted his dreams. It wasn’t just the overt slaughter, which was a godless act of its own. It was just as much the knowledge that there were people out there whose opinion of a human life could be distilled down to whether that person wore red or blue.

  “God,” Bo said, breaking the silence. “I’m sorry, man.”

  Mitch raised his gaze to meet his former—Jesus what did he even call this?

  “For what it’s worth, as long as this never gets easier you know you’ve still got a soul.” Now it was Bo’s turn to get distant. “One thing you learn over there is that you can’t ever forget the humanity of it.” Bo rarely referred to Vietnam by name. It was always “over there,” like it was some other plane of human existence, another planet, somewhere his reality could never touch.

  Mitch flashed with anger and fought to contain it, irritated that Bo could so easily distill what Mitch was trying to articulate without his having been there. How could Bo understand, let alone relate? The fake empathy was insulting. He wasn’t squaring off against the gangbangers every day. He wasn’t standing in between the crashing red and blue waves of raw hate. How in hell could Bo just rattle off some war-learned aphorism and be right?

  That was it, he realized.

  Mitch leaned back in his chair and ran both hands through his hair, and laced his fingers behind his head. Bo had been there; he had seen those horrible things and understood what lengths men would go to when they didn’t recognize their adversary’s basic humanity. Mitch looked at the man across the table from him for a long, cold moment.

  “So, what was it you wanted to talk to me about, Bo? You said you’ve got some information on the Massacre.”

  “I think so, yeah,” he said slowly. Then, Fochs was quiet for a few long moments. “Ah, I don’t quite know how to ask this.” The words came sparingly, and he was clearly uncomfortable. “I’m . . . I need your help.” When Mitch’s expression soured, Bo said, “Just hear me out” and held up his hands. “And if you don’t want to, or can’t, I’ll understand. No hard feelings.” Bo looked away.

  “OK, so what is it?”

  He exhaled hard and filled the breach with beer. Mitch got the sense this was a conversation that was better had with whiskey.

  “I’m working on a case that’s sort of related to our investigation of Lorenzo Fremont.”

  Mitch felt his pulse quicken and his face flush.

  “I was questioning someone who knows where Fremont was getting his drugs. He also let slip that he knows who was behind the Courtyard.”

  “I can’t interrogate someone for you,” Mitch said, already seeing the path this was going down.

  “The hell you can’t,” Fochs spat, immediately on the defensive. “You guys pull people in all the time just to remind them that you’re out there.”

  “Bo, if you have information about a mass murder you need to come forward.”

  Foch’s expression darkened, and his eyes narrowed.

  “Get off your horse, Mitch. I’m not a cop anymore. I don’t need to do anything.”

  “You have an obligation to—”

  “I have an obligation to myself. I’m the only one looking out for me. What I need to do is to close the fucking book on Lorenzo Fremont once and for all. I’ve been chasing that dragon for three years, Mitch, and it has cost me everything. I want it over. The guy who was supplying him is still in business. You can help me find him.”

  The words “because you owe me” hung in the air between them. Mitch boiled.

  “What do you get, Bo? What do you get if you find out?” Mitch was surprised at how his voice sounded in his ears. “It doesn’t change anything. You don’t get those years back. They don’t wave a wand, and all of a sudden you’re a cop again. Fremont doesn’t come back from the dead.” Mitch’s voice ratcheted up a couple notches, as three years of backed-up anger he didn’t realize he still felt all came flowing out. “Neither does Daphne.”

  Bo’s face froze; all expression drained away. He looked like he’d been punched. Mitchell knew he’d gone too far. He didn’t know what made him say it. Three years of pent-up anger multiplied by the pressure he was under made for volatile cocktail.

  “Her life had meaning, but her death didn’t.
Even Fremont, who was next to worthless as a human being, died for no real reason. Somebody fed him to us to protect himself. I hate the idea that he got by us, that he’s still out there pushing his shit,” Bo waved an arm in a sweeping gesture that drew the attention of people at the next table. “If I find him, prove he was behind this all along, maybe I can bring a some meaning back to the lives he took.”

  Mitch remained silent, finding it hard to meet Bo’s intense stare after that torrent.

  Fochs pushed away from the table and stood. Mitch saw Bo’s hand was shaking though he was struggling to control it. He pulled a few dollars from his billfold and dropped them on the table. “This was a mistake.” Bo didn’t make eye contact with Mitch the entire time. “I’d hoped you were a different person now. Maybe time heals all wounds, but we haven’t hit our shelf life yet.”

  “Ten people were murdered, Bo. You know something about it, but you’re not going to share what you know to spite me?”

  “I offered to help you if you helped me, but you won’t. I came here hoping that you weren’t the person I thought you were. It’s too bad for us both that I was wrong.”

  Fochs left.

  Mitch watched Bo walk out of the Rainbow. He swore under his breath and stared at Bo’s half-finished beer like so many words were still stuck in that bottle.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Fochs walked into McLaren’s earlier than usual. He hadn’t slept most of the night, so he’d driven out to the beach around four-thirty to catch the first few breaks. The surf was all right, but his heart just wasn’t in it, and he spent most of the time just sitting on his board, floating and staring into the horizon. Finally, he gave up and drove home. Fochs replayed the conversation with Mitch the night before over and over, a tape stuck in the deck. The goddamn sanctimonious son of a bitch.

  He didn’t need Mitchell Gaffney to lecture him on the things he couldn’t bring back. Fochs thought about them every day. By now, it was a benediction. But to bring up Daphne was so far beyond the pale, even for Gaffney. Fochs would carry that scar for the rest of his life, and he didn’t need his ex-partner picking at the wound. The fuck did he know about it anyway? What had Mitchell ever lost?

  All Fochs knew was that it was over.

  Without Mitch, he had no way to get Fremont to give up the name of the next rung in the ladder. He tried to find some consolation in knowing that at least he could stop lying to his boss, ditching his responsibilities and leading the Fremont family on. At least now he could focus on this favor for Kit Carson and get the McLaren group set up with Warner’s. Maybe what he needed was some time off. He was thinking about asking Bud if he could go with Early Warning on tour. Fochs needed to get out of LA for a time to clear his head.

  Fochs mumbled a greeting to the receptionist and didn’t notice when she just looked the other way. He walked into his office and checked messages, there was nothing waiting for him. Fochs picked up on a strange vibe when he went to the coffee pot, but couldn’t put a finger on it. Things just seemed off. The place was normally vibrant, lively, but today is was muted and sober, awkward. It felt like being at a wake for someone you didn’t know. Fochs was walking back to his desk when the receptionist finally acknowledged him, saying he should go see Mr. McLaren right away.

  Fochs walked over to the boss’ office and knocked twice on the doorjamb. McLaren had his back turned. He was facing the window watching the mid-morning sun slowly wake up Hollywood. McLaren was in shirtsleeves, suit coat crisply hung on the tree near the door. “Come in, Bo,” he said without turning around.

  Fochs stepped in and closed the door behind him.

  McLaren didn’t sit. Instead, he leaned back against the windowsill and folded his arms. “I’m not going to ask you to tell me where you were, yesterday, Bo. All I know is where you weren’t. You weren’t in front of Karen Carson’s house when the boyfriend showed up, Mike Hartley was. When that juiced-out, muscle-head saw him, he went nuts and thought she was two-timing him with Hartley.” McLaren tensed the muscles in his arms. “Mike’s a good detective but he’s never been in a street fight before, Bo. Part of the reason I gave this job to you was so that if something like this happened, I would have someone there who knew how to handle himself. Instead, I’ve got a former tennis pro with an accounting degree.” With that, McLaren waved his arms wide. “Mike’s got a broken jaw and is going to be on convalescent leave for while. At least Karen made it inside and was able to call the police before Downey kicked her door in.”

  Fochs stared at the floor as though his gaze was held there by gravity.

  When McLaren spoke again, his voice was lower, calmer but there was still a hard edge to it. “I know what you were doing and I think maybe I even know why but it doesn’t change the fact that I can’t have that kind of thing in my agency.”

  “I know, Bud,” Bo said quietly. “And, I’m sorry.”

  “Bo, I know you. I know where your drive comes from and I know that you’re not going to let this go.” McLaren’s shoulders sagged as he exhaled and suddenly, he appeared very, very tired. “So, I’m going to have to let you go. At least until the time when you’ve sorted this out and put it behind you for good.”

  “Are you firing me?”

  “That’s up to you, son. Lets call it a leave of absence. Six months.” Bud rose to his full height and pointed across the desk at Bo. “You need to resolve this, in whatever way you see fit, but I can’t be a part of it and can’t have it coming back on my agency. Six months should also give you some time to reflect on what really matters in your life and the path you want to go down.”

  “This matters,” Bo said.

  “Does it?”

  “It matters because a man died and the department buried it. A woman died, someone I cared about, and the department wrote her off because her death wasn’t convenient to the story they wanted to tell. And at the center of it, of all of it, was this guy, this drug lord. He just up and disappears, and there’s no consequence for him.” Bo closed his eyes, trying to hold back the hot tears welling inside them. “But, if I find him, if I can show that there was more to this all along, maybe some of that has meaning. Their deaths have meaning. They’re not just filling holes in the ground.”

  “Death only has the meaning people put on it. If anyone understands that, I do. Far better than you, I think. Proving Lorenzo Fremont was just a spoke in the wheel doesn’t bring any of them back and doesn’t make their sacrifices any more noble. It doesn’t change anything. It just proves to you that you were right, and that, I can assure you, is of no consolation to people left behind.” McLaren sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes. “We’ll talk at Christmas and see what’s what. Whatever you do between now and then, please consider the consequences beyond yourself. For all its ills, the LAPD is this agency’s lifeline. Its not just the work that colleagues send our way it’s the access, the information they give. If you do something that jeopardizes that relationship, I cannot take you back.”

  Bo said nothing and stood to leave.

  When Fochs reached the door, McLaren said, “I don’t want to believe that Gordon Hunter was wrong about you. Don’t prove him wrong.”

  Fochs drove home. McLaren’s final words to him hung in the air around him. The finality of it was palpable, and the shame was crushing. McLaren was like a father to him, and he’d betrayed that, justified it with an ease that frankly scared him just as he’d done with Gordon Hunter before. Daphne, Mitch, Hunter, McLaren, now Kaitlin, Fochs had a way of crossing those who meant the most to him. He single-mindedly pursued what he believed to be important and lost sight of the things around him that truly were.

  His house was dark and quiet, and he left it that way. Fochs dropped his keys on the kitchen counter and just stood there, numb, for what seemed like forever. Finally, he walked into the sunken living room, looking out on his shaded back yard and over to the bar. Fochs pulled out a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label that McLaren had given him for Christmas, popped the top, an
d pulled.

  Fochs drew the bottle away from his lips when he started laughing. His face was wet and at first he thought he’d splashed some whisky on himself. It wasn’t until he wiped at it that he realized tears were streaming down his cheeks. He was so lost he didn’t even realize that he was crying. Fochs took another pull from the bottle and walked into the center of his living room, finally collapsing into his leather couch. He titled the bottle, which must have cost McLaren at least fifty dollars and gulped, pulling it back only when he started into another coughing fit. Bubbles exploded against the upended base, and the scotch sloshed back and forth.

  Fochs stood, already unsteady on his feet, and walked over to the stereo. He pulled out the red-and-white-jacketed Diver Down album and put it on the record player. Skipping around and mercilessly scratching the vinyl, he sloppily looked for the record’s fourth track, “Secrets.” The album had come out the year after Daphne died, but as soon he heard the wistful, yet haunting rhythm of the song, he immediately thought of her. The lyrics brought him to tears. That song was the only thing he found that could ever capture her.

  Fochs’ shoulders shook violently as he broke into a violent fit of tears. He went back to the bottle, gulping down whisky as fast as the tears washed out of his eyes. When eventually he pulled the bottle away from his lips, he gasped over and again to her that he was sorry.

  The phone rang from some far-away place, like someone had left it at the end of a long, long hallway under a pile of old, damp blankets. It was an echo or an afterthought, but it was slowly getting closer, louder. Why was his phone moving? Fochs opened his eyes, and it was dark. He was on his back. He lifted his head up and realized that wasn’t a good idea. The phone, still ringing, took on an urgency that his fully conscious mind was finally becoming aware of. Fochs stood using the arm of his couch for balance. He wobbled; his foot kicked the empty bottle of scotch, and it rolled across the wood floor. Fochs stumbled for the kitchen to grab the phone.