The Bad Shepherd Read online

  “So, what’s up?”

  Bo stepped around the table, put an arm around Templeton’s shoulders, and guided him into the crowd. He bowed his head, and the manager did the same. “None of this is on the record. We’re looking for a dealer. Very high volume, exclusive clientele, and he deals strictly in weed and coke. We think he does most of his work in the music industry. I’m not asking you to testify, and I don’t care if you’ve arranged anything from him for these guys or anyone else. We’re just looking to corroborate a lead, OK?”

  Templeton’s persistently gruff veneer drained away, and he just said, “I understand.”

  “The guy goes by ‘Deacon Blues.’” Bo started to describe the dealer when Templeton stopped him.

  “I know him. Or at least, I’ve heard of him. Word is, he’s Ozzy Osbourne’s guy. Can get him whatever he needs, whenever. Even on tour.”

  “That sounds like our guy.”

  “I’ve never met him, though. Couldn’t tell you what he looks like or who else he works with.”

  “That’s OK, Harry. You’ve been a big help. Like I said, we’re just looking for some corroboration.”

  “I’m not sure I did that.”

  “Well, you gave me a tip about Osbourne. That’s something. Wife’s his manager, right?”

  “Yeah, but good luck trying to get to him. Doesn’t let anyone near him, that one.”

  Bo gave him a stage laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for your time, Harry. Be seeing you.”

  They walked back to the high-top where Mitch was standing with the band. Bo gave a thumbs up, and they started making their way to the door.

  “So, Templeton knows Deacon. Said he’s Ozzy Osbourne’s fixer. Fills large orders on short notice, even meets Ozzy on tour.”

  “Then I guess he’s our guy,” Mitch said slowly.

  They pushed their way to the sidewalk and began making their way up Sunset. Their plan was to check out the Roxy next and the Troubadour, ask around, then head home. Bo was satisfied, but he knew his partner would want to exhaust the list of potentials.

  They were moving their way up the sidewalk when Bo spotted a singer he knew on the corner with a fist full of handbills, which he pushed into the open hand of any person who walked by. Bo walked up and put a hand on the singer’s t-shirted shoulder.

  “Vince, how are you?”

  “Hey, Bo!” Vince was a skinny blond with a voice like a rubber band. He wore black leather pants that could well have just been glossy paint, tight as they were, motorcycle boots, and a white t-shirt. He was quick with a smile and handshake and was a born hustler. His other hand grasped a ream of leaflets, one of which he pushed at Bo. Bo looked it over.

  “You guys on tonight?”

  “Yeah. It’s gonna be a great fuckin’ show, man. Got some new songs.” Vince palmed flyers to three other people while Bo looked it over. “What’re you up to tonight? You scouting?”

  “Always,” Bo drawled.

  A taller guy with hair like a falling mushroom cloud and wearing a black tank top walked over. His arms were tightly corded from long hours of beating on drums. Very hard.

  “Dude, I need more flyers.” He glanced Bo’s way and popped a big, goofy smile. “What’s up, bro?” With a quick nod, he turned back to his band mate.

  “How’s it hanging, Tommy?”

  “Oh you know, just off my knee,” he said, inspecting the flyers in his hand. Bo chuckled. He knew a dancer at Gazzarri’s that had backed that statement up. “You coming to the show tonight?”

  “Think so. Vince said it’s gonna rock.”

  “Fuckin’ A, dude.” Tommy moved down the sidewalk and melted into the throng of people, handing flyers out.

  Turning back to the smaller man in front of him, Bo asked, “How much are tickets?”

  “Two bucks each.”

  Bo reached for his wallet and thumbed out eight dollars. The singer thanked him and was back hustling flyers before Bo had a chance to say anything else. He pocketed the tickets and went on his way.

  Chapter Six

  A phone rang in the dark, but he was a thousand miles away and underwater. Bo tried to ignore it, but the goddamned thing kept ringing. Slowly he rose out of the deep fathoms of his consciousness, the sound growing closer and louder as he floated to the surface. Bo came awake over what felt like an eternity, washed roughly into that tidal pool between still drunk and hung over. The Rockstars had hit the Strip that night, hard, one last big go before their takedown of Fremont.

  Bo managed to pick his metric-ton head off the pillow and dragged his eyes over to the alarm clock on his nightstand. 4:34 a.m. Cobwebs dissolved a lot faster now, and he shook out the rest. Bo knew what this meant. No cop in the history of law enforcement received good news before the sun came up.

  He picked himself off the bed and stumbled toward the kitchen. Daylight, he’d have run, but somehow he knew whoever was on the other end would stick around. Bo entered the kitchen, painted the indigo of the low hours. He found the phone, “Yeah,” he mumbled into it. His voice sounded muddy in his own ears.

  “Detective Fochs?”

  “Yeah.”

  “This is Dixon, the, ah, shift supervisor. There was a raid tonight, and one of your CIs is in pretty bad shape.”

  Bo was still pretty groggy, but this didn’t make any sense. “How do you know he’s one of mine?”

  “One of the responding officers was on shift that night you guys raided a house party a while back and recognized your CI from the lot you all brought in, thought you should know.”

  “What’s the address?”

  The sergeant read off the address of Rik’s house.

  “Are they still at the house?”

  “Yeah.”

  “OK, thanks.” Bo hung up, dressed with the cleanest clothes on his floor, grabbed his car keys, and bolted out the door.

  The Mustang’s tires screeched, scrambling for purchase on the asphalt as he hit the accelerator. Bo rolled his window down hoping the rush of cold air on his face would help wake him up. As his head was finally beginning to clear, he thought of the questions he should’ve asked the watch supervisor first.

  What the fuck did you do, Rik?

  Had he OD’d, started a fight? Bet he dropped my name. Bo gnashed his teeth. If that silly son-of-a-bitch went name-dropping to get out of trouble, there was going to be hell to pay. Bo hoped he hadn’t overdosed or done something they couldn’t get him out of. They still needed him to testify when they eventually charged Lorenzo Fremont.

  He made Rik’s house in less than five minutes. There were three squad cars and an ambulance parked out front. A small crowd was still massed in the front yard giving statements to one of the Hollywood cops. Bo parked across the street and walked up to the bungalow, badging the officer on the lawn. The kid, still in his Boot year by the look of him, nodded back but said nothing, returning to his conversation with a witness.

  Fochs stepped through the front door into the wide living room. A cluster of police were gathered around a man seated in a chair on the far right side of the room, closest to the kitchen. Three of the men were uniformed. The fourth was wearing a somewhat rumpled suit that was either at the end of a very long day or the start of one. What is a plainclothes detective doing here?

  Fochs walked over to the group; the suit turned as he approached, revealing Rik’s skinny, frightened form behind him. He appeared to be unharmed.

  “Fochs,” he said, offering a hand to the suit. “I’m with the Special Narcotics Detail.”

  “Dobbins, Homicide. “Uniforms responded to a noise complaint, screaming and shouting.” Dobbins thumbed back over in the direction of the patrol cops. “They show up and they find a total shit show. They called Narcotics for that.” Dobbins aimed a finger at the coffee table. There was a sizable pile of off-white powder spread across the surface. There was blood on the table too, not much but enough that some had mixed with the coke and had congealed into a pinkish pulp. “They called us
for the usual reason.”

  Homicide cops were all the same. Every one of them was an arrogant prick. Murder was king in LA, and everything else was a lesser crime, adjudicated by lesser cops.

  “I got a call saying one of my informants was in bad shape, but he’s right there,” Bo said and pointed at Rik. “And there isn’t anything wrong with him.” Bo threw a hard look at Rik. “Yet.”

  “Not him. He’s not who we called you about. Outside.” The detective motioned with his head to the adjoining dining room its door opened to Rik’s patio. Fochs finally took stock of the situation. There were a few more partygoers in the back of the room being interviewed by one of the plainclothes. One was not in a suit and looked over at Fochs. Bo recognized him as Rivera, one of the Hollywood Narcos. Bo caught the faces of the people he was talking to, some of them he remembered from the night they busted Rik.

  Fochs made for the back door, now even more confused. These Hollywood guys couldn’t get their shit straight. Bo just told the guy his informant was right back there. He found two paramedics and another suit, must be the other Homicide dick. One of the paramedics was packing his tools back into a case. Bathed in outside lighting, the three turned as Bo approached.

  “You Fochs?”

  “Yeah, someone want to tell me why I’m here?”

  “We need you for an ID. One of the uniforms in there said she was an informant of yours. Thought you should know, so you could, you know, do the housework.”

  Confused about the reference to notifying next of kin, Bo finally noticed they were standing over a white sheet. He was just starting to explain that his CI was inside getting grilled by the detectives in there and that there must be some mistake when the paramedic pulled the sheet back.

  Daphne’s face was underneath.

  “Narco said the coke was cut with PCP and pipe cleaner. Her nose started bleeding as soon as she took the snort. She went into shock not long after, cardiac arrest and she expired.”

  Bo shoved the Homicide dick aside, furious he could be so . . .clinical . . .and knelt next to her. Daphne’s eyes were closed. Blood had crusted around both her nose and mouth, which was frozen open in a last throe of pain. She had not died well. Hot tears welled in his eyes as he knelt next to her. Bo tucked his head down so the others wouldn’t see, or maybe he just wanted to be close to her; he couldn’t tell. Couldn’t think straight.

  Bo opened his eyes and saw Daphne’s features drawn tight with pain.

  A thin line within each man separated the right from the wrong, the sane from the insane. Men buffered themselves, layered that line with strength, with guilt, with notions of honor, with bravery, with cowardice, anything to hide that line from a world trying so hard to snap it. Men fought their entire lives consciously and unconsciously to keep that thread tucked away inside their soul, hidden away so they never have to learn how impossibly thin that thread really is.

  When that thread finally snaps, most times, it’s a hell of a thing.

  Bo Fochs exploded.

  It was a muted blast, and on the outside he only appeared to shudder. But inside that sandy blond hair and surfer’s frame, there was a volcanic rending of his psyche. In a brief flash, he lost all sense of reason. Bo couldn’t tell up from down; he couldn’t see anything but Daphne’s cold, dead face staring lifelessly into the night that stared back at her with eyes as deep and empty as her own. Bo sprang to his feet; shoving the Homicide detective aside for the second time, he made the door in two strides and crashed through it. He bolted through the dining room and to Rik before anyone could stop him. Bo grabbed Rik by the collar and hauled him out of the chair. He pivoted on one leg and, using the momentum, swung Rik around bodily, heaving him across the room. Rik flew several feet, smashing into his hi-fi with an orchestral crash.

  “What did you give her, you son-of-a-bitch?”

  Before Rik could react, Bo dove at him again, arm cocked and ready to drive Rik’s face into the ground. The club promoter cowered. Bo was about to connect when strong arms wrapped around his and hauled him back, nearly off his feet.

  One of the uniforms helped Rik to his feet. Everyone was shouting now; Bo drowned it out. He and the club promoter were the only ones in the room as far as he was concerned. “You fucking killed her!”

  “I didn’t know it was bad shit!” he wailed. “I didn’t make her do it. I just put it out there. Other people had some and nothing happened to them!”

  Bo surged forward, and none of the other cops could grab hold of him in time. He closed the distance between him and Rik and with a tight punch connected to feel the satisfying crunch of cartilage flattening. Warm blood spurted onto his hand. Rik recoiled with the force of the hit through the arms of the cop holding him and back into the hi-fi.

  The room exploded into shouts and arms. If Bo Fochs were aware of it, he gave no sign.

  Chapter Seven

  Hunter set a cup of coffee in front of Bo. He had another for himself. There was a manila folder tucked under his left arm. They sat in the empty squad room.

  Hunter dropped the folder on the table and pulled a chair over.

  The first time they pulled Rik in had been during first watch. One of the patrolmen responding to his house today had been on duty that night, recognized Daphne from the batch of people the Rockstars had brought in, and remembered overhearing Bo tell someone she was an informant. That struck the officer as odd because an informant’s identity was a closely guarded secret. He remembered Daphne because of it. The confusion started there. Rik name-dropped Bo, saying he was a plant and working for the Rockstars.

  “Rik is planning to file a police brutality complaint against you for hitting him,” Hunter said. “If you’d stopped at throwing him across the room, the other cops on scene would’ve sided with you, and we could’ve buried it. But.” Hunter paused. “With a broken nose . . .”

  Bo cracked his knuckles. Tension lines cut into his cheeks. Swear out a complaint, Rik, makes you feel good. You bounce this, and I will be waiting for you.

  “I have to tell you, Bo. This surprises even me.”

  He saw her face in his mind’s eye, smiling and bright. He loved her.

  “The department has decided that we’re not pressing charges against Ellis.”

  Bo couldn’t believe his ears. “So he just walks on a murder? Lieutenant, he spiked that shit, or at the very least he knew it was bad.”

  Rik told the homicide detectives that he’d wanted to throw a blowout party to show that he was back and that the Rockstars’ raid was a mistake. Reestablish his street credit. The coke was just so everyone would have a good time. This was Hollywood, right? It’s just a little blow. His regular supplier, a guy going by Deacon Blues, whom they should very much check out, wouldn’t talk to him now on account of getting busted by the Rockstars. So when Rik found his well had dried up, he cobbled together whatever he could get from people working the street, people he met in the clubs, people he knew from around the way. He bought whatever he could get, and some of it must have been bad. He mixed it all together, figuring it would just even out. Daphne just happened to get a bad line, Rik had insisted.

  Bo didn’t believe it. Rik gave her bad shit because he knew that was the only way he could get to Fochs. Whatever meager contacts Rik had died when they busted him. He was done in Hollywood. Rik probably hadn’t intended to kill her, just give her a scare. The Hollywood Homicide dicks bought it, so unless Bo were willing to tell them that he’d lied about Daphne’s being an informant and was actually his girlfriend, there would be no motive for Rik to give her the tainted coke. But if Bo let that loose, he’d be on record, and that fact would become part of the investigation and thus part of the trial, along with arguments about professional misconduct from a police officer covering up his girlfriend’s involvement in a drug bust. It was all bullshit, but it would be hard to argue the nuance in front of a jury. The trial would be an absolute circus. Murder one to spite-kill a cop’s girlfriend? That would get big press. That atten
tion would effectively kill the Lorenzo Fremont investigation.

  “Maybe,” Hunter said, his voice now solemn. “But it doesn’t matter.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  Hunter sighed, hard and long. “They’ve decided to file her death as ‘closed other than by arrest.’” Bo recognized LAPD-speak for something they weren’t going to investigate. Daphne’s death would effectively be written off, just another sad occurrence in a city of bigger problems.

  Hunter stared down hard at his man with tight lines on his face. “You didn’t leave the department with much of a choice. If you hadn’t thrown a suspect clear across a room before punching him out in full view of at least twenty witnesses, half of them cops, then there would be no deal for Rik. He’d be cooling it at Central right now waiting a bond hearing. But perhaps, if you’d just followed the goddamn rules in the first place and not gotten involved with someone connected to an active case.” Hunter’s voice just a notch below a shout. “None of this would’ve happened.”

  Bo opened his mouth to speak, but the words failed him.

  “Hilliard wanted to hang you for this when he found out,” Hunter said. “I told him you’re a good officer, one of the best I’ve ever worked with, and I mean that. But you could not be on thinner ice right now. You made a mistake, and that has very real consequences, which you will have to learn how to live with. We made a deal with Rik’s lawyers today to save the Fremont investigation. We agree not to pursue any charges against Rik, and they withhold the police brutality complaint, which also keeps him silent about our investigation. Rik goes to the press now, he can finger our informant, and we lose Fremont.” Hunter just shrugged. “I need to place you on suspension for a few days and to let you know that IA will be in touch. I suggest you talk with a union rep before you talk to them.

  “I’ll see you on Wednesday.” Hunter left the detective alone in the squad room.

  Bo felt sick to his stomach.

  Daphne wouldn’t even be classified as a wrongful death. She was just another nameless body in the endless sea of people coming to Los Angeles in search of something, only to find the golden city wasn’t as bright as it appeared only to get washed out with the tide. The department was simply washing their hands of her because it was the expedient choice. Bo wondered bitterly at what level bureaucracy human lives ceased to matter and simply became political tradeoffs.