The Bad Shepherd Read online

  “Yeah.” Fochs shrugged his shoulders. “I did have an idea that if I could prove there was someone above Lorenzo, I should do it.”

  “That ain’t what I’m payin’ you for, Bo-Fochs.”

  Bo smiled in spite of himself. He actually wanted to see Jimmy Mack in the courtroom to watch how this guy delivered a case with that machine gun cadence. “I know it’s not, Jimmy. The LAPD strung Lorenzo up like he was the biggest coke trafficker this city had ever seen. We both know that isn’t true. If you want to make your case, that’s the angle you need. No jury is going to give a hot shit for a drug dealer, but if you show them that the police killed a kid and strung him up to look like one to sell the story, you have a case.”

  “You have headlines.” Jimmy obviously thought about that for a minute. “OK, Bo-Fochs. Listen, the family is pressing me on this. They want to know if we’re gonna go to trial or not. I need that gun you told me about.”

  Fochs closed his eyes, and his heart sank.

  Going forward with this would damn him to the police and, by extension, Bud McLaren.

  “I think we should focus our efforts on making a case without the gun,” he said at length. “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, Jimmy. I don’t think its going to be a good idea to make another pass at Mitchell Gaffney.” He heard Jimmy start on the other end of the phone. “Listen, the department already cleared him and if you go bringing that up again, they’re just going to dig in. Not to mention, as soon as people find out that I helped you they’ll use that to discredit your argument. You’ll lose before you ever set foot in a courtroom and I’ll be finished as a private detective.” Jimmy launched into a furious rebuttal, most of which sounded honest. Bo didn’t pay attention to any of it. “But,” he said calmly, breaking in. “If you shift the focus to proving that the department was wrong in its assertion that your client’s son was a drug lord, you not only make a righteous argument but make your case less about wrongful death—”

  “Boy, you must be out of your goddamn mind,” the lawyer said, harshly. “We hired you to help us prove that an LAPD cop, your partner, shot and killed an unarmed black man. Might I remind you that’s an accusation that you yourself made, more than once.” Jimmy paused and Fochs could here the quick, heavy, angry breaths through the receiver. When the lawyer continued his voice was slower, measured and iron clad. “Now you listen and you listen real good, Bo Fochs, this case is going ahead with you or without you but it is going and we’re gonna talk about Mitchell Gaffney and his goddamn plant of a gun. You can be on board and do the right thing and,” he said this last bit slowly and precisely, “honor your word. Or you can walk away a coward and a punk. Good luck finding work then, Bo Fochs. Just remember, I know a lot of people in this town and they all listen to every word I got to say.” Jimmy hung up before Bo could say anything else.

  Probably because he wanted to end the call before Bo reminded him that with his deposition, they didn’t have a leg to stand on. Still, the threat wasn’t an empty one. He’d asked around before he took the job. Jimmy Mack’s reach went far and wide in this town and he could certainly make life difficult for Bo, especially if he was on his own without the McLaren agency backing him up.

  Jimmy Mack’s words echoed in Bo’s mind with a fierce resonance. When he started this thing, Bo believed he could steer Jimmy in the direction he wanted. Guide him away from the idea of mudslinging Bo’s ex-partner and toward the guy Lorenzo was working for. He could admit, now, that he did not think of the broader consequences this could have with the department and the implications that would have for him, for McLaren. His mind just snapped to the idea of going after the real source of the drug network he and Mitch uncovered three years before. But this was now clearly beyond his control and he had no idea how to stop it.

  The phone rang again a half-hour later but Fochs was just lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to get back to sleep. Still, he growled at the interruption and slogged his way back into the kitchen, swearing with every step. Fochs just wanted to sleep it off, all of it, not just the hangover. He thought about just letting it ring off, but knew it was probably Jimmy Mack. And if it was, the lawyer would just keep calling, and calling, and calling.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey, Bo. It’s, ah, it’s Mitch.”

  “Yeah,” Fochs said, his voice just above a grunt. This is all I need, he thought, a half-assed apology and another reason you were right in telling me to fuck off.

  “Look, I’m not really happy with how we left things the other night. You have time to get a cup of coffee?” Mitchell’s voice sounded strained.

  “Not really. I think you said what you had to say.” Fochs moved to hang up the phone.

  “Bo. Look, I was out of line. It took a lot of guts for you to reach out after all these years. To offer to help me after, after everything, I mean, that, that took balls.”

  “Well, I appreciate the call, but I’m not sure we’ve got anything to talk about.”

  “Maybe we do,” he said quickly, urgently. “I’ve been thinking about your offer. I was up most of the night thinking it over. And, well, shit kind of hit the fan at the task force today. Made me realize that maybe we do have something to talk about after all. If the offer is legit, I’d like to hear you out.”

  Fochs stared up at the ceiling. Bo’s head spun. This train was moving too fast. “Yeah,” he said long and slow, like it was his last breath. “It’s legit.” Bo rolled the thought over, asking the questions that in his haste before he ignored: Can I trust Mitchell? Does he have an angle? And he remembered what Kaitlin said about second chances.

  “Let’s meet up at the taco shack at noon,” he said. “Get some lunch, and talk it out.”

  “That sounds like a deal . . . and, Bo, thanks.”

  Fochs still came by Paco’s Tacos at least once a week. This was a place he and Mitch went almost daily when they worked out of Hollywood Station. He tossed his Peet’s cup in the trash and waited for Mitchell. The aromas of spices and deep-fried deliciousness wafted out of the shack, and his stomach rumbled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten breakfast. Mitch arrived at two before twelve. Must be serious then. The two men shook hands tentatively. They each ordered a pair of tacos, a basket of chips, Bo an Orange Crush, and Mitch a Mountain Dew.

  Fochs crunched down half of his taco before he started. “So, things aren’t going that well on the task force.”

  Mitch’s head bobbed slowly as if it took him actual effort. “Yeah, we’ve had shit to go on, and haven’t been making any progress. It all just came to a head.” He tipped his soda bottle back. “Task Force CO came down on Ellison and me pretty hard. Said if we don’t come up with something they can use, he’ll fire us and make sure there’s plenty of blame to spread around when the time comes.”

  “Why single you out?”

  “Pressure’s building from headquarters for one. You wouldn’t even believe it; the whole reason we’re in the task force is to provide gang intelligence, but it was one of his guys, some shit bird the lieutenant brought with him from RHD, who cost us credibility with the P-Stones member who saw it happen.”

  Mitch recounted the story of the ride along with Dellacourt, how he tried to bow up to the gangmembers and scare them into talking to the police. “But even without that idiot, people aren’t talking, and we can’t figure out why.” Mitch looked off across Sunset and relayed his failed attempt to solicit information from the Jungle P-Stones. “Thing is, if we don’t bring this in and soon with all the press its getting, they’re worried that the mayor is going to give command of the Olympic operation to the sheriff.”

  “Would they really do that? This late in the game? What do they have, like, a month left?”

  Gaffney nodded. “Look, all this is rumor, but there’s talk of a special task force to get around the jurisdictional questions and put Sherriff Block in command of it. Or, and this is probably worse, the word is that Pete Pitchess was gunning for the Olympic Committee’s security dire
ctor job. That job went to someone from the FBI, but Pitchess’ name is still circling the drain.”

  Bo thought that over. Pitchess had been the LA County Sherriff for twenty-six years until he’d finally retired two years before. He and Gates were actually quite close, despite the heated and often public, rivalry between their two departments. But friendship wouldn’t ease the humiliation of his being brought in to save Olympic security with this new task force. The Olympic Organizing Committee had an executive in charge of security, Ed Best, but he was a retired FBI agent and held no jurisdiction over local law enforcement. If LAPD weren’t going to run security for the Olympics, the committee would need to create a special task force and place the department under it. This would be a major blow for the department and a public humiliation for the chief of police.

  Mitch broke into his thoughts. “The mayor would be able to go to the Police Commission and get the support he’d need to use Gates’ job as leverage to accept LASD control. It would be a major humiliation for the department. Jesus, think about it. The city makes that change, and they’re saying on the biggest stage there is that LAPD isn’t up to it.”

  Fochs understood the politically charged environment the department was forced to endure day in and day out. The relationship with the public waxed and waned, depending on the PR crisis du jure. He also knew that this was not the time for the department to look weak. Many considered the department to be the finest in the world. Having Olympic security taken away from them at the eleventh hour was a stain they’d carry for years.

  “I don’t envy you at all,” Fochs said, finally.

  Mitch mumbled, “Yeah,” and turned his head back across the street.

  “Mitch, look at me.”

  His ex-partner, lips pressed together, turned his head back from the far side of Sunset.

  “Whatever you or anyone else thinks about me and how I left the department, being a cop was my life’s work. I admit that made some bad decisions, but they were all because I was trying to get bad people off the street. I don’t hold any grudges, and I don’t want to see the department dragged through the mud. I sure as hell don’t want to see the city try to fuck around with the Olympics a month before the games. I think I’m in a position to help you, and you’re in a position to do the same for me. That’s all I want. I’m willing to set aside our past to do it.”

  Mitch was quiet for some time, eyes going to the street, the people, and cars passing them by. “We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms. Do you really think we can work together after all this? I mean, why me? Surely you’ve still got other friends in the department.”

  “Coming to you was obviously a difficult choice for me, but you’re in a position to do something about this, and I think I know you pretty well. You want to bring the Courtyard in because you understand the consequences to the city if you don’t. You’ll do what needs to be done. In a weird way, you’re the only one in the department whom I would actually trust with this. If anyone understands why I need to resolve this, its you.” Bo let that sink in for a moment. “And yeah, I’ve got friends in the department, but no one is in a position to do anything. The other Rockstars are mostly still in narcotics units but no one is in the right place. If I give it to them, or my academy buddies, or whoever, the best they can do is run it up the flagpole. Mitch,” Bo spread his hands. “You’re there.”

  Mitch said nothing for a while.

  Fochs stared at his ex-partner and found him surprisingly hard to read. When you’re beating the pavement with someone day in and out, you learn to read them like instinct. But, like any skill, it atrophies without practice, and Fochs had pushed Gaffney as far from his active consciousness as he could.

  “So, you want to trade?” Mitchell asked, his voice tired, a kind of weariness like a runner who’d just gone a great distance to get to a finish line only to learn that he still had many miles to go.

  “Let me explain,” Bo said, realizing that his mouth had gotten in front of his brain again. Nothing good ever came of that phrase. “Some of this will be difficult for you to hear, but please hear me out.” When Mitchell nodded, he continued. “Lorenzo Fremont’s family hired me, through an attorney, to prove their son was wrongfully killed by the LAPD.”

  “Jesus Christ, Bo!” Mitchell thundered, drawing the attention of both the taco shack patrons and people passing on the sidewalk. “I can’t be within fifty miles of that, and you goddamn know it.”

  “Relax,” he said, holding up his hands. He stood up too and guided Mitchell toward the sidewalk. “Let’s take a walk.” When they were a few steps down the walk, he continued, “It’s not ever going to get filed. The family doesn’t have a leg to stand on. I’m only doing this because I’ve been trying to convince them that no one is going to care about a drug dealer being wrongfully killed. The only way to get justice for their son is to prove he wasn’t what the department said he was and use that to find the guy who was.”

  “So you’ll admit, now, that you know that planted gun thing was bullshit.”

  “I’ve gone over that night so many times I’m not sure I even know what’s true any more.”

  Mitchell slowed his pace and shook his head slowly.

  “OK, let’s get to the part about the trade. But we’re not done talking about this case.”

  “I was pressing a source about whom Lorenzo Fremont was working for, and he admitted to me that he knew, but he wouldn’t actually tell me who it was. Gangster pride, I don’t know. He doesn’t have a reason to help me, and I’ve got nothing to use to compel him.” Fochs let that hang in the air for a moment. “So, I’m challenging him, right, the whole ‘why should I believe you’ bit, and this guy starts on about the Courtyard.”

  “Why? Why the Courtyard?”

  “Because I told him I wanted to prove that Lorenzo wasn’t what the LAPD said he was, and he goes on this tear about how white people always want to prove everything. That’s his segue into the Courtyard. Whereas, according to him,” Fochs said, “it should be accepted as normal that ten kids would get gunned down for standing on a corner in the Jungles.”

  “That’s some real Crip logic, right there.”

  “He hinted at knowing who the trigger pullers were, but stopped short of telling me.”

  “Wait.” Mitch stopped in his stride, turned, and put a flat hand on Bo’s chest. “He ‘hinted at’ or he ‘knows’? Because they aren’t the same fucking thing.”

  “Mitch, he knows who did it. He won’t tell me, and he’s enjoying stringing me along because I’m a white ex-cop and I need a favor.”

  “So, you want me to arrest this guy on the pretense that he knows who the Courtyard shooters were, and in the course of that interrogation, I open up the books on Lorenzo Fremont and find out from whom he was getting his drugs?” He nodded as he spoke, eyes elsewhere, not making a judgment, just following the plot. “What does that get you?”

  “They’re not going to reinstate my badge. Daryl Gates isn’t going to show up at my front door with an apology.” Fochs waved his arm widely and dismissively. “But this thing cost me someone I cared about, and she was just written off because that was the politically convenient move. Daphne deserves better than that. If I’m right, we get another chance at one of the biggest traffickers in Los Angeles. That matters to me and it should matter to you, too. You get to find out who that person is. If it doesn’t make sense for you to investigate it, you’ve got a solid lead and some compelling evidence to hand over to the Narcotics Division. If I’m wrong, you still get the Courtyard.” Bo looked at his former partner. Hollywood Boulevard was a shallow canyon of dirty concrete and glass. Midday traffic crawled slowly by and enveloped them in the stink of the car’s exhaust. Bo saw movement in his peripheral and stepped aside, a six-foot Blonde in brightly colored Spandex weaved around him like he wasn’t even there.

  “OK, so where do we go from here?”

  The words hung in the air while Bo recovered from his surprise. They were two ends o
f the same thread, being pulled taught.

  “Do I have your word?” For all the good that’ll do, he thought. Fochs banished the words. That kind of thinking wouldn’t help him.

  “Yes. I’ll do it. If we can make the connection, I will go after this guy to the extent that I can. If not, I’ve got friends in Narcotics that I can hand this to. I will have to wrap up the Courtyard first, you understand, but I will do whatever I can. But I need something in return.”

  “You’re getting something in return,” Foch deadpanned.

  “No,” Mitch said, shaking his head. “I’m taking a lot of exposure helping you. I need to find your guy, pull him in and interrogate him and make it look like its part of the Courtyard investigation. I think even you’ll agree that’s a pretty long shot. I can’t also be exposed on this court case of yours.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “You need to back out of that if I’m going to help you.”

  “Mitch, I can’t. That’s the only income I’ve got. Besides, it was the lawyer that connected all of this for me.”

  Mitch opened his palms to the sky and gave Bo an expression that could’ve meant “tough shit” as easily as it did, “I’m sorry”.

  “If I stick with the case, I can control it. I can steer him where we want him to go.”

  “The only place I want it to go is ‘away’,” Mitch said. “I can’t help you if that thing is going on.” Gaffney stopped in the shade of a palm tree and turned towards Fochs, then extended a hand to hand to the other’s shoulder. “Bo, you need to distance yourself from this. These things always end badly and this far after the event, its only going to look like a publicity stunt. Take my advice, please, you do not want your name associated with this if they actually file. You will forever be the enemy of every cop in this town—no leads, no contacts, no favors. Don’t do this. If you don’t shut it down, I am going to have to tell the department’s lawyers this is happening. This will come back on you and badly.” Mitch grabbed Bo’s shoulder and squeezed. There was genuine concern in his eyes. “Dude, you’ve suffered enough.”