Vertical Coffin (2004) (16 page)

I looked up as Nan Chambers walked into the restaurant. She saw me and headed in my direction on those strong muscular legs, her cut arms swinging, spiky hair bristling, turning heads all over the room as she crossed toward me.

"Your office told me you were going to be here," she said, answering my unspoken question like a gypsy mind reader.

"We need to come to an understanding," I said. "You can't write about that crime scene we found across the street, at least not yet. That's gotta stay between us, Nan. And if you left any prints at that apartment, get ready for a visit from the feds."

"I didn't leave any prints," she said, and slid uninvited into the booth across from me.

Then she reached into her purse and pulled out a leather wallet, opened it, and slid it across the table. I read:

Sg
t.
J
osephine
B
rickhous
e

LASD

Pinned under the creds was a star.

Chapter
19

BRICK SHITHOUSE

Don't take it so hard," Jo Brickhouse said. She had just repacked her badge and was leaning her muscled forearms on the table. "Besides, from what I've seen so far, you could use the help."

"I don't want any help. At least, not from you."

"Scully, we live in a democracy. Tony, Bill, and I say yes. You say no. This was voted on. Three against one. You lose. Get over it."

"That's not a vote, that's three coyotes and a poodle deciding on what to have for dinner."

I put a dollar down for my coffee, then got up and headed out of the restaurant. I didn't see her green Suburban parked in the lot, so I turned and looked through Denny's front window. She was still inside buying something at the counter. I got into my
Acura feeling completely sandbagged. I'm generally not this damn gullible. I guess my feelings were hurt, or my pride
-
something.

She came through the swinging door of Denny's, opened my passenger side, and slid in carrying a caffe latte to go.

"Take your own car. I'm not a taxi service," I snapped.

"I was dropped. Don't have wheels. That SUV was a department plain-wrap. Vice needed it back, so I'm with you. You can drop me at the L
. A
. substation at EOW."

She closed the door, slamming it harder than I like, then started to pour about six packets of Equal into her latte. "Okay, Scully, we need to get something straight before we partner up. I have some issues."

"I'll bet lying isn't gonna be one of them."

"I'm gay. I don't sleep with guys, and you're not the priceless piece of ass that's gonna change that, so put your fantasies away, stay on your side of the car, and we'll do fine."

"Then a blow job's out of the question?"

"You can stow that sarcastic bullshit. I've been in law enforcement for over ten years. I've learned it works a whole lot better if I get this out of the way, up front. I pack a nine-millimeter Glock with thirteen in the clip. I'm a range-qualified sharpshooter and I have two black belts, one in karate, one in tae kwon do. Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean I'm a pussy. I don't want to be your backup. We can take turns on cover, or flip for it, whatever. But I'm not your CHCO."

"My what?"

"Coat-holder and communications officer."

"In case you're interested, you're coming off like a complete asshole."

"I can be that, too. But deal straight and you get the best. Pull any horseshit, and you can go ahead and bring it on down, frog
-
boy, 'cause I won't put up with it." Then she shot me that dazzling smile and took a sip of latte. "These are good. Sure you don't want one?"

I put the car in reverse and backed out a little too fast, but she was really pissing me off. Male pride. I mean, I'm happily married, but come on--you shouldn't knock what you haven't tried. I turned onto Lankershim and drove toward the sheriff's forensic lab.

Jo Brickhouse was looking around the front seat and up on the dash. "Where's your murder book on Greenridge?" she asked. "You didn't give those goat-fucks from ATF your notes, did you?"

"No murder book."

"You're the primary on a homicide and you don't keep a murder book?" She sounded stunned.

"Yeah, I would've been keeping a murder book, but I was pulled off the case before I had time to get most of my evidence back from your slow-as-shit crime lab."

"You don't have to take that tone, Scully. I wasn't criticizing. I just like to keep everything written down: keep a good event timeline, evidence records, crime scene photos, background. I'll get one going. For now, we can use my notes." She pulled out her spiral pad.

"But you're not going to be my secretary, I bet."

"Sure, I've got no problem pushing some pencil lead. But let's do it right." She opened her notebook and tore out three pages. "This lecture on latent prints was simply fascinating. You want it, or can it go in the file?"

"I know a better place you can stick it."

"Temper, temper," she said, and wadded up the papers and dropped them in the back seat.

We drove in silence for six blocks. I snuck another look at her. There was a lot of animal magnetism there. In retrospect, I could see why she needed to get her personal proclivities on th
e l
ine up front. She'd undoubtedly had to deal with her share of squad-car Romeos. I tried to settle down, make the best of it. Finally she finished her coffee, slurping the last drop, then she just pitched the damn cup into the back seat with the three wadded-up sheets of notebook paper.

"This is not a department car. I'd appreciate it if you didn't throw your litter in the back."

"Sorry."

She hitched herself around and leaned over the seat. She was in a miniskirt, and for a minute she was poking a well
-
developed ass up in the air, nearly mooning the next car over. The driver did a double take. For my part, I almost hit a taxi. She sat back, put the cup on the seat between us, and stuffed my dumb-ass fingerprint lecture in her purse.

"Sorry about the short skirt. I was doing field interviews today. Sometimes it helps to show a little leg. Tomorrow I'll be in class-C stuff."

"Whatever that is."

"Sheriff's department dress code for plain clothes dicks. Excuse the expression."

We drove in silence for another minute or two. "So, Scully," she finally said. "Where the hell are we going?"

"Bill Messenger took our bullet, that three-oh-eight casing, out to your forensics lab for a print scan and tool marks. I figure, since you pack a star you can get the techs out there to give us a sneak peek."

"This is probably good thinking," she said, then settled back in her seat.

But to be truthful, even the way she said that was pissing me off--like she was validating a surprising idea from a total blockhead. Then she hitched sideways on the seat, snapping her short skirt down. All her movements were athletic and a little too big. She was a muscular girl who took up slightly more space than I was accustomed to.

"So, I had time to check you out before Messenger sent me to meet you," she said. "You're married to your division commander. I've seen her on the news and once at a cross-training day for detectives, out at our SWAT range at Spring Ranch. Damn fine package."

I looked over, not sure what to make of that. Finally I nodded and said, "I think so."

"Look, Shane, I'll give you the keys to the kingdom here, the Rosetta Stone for our partnership."

I waited. What do you say to shit like that?

"I have no hidden agendas, no back-channel dog wash. Like Popeye, T yam what I yam.'" Then she smiled. "So don't get your shorts in a bunch just because I want to lay out some ground rules. You got any stuff you want out there, let it fly."

I didn't have to ask my friends at the sheriff's what Sergeant Brickhouse's department nickname was.

Had to be Brick Shithouse.

I found out later I was right.

Chapter
20

LA
B

THE
"
OLD
"
CRI
ME

The sheriff's seventy-five-year-old crime lab is just east of Hollywood in a run-down three-story building near Elysian Park. The place is on its last legs. Since the department has already broken ground on its new, $96 million forensics facility next to the M
. E
.'s building on the L
. A
. State campus, this pile of bricks was not getting much attention. When I pulled into the parking lot I spotted deferred maintenance everywhere I looked. The cream-color paint was peeling off brick siding. Cracked asphalt and faded, white hash marks lined the parking lot. Weeds grew in the landscaping.

But this was still where most crimes were solved. The ultimate revenge of the nerds, where geeks caught cheats. It encompassed all the major crime sections: firearms, biology, DNA, trace evidence, and identifications. In this high-volume facility
,
LASD criminalists juggled seventy-five thousand pieces of evidence each year, as the criminal justice system chugged merrily along. Getting moved to the head of the line was normally a futile exercise in this overworked battleground of egos and priorities, but our shell casing had been personally hand delivered by the big boss, Bill Messenger, so my guess was, under these circumstances, we'd be first up.

Jo and I had not spoken for almost half the ride over. She sat beside me, looking out the side window, content to say nothing. Silence can be a weapon in the front seat of a police car. I wasn't sure what game we were playing yet.

I parked in a visitor's space. We got out and she pushed ahead of me through the double glass doors into the crime lab.

"You have an evidence number?" she demanded.

"No, but it came in here through Bill Messenger."

"That oughta have Doctor Chuck E. Cheese sitting up pretty straight," she said, then went to a visitor phone in the empty lobby and dialed a number.

I looked around while she talked to somebody in the back. The place really needed help. The linoleum had turned black and was peeling up across the room, exposing the wood flooring underneath. It looked like somebody delivering a gallon of acid base had dropped the load. But I guess it's hard to spend money on a building that you know is going to be bulldozed in twelve months.

"Scully, you're with me," Jo barked, sounding like my old Marine Corps drill sergeant. A security lock buzzed and she held the door open as we entered.

"Latents got a four-point hit," she said. "They already sent the brass up to tool marks to graph the striations and impressed action marks. When we found that casing yesterday it looked to me like it also had some pretty good breech and pin impressions."

She was showing off now. I was tempted to say "Fuck you," but, gentleman that I am, I only muttered, "Bite me."

She smiled, pushed past, and led the way. "Latent Prints is down here."

We walked down a narrow corridor, past the weapons library and lab. Through the glass doors, I could see thousands of rifles and handguns of every known manufacturer locked behind metal bars in the armory. These guns could be used to match firing patterns on weapons seized or placed in evidence. They could also be shown to witnesses for the purpose of firearm identification.

We continued past the GSR and footprint lab, a notorious grunt station for newbies. The youngest criminalists were stuck in there doing footprint analysis or using the electron microscope to perform gunshot residue tests. Then we passed a room housing the protein base analyzer that charted DNA profiles, also known as electropherograms. Next, down the hall was a trace evidence lab devoted to hair and fiber. There was a lot of state-of-the-art equipment in this crumbling facility.

At the end of the corridor Sergeant Brickhouse swept into the fingerprint bay. The room was empty. Blown-up photographs of fingerprints were pinned up everywhere. Two long benches containing print photographs in labled boxes were pushed against the walls. There was a large, overstuffed chair in the corner. Jo turned around and glanced out into the hall, looking for the criminalist.

"Chuck oughta be down in a minute. On the phone a minute ago, he told me he was just going to check on our print upstairs. They ran our latent through the federal print index."

We stood in the lab with the silence between us growing painfully.

"Answer me one thing," I said to break the awkward spell.

"Shoot."

"Did Bill Messenger instruct you to investigate the Hidden Ranch thing? Is that why you were up at Smiley's burned-out house poking around, and over in the apartment on Mission Street?"

"I've been sworn to secrecy," she deadpanned.

"Only, when I partner up with somebody there can be no secrets."

"Scully, grow up. I'm not telling you what I've been ordered not to, but use your imagination."

"Okay. So Messenger had you up there even after he promised the mayor and Tony he'd leave it in my hands?"