The Bad Shepherd Page 27

  “So what, you just used me? My money? That family?”

  “First of all, there’s no ‘family’. Its Fremont’s father that never gave crap one about him until he thought he could get a settlement out of it. Probably didn’t even know his kid was dead until he saw it in the papers. Why do you think it took him so long to come to you? It wasn’t out of parental concern and it sure as hell wasn’t out of grief. I told you all along that the real case wasn’t against Mitch it was about finding out who set Lorenzo Fremont up.”

  “Is that what you’re doing with Gaffney? “Teaming up with a murderer so you can put away a druuuug dealer? That it? That’s your plan?”

  “Yes, Jimmy. That was my plan. Exposing a drug dealer isn’t enough. I want him behind bars, and I can’t do that as a private investigator. That’s justice, and I have earned that. That also cleans up your community a hell of a lot more than putting egg on Mitch’s face does. Mitchell shot that kid, and yes, I believe it was because he panicked, but it was a mistake. There was no malice and that will come out in court if you try to press this. But what you can do is use Lorenzo’s death to prove that he was someone’s pawn. That someone set him up to take the fall for him and then just disappeared. You can show that that guy is still out there today pushing his shit in your community. You don’t need a lawsuit for that.”

  “When we started this thing you were practically begging me for some get back. You were chomping at the bit to prove that you were right and rub Gaffney’s nose in it and now you’re defending him? You’re trying to tell me that I shouldn’t even file the case?” Jimmy exhaled loudly and Bo could practically feel the astringent wave of Listerine wash over him. He gargled with the stuff something like nine, ten times a day. “There’s a long line of people in this town just lining up to sell you out, Bo-Fochs. And the line starts right here.” Jimmy pointed a dark finger at his desk. “Maybe I should just talk it out with the state licensing board. Maybe tell them that you were working with the very person your client hired you to put away. Something about professional ethics?”

  Bo’s face flashed hot and a sudden anger welled up inside him.

  “Oh, you’re going to lecture me on professional ethics? How about your client? He’s chasing a payday and you’re just looking for a headline aren’t you. You’ve got a chance to make a real difference here but you’re not going to do anything with it just to spite me, aren’t you?” Bo shook his head. “Man, I thought you were different. Don’t hand me all that crap about your ‘community’, because you obviously don’t care about them.”

  “Don’t you dare talk to me about my people, Bo-Fochs. You don’t know a goddamn thing about it. And you’re not gonna catch no drug lord either and I’ll tell you why,” Jimmy extended a stubby, angry finger across the space over his desk. “You are the reason you will fail, Bo-Fochs. You get one thing stuck inside that head of yours, and you won’t let it go, no matter what it do to you and no matter how cockamamie an idea it is. But you’re all done now. There aren’t any sides left for you to play.” Jimmy picked up a stack of papers from his desk to make it look like he had better things to do. “You already know the old one about the door and your ass, so I won’t waste my time repeating it. Goodbye, Bo-Fochs.”

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Mitch hung up the phone and went back to the coffee pot. He’d been trying all morning to get the officers Narcotics had promised for the detail. Mitch drank deeply from his Styrofoam cup, winced at the acrid crude oil that drizzled out of the pot’s spigot, and refilled it because he had no better options. He was angry, and when his mood turned black, Mitch liked to torture himself with the kind of liquid evil only cops can brew.

  Mitch went back to his table when Zarcone caught his eye and waved him over. He grabbed the cup of warmed-over river water and walked over to the lieutenant’s office.

  “Have a seat, Mitch.”

  Mitch did. “What’s up?”

  “You’re not going to like this.” Zarcone let a cleansing breath go. He stubbed out a cigarette, and it occurred to Mitch this was the first time he saw the lieutenant smoking. “We need to turn over all of the Marlon Rolles files to headquarters,” he said, the last traces of smoke escaping his mouth. “They’re taking the investigation over."

  “Narcotics is? But we had a deal.” When Zarcone didn’t respond, Mitch said, “Well, that’s fine, I guess. We can detail me to them, right. I mean, I’m a narcotics guy by trade so it shouldn’t be a problem. It’s just for a couple days, maybe a week.”

  “It’s not going to Narcotics, Mitch. I don’t have any details other than we need to turn all of our materials over to a Captain Ed Adler.” Zarcone made a display of pushing a piece of yellow paper across his desk. There was a phone number scribbled on it. “Before you ask, I don’t know who he is. There’s not going to be a detail. You’re staying here. That was part of the order too.”

  “Lieutenant, this is bullshit.”

  “Keep your voice down, Mitch.”

  “I’ve earned this, and you know I have. I deserve this, for the Courtyard, for Lorenzo Fremont. I think Parker Center owes me one for a change.”

  “I’d watch the talk about headquarters owing you anything. Especially now. You’re a hell of an investigator, and you may have uncovered something big. It’s a little ironic, maybe even a little odd that it’s so closely tied to a case that made your bones in the department. But I’ve been a cop long enough to know there are some cases that are just hard to let go of.”

  Zarcone’s voice dropped as he considered his detective. “But you will let it go. You may have noticed that we have a little sporting event happening in two weeks, in our division, which just happens to be ground zero of gang activity in these United States. We are the first and last line of defense for these games, Mitch. It’s not some dumb fuck patrolman.”

  Zarcone pointed angrily out the door at the rest of the station. He brought his arm back and hammered his index finger on the desktop. “It’s us. We are the only ones who can keep a lid on the pot. Now, I gave you some string and let you follow this Rolles thing because you closed the Courtyard. But that’s done. We made a play, but headquarters has made their decision, so now I need you to mount up, get out there, and get back to the business of cracking skulls and keeping those color-waving fucks off of our streets.”

  “Lieutenant—”

  “Mitch, the call came from the South Bureau Chief directly to me. There is no flex here, and we’re done talking about it. Collect your shit, call Adler, and get back out on the streets where you belong. End of discussion.”

  Mitch picked up the paper, stood, and walked back to his table. The case was over. They’d come so far in such a short time. They’d proven that Lorenzo Fremont was just a link in the chain. Someone was over him pulling the strings. They’d proven that the man behind this whole thing was some bastard the city called a saint. Bo Fochs leveraged his entire career on that bet and lost. Now Mitch had to be the one to tell him that the second chance he fought so hard to get was over. Mitchell found that this had meaning for him too. He would never be the crusader that Fochs was, but Mitch believed in what they were doing, believed in taking Rolles off the street. The only difference was, Mitch wasn’t going to sacrifice his career to do it. That was the elemental difference between he and Bo.

  Bo Fochs.

  In the course of this, they’d gotten their friendship back. Certainly, they had a long way to go before the trust was restored and perhaps it wouldn’t ever be. At least, not in the way it had been when they were Rockstars, but Mitch could see now how much Bo’s friendship meant to him, how well the two of them balanced each other out. He dreaded the call he was about to make, not just because of what the news would mean to Bo but also because Mitch was afraid to find out that the only thing holding their friendship together was the specter of Marlon Rolles.

  Mitchell placed the call.

  Mitch held a beat. “My lieutenant told me that Parker Center just pulled the rug
out from under us. They’re taking the Marlon Rolles investigation over. I have to turn all of my files over to some captain I’ve never heard of.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Neither do I, but Zarcone wouldn’t give me anything except that it was a direct order from the South Bureau Commander.”

  “So who’s taking it over?”

  “I don’t know, but he’s not Narco. My lieutenant has never heard of this guy before. That’s not saying much, it’s a big department, and Zarcone has spent most of his time in CRASH and Metro.”

  “You don’t think it’s IA, do you?”

  “That was my first thought, but I couldn’t figure out why. I mean, why would they be interested in Rolles?”

  “If they found out how you got the lead on Rolles, they might be.”

  Mitch looked up at the ceiling, thinking it through. “The only people who know that are you and me, and neither of us has talked to Internal Affairs. The only thing I can think of is that Rolles is pretty politically connected to the department. He’s been working with CRASH and Juvenile for years. What if someone leaked it to him?”

  “Yeah, but who’d do that?”

  Mitch’s eyes wandered around the squad bay as he thought it through. His eyes returned to his table and the stack of reports, files, and other documents. He fixed on one in particular, on top, signed by Sergeant David W. Ellison. “I don’t know,” Mitch answered slowly, distracted. “Look, let’s meet up later and talk this through. Maybe we’re underwater, and maybe we’re not.” He looked over in the direction of his lieutenant’s office. “I don’t like how this played out, and I don’t like how my skipper broke it to me. Something is going on.”

  “OK.”

  Mitch hung up the phone and went about collecting all of his Marlon Rolles material. Could Ellison be the leak? It made a lot of sense. Rolles had Dave completely snowed. If he got wind of the investigation, it wasn’t a stretch to think he could leak this to him. Whatever, the only chance Mitch had to save this was to talk to Adler himself. Maybe he could get detailed over to wherever Adler worked for the duration. Zarcone would lose his mind. Mitch would be burned in CRASH, but he’d get enough credibility closing another major case that it wouldn’t matter. He could write his own ticket.

  That’s what Bo would do.

  If Mitch walked away, he’d be safe but he would trade that safety for everything he and Bo had worked for, not just now but since their days as Rockstars. Mitch finally began to understand the how that pain, that fear of loss motivated his partner. He could see the decision trees from Bo’s perspective now, understood why he made the choices he did. Now, he had some decisions of his own to make. Marlon Rolles was their collar, his and Bo’s. They’d earned that, maybe even earned their way back.

  Mitch had a number for this Captain Adler so that he could turn over all of his case files. He held the yellow post-it in his hand, staring at the number. The corners of the note vibrated in time to his ever so slightly shaking hand.

  The phone on the table rang.

  Mitch grabbed it and answered, “Southwest CRASH,” his mind fully elsewhere.

  “I’m looking for Detective Gaffney.”

  “This is Detective Gaffney.”

  “Detective,” the hurried, gruff voice said. “My name is James Maclaughlin.”

  Chapter Forty

  Bo hadn’t slept the night before, having given up listless tossing for listless pacing in the low hours. As the day slowly dragged him into the afternoon, his became sluggish in body and mind but could not rest. Bo was too keyed up to sleep, but he didn’t want to lie down anyway. He knew this state. Bad thoughts came when your mind was at rest. This was not unfamiliar territory. Winter of ‘72, they’d been flying nonstop sorties for weeks always on little sleep, sometimes on no sleep at all. Pilots got crew rest. Gunners just got put in other gunships.

  Fochs paced between his shaded living room and the equally dark dining room, bare feet on the dark wood floor.

  Jimmy Mack’s words hung in the air around Bo, echoed in his ears: You are the reason you will fail, Bo Fochs. On a logical level, Bo understood where Jimmy’s anger came from, Bo had tried to steer him in a different direction and when he wouldn’t go there, Bo walked. Then, he took up with the other side. That was a dangerous move on Bo’s part, Jimmy was volatile, and unpredictable, but Bo guessed that he would just accept defeat and move on. He was surprised that Jimmy actually called him into his office just to tell him to go to hell.

  Maybe he just liked the personal touch, or maybe he wanted to look Fochs in the eyes when he said it.

  Then Mitch called to tell him the department was pulling the plug on the investigation and moving it to another division, but wouldn’t tell him where. Bo’s instinct was that Internal Affairs must have gotten wind of either his own involvement or how Mitch coerced the information out of Sterling Fremont. Certainly that was a risk, but the timing seemed strange. No other scenario made any logical sense. Why else would the investigation into Rolles just evaporate into the ether within forty-eight hours of being opened? Why the secrecy? Why not tell Mitch where the investigation was going, detail him to it? In any normal investigation, that’s how it would play out. You wouldn’t take the lead detective off just because another unit was taking command—details happened all the time. Christ, Mitchell was detailed to a task force right now.

  There was also the Ellison angle, which Fochs thought lent something to the IA theory. Ellison had been using Rolles as a source for years and had apparently thought the kingpin was doing as much to pacify the streets of South Central as CRASH was. Would Ellison sell out his own partner to the Gestapo? Probably. Mitch said they’d been tense for some time after he’d popped off at Rolles in a meeting. Plus, if Ellison truly bought the illusion that Rolles was doing righteous work, it wasn’t a far cry to guess that he’d intervene. Mitch wouldn’t have brought Ellison in on the case, so the Viking might think the investigation against Rolles was bullshit. The back of Bo’s neck started to tingle, and he got that cold feeling at the base of his spine that came with a frightening realization, that feeling you get when you realize you’re not alone in some dark place. There was one other possibility. Ellison knew about Rolles, and he didn’t care.

  There was a segment of officers who felt that the drug problems in South LA couldn’t be solved, only contained. Crack smoldered for years. Freebasing cocaine had been around since the ‘70s, but it was dangerous because you had to cook it yourself. Once they figured out how to mass-produce coke in rock form, it lit like a brushfire in August. Crack brought with it a legion of problems not seen with other drugs. The low cost and high availability meant that there was simply so much more money circulating. That money, those operations, they needed to be protected with guns. The gangs controlled the distribution and sale of the drug. In the beginning, they hadn’t been involved in the operation, but that was changing. You’d never remove the gangs from the equation; they were a fact of life in South LA, but you could raise the stakes on them to the point where it was so costly to do business they would just look for something else to do.

  Maybe that’s what Ellison wants. Ellison despised street gangs the way cops like Bo and Gordon Hunter hated narcotics. Bo had long suspected that Ellison didn’t care what the citizens of South LA did as long as it didn’t involve machine pistols and innocent bystanders. He probably thinks that whatever Rolles is doing with the Next Chapter Foundation somehow balances the scales with his drug ring.

  Bo shook his head, actually disappointed with himself for thinking that way about a cop. Whatever he thought of Ellison, the man was still police. He wasn’t going to countenance a drug-trafficking organization out of ambivalence. But, as Bo walked it back, he saw there was something to his relationship with Rolles.

  “Enough of this shit,” Bo said out loud. He needed to figure out what to do next while he weighed whether or not to tell Mitch about his theory on Ellison. Their first plan was to get Mitch detailed t
o the organization that was taking the Rolles investigation over. He should be working that now and would be calling Fochs with an update later tonight. Bo wasn’t optimistic, however. He still thought the pull was just IA double-talk.

  Fochs looked up and saw Mitch’s blue Custom Deluxe pull up in front of his house.

  “That was fast,” he said and watched Mitch walk purposefully up the driveway to the front door. They locked eyes through the window, so Mitch didn’t bother with the doorbell. His former partner had an angry glower screwed onto his face. Mitch’s entire body was tense.

  “What’s up, Mitch? I didn’t expect to hear from you for a few hours.”

  “Yeah, well I didn’t expect to hear from an attorney named James Maclaughlin.” Mitch closed the distance between them. “I’ll bet you didn’t expect me to hear from him either.”

  “Mitch, what are you talking about?”

  “Maclaughlin called me to tell me how you were helping him gather evidence for his case. That you still believe I killed that boy and that you said I was a coward.” Mitch’s voice elevated so that he finished just below a shout. He also had a wild look in his eyes that Fochs didn’t trust.

  “Hold on a minute, you don’t know the whole story.” Goddamn you, Jimmy. His case has fallen apart and he’s losing face with his client so Jimmy decided to burn Fochs out of spite.

  “Think so? Maclaughlin said that you tried to talk him out of the suit, that he should just make a public issue out of it. Go to the papers. So, that’s what he’s going to do. Slander me in public and get some cheap press.”

  Jimmy had twisted Bo’s words.

  Mitch’s eyes flared. Bo knew him well enough to know there was genuine panic in them. Maclaughlin was threatening the one thing that mattered to Mitch, not his career but his ability to climb the ladder, the chance to show his father that he could succeed without the elder Gaffney’s assistance or council.