The Bad Shepherd Page 20

  “Yeah,” he croaked as if speaking through a bag filled with sand.

  “Bo?” It was Kaitlin, and there was worry in her voice.

  “Hey, what’s up, Kate?” He tried to sound sober and failed.

  “Are you OK?”

  Fochs cleared his throat and walked over to the sink, stretching the phone cord. He turned the faucet on and took a long drink, and spat it out. He could hear Kaitlin asking again if he were all right.

  “Yeah, I’m OK.”

  “I called you at your office, and they said you didn’t work there anymore. What’s going on? I’ve been trying you for hours.”

  “It’s a long story, doll, and it doesn’t have a happy ending.”

  “I don’t like how you sound. I’m coming over.”

  “You don’t need to do that,” he said softly, unsure if he were slurring or not. Fochs couldn’t see her right now. He was slightly more stable than old dynamite. He couldn’t face her. He couldn’t tell her that he’d failed her too.

  “I’m coming.” She hung up the phone.

  Fochs steadied himself on the counter. The events of the day flowed up over him like a sour wave, and he vomited violently into the sink. His stomach exploded again. Fochs held himself against the kitchen counter while he waited for the nausea to pass. He ran the faucet at full blast, guiding the water with his hands until the mess was gone. It cleaned up quickly. It was just whisky and bile. He washed the taste out of his mouth. He brushed and gargled, hoping that the stench of whisky and vomit disappeared. Fochs showered quickly and then went back to the living room, where the record player was still skipping at the end of Diver Down. Fochs replaced it with the Police’s Synchronicity, knowing that Kaitlin liked their chromatic sound and incredible harmonies. If only in their music, he quipped to himself. It struck him as an odd thing to be concerned about.

  She arrived just after eight, about thirty minutes after she’d called. Bo had been passed out for a solid seven hours. He was sober, or near enough. Fochs had a beer before Kaitlin showed up to steady his nerves and to try to even out what was either the beginning of the hangover or the worst part of the drunk. He was on his second Anchor Steam when she knocked.

  Fochs answered the door without a smile. His house faced west, and the sky was bright orange and fading quickly behind her.

  “Oh, Bo,” she said and surged forward at the sight of him. Kaitlin embraced him tightly, pulling him against her. He stood arms hanging dumbly at his sides, unsure of what to do for several seconds. He finally lifted his arms and wrapped them around her. “I’m so sorry.”

  Apparently, he’d done a fairly effective job of trashing his living room before he blacked out.

  He whispered that everything really was fine even though he knew he was lying as he spoke the words. He pulled her inside his house and closed the door with his left hand. Fochs walked her into the living room and offered her a seat. He walked into the kitchen and got her a beer from the fridge. “You’ll want this,” he said sadly and gave her the bottle.

  Fochs relayed the past twenty-four hours, starting with his meeting Mitch at the Rainbow. He told her how Mitch had been sanctimonious and condescending and how Fochs shouldn’t have been surprised. When Bo told her Mitch’s closing statement, she sneered and called him a bastard and said maybe they were better off without him. Bo told her about what happened with McLaren, and his eyes welled. He hoped she couldn’t tell in the dimly lit room, but when she reached out and put a soft hand on his shoulder, he knew she could.

  “I just got so caught up in it, you know? Like this case was a second chance to make a lot of things right. My old commander, Gordon Hunter, God, he went to bat for me so many times even after I got into trouble. I just wanted to show him that his faith in me was justified. Funny that I’d go about that by not doing the job he went out on a limb for me to get.” Bo looked up at the ceiling, eyes welling. “I wanted to show him that I was worthy of the second chance he got me with McLaren. I wanted to make it up to you too, Kate. I made a stupid, selfish play and it backfired on you. Now, you’re taking a chance on me again and I don’t even know how if we can pull this off. That was the hardest to live with. I can stand it when my mistakes just cost me something. I just couldn’t. I’m so sorry,” he stated again, and his voice broke. “Now, I’ve not only traded on Gordon and let Bud down, but I couldn’t swallow my pride enough with Mitch to see clear of our past and that’s cost us our last shot at Fremont’s supplier. At least this time, the only one getting screwed is me.”

  Kaitlin whispered shushed him and pulled him over to her. She touched his face, cupped it in her hand, and kissed him. She whispered, “No more apologies,” and kissed him again. Fochs closed his eyes and surrendered. Wherever his father was, Bo hoped he hadn’t been watching today.

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Ellison was out for most of the morning, so Mitchell stayed at the station and caught up on paperwork. What that really meant is that he absently scribbled at forms and obsessively replayed his conversation with Bo in his mind. How they had settled back in the groove after that first, awkward moment. Were they just hiding in familiar territory to cover the three years of bitterness, anger, and resentment, or was that the genuine friendship? Which one was the sideshow? Jesus, it was hard to know. Probably both, he decided. Mitch bobbed his head, answering the conversation he was having with himself, and stood from the table.

  He walked over to the coffee pot and refilled his cup. He didn’t keep up with any of the guys from the squad. Mitch had been quickly ostracized from the rest of the Rockstars after Bo left. It was never an overt thing. No one ever walked up to him and blamed him for what happened to Bo, but the implication was there. Friendships cooled, and there was distance both personal and professional. He knew they secretly blamed him for Bo’s firing, thought he should have intervened on his partner’s behalf, and saved his career. If only they knew the truth.

  When he came back to their table, Ellison was entering the task force area still in his civilian clothes. Lieutenant Steedham spotted him immediately, dropped what he was doing, and made a fast line for their table.

  “What have you got for me, Dave?” Steedham was tall and thin, balding but with his hair still thick and wiry on the sides. There were a handful of blackish strands doing their damnedest to rainbow arc over his head, but it was a losing battle. The lieutenant’s eyes were set back far in his head with dark bags under the bottom lids. Word was he’d beaten cancer. He looked it, and Mitchell thought he was certainly mean enough to do it.

  “Not much, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, and why is that?” The lieutenant was frustrated and irritated, and both of those had soaked through into his voice. Mitch understood; they all were, but Dave wasn’t going to just show up from a sit down with a source and close the case.

  Ellison shot Mitch a short, cold look before he answered. The lieutenant didn’t seem to pick up on it. “My guy says he doesn’t have any information for us.”

  “I thought you told me he was a fucking goldmine, Dave. I thought he is supposed to be a legitimate source.” Steedham’s voice sounded like curdled milk.

  “He is,” Dave countered, but Mitch could tell his hackles were up. “Probably the best intel asset we have working in South LA right now. He knows everyone because he’s an O.G.”

  Steedham, who’d looked like he’d spent his entire career in a suit, tried to mask his confusion with irritation. He was one of those guys that even when he was in blues, he was still a suit.

  Ellison picked up on it and simply said, “Original Gangster. It means he was ganged up before there was such a thing as ‘Bloods’ and ‘Crips.’ He was a founding member of the gang that is now the Rollin’ 30s. But he went to jail, and he got right and turned his life around. Now he helps us out, quietly. He tells me who’s who on the street, where the power struggles are, or who’s making a play. People on the street talk to him, and he talks to me.”

  Steedham nodded, but was
n’t sold. His frog’s mouth had a half-smirk on it that said he was listening but only because he was still standing there. “That seems thin. I was led to believe he still connected.”

  Ellison’s ruddy features darkened. Mitch had seen that look before, expected Dave to erupt, and was very surprised when he didn’t. Ellison could be brutal both to suspects and his fellow officers, and no one would accuse him of being polished. Ellison believed to his core that he knew best how to police the gang-infected streets of South LA. He would brook no challenge to his authority from without or within. At the same time, though, he understood the mechanism that was the police department and, more important, chain of command. In that way, he was a model cop. He never spoke ill of his superiors or lost his composure in front of them. The duality had always perplexed Mitchell.

  “I don’t think you understand, Lieutenant. Marlon Rolles is better connected to the street than anyone we know because he talks to all sides. And they talk to him.”

  The look on the lieutenant’s face was still dark with incredulity.

  “Maybe you don’t know this about him, sir,” Dave said in a way that suggested Steedham hadn’t been on the street in a while, “but Rolles runs a charity where he tries to get kids out of the gangs and into sports, into work programs, schools. Whatever it takes for that kid to find his way out, Marlon Rolles will do. Maybe 20 to 30 percent stay with the program all the way through, but 100 percent of them talk. They feed him a lot of bullshit, but there’s also some useful information in that, and when he gets something that I can use, he gives it to me.”

  Steedham said, “How interesting,” and cut the conversation off there. “So what you’re telling me is that you have no leads. That’s what I’m hearing.” Ellison started to protest, but the lieutenant held up his hand with a curt, condescending ahh as though cautioning a dog nosing in the garbage. “The Olympics are four weeks away. We have that long to close this down.” Steedham cocked his head, putting Mitchell into his field of vision. “We have been chasing our tails for two weeks while you CRASH men have interrogated every black kid with a bandanna between here and the Valley, and you have produced exactly nothing.”

  Steedham jerked his right hand up making the shape of a zero. All eyes in the task force were on them now. The back of Mitchell’s neck grew hot.

  “You have two days to get me a solid lead, or I will talk to your captain and have him get me someone who will. I’m sure I don’t need to spell out for you what happens then. Are we clear?”

  Maybe we’d have a lead if one of your detectives hadn’t threatened the Bloods we tried to talk to. Mitch fought hard to hold back the words.

  In the opening days of the task force, Steedham had forced Mitch to take one of his RHD puppets with him on a roll through the Jungles. Mitch, who’d spent months cultivating assets within the Black P-Stone Blood gang claiming that neighborhood as territory, thought that was their best chance to get a solid lead on the shooters and maybe even convince them not to retaliate for a time. Mitch tried to prep Detective Dellacourt on both the situation and the neighborhood. Cops didn’t walk onto one of the most dangerous set of streets in the city and flex to the people who lived there day-in, day-out.

  While Mitch was working his sources, Dellacourt got impatient, or Mitch thought scared, and tried to throw his weight around. He threatened several of Mitch’s sources with jail time if they didn’t cooperate. That neighborhood was already like dead grass next to an untended dumpster fire, and Mitch pulled Dellacourt away before things got ugly, but it was too late; they’d lost any chance of getting useful information. None of the P-Stones would speak to Mitch now.

  Steedham pivoted on his heel and left before either of them could answer.

  Mitch watched Dave stare daggers at the lieutenant as he walked away.

  “Asshole,” Mitch said after he’d walked away. He threw a glance to his partner, but Ellison just glowered.

  “He’s still a lieutenant, Mitch, and our task force commander,” he said, but there was no conviction in his voice.

  “Fine, but he doesn’t need to threaten us, and it was his guy, the one he ordered me to take on a field trip, who cost me months of work with the P-Stones.” Gaffney shot an acid-laced look at the lieutenant’s back. “Now he’s trying to put this entire thing on our heads. Fuck that.”

  Ellison shook his head. “Yeah, well, the department has put the entire thing on his head. You know what happens if he can’t close this case? The FBI is going to have whatever they need to finally strip command for the Olympics away from the chief. Heads will fucking roll.”

  “I don’t agree with how the lieutenant is handling this, but some guys just aren’t that good under pressure.” Ellison gave Mitch a knowing stare. “You’ve got to appreciate his position, though. If this task force fails, the mayor is going to say that LAPD isn’t up to the task, and he’ll give command to the sheriff. This sort of thing may even cost Gates his job. I don’t know. The lieutenant will most certainly be relieved of duty, possibly shit-canned, and every member of this task force is going to have a black mark on their records for good. You and I? We’ll be in patrol, bucko. You want to see a railroading, son? You just be a part of the department eating shit from the mayor.”

  Mitchell knew the mayor, a former cop, had his own hard-on for Chief Gates. Setting his

  coffee down, he admitted to himself that there was another option.

  It was the only choice Mitch had left. Steedham just made that indelibly clear. Distantly, he understood the ramifications of the task force’s failure, the boulder-in-a-pond splash that it would make for the department. He understood how the chief eating shit in front of the mayor and the FBI would be bad for everyone, and careers would be ruined because of it, to say nothing of the lives that would never get made whole, never see justice.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Mitchell said quickly, as if more measured speech would give him time to reconsider.

  “What?”

  “It’s a lead.” Mitch stood and left without another word.

  Chapter Thirty

  “We’re this close.” She held up two slender fingers. “To getting the owner of that car. In fact, if you wanted to run the traps today with the detail shops, that might be all we need. There are other ways of getting at Fremont. We don’t need Mitch. We find out who owns that car, we can have Fremont just corroborate it. If he’s as afraid of that guy as you say, the reaction alone will tell us whatever we need. From there, we can run this like a purely investigative peace. I’ve got some contacts at the Times we can leverage too. Don’t worry, we’re not sunk yet.”

  Bo nodded and said he would get on those names. The names and addresses were in a file in her bag, and she would leave it with him. Kaitlin was ebullient and he masked a display of enthusiasm he didn’t feel.

  Kaitlin left with a short speech about keeping the faith and that they were in this together, and she truly believed in what they were doing. Fochs walked her to the door. Kaitlin cupped the side of his face with her hand and smiled, then told him that she would check in with him later that night. She said nothing about what happened last night or how it changed things between them. Fochs trudged back to his bed and lay on the side she had used so he could still smell the trace of her.

  He hadn’t had the heart to tell her how hopeless it was to keep this up. Fochs knew they couldn’t make the connection without Sterling’s confession, and despite Kaitlin’s reassurance he didn’t see how they could get it. Fochs thought with dread about how she’d talked this up to her friend at the paper, her producer, and the news director. This was Lorenzo all over again. Kaitlin would talk up her story, churn up interest, and when it all unraveled, she’d be left embarrassed, discredited. That she’d just earned her way back a few months ago was enough for him to pull the plug on this. He should have already. He didn’t know why he hadn’t. Sleeping with her only added layers. Now there were two things he needed to extricate himself from before she got hurt.

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nbsp; “What are you doing?” Fochs asked the room.

  The air inside his house was stale and still had trace amounts of the sticky sweet odor of vomit mixed with the random waft of Kaitlin’s perfume. It created a fairly vial aroma when taken as a whole and Bo set about opening all of the windows and hitting ceiling fans.

  The phone rang on the other side of the house. Probably Kaitlin to tell me this was a huge mistake.

  Fochs stood and trotted over to the kitchen. He found his heart was beating a little faster at the thought of hearing her voice, even though she’d just left—what, an hour ago? His pager went off at the same time. Fochs picked up the pager that he’d left in the kitchen yesterday. It was Jimmy Mack’s number. Christ, that’s all he needed right now.

  “Yeah,” he said into the phone.

  “I been trying to reach you for daaaays, Bo-Fochs,” said Jimmy Mack, slurring his first and last names into one word.

  “Hey, Jimmy. Sorry, I’ve been out of touch. Head down, you know?”

  “Yeah, I’ll say you been outta touch. You don’t return a phone call; you don’t call me; you don’t check in like you said you was gonna.”

  Fochs held the receiver away from him his ear and dropped his head. He couldn’t afford to lose this gig, not now. Jimmy Mack was all he had left. But the bottle of scotch he’d pounded the day before wasn’t doing him any favors today. Couldn’t Jimmy have called when he’d had coffee or another drink, anything to burn the cobwebs out of his head? Bo could charm the scales off a snake when his game was up, and desperation made for a hell of an eye-opener.

  “Sorry, I’ve been a little underwater lately but now you’ve got my undivided attention. Bud fired me yesterday.” Thinking about it brought fresh waves of pain to the surface.

  “I talked to Sterling. He told me about your conversation.” Ignoring Bo’s comment about being fired.