An Unacceptable Death - Barbara Seranella (26 page)

St. John stroked her back gently and planted a kiss
on her age-whitened muzzle. What more could one ask for in one's old
age, he thought, but a spot in the sun, surrounded by loved ones?
Brownie followed him faithfully, growling and tossing her head,
trying to entice him into a game of catch.

His thoughts kept returning to Munch. Poor kid. And
Rico, who was not such a bad guy, really. Despite the rumors. God
knew, Munch had loved him.

He patted Brownie's head. "We'll play later. "

St. John went into the kitchen, where Caroline was
emptying the dishwasher. He watched her for a moment, enjoying the
curves of hips and breasts twisting under her housedress. Maybe
they'd play later, too.

He picked up the telephone.

"
Who are you calling?" Caroline asked.

"
Rumpelstiltskin." Their pet name for the
medical examiner. Caroline didn't miss a beat. "About Rico?"

"
Yeah, Shue likes to catch up on his paperwork
on Sunday mornings. He'll talk to me."

"
Give him my love," Caroline said.

Mace smiled into the phone as it rang. Frank Shue was
a character. Not the kind of guy you had over for dinner, especially
if you were entertaining other guests. Many defenders had made the
mistake of underestimating the man. Shue, even at the beginning of
his workday, always appeared as if he had been spin-dried and then
forgotten in the dryer. Caroline said he looked like an unmade bed
with his shirt flaps always half untucked, tie askew, and flyaway
hair. But the guy could make a corpse talk, even if he had the
charisma of a chalkboard.

"
Office of the coroner."

"
It's St. John."

"
What can I do for you?"

"
Who did the post on Enrique Chacón?" St.
John asked.

"
Sugarman. In the aquarium. I assisted."
The aquarium was the glass-walled room reserved for high-profile
deaths, police officers, or suspects who had died in custody. As well
as accommodating multiple observers, the autopsies performed there
were also videotaped. St. John was not surprised that Sugarman had
handled the postmortem examination personally. He was the senior
forensic pathologist and not afraid of controversy.

"
Anything unusual?"

"
I just got the tox results."

"
And?" St. John asked.

"
Clean. No narcotics or drugs of any kind."

"
How about the bullet wounds?"

"
The hits to his chest were consistent with LAPD
ordinance."

"
What about the head wound?" St. John
asked.

"
The head wound?"

St. John could hear the man scrambling for time.
"Rico's fiancée saw the body before the mortuary cleaned it
up."

"
How unfortunate."

"
She said the shot looked like it had come from
close range. The hair was singed around the entry wound."

"
We're not publishing any details about that."

"
What does that mean?"

"
I'm not at liberty to say."

St. John didn't press, not wanting to put Shue or
Sugarman in an awkward position. If he was inferring correctly, the
head wound, most likely the kill shot, had not come from a police
weapon. Who would benefit from keeping that information quiet? If the
guy was dirty, shooting at his own, then no one was going to suffer
any consequences for shooting him.

If he was clean, as Munch believed and as this Roger
guy claimed to back up, then why was he shot, and by whom? And why
keep that information secret in the first place?

Caroline walked into the kitchen with a leash in her
hand. She took one look at her husband, who was staring at a spot on
the wall, and didn't say a word. She knew he was working. He heard
the door shut behind her as she left to take Brownie for a walk.

If Rico was shot by the bad guys, yet not a bad guy
himself, and the department was keeping it quiet, there were several
possible explanations. Perhaps they were protecting an ongoing
investigation. If Rico was only pretending to be on the take, perhaps
the task force didn't want the bad guys aware that Rico had been
playing for the good guys all along and that supply routes and
connections were compromised.

Okay, that all worked.

Then the logic went screwy.

Why was the DEA guy helping Munch prove that Rico was
clean before the case was finished? It wasn't to help Munch, that was
for damn sure. They had their own agenda. Maybe they still had an
asset or implanted agent. Revealing that Rico was himself a double
agent might protect their operative still in play. But if that was
true, would revealing the truth now put Munch in unnecessary
jeopardy? Was giving Rico a commendation at this point worth the
wrath of the narcotraffickers? And why the change of strategy?

Something must have
happened to cause a script change. And knowing how some of these
narcs operated, Munch was probably an expendable asset as far as they
were concerned. It was time to let them all know she had friends.

* * *

Humberto needed his own army, and for that he needed
cash. He left Ellen to wait for Munch's return call and told Chicken
to meet him in Compton. The black guys Chicken hooked him up with had
put together enough cash to buy five more kilos.

He would save three or four for Christina, and tell
her he had already sold the rest. How could she possibly know
different?

He dropped Chicken off back at the house on Hampton
and drove alone to the apartment where he had conducted his business
with the duplicitous Christina. When he went back to her apartment,
there was a for RENT sign in the window and her car was gone.

She must have taken up
residence in the hotel, knowing she was safer there. He could do
nothing to her or with her while she was in the company of
Delaguerra. The time was not yet right to take the
Jefe
down.

* * *

"
I'm going to go in for a while," Mace St.
John told his wife when she returned from her walk.

"
I had a feeling," she said.

He bent down and kissed her. His windbreaker swung
open, revealing his gun and badge. "I'll call you if it's going
to be more than a few hours."

"
Good; I'm taking out steaks."

He smiled at the bribe. She only allowed him red meat
once a week. Twenty minutes later, St. John was at his desk on the
second floor of the West Los Angeles Police Station looking in his
oldest card carrier. St. John kept the cards of every cop he met and
organized them in albums according to county, division, and branch of
law enforcement. Art Becker's card was in the oldest card carrier he
owned. The back cover was detaching from the spine and the corners
were rounded from constant handling.

The cards inside belonged to cops who had at some
time worked in the Pacific Division. When Mace had been there, it had
been called the Venice Police Station, but that was a million years
ago. Art Becker was one of the few dinosaurs who had never left. He'd
also been Rico's first partner in Los Angeles.

St. John slipped the card from the plastic insert and
called the number written on the back. Becker's unlisted home phone
rang twice. The men exchanged brief amenities.

"
How you holding up?" St. John asked.

"
It hurts to lose one. You know that."

"
Can I buy you a beer?"

"
Is it important?" Becker asked.

"
Yeah, it really is. You know Chapman in
Narcotics?"

"
Sure."

"
Him, too."

Becker sighed. "Yeah, no problem. I've been
expecting this call."

"
Okay," St. John said, his curiosity
totally piqued. He should have done this sooner.

"
Chez Jays in twenty?"

St. John checked his watch. "You got it."

Chez Jays was a dive, but a landmark dive. The
diminutive bar had a key location, across the street from the Santa
Monica Pier and next door to the Rand Corporation, a federally funded
think tank where intelligence on the Pacific Rim, the Middle East,
Russia, and Eurasia was gathered, analyzed, and disseminated to the
various defense agencies.

Sawdust covered the floor and signed movie posters
adorned the walls. It was a bar made for serious drinking,
international intrigues, and secret trysts. The only light allowed in
was from the front door, certainly not the windows, which were few
and small and painted over. New arrivals were temporarily blinded
until their eyes adjusted to the dark, giving the embedded patrons
that extra minute which might make the difference between a
dressing-down and a divorce. Becker was already there when St. John
arrived, seated in one of the red Naugahyde booths and munching on a
basket of french fries.

"
Chapman should be here in about ten minutes. He
has to drive up from El Segundo."

St. John eyed the french fries with longing, but
didn't indulge. "How'd you get him to come?"

Becker's eyes were all but lost under puffy lids. "He
feels just as bad as I do about all this."

"
Fill me in," St. John said.

"
Rico was working on a multi-agency task force,
even the Mexicans were involved."

"
You found two that weren't corrupt?" St.
John asked. Becker attempted a smile, but his eyes and the rest of
his face weren't having it. "It's not so much a matter of who's
corrupt or not, as who can be controlled."

The waitress brought Becker a beer. She turned to St.
John,

"
What'll you have, hon?"

"
7-Up."

Becker took a sip of beer and continued. "Anyhow,
it's mostly a fed-run deal, but local law enforcement in San Diego,
Los Angeles, Nogales, and Calexico are also involved. The feds know
that the economies of the countries south of the border are too
dependent and intertwined with the drug trade to expect an end to
business anytime soon. So, they figured, shit, can't beat 'em, might
as well get our foot in the door."

"
You're telling me we've gone into business with
these guys?" St. John was disgusted. He'd heard rumors about the
funding of the Contras in Nicaragua. Between his tours in Nam and
years on the job, he also knew how the CIA liked to play. Friendly
dictators such as Noriega, the Shah of Iran, and Ferdinand Marcos
were all backed by the U.S. of A. And who knew how many others had
been nudged into power covertly?

"
What they hoped to do was put kinder, gentler
kingpins in power," Becker said. "Guys we could hold a
hammer over, and later use to get to the bigger guys."

"
So the guy might still be a son of a bitch, but
he's our son of a bitch."

"
That's about right."

"
Sounds like a tough assignment. Any hombre with
the balls and business sense to run a cartel isn't going to be easily
manipulated."

The conversation paused while the waitress delivered
St. John's soft drink. Someone upwind lit a cigarette and St. John
felt a surge of desire. He knew Caroline would kill him before the
nicotine had a chance if he came home with tobacco on his breath.

Becker leaned forward and spoke quietly. "I
think the official/nonofficial term, if you know what I'm saying, is
person of mutual sympathies."

"
What's all of this got to do with Chacón?"
St. John asked. The front door swung open and the figure of a man
made a black hole in the bright light.

"
Chapman," Becker called. "Over here."

Chapman wound his way past the large wooden ship's
wheel at the entrance and over to their table. Becker made the
introductions and the men shook hands.

"
I've heard of you," Chapman said. "You
worked in Robbery/Homicide downtown, right?"

"
Yeah, I'm in West LA now."

"
How's that?"

"
Quiet." St. John knocked on the wooden
table, feeling the chill of cop superstition. Unspeakable evils
usually befell a detective heard muttering, "Boy, it sure is
quiet around here."

Becker and Chapman chuckled.

"
I've been hearing about you, too," St.
John said.

"
Uh-oh," Chapman said, straining to sound
jovial. He flagged down the waitress and ordered a Scotch.
 
"
It's about Rico," Becker said.

Chapman's smile evaporated. "Friend of yours?"

"
I'm closer to the woman he was going to marry.
Munch Mancini. In fact, my wife and I are godparents to her daughter?

"
She never said—"

St. John didn't let him finish. "She wouldn't.
She's funny that way, doesn't ask for special treatment. I'd hate to
see her getting dicked around."

"
Tell him," Becker said. "Tell him
everything. If you don't, I will.
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

MUNCH WENT HOME WITH ASIA IN CASE THERE WAS SOME news
on her machine. The only message waiting for her was from Ellen. She
had called around eleven. It was now a little past noon. Munch was
pretty sure the cops had her phone tapped, but she wouldn't bet her
life on it. She retrieved Rico's gun from the highest shelf in her
closet and the boxes of extra bullets. Six shots might not be enough,
she thought, and filled her pockets with spare rounds. She also
grabbed the transmitter Roger had given her, popped the batteries
back into place, and strapped the device around her waist; then she
returned Ellen's call.