White Sister (31 page)

SOMEBODY WAS SHAKING me awake. I looked up into the scowling face of my division commander, Jeb Calloway. Cal's shaved bullet head glowed in the cold fluorescent lights of the observation cell.

"Sit up," he ordered. No "How you feelin'? How's the head?" All business.

It took me a minute to orient myself. I swung my legs off the bed and sat up, rubbing my eyes. A quick inventory of my memory made me realize I still couldn't pin down much of what had happened inside the El Rey. I had a fleeting memory of walking down a glass
-
walled corridor with Lionel Wright. Empty theater seats stretched out below us. That was it. My headache was worse than ever.

"Can you get these guys to give me some aspirin?" I asked.

"Hey, Deputy, find a doc. He needs something for his head," Cal said to one of the sheriffs.

Rafie and Tommy were standing across the hall opposite th
e o
pen door. After a minute, an intern brought in some pills, which I took with a cup of water.

"You're in a world of hurt," Cal said when the intern left. "You got one chance in all this, and that's to come one hundred percent clean. Rafie and Tommy are gonna do a preliminary field interview and offer you a deal Chief Ramsey managed to strike with the D
. A
. It was tough getting this kicked down, so if you're smart, I suggest you take it."

"Captain, I'm ... I didn't do anything. This is a big mistake."

"You didn't do anything? Are you nuts? You ignored a direct order from the acting chief and withheld evidence. You screwed up Slade's murder investigation by illegally entering his house without a warrant. You also searched a rap producer's house without paper. You're a person of interest in the Slade hit, and now you're also the prime suspect in a homicide at this rap awards show
all in twenty-four hours."

"What murder?"

"Singer named Diamond Simonette. Performs under the name Diamond Back. The guy was pronounced at this facility an hour ago."

"I never heard of him. Why would I kill him?"

"Rafie, get in here and card this guy."

I knew Cal liked me but his abrupt tone told me he was getting frustrated.

Figueroa came in and pulled a Miranda card out of his wallet. He stood next to the bed and read the familiar warning in a flat voice that echoed in the hard walled room. When he finished he said, "You understand these rights I have read to you?"

"Yeah."

Captain Calloway stood. "Okay, you guys do the F
. I
." He checked his watch. "It's almost midnight. I gotta go back to hold Ramsey's hand and deal with the chain of command. After you're through here, get the docs to clear him and transport him over to the Men's Central Jail. We'll do the probable cause declaration and booking there. And watch out for news crews. We don't want them to know where Scully is or have to make a statement till tomorrow morning's press conference."

"You're really gonna book me for murdering some rapper I've never heard of? Where's my gun? Who has it? Sergeant Riley? Was he the arresting officer? Check my piece. Ballistics won't get a match."

He didn't respond to any of this. Instead, he said, "We got witnesses and a security camera that both say you attacked two black guys in an elevator without provocation. Started the whole ruckus."

As he said it, I remembered diving into an elevator, going down hard and getting kicked. I touched my right side again. The dull, aching pain was still there, confirming the memory. The problem was that I didn't know why I dove in that elevator, or what happened next.

Cal stood and said, "I'm really sorry about this, Shane. But everybody's been telling you to go home and sit down. Because you wouldn't listen, this happened." He turned and walked out of the room.

Tommy closed the door. Rafie set his tape recorder on the bed between us then turned it on and verbally slated it. Tommy crossed and sat on the edge of the bed.

"How'm I good for this Diamond Back guy's murder?" I asked them, hoping that when they answered, more of what went on inside the El Rey would come back to me.

"You perpetrated a felonious assault, which ended up causing a riot. Guns were fired and Diamond Simonette died. The chief wants you booked for homicide under the Felony Murder Rule."

The Felony Murder Rule is a California law that, without exception, everybody in law enforcement dearly loves. Simply put, it states that if someone dies during the commission of a felony, all of the perpetrators involved with the crime could be charged with murder whether they pulled the trigger or not.

My favorite application of this rule occurred when I was in Valley Patrol. Two white trash rednecks from Stinky Creek, Arkansas, tried to take down a liquor store. They grabbed fifty-eight dollars and forty-five cents in cash and while they were running out the door, the store owner grabbed his counter gun and killed one of the fleeing suspects. We caught the other hillbilly two blocks away and the D
. A
. eventually charged him with the death of his buddy. Under the Felony Murder Rule, if they could prove I started that riot and someone died, I was technically guilty of murder. But it was a discretionary charge and it seemed pretty flaky for the department to be laying it on one of their own.

"You guys are really gonna try and put this murder on me?"

"Orders from on high," Tommy answered. "How many times did me and Rafie ask you to stand down?"

He was right. But what would he have done if it were his wife lying in a coma? "Did you get Forensic Documents to scan Alexa's computer and decode any more of those e-mails?" I finally asked, trying to change the subject.

"Hey, Shane, we're through answering those kinds of questions. You're not a colleague. You're the suspect. Get used to it." He cleared his throat, then looked at Rafie. "We need some answers. Let's start with what were you doing at the Oasis Awards? What piece of brain-dead thinking led you to go down there and attack a building full of gang-bangers?"

Of course, there wasn't much I could tell him. I still couldn't get my head around the idea that the department wanted to charge me with this rapper's murder. I was thinking Chief Ramsey was probably just trying to jack me up and take me off the street until this whole, sad, Alexa-Slade media circus settled down.

But Rafie surprised me. "We've been given permission by the D
. A
., to make you Queen for a Day on the Slade hit."

What he was talking about was something called a proffer of immunity. Cops called it Queen for a Day because it allowed a suspect to confess to a crime and at the same time get immunity from the very crime he was confessing to. In return, he had to put the hat on somebody else
an accomplice. I didn't see how it fit. I had no accomplice to roll over on.

"That last e-mail on the computer reads like a blackmail attempt by Slade on Alexa," Rafie said, sensing my confusion. "Here's how we think it went down. Slade says to Alexa, gimme money, or a promotion, or whatever it was he was looking for. The e-mail says 'If I don't get what I want, I go to the Old Man.' Which is you! But rather than get shaken down by a piece of shit like Slade, Alexa decides to go to you and see if she can beg forgiveness. The two of you find a way to come to grips with her adultery and finally decide to dust him off to keep him quiet so he doesn't embarrass you and ruin Alexa." The room was quiet after he finished. Tommy scuffed his feet.

"You guys need to get over to CAA and see if you can find an agent to represent this," I said angrily.

Rafie went on, "The department is getting mauled by all these black activists in the media. Ramsey really wants it to go away. So here's the deal: You roll over and put the hat on Alexa for the Slade hit and the D
. A
. will give you immunity on that murder and kick this rap awards thing down to involuntary manslaughter. You end up doing a nickel in the State Pen and come out in time for your forty-fifth birthday."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I just sat there staring at him.

"Shane, we're just trying to find an easy way out of this for everybody," Rafie continued. "Alexa isn't gonna make it. I called the hospital and talked to a doc on the neurosurgery ward. She's scheduled for an operation in a few hours but they don't have much hope she's gonna make it. So if you want this deal, I suggest you make it before she checks out. Once she's gone, everything comes off the table. Not even this asshole we got for a D
. A
. will grant you immunity against a dead accomplice."

"Get out of here, Rafie," I said softly. "You too, Tommy."

As Rafie turned off the tape, Tommy looked over at him. "I told you he wouldn't go for it." Then he turned to me. "We didn't want to make that pitch any more than you liked hearing it. We were ordered to by ... by people."

"Right. The Powers That Be."

He nodded, and turned to Rafie. "Let's get out of here. I need a shower."

The door lock buzzed and they left. I sat on the bed feeling lower than I ever had in my life. There was nobody to turn to. Nobody.

Who cared? Only Chooch and he was just an eighteen-year-old kid who had more than he could deal with already. He was outside and I was in. I could only talk to him through bulletproof Lucite.

I sat in the stark, white room and wondered how I would get out of this, knowing all the while that I probably wouldn't.

Chapter
48.

THEY WOKE ME again at two a
. M
.

Rafie and Tommy were back inside my cell with two sheriff's deputies, everybody in a big hurry to get moving.

"Come on, we're going for a ride," they said, as I started rubbing my eyes.

"Where?"

"You've been cleared by the docs here. You're getting booked at MCJ."

Ten minutes later I was back in cuffs, rolling down the corridor in the wheelchair, heading toward the elevator.

Rafie told me the thirteenth floor had booked fifteen people from the El Rey riot tonight. The rest were over at the Men's Central Jail. Because of all the celebrities involved, there was press roaming everywhere. In the lobby, on the first floor. They were even sharking around in the parking lot, writing down license plate numbers. To defeat them, the deputies had cleared the fire stairs and locked the interior doors for the three minutes it would take t
o t
ransport me to the loading dock. I was pulled out of the wheelchair by Tommy Sepulveda and stood up next to the fire door on thirteen. I felt ten feet tall and a foot wide as I wobbled there lightheaded and confused. Tommy looked tired and frustrated as he studied me.

"You okay?" he asked.

"You really care?"

"Yep, I do. I feel terrible about this, Shane. We both do. Tell us how to play it differently and still keep our jobs, and that's what we'll do."

"How was / supposed to play it, Tom? My wife is shot and maybe dying."

"I know," he said sadly. "It all sucks."

Rafie came up the stairs after checking the eleventh-floor door, and motioned us forward. "Okay, let's go."

We walked down thirteen flights and took a supply corridor out of the hospital to the rear loading dock, where their Crown Vic was parked. A light rain was falling. Rafie led me across the dock, down the steps. He pushed me into the back of the car and then climbed in beside me. The handcuffs were rubbing my wrists raw, but I decided not to complain. I just wanted to get this over with. Tommy got behind the wheel, and with the windshield wipers clacking, off we went, zipping quietly around the side of the hospital, tires humming on the wet pavement. The parking lot at the front of the hospital was full of TV trucks. All seven local news channels and some cable and wire services were camped out waiting for a glimpse of me in handcuffs. My life had gone from bad to worse.

The drive across town was quick because there was no traffic at this hour in the morning. We got up on the freeway where the tires sang loudly in the rain cuts on the pavement as we flew along. The downtown horizon glowed a dull orange in the distance, the strange coloring caused by low clouds over L
. A
. that were up-lit by powerful yellow street lights. As we rolled down Sixth Street, the Police Administration Building loomed ahead.

"Turn right on San Pedro," Rafie instructed from the backseat. "Let's not go past the front of PAB. The press is still all over out there."

Tommy turned onto San Pedro and made a radio call to the jail, telling them we were seconds away. Then we pulled up to the rear of Parker Center and stopped outside the chain-link fence at the back entrance to the MCJ.

While the windshield wipers metronomed, Tommy blinked his lights for security, and after a second the electric gate opened. The car passed through the narrow driveway and pulled into an empty metal caged area where the gray jail buses were staged each morning to transport prisoners to court. A trustee wearing a purple jumpsuit pulled the gate closed behind us and locked it, securing us inside the chain-link box. There was an opening to the right of the car that led up ten steps to a sally port. The wire-enclosed pathway bent left and led to the booking area at the back of the jail. I'd been here hundreds of times, but it looked different to me now. Foreboding and dangerous.