Cold Hit

Chapter 28

I rode the elevator to the sixth floor with Alexa. She was quiet, still angry. The door opened and we walked the green carpet to her small office. It was a few minutes past 9 P. M. and Ellen was gone. The streetlights below Alexa's window were rimmed with tiny halos of fog.

"That was certainly a thorough mauling," she said as she started dropping things into her briefcase, getting ready to go home. "God, Shane, when I couldn't reach you on your cell or on your MCT or police radio, I almost died. I couldn't imagine what happened. Ten hours of not knowing. "

I put my arms around her. "Who does that asshole think he is?" she continued. "I've got half a mind to file charges of illegal detention." She rested her head against my chest.

"It's borderline, babe. Virtue's got too much political juice. It's best to wait till his own sense of self-importance lures him all the way over the line and then hit him."

"I've heard he has his eye on the governorship. That he's arm-twisting Hollywood celebrities and business people into investing in his campaign. He's already got a website. After he's governor, I've heard he even has plans for the presidency." She shuddered. "Just what this country needs, another self-serving power junkie in the White House. God help us."

I held her until she calmed down.

"Listen, Alexa, one thing did come out of all this that we need to pay some attention to."

"If it has to do with this case, forget it. We've been ordered to hand it over to the FBI." She pulled away from me and continued angrily slamming files into her briefcase.

"Someone in foreign intelligence popped Davide Andrazack and made it look like a Fingertip killing. Somehow, that shooter knew to carve the correct symbol on his chest. I find that very troubling."

She stopped packing up and turned to face me. "You're right. How did they know about that?"

I ran through what Broadway and Perry had told me about how there might be a bug, or a computer scan on CTB. I also shared my suspicion that maybe the leak went further than that.

When I finished, Alexa's brow was furrowed and her mouth pulled down into a scowl.

"I think we need to get someone from the Computer Support Division to sweep this place. Start with CTB and move to our main crime computers. Don't forget the ME's office."

She nodded. "Thanks," she said. "I'll get right on it."

"I'm gonna go down and check on my messages. I'll meet you at home in an hour."

The task force on three was still humming. It had progressed remarkably since this morning. Nobody seemed to miss me much. The detectives were all settled in. A chair with a broken back was pushed up to my desk. The phones were hooked up and I had been assigned extension 86. Someone's idea of a joke?

Word had already reached the cubes that John Doe Number Four was being yanked out of the serial case. It was officially logged as a copycat and was being worked by Justice. I got a few smug looks. I was back in the shallow end with the rest of the kiddies, my early lead eviscerated. Nobody wanted to be my secret partner anymore.

I sat at my desk, picked up the phone and tried the Queen of Angels Hospital. I was told that Dr. Pepper had gone home for the day and that Zack was resting and not receiving calls. I knew that after nine in the evening they had a phone cut-off but the woman on the switchboard made it sound like Zack had made a choice.

I listened to my voice mail. Some were callbacks on old cases, a few were people asking about Zack, and one was from a CSI criminalist in ballistics named Karen Wise who said that she had a report on the 5.45 slug we'd pulled out of Andrazack's head.

Since that wasn't my case anymore, I was tempted to e-mail her to contact Kersey Nix at the FBI, but curiosity got the better of me, and I dialed her number.

"CSI," someone answered at the Raymond Street complex.

"Detective Scully, Homicide," I said. "I'm looking for Karen Wise."

"She went home. If it's about an active case, I can connect you to her residence."

"Please."

I waited, and then a girl with a sexy voice came on the line. She had one of those low, fractured contraltos, that gets your fantasies boiling.

"Shane Scully," I said. "You called about my slug. Get anything?"

"We got a cold hit on an open homicide from the mid-nineties," she said, referring to a situation where a bullet or cartridge from one crime had striations or pin impressions that matched it to a bullet in what seemed like a totally unrelated crime.

My interest picked up at warp speed. "Wait a minute while I get a pencil."

I looked in my battered gray desk. Nothing in my pencil drawer but bent paper clips and dust, so I stole the supplies from a neighbor, then sat down again and snatched up the phone. "Okay, go."

"The striations on the slug from homicide victim HM-fifty-eight-oh-five, line up perfectly with the striations on a bullet that killed a man named Martin Kobb, in June of 'ninety-five. Kobb was shot in the parking lot behind a Russian specialty market on Fairfax in West Hollywood. The case was never solved. What makes this even more provocative is Marty Kobb was an off-duty LAPD patrol officer working a basic car in Rampart. He was in plainclothes on his way home when he entered the market and interrupted a burglary in progress. Looks like he just stumbled into it, pulled his off-duty piece, chased the robber into the parking lot, and got shot with the five-point-four-five slug."

"A burglary and not a robbery?" I asked.

"According to the case notes, the peril was rifling through the cash register while the owner was in the back. Since it wasn't a stickup, it was technically classified as a burglary that turned into a one-eightyseven."

"Sounds like you have the case file there with you." "I thought you'd want it, so I had Records send me a copy. I brought it home in case you called."

"Thanks, Karen. Now listen, because this is very important. Tell nobody about this cold hit. I don't care where the request comes from-how high up. If someone asks, just refer them to me."

"Why? What is this?

"Trouble," I said. I gave her the fax number for Homicide Special and asked her to fax the file to me immediately.

"I can e-mail it."

"No computers. Send me a fax."