Three Shirt Deal (2008) (30 page)

"What now," Alexa said, impatiently.

"Let's take a slow drive around. Go down the alley in the back and see what we can see."

"Why?"

"Because that's the way I do it," I told her.

I put the car in gear and started slowly around the block with the headlights off. I turned left into the alley that ran behind the garage and drove at five miles an hour before pulling to a stop under a galvanized metal junction box that was affixed to the eaves of the roof.

"Shine your flash on that," I told her.

Alexa hit the box with the beam of her police Mag-lite and I grabbed my binoculars off the seat and focused them up at the roof eaves.

"Video security," I said, reading the name "Land Mark" off the box through my magnified lenses. "We've got to disable that unless you want infrared pictures of us at our trial for trespassing and illegal entry."

"Good get," she agreed reluctantly.

"Thank you."

As I continued our slow roll down the alley, what I was really doing was trying to come up with a way to do this that wouldn't cost us our careers in the process. Then I spotted two huge, dark green Dumpsters parked behind the roll-up door in the back of the garage. I pulled the BMW to a stop half a block up the alley.

"Gonna check that out," I said.

"What?" Excitement was shining on her face. "You found a way to scuttle the security?"

"Gonna take a walk through those garbage cans," I said, pointing at the Dumpsters. "It's discarded trash, which means it isn't personal property anymore and is not subject to a searc
h w
arrant. We can hunt around in the garbage all we want. Keep a lookout."

I got out of the car and walked to the Dumpsters while Alexa stood ten yards away with her gun out. I grabbed the edge of the nearest one, threw open the lid, and looked inside. The first thing I saw was a ripped-out interior door panel in brown leather. I pulled it out and examined it. Something seemed familiar. My heart started racing. I vaulted up on top of the bin and dropped inside, landing on green metal.

SUV green.

"Holy shit," I whispered.

"What?" Alexa's voice came through the dark.

"I think I just found Scout's Suburban."

I checked the parts in the Dumpster and pulled them out one by one, holding them up to my flashlight. I needed to find the manufacturer's Vehicle Identification Number. I really wasn't too concerned about trying to find those .06 slugs because they would probably trace back to some street gun, which wasn't going to get Tru out of jail. What I needed was to use this SUV to get enough probable cause to get a search warrant on Church's garage. I was hoping to find an airbag because I could easily trace a car with that installation number. After searching, I realized they weren't here. Church could get a few hundred for each one on the black market, so he'd probably already sold them. I finally found something in the second Dumpster. It weighed about forty pounds but I managed to lift it out and then dropped it at Alexa's feet.

"Present for m'lady," I grinned over the lip of the Dumpster. "Transmission housing."

"And here I was hoping for pearls," she quipped.

I climbed out and then shined my flash on the small stamped number on the broken housing.

"Write this down." I read the VIN aloud then looked up at

Alexa and smiled. "If this came off Scout's car, we can get a warrant on this place."

"What a lucky bastard you are," she said.

I got into the front seat of our car and took a card from my wallet.

"Who are you calling?"

"Yvonne Hope," I said.

"Tru's old P
. D
.?" She was frowning. "You sure she wasn't part of this to begin with?"

"Yeah."

After ten rings it was picked up. "This better be fucking great," a sleepy voice said.

Chapter
46.

"I CAN'T WAKE UP A CITY JUDGE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

over a stolen car," Vonnie complained, after I told her what I wanted.

"Then we'll sit on this place until you can get here with a warrant. My crime scene is being chopped up one piece at a time."

"This connects up to the Hickman case?"

"If you get me a broad enough warrant to search this whole garage it could," I said.

She was quiet, pondering her options.

"This is your case," I pushed. "Hickman's your client. Why don't you stop hedging and go to work for your guy? Use this transmission part number to get me a warrant on this place."

"Does anybody actually like you?" she asked.

"Does it matter?"

"I'd like to know where to send your fucking ashes."

She slammed the phone down, but I knew she was onboard.

The sun came up at six-fifty-five. Alexa and I had reparked the car and were now sitting half a block from the Church of Destruction, sipping McDonald's coffee out of happy-looking red

Styrofoam cups. At nine-oh-six, Church arrived along with a dozen beefy guys who didn't know where to buy clothes that didn't have the sleeves ripped off. At nine-forty-five, inside the garage I heard the sound of saws screaming in tortured metallic harmony.

"They're back to ripping up the Suburban," Alexa noted.

I tried Vonnie's cell phone for about the fiftieth time. Like all the other attempts, it went straight to voice mail.

I got out of the car and while Alexa watched the front of the garage, I went to the alley behind the building and stood behind a phone pole. Then, because everything in this case had to be a huge problem, at that very moment, along came a jumbo-sized garbage truck, preceded by a little shepherding forklift that scooped up the full Dumpsters parked along the alley and placed them on the front of the big truck to be tossed over the top into its giant bin.

As the forklift pulled up to the first of the Dumpsters behind the Church of Destruction, I hustled down the alley to intervene.

"Hang on," I shouted to the driver.

"Huh?" the operator said, turning a blank stare at me.

I showed him my badge. "LAPD. Please don't do that."

"Huh?" What cave did they find this guy in?

"The contents of this bin are evidence in an ongoing case. Leave it."

"Huh?"

I was wondering how I was going to get through to him when he solved our communication problem by removing his earplugs.

"Come again?" he said.

Before I could go through it once more, the huge elephant doors at the back of the garage started to open and Mike Church, along with a rough looking bunch of characters with grease up to their elbows, stood glaring out at me.

"What the fuck is this?" Church growled. Then recognition dawned. "You again?"

"Corao esta? How they hangin', bro?"

"Get away from my garage, asshole. First my house, now my business. The fuck you think you're doing?"

I saw Alexa moving down the alley. Her purse was slung over her shoulder, her right hand inside. It was one of her favorite bags, but even so, I knew if this went sideways, she wouldn't hesitate to dust this guy right through the expensive polished leather.

"We have a warrant to search this place. Step aside," I said.

"A warrant?" Church seemed surprised. "What's the charge?"

I looked past him into the garage where I saw what was left of Scout's Suburban. It was down to the axles and half a chassis.

"The charge is destruction of evidence in the attempted murder of two police officers."

"Let's see the paper."

"On the way," I shot back.

"That means you don't got no damn warrant." Church turned to the forklift driver. "Hey, buddy. Get that Dumpster on the truck and outta here. I need it empty. You got a job to do, so do it."

"Don't touch that thing," I said to the driver. "Get out of here before I take you in along with him."

The garbage man bailed. He put his forklift in reverse, motioned to the dump truck, and in a minute they were gone.

"What does she think she's doing?" Church said, as his eyes flicked nervously toward Alexa.

"I'm getting ready to park four ounces where you don't want it," she said.

"Hey, Rodriguez, get this fucking door down," Church barked, and two guys started pulling a chain, dropping the heavy metal.

Just then, two black-and-whites squealed into the alley, followed by an old 1994 tan Geo Metro. To my relief, Yvonne Hope sprang out of the Geo and handed me a warrant.

The garage door was still coming down as I stuffed the warrant into Church's hand.

Chapter
47.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT WAS RIGHT OUT OF A BAD EPISODE OF

The Practice.

Church called some ambulance chaser named Maximilian Morris. He turned out to be two hundred pounds of black marble with a neck like a fire hydrant, and enough attitude to be working home plate at Dodger Stadium. Worse still, his office was only six blocks away so he made it there before we even had time to set up for the search.

"How does this warrant apply to my client?" the lawyer said, leaning into my space and glowering.

"That car was part of an attempted murder scene in central California," I told him.

"My client tells me he bought the vehicle as parts from a towing service up in Kings County. He's scrapping it."

"Got a receipt from that towing service?" I asked. "Got a valid transfer of title?" I shot back.

"Don't need a title transfer. It's not a car anymore.
I
just told you, it's being sold for parts."

"Let me put it to you another way," Alexa said. "Your client is an accessory before and after the fact in the attempted homicid
e o
f two L
. A
. police officers. This car was the crime scene and it's being illegally destroyed. Before we're done, your guy is gonna be so deep in charges you're gonna need a new meter to keep up with the overtime."

That bought us a call to the Superior Court judge who had signed the warrant. He was a big, gray-haired jurist named William Saxon, who had the reputation of being an easy guy to get a search warrant from, making him a frequent target for attorneys and cops with shaky P
. C
. But he was also a jittery personality who frequently changed his mind, earning him the courthouse nickname Windsock Willie. When Max Morris got on the phone and started complaining, Judge Saxon told Vonnie to hold on until he could check some case facts with the prosecutor's office. A bad sign. It sounded like the Windsock was about to shift positions.

That brought Tito Morales to the scene. He pulled up in his tan Everyman's two-door twenty minutes later and parked it next to Vonnie's Geo. Tito got out and crossed the street like a man about to stomp somebody to death. His lips were dark purple curtains, exposing only the tiny bottoms of all that beautiful dentistry.

"You insist on always doing things your own way, don't you?" he said to Vonnie, who, despite his power over her career, refused to retreat from this treacherous legal standoff.

"This car was illegally removed from a police impound," she said stubbornly, indicating the axle and what few pieces were left on top of it.

"I'm not some law school dropout," Tito said. "You don't think I know what's going on here? These two"--jerking a thumb at me and Alexa--"don't give a damn about any impound theft, if one even occurred. All they care about is reopening a second
-
degree homicide that I handled a year ago. And you know why?"

"Because it desperately needs to be reopened?" Vonnie said, still facing him down.

"Because they're seeking to humiliate me in the press on the eve of the mayoral election. This is politically motivated and has nothing to do with Hickman. According to the Kings County sheriffs, what happened up in central California was just a case of road rage. Some drunk farmhands lost it and started shooting. The Kings County sheriffs are working it. This car wasn't even impounded. The cops up there never wrote a hold order on it so there's no grounds for your warrant."

"You seem to know a lot about the case," I said.

"It's my job to know what's going on. There's nothing here. I'm instructing you not to serve that warrant, Yvonne."

"With all due respect, Tito, you can't instruct me on one of my cases. I may technically work for you, but on this case we're still legal adversaries."

"What case? You don't have a case. This damn case isn't even in the system." He was losing it, anger turning his Hispanic features red brown. "You're spending city time and resources on a case that's already been adjudicated. You're working it without portfolio or division approval."

That produced a second flurry of phone calls--Yvonne to her division boss, Lynn Siegel, head of the Valley P
. D
.'s office; Tito to Judge Saxon.

I could see the Windsock slowly turning against us. We stood in the unsearched garage as Mike Church's smile got wider and wider. Finally Morales shoved his cell phone at Vonnie.