Stephen Cannell - Vertical Coffin

"The lieutenant says you and Sergeant Lopez disobeyed his direct order not to attempt to pull Rojas off that porch. He's a little torqued about it. 'A foolish stunt,' is what he called it. You could have been killed rescuing Rojas, who was already dead."

"Here's how that story tells," I said. "I don't work for the lieutenant, don't even know his name, so, in a strict command sense, he can't order me to do anything. On the other hand, if I'd heard his order, I certainly would have obeyed it in the spirit of interdepartmental cooperation."

"You would, huh?" Dodds frowned. "Am I gonna need to roll up my pant cuffs here?"

"I'm a book guy," I said. "But here's what happened. Nobody knew then if Emo was alive or dead. I saw him lying up there, and since he was a friend, I kinda freaked. I took off without asking anybody… I can see now it was a big mistake. Sergeant Lopez was just trying to stop me. Chased me right up the lawn. Next thing you know, we were both under the porch. Once we were there, seemed like there was no reason not to pull Emo down."

Dodds shut off the tape again.

"Is that the way Lopez's gonna tell it?"

"It is, if you give me a minute to explain it to him first."

Sergeant Dodds smiled. "So it's like that, is it?" he said.

"Yep. How 'bout we cut this brave deputy a little slack?"

Dodds smiled, and after a moment he nodded. "Okay," he said. "If you get to him before I do, I guess there's not much I can do." He turned the tape back on.

"So who's in charge of those trigger-happy kazoonies in the cool black jumpsuits?" I asked.

"They're feds," Dodds answered, confirming my guess. "An SRT unit from Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives."

SRT stood for Situation Response Team-federal SWAT. The media-conscious feds had stopped using ballsy acronyms for their urban assault team, preferring nonviolent handles like SRT or SWT. Even after all the flack that the LAPD had taken of late, we still cling stubbornly to kick-ass unit designations, preferring names like CRASH or SWAT. It seems some lessons are impossible for us to learn.

Dodds handed me his card. "You better call your watch commander and tell him you'll be here most of the afternoon. Drive down to the substation and check in with Jan Micklyn. She's with our Internal Affairs Shooting Review Board. She'll find a place for you to hang out. We'll get your complete statement, wrap you out fast as we can." He snapped off the tape.

I started to get out of the car, then turned back, "A Situation Response Team from ATF? They're located downtown. What were they doing way the hell out here?"

"It's a good question. Their team leader says they were doing range work, practicing clearing houses at their training facility in the foothills. They were driving back and heard it on the L. A. Impact frequency."

"Sounds good." I shot him a little smile. Even though we were buddies now, my smile didn't seem to warm him much. He squinted at me with that weathered shooter's expression, making me feel like game in a laser sight. Then, without saying anything else, he got out of the car and walked away.

I found Sonny over by the van, sitting on a curb looking at the burned-down house. He had soot and Emo's blood on his shirt, a frown on his face. I filled him in on my statement to Dodds and he looked up at me and nodded. "Thanks, Shane. I owe you for that."

"No you don't. We did the right thing. Why let a bad order and a dumb section in the rule book change it?"

On the drive back to the substation I called and checked in with Lieutenant Jeb Calloway, who was a twenty-year LAPD vet and my new boss at Special Crimes. Cal, as everybody called him, was a big African-American with a shaved head who looked like he should be working event security at a rap concert.

"That shoot-out is all over the news," Cal said after I explained where I was. "Sounds like the IC up there got froggy and pulled the string early."

I told him the incident commander didn't make it and that Captain Matthews, the area commander, got caught wearing the hat. After I explained the rest of what happened he just grunted. He'd seen enough CYA in his career to know everybody was probably ducking.

When I arrived at the substation the ATF SRT truck was parked in the secure lot in a visitor parking stall. As I walked past it I banged on the side to see if anybody was home. Nobody answered. The back was a locked box that contained all their high-tech toys and deadly ordnance. But I didn't want what was in the back. I walked around to the driver's side and checked to see if the alarm was set. All SWAT vehicles have very sophisticated alarms, and the trucks were never supposed to be left unattended without that alarm set. However, this one was open, the alarm light off. Probably, with all the adrenaline overload, the cherry in charge of team security just forgot. He was going catch a ration of shit later, but I didn't care. I stepped up on the running board, opened the door, and jumped in. Then I turned on the police scanner and started flipping through channels.

The unit didn't have TAC-4. I knew that channel had to be specially programmed by a communications tech, because I'd had to have it done on my scanner.

So who was kidding who here? If these guys didn't hear the call on TAC-4, how the hell did they know a shooting was in progress?

I found sergeant Micklyn setting up shop in the substation.

She was a dark-haired, no-nonsense member of OIS and had taken over two I rooms for interviews. She said she wasn't ready for me yet, but settled me in an empty office in the back where I put in a call to DSG at Parker Center.

"My God, Shane," Alexa said after I told her what happened, sounding for a minute more like my worried wife instead of the acting head of the LAPD Detective Services Group.

Alexa and I had an easy, professional relationship on the job. That was because I always did what she said. She wasn't my direct supervisor; she was five layers above me on the command structure. But she was my division commander. If one wants a career in police science, one does not give one's division commander any substantial grief.

At home it was different. We had a completely open and balanced relationship, although I had always suspected that in most complicated, emotional, or political situations Alexa could out perform me. Of course, I could beat her at arm wrestling. She is also the most beautiful woman I have ever known. Tall, with an athlete's body and a face that belongs on the cover of a glamour magazine: black hair, Irish eyes, and strong cheekbones that ride high above the flat plains of her face and frame a strong but sensuous mouth.

I, on the other hand, look like something you'd find in the center ring at the Main Street Boxing Gym. My hair is always ruffled and unkempt, no matter what I do, so I keep it short. My body language is the trademark shuffle of a street brawler, which for a while in my teens I'd been. It always surprised me when women found all this nonsense intriguing. But the only thing that mattered was that Alexa had bought the package.

After I told her about Emo and the shoot-out, she remained quiet for a minute. "But you're okay," she said again.

"Yeah, physically I'm fine. Not a scratch. But emotionally I'm having trouble with it. Emo's dead. He was serving a warrant on some guy for impersonating an officer. Got hit standing in the perp's doorway."

I didn't tell her I'd exposed my scabrous hide to gunfire in an attempt to pull him out and had only managed to rescue a corpse. Hopefully, that detail would be confined to sheriff's department internal documents, and she wouldn't be copied.

"I'll be back as soon as I can, but they're cooking a three-layer cake out here. Active shooter, lotta deputies at the incident, all of 'em cheesing off rounds. Sheriff's SEB had a SWAT team on the scene, ATF rolled a truck. It's gonna take some time for OIS to get all the stories coordinated so it plays okay for the six o'clock news."