the Viking Funeral (2001) (8 page)

Mark Shephard was a cop. Cops were issued light loads. A light load wouldn't necessarily go all the way through Shephard's head and out the other side. It would cause this wider tattoo. That's physics. That's the way the cartridge is designed. So what's the problem? What's wrong with this picture?

Only one thing.

Shane had been on the job for almost twenty years, and in all that time he'd seen or heard of hundreds of cops screwing their service revolvers into their mouths or ears and doing a Dutch Treat. But in all of those cases-- every single one--the cops used full loads. Not one of them had tried to kill himself with a light load, and the reason for that was obvious: there was a high degree of probability that a half load wouldn't get the job done, like in the street, where it sometimes failed to even slow down an enraged assailant. Half loads, most of the time, managed only to maim or cripple.

Why had Mark Shephard used the underpowered cartridge? Was this a suicide, or could it be a murder? Had somebody used the commander's gun to kill him, unaware that it contained Remington Lights? While these thoughts were going through his mind, the situation became even more complicated when he heard Alexa sobbing.

He looked over and saw her sitting on the sofa, her head in her hands, crying. He'd only known her well for half a year, but she was not a weepy woman. Why was this street
-
trained police officer who had witnessed the worst of man's inhumanity to man sitting on the sofa crying like a heartbroken relative?

Shock? Yes.

Dismay? Of course.

Anger and depression? You bet.

But tears, uncontrollable tears, at a crime scene?

What the fuck is going on here?

Chapter
10.

THEY DIDN'T GET out of Mark Shephard's house for hours. Buddy had to take a cab to the airport, and Chooch drove the Acura home. Shane and Alexa stood on the Good Shepherd's neatly trimmed lawn while the ME and lab techs did their gruesome work: bagging the corpse's hands, photographing the body with its growing colony of fly larvae.

Alexa watched in silence. Somewhere around six, the body was wheeled out and put into the coroner's wagon. The windowless, black Econoline van pulled slowly away from the little Spanish house, taking its resident away for the last time.

Shane looked at Alexa, who had regained her composure but seemed drained, almost shrunken, standing in front of Mark Shephard's house, watching his corpse leave.

"Tough, huh?" he finally said.

She nodded but didn't say anything.

"Listen, I think we need to go someplace and talk about this," he suggested softly.

She looked at him, her gaze unfocused, her features pulled tight in an expression that seemed trapped somewhere between a frown and a squint, reflecting her emotional devastation. She nodded but still didn't speak.

"You hungry?" he asked.

This time she shook her head.

Jesus, for the love of God, say something. Vm dying here. But Shane said only: "I could use some food. Lemme buy you some coffee."

She finally spoke. One word, only two letters; sounding hesitant and unsure.

"Okay."

Shane had told the ME that he suspected the fatal shot was a light load. The ME concurred, also referencing the wider tattooing and the lack of an exit wound. Shane told the ME they were leaving and left his pager number, then drove Alexa's Crown Vic back toward Venice while she looked glumly at the passing neighborhoods.

They hadn't spoken about it, but with her downer brother safely out of town, Shane had intended for her to move back in, to spend the night in his bed at 874 East Canal Street. He stopped a block away from his house at a small restaurant on the beach.

The place was called the Hungry Termite, which always struck Shane as an unlikely, unappetizing name. He had never been able to find out why it was called that, but the cover of the menu had a stick drawing of a termite eating a sandwich. They sat at a patio table and listened to the surf crashing on the sand a few hundred yards away.

"I'm sure Buddy got to the airport okay," Shane offered, to get the conversation rolling.

"Good..."

"I'm afraid I didn't turn out to be much of a taxi service for him."

Again she just nodded.

"Alexa, we need to get the needle off deep grief for a minute and start thinking more like cops," he said, angry at the way she was behaving. It was almost as if she'd been sleeping with the guy.

"Christ, Shane, gimme a little time to deal with this. He was a good friend."

"Right. He was a good friend. I get that, but I'm not so sure this isn't somehow connected to Jody being back."

"Jody?" She seemed appalled at the suggestion. "Good God, Shane, Jody again? We're still on that?"

"I don't think Commander Shephard killed himself," Shane said, and the remark sat there between them, a big unwashed idea with absolutely no hard evidence supporting it.

"I beg your pardon?"

"I'm just doing police work here, okay? I'm trying to make sense of this."

"Right. Jody is alive. Got it. Makes great fucking sense."

"Alexa, you've been with me during a pretty intense investigation. In fact, it was a good enough investigation to win you the Medal of Valor." Shit, Shane thought, he was now sort of bitching to her about not sharing the award. But she didn't react, so he went on: "You know I can look at facts and construct truth, or at least sometimes I can." Hating the way this was going, sitting here, doing his own dumb
-
ass commercial while she swirled her coffee around in a chipped Hungry Termite mug using a stainless-steel spoon. "There's a lot of stuff on this unnatural death I don't like the look of."

"Let's call it suicide since that's what it is," she said. When he didn't answer, she added, "I'm listening." But there was a dead, listless quality to her voice.

"Okay, why would he shoot himself with a light load?"

"Distraught."

"Come on, I don't buy it. He's gonna take a chance on coming out a vegetable? You ever see a cop do a Dutch Treat with a light load?"

"Shane, people do stupid things in times of stress. Mark was obviously stressed. He... he..
. G
od.... Do we have to talk about this?"

"Yes, we have to. Jody is alive, Alexa. He called me last night. He told me he was working UC on some high-profile case, said he was 'doing doors' on predicate felons and that the department had supplied him with a new ID and faked his death so that his crew wouldn't get busted by moles in the Clerical Division. In Payroll. They're actually paying death benefits to the wives of the guys in his unit. That's how they're getting their police salaries."

She sat there, with anger in her eyes. At least the dead indifference had disappeared. Anything was better than that. "How would the
y e
ver pull that off?" she said. "The department isn't going to be involved in cops doing felonies, committing crimes to get criminals, then faking death payments, Shane. That's the most insane thing I've ever heard."

"Not Tony Filosiani, but the old department. Chief Brewer might have done it, or Deputy Chief Mayweather, before he killed himself to avoid jail. This thing predates Filosiani. It started back with Chief Brewer. Mayweather was head of Special Investigations Section. He was supervising the Criminal Intelligence Group and the Organized Crime Division. Do you, for a minute, put it past him to recruit a buncha walk-alones out of SIS or some of those testosterone cases from SWAT, guys who wouldn't mind scoring points the old-fashioned way? You know Mayweather might have sanctioned a group like that."

"And put it under Mark Shephard, a decent, honest cop?"

"Yeah, maybe," Shane said softly.

"No fucking way. Mark wouldn't do that."

"Okay, Alexa, we also need to talk about you and Mark. I know this is a shitty time for it, but I'm sensing more than professional respect here." His hand was back in his pocket, tightly gripping the little box containing Alexa's perfect VS-1, two-carat engagement ring. He knew she wouldn't lie. The answer to this question might determine whether the ring would ever end up on the third finger of her left hand. "Was there more going on there?" he asked, his voice tight.

Alexa sighed, and took a sip of coffee. She seemed to be steeling herself in preparation for Shane's reaction. "You're right. Mark and I were more than just friends," she said quietly.

The sentence arced around inside him like loose volts of electricity. His right hand flinched; his stomach rumbled dangerously, threatening to erupt.

"We used to date. Nobody in the department knew, because he wanted it that way. He was a commander; I was a sergeant..
. A
nd two years ago he asked me to marry him. I turned him down, but I came close, Shane. I almost said yes."

"And why didn't you?" He was numb with this, not thinking, just reacting.

"I didn't marry him because something told me not to.... Something told me that even though I found him extremely attractive and sexy, even though he was sweet and considerate, and had a great sense of humor--"

"Okay, okay. I get the point," he interrupted. "Go on."

"Something told me that he was close, but not the one. In the end, I respected him a lot but didn't love him quite enough."

"And so, when he asked you to take over as his XO at Detective Services Group, that was his chance to be around you so he could get the romance going again."

"Maybe he saw it that way. I can't speak for him..
. B
ut I told him I was seeing you and that I wasn't looking to have an affair with m
y c
ommanding officer. I wouldn't consider sleeping with the boss on management principles alone. Mark said he understood but wanted me there anyway because I was the best person for the job. And, dammit Shane, I think I am.
"

Shane sat there, inert, unable to find the right words to express his emotions.

"I won't deny I had strong feelings for him," she went on. "I still do. I'm sorry I lost it at the crime scene. That was unprofessional. It just hit me hard. I wasn't ready to see him that way."

"It's okay," Shane said, but it wasn't. He had almost crushed the little box in his pocket. He didn't expect Alexa to be a virgin, but the idea that she'd recently been so close to marrying another man agonized him. "Look, Jody is alive," he said finally, to get his mind off it. "I know 'cause I talked to him. SIS was Jody's division when he disappeared. My guess is that this secret unit, whoever they are, is being run out of Special Investigations, because I get the feeling from what Jody said that he's in charge."

"How do you know that?"

"Because Jody was always in charge. It's just his way. He wouldn't be in the unit unless he was running it."

She nodded. She'd heard enough stories about Jody Dean to know that was probably true.

"If this crew was being run out of SIS, then Mark Shephard would have been the uni
t s
upervisor, their administrative division commander. Most of these deep-cover units have only two or three contact people, staff officers who know they exist. My guess is Mayweather was one, but he's gone. Medwick ran Detective Services until two months ago, and now he's missing. And trust me, he won't be coming back from the store with his box of brass screws.... He's in a shallow grave somewhere, curled around a bag of lye."

"And now Mark," she said.

"Yeah, Commander Shephard completes the trio. So if these three are gone, who's the department CO? Who's running this bunch a' kazoonies?" When she didn't answer, he answered for her: "You are, Alexa. Whether you know it or not, you're the XO, so you're now in charge. I think they're constituted under some subgroup in SIS under DSG. You're acting head of Detective Services until Chief Filosiani appoints a new head."

"You're serious about all this, aren't you?"

"Alexa, he's alive. Jody is alive. I don't know who doctored those crime-scene photos and the death report Shephard showed me, but with computer-generated imaging, you can do almost anything with photographs today. I'm telling you, Jody's death was rigged. Lauren Dean is either in the dark or lying, but either way, she's so screwed-up about it, she's turned into a lush. Everybody else who knew about this unit at DSG is dead or missing. I think we've got a huge problem here."

She sat looking across the table at him, taking all of this in. "If you believe that, then you need to take it to the chief.... You need to tell Filosiani."

"The Day-Glo Dago? This guy talks out of the side of his mouth like a Brooklyn cabdriver. You're acting head of DSG.... I'm telling you."

"I'm just a sergeant. If you believe all this, you need to go to a staff-rank commander or above, and for reasons of security, I suggest the chief. Filosiani didn't get to the LAPD in the front seat of a cab. He was one of the best street cops in New York. He's cleaned up three departments and has been honored at the White House. He's a smart, tough, in-your
-
face police officer, so if you think Jody is running a criminal conspiracy and is killing his commanders, then you better take it to him and not just your girlfriend because you don't trust anybody above the fifth floor at the Glass House."