Three Shirt Deal (2008) (31 page)

"You need to hear this," he snapped. "Judge Saxon."

She listened on the phone as Saxon filled her ear with indecisive nonsense. While she was listening, I happened to notice that Alexa had moved away from us and was standing over by the garage's office looking through the plate glass window at an array of plaques and little league photos that hung on the walls inside.

Finally, Vonnie said, "Okay. If that's Your Honor's decision."

She hung up the cell phone and handed it back to Tito. Then she turned toward me, a long frown on her freckled face.

"The judge has rescinded the warrant. No search," she said. "He says the SUV got towed by a local company in Kings County. The insurance company judged it a total loss. The Kings County cops didn't put a hold order on it, so after ten days, the towing company could legally sell it to cover costs. They sold it to Church for two thousand dollars, refunded the difference to Detective Llevar. It was a legal transaction."

Tito turned to the four city cops who had arrived with Vonnie to help us search the place and issued a new order: "Escort these people out of the building, please."

Moments later we were all standing in the alley.

"This isn't over," I told Tito. "You've got a major conflict of interest here. After law school you represented this guy, Church, on a felony, and your families both go back to Pueblo Viejo, Mexico."

That didn't slow Morales down. He turned toward the patroleman. "If these two suspended police officers give Mr. Church, or anybody else in this garage any further trouble, I want them arrested for obstructing justice and police harassment." Then he got into his cheap little car and pulled away.

We walked out of earshot of the cops and had postgame huddle.

"That's it for me," Vonnie said. "My show just got closed. If I know the great Tito Morales, starting tomorrow I'm gonna be down in part six handling DUIs. I think it's finally time to put my legal skills to more constructive use."

"I'm sorry," I told her.

"Hey, life is all about taking chances. It was getting time for me to move on, anyway."

Then she returned to her tan Geo and drove off. In a minute, the thin trail of white smoke that had spewed from her hanging exhaust pipe was all that was left to remember her.

"Nice gal," Alexa said. "We got hosed, but she brought the wood."

"Except everybody now knows what we're doing," I told her. "Tony, Jane, the entire sixth floor is gonna find out in less than an hour. We're in the sauce."

She didn't answer, remaining strangely quiet for a long moment. Then she asked, "You ever hear of anybody named E. Emmett Riley?"

"Who's E. Emmett Riley?"

"There are plaques and framed certificates of accomplishment to Mike Church and the NVNTA from this Riley guy hanging all over that office in there."

"So?"

"According to the plaques, Emmett Riley's kind of muckity
-
muck with California Homeland Security."

I must have looked lost.

"I wonder if Mr. Riley knows what's really going on with this little bus company," she said.

Chapter
48.

E. EMMETT RILEY WAS IN AN OVERSIZE TENTH-FLOOR OFFICE AT Homeland Security located on Wilshire Boulevard. He was the Assistant Secretary to the Deputy Director of California Homeland, or some equally confusing title. I've long held the belief that ninety percent of the people who use initials in front of their names are purebred assholes. The evidence of this is overwhelming. F. Lee Bailey, for example, or H. Ross Perot. Watergate was full of them: E. Howard Hunt, H. Robert Haldeman, G. Gordon Liddy. Liddy probably was an exception because, unlike the others, he manned up and went to prison without giving up teammates.

E. Emmett Riley was a little man in a brown suit whose hair looked like it had been drawn on his head by a cartoonist. His rosy complexion shined and he had glossy, manicured fingernails that reflected light like little shiny windows.

"I don't see how this information is any of your concern," he said, busily protecting one of America's great national secrets.

"Mr. Riley, all we're asking is that you tell us what the Department of Homeland Security's interest is in this little bus company. It's not such a big deal," I said.

"Do you have a supervisor I might contact?" he said, looking directly at me, ignoring Alexa because after all, as everyone could plainly see, she was just a great-looking chick.

"Yeah. She's my boss," I said and nodded at Alexa. He flicked a glance over at my beautiful wife.

"Hi there," she said, smiling at him.

"She's your boss?" Incredulous. Struggling to adjust.

"Yes. She's Lieutenant Alexa Scully, and if you can have somebody go to the LAPD Web site, you'll see she's pictured there as the acting head of the Detective Bureau."

He turned abruptly around and for the next minute, those polished fingers flew over his computer keyboard. He quickly accessed the LAPD Web site and, sure enough, right there on the command structure management tree was a smiling press photo of Alexa. Then, with a little flourish, like Liberace finishing a piano run, he removed his polished fingernails from the keyboard and swiveled slowly around in his giant chair until he was again facing us. His expression seemed only slightly more cordial.

"I still don't--"

"Humor us," Alexa said, interrupting him. "Please don't make me take this to Chief Filosiani. I thought we were all supposed to be sharing information these days. Part of the new interagency guidelines."

It was a tough problem for E. Emmett. Like any good midlevel bureaucrat, he knew information was power and he hated sharing power with anyone. But the fact was, in this post-9/11 world, we'd all been tasked by the President of the United States with information sharing. I could see all of this calculating behind hazel eyes. Finally, he leaned forward.

"I'm not sure--"

"I am," Alexa interrupted.

His resolve began to dissolve like Alka-Seltzer in a glass of cold water. He tipped forward and hit an intercom. "Liz, bring me the NVNTA file." Then he leaned back in his chair.

Two minutes of uncomfortable silence followed. Man, I hate bureaucrats. Give a guy an office with any kind of government seal on the door, and you instantly have a testosterone problem.

Finally, Liz arrived. Liz, as you might expect, could have worked in reception over at Penthouse magazine. She swept into the office on three-inch platforms and handed Emmett the folder before disappearing back out the door like a vision sent by God. E. Emmett licked his fingers carefully before opening the file and examining the contents.

"Okay, what do you want to know?" he asked, the words coming out like tooth extractions.

"You sent several letters of merit and congratulations to this bus line. We were wondering in regard to what?" Alexa said.

"Which tells me, you obviously don't have enough P
. C
. to serve a warrant on this bus line and that's why you came to me. This is just a fishing trip." Snotty and bitchy, even in defeat.

"Obviously you haven't worked many investigations," Alexa said pleasantly. "If you had, you wouldn't make that statement."

"I wouldn't?" he said, smiling at her. I guess he smiled because she was too pretty to sneer at.

"No, you wouldn't because the minute you serve a warrant, you alert the suspect that you are investigating him. We like to save the warrant serving for last."

He tried to look as if he was evaluating this as a tactic. Then he shrugged slightly as if to say, "If that's your silly way of doing things, okay, but at Homeland we do it differently."

"So, what were all the letters and commendations about?" Alexa pressed.

She had him on the run. E. Emmett Riley was obviously enamored of beautiful women, but they made him nervous and he wasn't quite sure how to handle them.

"The NVNTA has been upgrading their security," he said reluctantly. "They've been spending a great deal of money to conform to our threat assessment transit guidelines. That's why I wrote the letters."

"You are, of course, aware of the fact that this nonprofit bus line only provides transportation for a limited number of senior citizens in a very small community," she said.

"They met the minimum two-hundred-fifty-seat bus-line-size limit, which qualifies them as a full-fledged transit authority," he said. "Beyond that, it's not our concern." He was back on familiar ground, curling a lip at us.

"Why not?" Alexa now gave him a beautiful, sweet smile. You could almost feel him wilt under it. Like Secada, Alexa knew how to use her assets.

"Because we're tasked with trying to get any qualified transportation agency to conform to our top threat level security guidelines. In order to do that, these companies have to undertake a significant capital outlay, which quite frankly, many are unprepared to do. So we provide incentives to encourage them. The more security a bus line, train, or airline has, the harder it is for terrorists to strike. I should think that's pretty obvious."

"So NVNTA was spending a lot of money," Alexa stated.

"NVNTA has been simply incredible," he said, looking at his file. "They are a nonprofit line and transport only about a thousand people per seven day week. But despite that, they've met every single one of our guidelines. They've passed all of the safety checks, as well as meeting this agency's most stringent requirements. Everything, I might add, at great expense."

"And that's it. That's the whole deal," I said.

E. Emmett shot a hard look at me. "Are you being flip?" he snapped.

"No, sir," I answered. "I'm trying to find out what these guys are doing."

"They're growing. They're attempting to expand their services in keeping with the highest threat assessment standards of this agency and we're helping them do it."

"Helping them? How?" Alexa asked.

"They've applied for and received a DHS government grant."

"I'm sorry?" I said.

"A grant. Money from the government."

"Really?" Alexa looked over at me. "How much money?"

"For transit authorities that meet our most stringent guidelines, the federal government is approving nonrecourse grants to continue growth and defray cost. It's part of the incentive program I just mentioned. But in order to qualify, the transit authority must meet every single guideline. They must have a transit police department with at least six members. They must install all of the preferred security materials--GPS and satellite tracking equipment. Only about six or seven percent of the transportation companies in the nation have qualified. I'm proud to say NVNTA is one of our better examples."

"How much money did you give them?" Alexa asked.

E. Emmett Riley looked through the folder and found it on the last page.

"To date, just a little more than fifteen million dollars," he announced proudly.

Chapter
49.

ALEXA AND I WERE SITTING IN OUR BACKYARD IN VENICE, BOTH of us wearing self-satisfied grins. We'd figured it out, cut through all the B
. S
. and had finally gotten to the bottom of it.

"It locks every piece in place." I tipped back the ice-cold Corona I'd just pulled from the fridge and drained half of it.

"Yep," Alexa agreed. "We be good."

"Mike Church isn't smart enough to figure all this out on his own. This is pure Wade Wyatt. That arrogant asshole engineered it. He sees that one old rusting bus and he knows about the Homeland Security grants. Maybe he got the info from his father, or while he was clerking for the Supreme Court. It's just the kind of get-rich-quick fast-food idea that would appeal to that little putz. He tries it on Church, who is so greedy he decides not to wait, so he kills his father to get the bus line. They end up scamming the government outta fifteen mil."

"You need to call Secada," Alexa said. "After all, it was her case."

I went inside and called the hospital at Casa Dorinda. After I finished reporting everything Alexa and I had learned, Scout said, "This is amazing, Shane. You guys actually fixed it."

"I still don't know how to drop this mess on the department," I told her. "Alexa and I are working on that part now. We have to be careful about procedure here. Some of this evidence is a little compromised."

"You'll find a way. Good work. Tell Alexa thanks for me, but I think you need to move fast. Tru isn't going to last long once he goes back into gen pop."

"Don't worry. This all gets done first thing tomorrow." Then I changed the subject and asked her when she was getting out of the hospital.

"They told me I can go home next week. Popi is getting a nurse and he and Mama are moving into my apartment on the hill."

"I'll call you with our next moves."

I hung up and turned to find Alexa standing in the doorway looking at me.

"They say, life's a journey," she said, a tinge of sadness in her voice. "But for me, it usually feels more like a lesson."

I took her in my arms and kissed her.

We went into our room and made love. It wasn't as wild as the last time, but we had found our rhythm again. The closeness that followed was incredible.