the Viking Funeral (2001) Read online

  Alexa elected not to sleep over, and Shane didn't try to stop her. She took her car back to her apartment in Santa Monica. They were badly out of sync and needed time to get past it.

  Shane put the little leather box containing her engagement ring inside the top dresser drawer and finally went to bed.

  He didn't dream of Alexa and he didn't dream of Jody. Strangely, he had a dream about tomato farming. He was sitting on a huge green tractor, trying to plow a straight furrow so he could plant his tomato seeds. But the tractor kept going its own way, despite his efforts to steer it. The huge green machine left a wavy, drunken furrow behind him. "Dammit," Shane kept saying, as the tractor wavered. "Dammit, stay straight, will ya." It was a difficult night of farming.

  Chapter 12.

  THE CANOE FACTORY

  THE NEXT MORNING Shane went to Mark Shephard's autopsy. The ME performing the examination was Dr. Clyde Miller, a notorious civil-service character. He wore tie-dyed T-shirts under his white medical smock and sang old Beatles tunes while he cut up corpses.

  "It's been a hard day's night, and I been working like a dog," he warbled at ten A. M. to the accompanying screams of a bone saw in the autopsy room. The procedure was taking place in operating theater three of L. A.'s huge medical examiner's facilities. The next-in-line corpses were on rolling gurneys in the narrow basement corridor, all waiting under ironed green sheets, with red name tags wired festively to their bloodless toes. They were bumper to bumper under the fluorescent tubes, surrounded by the throat-clogging cologne of the newly departed--formaldehyde mixed with preserving chemicals. It was a sad little parking lot of last night's traffic and gun mistakes.

  Commander Mark Shephard was the only self-inflicted gunshot death that morning. The physical inspection of the body was just getting under way as Shane arrived.

  "Hey, Sarge, welcome. Another opening, another show," Miller caroled, switching momentarily to Cole Porter as Shane entered the room. "Was this poor guy a friend?"

  "No, I found the body."

  "Hard way to go," Miller grunted, and switched back to the Beatles, altering a lyric here and there as he continued his physical inspection of the lower extremities. "Hey, Jude, don't make it bad / Take a sad song and make it better / Just don't hide the reason you're gone, and this Doc will find the answer, answer, answer, answer." He broke into the "na, na, nas" as he went over Commander Shephard's legs and feet, inch by inch, looking for any exterior abnormalities before making his Y-cut at the sternum, then emptying and weighing the Good Shepherd's heart, liver, and kidneys.

  Shane was standing at the head of the table when Dr. Miller suddenly stopped singing and turned to his medical assistant, a black woman Shane had never met, who was functioning as his "diener" during the autopsy. "Whoa, Nellie. Whatta we got here," he said, raising an eyebrow.

  Both Shane and the tall African American woman moved to the foot of the table to see what he had found. There, on Commander Mark Shephard's left ankle, on the inside just above his medial mallealous bone, was a small, two-inch, hand-drawn tattoo of a Viking head in profile. A horned helmet dominated the artwork.

  Shane looked at the tattoo, then took a small camera out of his pocket that he always brought to autopsies to photograph anything of note for his case folder. He carefully shot the tattoo from different angles.

  Two things about the tattoo bothered Shane: First, most police officers would rather cut off one of their fingers than get a tattoo anywhere on their body. They viewed tattoos as a mark of the criminal underclass. Cops who already had one prior to joining the force usually invested in laser surgery to remove it.

  Common folklore on the streets was that if you were a criminal, always look to see if your cohorts in crime were tattooed--or "sleeved," as the cons called it--because any guy without a tattoo was immediately suspected of being the Law.

  The "no tattoo" rule among cops was relatively inviolate, so it bothered Shane that Mark Shephard had this Viking on the inside of his right ankle. But there was something else about the tattoo that bothered Shane even more.

  About three years before, the L. A. County Sheriff's Department had discovered a band of rogue officers. This group called themselves "the Vikings," and they all had Viking tattoos on their ankles. They were suspected of forcing confessions, usually by administering a little chin music in some dark place. The Vikings were eventually broken up, but this tattoo looked exactly like the ones worn by that bunch of officers. It was in the same place on the body, low on the right ankle, where it could be covered by a sock.

  When this rogue group of deputies was first discovered, Sheriff Sherman Block tried to stage an inspection. He wanted to examine every sheriff's deputy's right ankle in search of Viking tattoos. But the Sheriffs Department Law Enforcement Union filed a lawsuit, claiming that such an inspection without probable cause violated the officers" civil rights. It became a big deal, and eventually the sheriffs union prevailed. The physical search never took place, but ten deputies were eventually terminated from the original core group.

  Mark Shephard had the same tattoo, or at least one a lot like it. Shane wondered if the culture of the Vikings had somehow migrated from the Sheriffs Department to the LAPD. He made a mental note to try to get someone to pull Shephard's file to see if he had ever been loaned out to the sheriffs or had ever been part of one of the cross-pollination task forces. There had been several over the years, and a few were still operating: The Cobra Unit in the Valley was one; L. A. Impact was another. Even some of the big serial-killer task forces qualified. On the Hillside Strangler Unit, the Sheriff's Department and LAPD worked closely together because the murders occurred in both the city and county.

  One other strange thing turned up as a result of the autopsy, and also caught Shane by surprise. But it didn't happen while Doc Miller was sawing up Commander Shephard and singing selections from the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It arrived an hour later, when the preliminary blood work came back from the lab. Shane was stunned to learn that the Good Shepherd had been stoned when he parked the Remington Light in the central lobe of his cranial cavity. He had high traces of marijuana in his bloodstream.

  "Shit," Shane said as he stood outside the ME's office in the hazy mid-morning sunshine, trying to decide what to do with this new piece of information. How would he tell Alexa, or should he even tell her at all? Since it would eventually find its way into the press, maybe it would be better to let the Los Angeles Times deliver the bombshell. Shane didn't need to be the one to further distress Alexa with negative facts about her old boyfriend.

  He decided to take some time and think about it. He went across the street and had a Heineken in a tavern called the Canoe Factory. The place was a hangout for medical examiners and their staff after long days of opening corpses and turning them into what they referred to as "body canoes."

  As he sipped his late-morning brew, he realized he had no choice but to tell Alexa, even if telling her would drive them further apart. She was acting head of DSG, and it was her responsibility. She had to know about the tattoo, about Shane's suspicions. Furthermore, he was determined to find out if his old best friend, Jody Dean, was out there committing multiple homicides on his former commanding officers.

  At eleven Shane left the bar and just barely made his rescheduled psychiatric appointment, only five blocks away.

  He sat in the reclining chair while the psychiatrist asked him how his last four days had gone.

  "Very well," Shane lied. "Exceedingly well, in fact."

  "Uh-huh... I see. Go on," the fat doctor said.

  Chapter 13.

  MORE TROUBLE

  ALEXA GOT OUT of her department-issue Crown Victoria in front of Mark Shephard's house, where Shane was waiting. "I really don't have time for this," she said. "I'm trying to get the budget stuff finished and take over down there." She was dressed in a tan skirt and green blouse. Her lustrous black hair was pulled back, clipped with a barrette glinting in the late-afternoon sunshine.
/>   He was standing by his Acura, which was parked nearby. In the backseat, jumping around with boundless enthusiasm, was Officer Krupkee, a one-year-old German shepherd he'd just borrowed from the West Valley Drug Enforcement Team. He let the dog out of the back of the car, took his leash, and led him toward the driveway.

  "We need to go through the house. You need to be here," he said, ducking under the yellow crime-scene tape, which was still strung up, moving around to the back door so the neighbors couldn't watch him break in. He was walking ahead of Alexa so she couldn't stop him.

  He was already on the porch, lock pick out, when she finally caught up to him. Officer Krupkee was jumping around, barking and sniffing wildly.

  "What's this about? Is that a drug-enforcement dog?" Alexa's questions were apprehensive.

  "Meet Officer Krupkee, West Valley Canine Hall of Fame. He's discovered more drugs than Dow Chemical."

  "Shane," she said ominously, "why are we bringing a drug dog into Mark's house?"

  "You remember the Vikings, that old Sheriffs Department club, or whatever it was?"

  "Yeah, sure. Guys who had tattoos on their ankles and held court in the street."

  "I went to Commander Shephard's autopsy. He has one of those on his ankle."

  "Not when I was dating him."

  "Then it's more recent than that," Shane answered stiffly.

  He pulled the photo he took at the autopsy out of his jacket and gave it to her. He'd had it developed at a Photo-Mat an hour earlier.

  She gave it a quick glance, then handed it back without comment.

  He stuffed it away and began feeding his picks into the back-door lock. He finally got them in, but his hands were sweating. When he tried to turn the lock, his fingers slipped, or maybe it was Officer Krupkee tugging and jumping in circles at the end of his leash; whatever the reason, the picks fell out of the lock onto the wooden porch. Shane bent down to retrieve them and started over again.

  "What's the second thing?" she asked as he went back to work on the dead bolt.

  "He had marijuana in his bloodstream," Shane said, avoiding eye contact while working on the door.

  "Mark didn't do drugs."

  "Go tell the ME."

  She was silent, considering this. Then: "So, now we're over here with a DED to do what?"

  "Alexa, I know this isn't going to go down well between us, and I really do regret it, but I think it's possible Mark Shephard knew Jody wasn't in that urn on Lauren's mantel, and that's why Shephard is dead. I think Jody's undercover unit may be going bad, and I think it's possible Mark knew what Jody was doing--maybe tried to stop it."

  "Think, think, think... Isn't Shane a thinking policeman? Of course, a little evidence would sure be nice."

  "And you can stow the sarcasm, okay? I'm not trying to run down the memory of your friend."

  She was pissed; he could see it even in her sharp movements.

  Mercifully, he finally got the back door open, and they walked into the house, Officer Krupkee leaping around at the end of his handler's chain like a demon possessed. Shane reached down and unhooked the leash. The dog took off, running around the kitchen, sniffing, pawing; then, unrewarded, he dashed toward the living room while Shane followed. Alexa was a few feet behind.

  "We're looking for his stash, is that the drill?" she asked.

  "If Shephard used drugs, he would probably have a stash here somewhere," Shane admitted. "When I used to work drug homicides, way back before I became the leading department kook-a-boo, I found that hypes would often hide confidential stuff with their works: hot merchandise, murder weapons, dirty pictures, right there next to their happy bag."

  "And that's what we're looking for?"

  "If somebody forced Mark to smoke a joint before killing him, this place will be clean. We need to know either way."

  "Why?"

  "Alexa, stop chewing on my foot, okay? I need a witness. You're it. If I turn up anything and I'm here alone, they'll probably say I planted it. My word is about as good as a junkie's promise right now."

  Suddenly, Officer Krupkee started barking. Shane and Alexa went into Mark Shephard's bedroom and saw the dog sniffing and pawing at the heating grate in the wall down by the floorboards, across from the bed.

  Shane looked at Alexa, whose face and features were tense. He dropped down on his hands and knees. The screws on the vent were loose, so he began pulling them out with his thumb and fingernails. One by one, he extracted them while the leaping, barking dog jumped and lunged around, eager to help, pawing and growling at the heating grate.

  "Good going, Krup," Shane said. "Alexa, lock him in the bathroom, will ya?"

  She grabbed the chain, dragged the dog off. Shane heard her give the dog a "sit/stay" command. Then he heard the bathroom door close. He waited for her to return before pulling the heating grate away from the wall. She kneeled and they both looked inside.

  Shane could see something way in the back of the exposed opening. He put on a pair of rubber gloves, reached into the small hollowed compartment, and pulled the contents out of the wall. What came first was a large black metal box, about a foot long and six inches high. Shane set it down in front of them and glanced over at Alexa, who nodded. He opened it and inside found a very sophisticated high-frequency radio of some sort. It was set to 367.23 on the UHF band. The radio was turned off. Shane looked up at Alexa, who nodded again, so he turned it on. The batteries were working, but nothing was broadcasting: static hissed. He switched it off.

  "Ever seen one of these before?" he asked.

  "No... Looks scrambled. I don't think it's department-issue."

  Shane peered back inside the opening in the wall, took a penlight out of his pocket, and shined it inside. There was another box in the hollowed-out vent. He pulled it out. This one was mahogany, or some kind of polished wood, and was much smaller. He lifted the lid, and inside was what looked like a few rocks of cocaine, some marijuana, and a bag of pills.

  "Shit," he heard Alexa say under her breath.

  "I'm sorry," he murmured, but didn't risk a look at her. Instead, both of them just stared at the box.

  When he finally looked up, he saw nothing on her beautiful face, no expression of any kind.

  "I think we can go see Chief Filosiani now," Shane said. "I finally have something to show him."

  "He's out of town until tomorrow, at a police chiefs' conference in San Francisco," she said softly.

  "Tomorrow then, as soon as he gets back. Set it up." Shane took out his camera and photographed the heating grate. He and Alexa bagged the radio and wooden box, then loaded them both into the trunk of her Crown Vic. She got into the front seat, and after Shane put Officer Krupkee into the back of his Acura, he went to her driver's-side window and squatted down so he could look in at her.

  "Alexa, we can't let this destroy us. I don't want this to wreck what we have."

  "It's not you, Shane.... I love you. It's me." Then without saying another word, she drove off.

  Chapter 14.

  BLACK DUST

  AND SINCE I think this guy could be dangerous," Shane said, "I'm not going to take a chance on what happened last time happening again."

  They were driving to the airport. Chooch was heading off to quarterback camp. His duffel was stuffed; his helmet and pads were on the backseat.

  "No way what happened last time can ever happen again," Chooch said.

  They were talking about the Naval Yard case, when Chooch had been kidnapped in an attempt to get Shane to back off.

  "So why didn't you give Alexa the ring?" Chooch asked, to change the subject.

  "Don't worry about me and Alexa. Things always happen for the best."

  "Shane, you're screwing this up."

  "Maybe, but you don't have all of it."

  "So, tell me."

  "No."

  "Why?"

  "'Cause I haven't got it completely figured out myself yet. And you may be right. I may be screwing it up, but you've gotta let me and Ale
xa work it out. This stuff can't be forced."

  "You know, I love her, too," Chooch said.

  "I know. I know you do."

  When they arrived at the airport, Shane left his car parked at the LAPD substation. He got Chooch's stuff out of the backseat, and they walked to the Southwest Airlines terminal. Security was intense since the World Trade Center disaster; it took almost two hours to get to the counter. Shane helped Chooch check in and get his seat assignment, then they sat outside the metal detector in the lobby while people milled around, full of their own life's worries.

  "Chooch, look, I'm not gonna mess it up. Okay?"

  "She's the best person we ever knew, and I'm urging you--shit, man, I'm begging you... Give her the fucking ring."

  "Don't swear so much," Shane said. "Your mouth is getting terrible. Swearing doesn't make you an adult."

  Chooch smiled. "Okay," he finally said. "I'll work on it, but give her the frickin' ring."

  It was time for Chooch to go, and his son stood. Shane was surprised lately to see that he and Chooch were exactly the same height. At six feet, they were eye to eye when they gave each other a hug.

  "I love you, man," Shane said.

  "Me too, Dad." Then Chooch grabbed his pads and helmet, which he had elected to carry onto the flight, and walked to the end of the line. Shane stood and watched as he got through the entrance, then turned back. "Give her the ring, Shane," he said once more.

  "Is that your last comment on the matter?"

  "That's it." Chooch smiled, then he was gone.

  After that a strange series of events occurred.

  As Shane was standing in the parking lot by the substation, about to get into his car, he noticed that on the trunk lids of most of the squad cars was a fine black dust. It reminded him of the black dust he'd seen on the trunk and hood of Jody's Charger as he looked over and saw his "dead" friend speeding along next to him on the San Diego Freeway Friday morning. Most dirty cars had brown dust, not black.