Stephen Cannell - Vertical Coffin

DSG supervised all the detective bureaus, from Forgery and Missing Persons, to Special Crimes and Robbery-Homicide. Normally the head of DSG would be a captain or a commander, but Alexa had taken over the XO position a year ago as a lieutenant. She was made acting head by Chief Tony Filosiani after her boss, Captain Mark Shephard, had been shot and killed. Chief Filosiani liked her and was willing to leave her as acting head until she made captain, which, the way she was going, would probably be in another year.

Ellen was facing her computer as I crossed the office. "Storms blowing. Wear your raincoat," she said without looking up.

Alexa's digs were small. One window, no view. She had portable bookshelves on every wall. Tony Filosiani was a law enforcement junkie and read everything from student doctoral theses on criminology to medical volumes on forensic science. Alexa had picked up the trait. She had books and manuals piled everywhere. It was the new department. The rubber hose was in the Hall of Fame. Now we forced confessions with drops of DNA, luminous light, and blood-spatter evidence.

"Shane, sit down," my wife said, looking harried. She glanced at her watch and I instantly knew we weren't going to dinner.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Big problems. ATF Internal Affairs just sent us over a copy of their findings on the Hidden Ranch shoot-out. They found SRT innocent of any wrongdoing."

"What'd you expect?"

"Sheriff Messenger's in with Tony right now. He's pissed. The mayor is coming over with Enrique Salazar from the Board of Supervisors. The area SAC from ATF is on his way, too."

"Look, Alexa, it's…"

"No. Stop talking for a minute and listen. We're going into a meeting on this in seconds. The ATF finding claims that they told the sheriff's warrant control office about the automatic weapons in Smiley's garage. Of course, the WCO denies it, and of course, there's no paperwork substantiating what ATF says."

"Of course."

"But Brady Cagel says they never write any paper on stuff like that when they give over a bust to another agency, and the fact is, he's right."

"But what does this have to do with us? It's a sheriff's department-ATF spat."

Her intercom buzzed. She picked up the phone, listened, then said, "Right. Thanks, Ellen." She hung up and said, "Come on. Mayor MacKenzie's here. We're on."

"Alexa, whatta ya mean we're on?"

"We've been ordered by the mayor to reinvestigate it." And she was out of the office and down the hall.

I hurried to catch up, finally grabbing her arm before she got to Chief Filosiani's huge double doors. "You're giving this to me?" Duh… Finally getting it.

"Look, Shane, I need you. This is the ultimate red-ball. Either way this goes, nobody is going to come out a winner. The best we can hope for is some kind of mitigating circumstance. But we probably won't get that lucky. The mayor doesn't want ATF to reinvestigate. He's not happy with their current finding and doesn't trust their objectivity. He also can't trust the sheriff to be unbiased. He knows there's going to be multiple lawsuits on the shoot-out from the neighbors and from Emo's family, so he came to us. We're your classic uninvolved third party."

"Why me?"

"Three reasons. One: you're a great cop and you're fair…"

"Stop it. You'll make me vomit."

"Two: you're the only L. A. cop that Sheriff Messenger will accept. He liked the way you handled the Viking case."

"What's the third?"

"You're the only person in this building I can trust not to leak. We're gonna do this together."

The door to the chief's office opened and Tony was standing there. His round Santa Claus face was red, but his cheeks were not ho-ho merry. He motioned us into the outer office.

The chief's waiting room was fronted by a secretarial area. Bea, his battle-ax with a heart of gold, was sitting behind a large desk, a murder-one scowl already on her hawkish face. She nodded at Alexa and me as the chief led us into his office. You had to be very observant to spot the twinkle in her eye.

Mayor Richard MacKenzie, known around town as Mayor Mac, was standing by the window. He was a tall, skinny, hollow-chested man with riveting blue eyes and a ridiculous blond comb-over. His double-breasted suits all fit like hand-me-downs. Also in the office, looking like he wanted to throw an ashtray, was Bill Messenger. Half Armenian, half Egyptian, he was a second-generation deputy who had been elected county sheriff two years ago.

Across the room, wearing charcoal stripes and a purple tie, looking exactly like what he was, a slightly overweight politician working on a sound bite, stood Enrique Salazar.

Tony closed the door behind us. "Shane, you know Mayor MacKenzie and Sheriff Messenger," he said.

"Yes," I said, shaking hands.

"And Supervisor Salazar."

Enrique didn't cross the room. He waved a ring-laden hand at me instead.

The office was strangely underfurnished. Chief Filosiani was a no-nonsense commander, known by his troops as the Day-Glo Dago because of his New York Italian demeanor and his penchant for flashy pinky rings. He had stripped out the expensive antiques and artwork that was the legacy of his predecessor, Burl Brewer, then sold them at auction and used the money to buy new Ultima Tac vests for his SWAT teams. He had installed utilitarian metal office furniture in the room, but there was damn little of it.

"Have you filled Shane in?" Tony was saying.

"A little," Alexa said. "I've explained the-" She stopped when Bea opened the door and admitted a sandy-haired, brown-eyed, compact man in a tan suit who looked like a carefully tailored gymnast. Behind him was the ATF ASAC, Brady Cagel.

Tony shook hands with the first man, then introduced him to the room. "Garrett Metcalf is the new SAC area commander. He and Mr. Cagel are here to make sure we don't blackjack ATF. Supervisor Salazar is looking after the county's interests."

"We're already late for a briefing at Justice," Metcalf said. "We can't stay but a minute. What's so important here, you had to demand an emergency meeting?"

Mayor Mac turned away from the window. "We have the IAD shooting review you faxed over," he said. "You guys should scare up a literary agent and start publishing fiction."

"Whatta you want, Mr. Mayor? You want me to lie?" Cagel snapped back. "Want me to fire shots at my own people when they didn't do anything?"

"They sent one of my deputies up to Hidden Ranch without all the pertinent details," Messenger said.

"I'm not going to argue this with you, Bill," Metcalf responded. "Our ASAC told your warrant control office there was a possibility of automatic weapons up there. Your guys didn't act on it or include it in the warrant. What am I supposed to do?"

"You're just whitewashing," Messenger said. He looked like he was on the verge of throwing one of his well-known Egyptian conniptions.

Garrett Metcalf said, "Your warrant guys dropped the ball. We're not gonna pay the freight."

"I'm asking LAPD to reinvestigate," the mayor said. "Detective Scully is a neutral party. I've asked him to rehang the investigation."

"He can investigate all he wants," Metcalf said. "It won't matter. It's closed. This is it as far as ATF and Justice are concerned. Not to get pissy, but a municipal investigation just isn't gonna cut it. This is a federal finding from Justice. It's over."

"Municipal crimes are tried in municipal courts," Salazar said, speaking for the first time. "The federal government can't change that." His words flew across the room like chips of ice.

Metcalf walked to the door and turned: "You people are looking at lawsuits on your dead deputy. Some of those neighbors are probably also gonna file. You turned that block into a fire zone. I sympathize, but it's not our problem."