Stephen Cannell - The Pallbearers

He reached over and spun the file around so he could read it. "This was done by Barbara Wilkes. She's only been with us for six months, but she's thorough. Does great work."

"So I won't have to translate all this Latin, give me the top line."

Ray looked down at the report. "Twelve-gauge shotgun blast took the back of the deceased's head. The load hit him on the right side at the mastoid bone. The weapon was a Winchester Speed Pump Defender with an eighteen-inch barrel registered to Walter Dix. It was found on the grass just off the back porch, lying at a forty-degree angle, barrel away from the back of the chair he was on, which was tipped over with him still in it. He was holding the Winchester with his extended right hand, the barrel resting on his shoulder, head turned away. When the shotgun kicked, it threw itself over his right shoulder, onto the back lawn behind him. That would be the correct general position for what this looks like. He turned his mastoid area and the back of his head into red sauce and pasta. Blew his arithmetic all over the grass."

I winced and Ray smiled sadly.

"Sorry. Forgot you were his friend. He obliterated everything from his brain stem to the left side of his skull at the occipital bone. No other way to say it."

"Okay. How about the body cavity? Any blunt-force trauma?"

"No evidence that he was beaten before he died, if that's your question. No body contusions, bruises, or bone breaks. The blood-tox screen was normal-no drugs or alcohol. The homicide dicks have a file with his suicide note. I looked at it before I assigned Barbara to the autopsy. The standard 'Sorry, but I can't go on, my life is over' riff but full of surf lingo." He looked down at his ME report. "It was investigated by Kovacevich and Cole. It's not on here, but I think they said they were on the homicide desk over in Shootin' Newton."

I couldn't understand why Newton Division homicide dicks would answer a call in Harbor City, which is out of their basic car area, but I didn't argue. I'd check that myself.

"It reads as a straight suicide, Shane," Ray continued. "Guy did himself in."

I sat thinking about this while Tsu shoveled down his entire breakfast as promised. I had no appetite, so I'd only ordered a fruit plate, but hadn't touched it.

"You want that?" Fey Ray asked softly, pointing with his knife at my still-pristine plate of sliced grapefruit, strawberries, and oranges.

"Help yourself," I offered.

He pulled it over and dug in but was glancing up at me from time to time while he ate, checking me out.

"Listen, Shane. Nobody knows what goes through another guys mind. You remember Richard Jeni?"

"The comedian?"

"Yeah. I did his postmortem. One of the funniest comics ever. Seemed like a happy guy. Sense of humor like you wouldn't believe. The guy was a total rip, but, despite that, he did himself. Tragic. You can't judge by outward appearances. I've seen too many of these that seem wrong on the surface but aren't. You and your friends should let it go."

"Yeah," I finally said. "You're probably right."

After breakfast, I drove Ray back to Mission Road and dropped him.

I kept Walt's death report on the seat beside me.

Of course, I wasn't going to just let it go as Ray had suggested. The LAPD is worse than a sewing circle when it conies to gossip, so I didn't tell him what I was really thinking. I didn't want anybody to know yet, but I was on a mission.

I drove the short distance to Parker Center, parked in my assigned space in the underground garage, then took the elevator up to five.

"What are you doing here? You're supposed to be pulling little umbrellas outta fruit drinks," my partner, Sally Quinn, said as I draped my jacket over the back of my chair and sat behind the desk opposite her in our cramped cubicle at Homicide Special.

Sally doesn't look anything like a cop. She looks like she should be teaching kindergarten or first grade. Short, bobbed, reddish-brown hair, a pixie nose. But she's a no-nonsense hard charger. We've only-been partnered for a couple of years, but despite one rough spot last year, we were turning into a good team because she's smart, diligent, and follows the rules, which helps balance out my long list of negative traits.

"Not going," I told her as I turned on my computer and waited for it to boot up.

"Not going?" She leaned forward. "Everything okay? Alexa's not sick or anything?"

"Something came up. A business problem. Unfortunately I gotta stick around to deal with it."

"You know once you put in, you can't move vacation time, Shane," fighting to protect my two weeks off. "If you don't go now, you lose it. You can't push it back or change it."

"Don't want me around, Sal?" I said, grinning. "Gonna get a gold shield by clearing all our head-scratch whodunits without me?"

"Come on, that's not it and you know it. Homicide can dark you out. You need to get some fresh air, hear some music."

"How 'bout if I promise to take a quick trip down to Disneyland and listen to some elves singing?"

"Shane, what the hell is going on? And don't give me this 'something came up, business problem' bullshit. I'm your partner, man. I can read you."

She studied me over the top of her computer screen as I logged onto mine, went into the department assignment roster, and found the two primaries who had handled Walt's death call.

Cassie Kovacevich and Burtram Cole were not from Newton, as I suspected, but were detectives out of the Harbor Division in our South Bureau, which patrols Harbor City, where Huntington House is located. I wrote down their badge numbers and logged off the computer. When I looked up, Sally was still staring at me.

I knew she wasn't going to go away. She knew I was up to something and wasn't about to let it drop. An unhealthy moment of distrust festered between us. Since I knew she wouldn't leak and I was probably going to need somebody who could handle the inside if this got rolling, I decided it was better to confide in her.

I stood and motioned for her to follow me out into the corridor. We walked across the crowded squad room, past the cubicles of paired detective teams. I finally stopped in a nook by the windows out in the lobby, just around the corner from the elevators.

"Okay, look, you're right. Its not a business problem. I'm not going to Hawaii because a guy who was very close to me, a father figure growing up, committed suicide four days ago. The funeral was yesterday."

"I'm sorry to hear that, Shane. But if he's buried, what's to keep you from taking your vacation?"

"I'm not reading his death as self-inflicted."

"Murder?"

"I don't know."

"Shane, it's not your case. You can't work it. You'll piss off the primaries. You'll take a write-up from their captain. You know how territorial this place is. Where'd this happen?"

"Two detectives out of Harbor got the squeal, but they didn't look at it too hard and put it in as a suicide. Coroner agrees so nobody's got it now. There's nobody to piss off 'cause it doesn't even have a case number. A perfect vacation murder project," I joked.

She wasn't laughing but had rocked back on her heels and was looking at me like I'd just grown antlers.

"I know, I know. But you had to know this guy," I said. "He wouldn't a killed himself."

"Shane, I don't…"

"Sally, you can either help me, or you can get in my way. I've already decided to peel this wrapper. I may need somebody in here to lob information out to me if I can't get in. Wanta sign up to be my inside guy?"

"You mean you don't want to show up here and leave a computer trail alerting anybody to what you're doing," she correctly surmised. "You want me to blind screen it for you."

"Yeah…" I said and smiled. "You up for that?"