The Viking Funeral

Chapter 16

SWAT WENT THROUGH the houses," Filosiani said out of the side of his mouth. "Even called the Tech Squad to dust, but so far, it's clean as the board a'health."

Shane reached into his pocket and withdrew the memory strip with the digital photographs he had shot inside the airport houses. "You have my word, and these pictures," Shane said as he handed it to the short, round, balding police chief.

"Good going, Sergeant. This is what I like t'see." Filosiani was standing behind his desk in the chief's office at Parker Center.

Shane looked around for a place to sit down. The last time he had been here, the office had belonged to Burl Brewer and was decorated with classic antiques. An amazing array of expensive charcoal line drawings depicting police officers doing their duty had adorned the walls. Shane had been told that the artwork was done by a famous L. A. artist from the thirties and that Chief Brewer had described them as a PR expense, paying more than thirty thousand dollars from the Police Department Public Affairs budget. Now they were gone… Sold by Filosiani at auction. The money, Shane learned, had gone to the equipment fund to order new second-chance Ultima flack vests-the latest and lightest body armor on the market. Now there was only a metal desk placed in the exact center of the room, with a secretarial chair behind it. No sofa, no occasional chairs, no artwork. Filosiani had put his phone and computer on a metal rolling table next to the desk. The walls were empty except for two framed diplomas: one containing his doctorate in criminology from New York University, the other his night-school law degree. A large bulletin board was leaning against the wall with the five LAPD division crime-stat sheets and an array of Polaroid pictures of the five division commanders, as well as shots of the administrative staff officers with their name and rank printed neatly below each one. Shane had seen military barracks with more amenities. Filosiani was a no-bullshit guy.

The chief saw Shane looking for a seat. "No chairs, Sergeant. This ain't a place t'sit n'chat. Y'state your business and go."

Shane had heard that the chief was rarely in his office anyway, preferring to be out touring the department, making unscheduled stops. Filosiani had posted office hours for those seeking meetings, but he spent at least three hours each day in the trenches, available to his troops. At first, the Blues in the field had remained skeptical, but slowly, one cop at a time, the Day-Glo Dago was winning converts.

A buzzer on the chief's phone rang. He picked it up and listened, then said: "Send her in."

The door opened and Alexa walked into the office, carrying a manila file folder. She crossed the office and delivered it to the chief. "That was in a wall safe behind a picture in Commander Shephard's office," she said. "I thought a hidden office safe was sort of unusual, so I checked to see who authorized the installation. I couldn't find any record anywhere. I checked the Furniture, Equipment and Transfer Log, along with the Equipment Budget Request for DSG, even the Maintenance and Repair Log… Nothing. The safe must have been put in on the sly, on a weekend or something. We had to drill it to get it open. That file was all that was inside."

The Day-Glo Dago rubbed his mouth with his right hand, inadvertently flashing his diamond pinky ring in the light streaming through his huge office windows. "Okay, then…," he said, opening the folder, "let's see what we got here." He squinted at the first page, flipped a few… Read… Squinted again… Flipped some more… Now he was frowning. Then he closed the folder. "It doesn't say nothin'; just a bunch of numbers," he growled, looking at her. "Gibberish."

"Yes, sir," Alexa said. "It looks like some kind of arithmetic code." She still didn't look over at Shane, not wanting to admit that he might have been right, that Mark Shephard had somehow been involved in an illegal conspiracy.

"You get this over to the Questioned Documents Division?" Filosiani asked, referring to the section of the Scientific Investigations Division that broke codes and did handwriting analysis.

"Yes, sir, I sent them a copy; they're looking at it now, scanning it into their computer. Captain Franklin over there said they would probably be able to break it, but he couldn't estimate how long it would take."

"Sir, this unit is going to go further underground," Shane said. "Jody knows I found his crib. He'll be twice as hard to find now."

"Where's the radio you two took outta Shephard's wall?" Flosianii asked.

"In my office," Alexa said.

"Bring it in," he ordered.

She turned and left the room. Shane and Tony Filosiani traded stares but didn't speak. A few minutes later Alexa returned with the twenty-pound black UHF radio. She lugged it in and put it down on Filosiani's gray metal desk.

The Day-Glo Dago looked at the dial. "You say this is set on the same frequency as the one you saw in the noise-abatement house?" the chief asked in his distinctive New York accent.

"Yes, sir," Shane said. "Same frequency."

"It's got a built-in scrambler… And a satellite transmitter-very expensive and almost impossible to triangulate on," Alexa added.

"Dusted?"

"Yes, sir. We got a right-hand index and thumb off the faceplate. They're over at Latent Prints with the ones we got off the glass Shane found in the kitchen," Alexa said. "We're running them against Jody Dean's file; then, if that fails, we're gonna see if we can get a cold hit from the Police Academy class records."

Filosiani nodded. He leaned over the radio and put his pudgy fingers on the ON/OFF button. After a moment, he flipped the switch. The radio hissed to life, but there was no one using the frequency. The radio was monitoring dead air, so after listening to the hiss for a minute, he shut it off.

"They probably have those radio units turned on only when they're on surveillance," Shane volunteered.

"Okay, I'm gonna assume the worst here," Filosiani said softly. "I'm gonna assume we got a rogue squad throwin' bricks and tryin' t'fly under the radar."

Alexa's expression told Shane that her defense of Mark Shephard was starting to crumble. "Sir, I'm not at all sure that-"

"Yeah, yeah," Filosiani interrupted her. "Me, either; but if we assume the worst, then we ain't gonna get schmucked."

The phone on his desk beeped, and the chief picked it up. "Yeah…" He listened without speaking for over a minute. "Okay. Got it." He hung up and stared at them. "Latents just got a cold hit. The prints from the radio were Shephard's, but the ones on the water glass belong t' an LAPD sergeant named Hector Sanchez Rodriquez. He was a member a'Cobra, workin' special crimes in the Valley Division. He supposedly died in a drug-house fire two years ago. The story is, he was workin' a Mexican drug ring, undercover, and SIS didn't know he was ours, tried to take down a crack house he was in, lobbed some canisters, and the place flamed. Sergeant Rodriquez went up in the fire. Records is sending his file over."

"Sir, Cobra is one of the LAPD units interacting with the Sheriff's Department. The Vikings were originally Sheriff's Department rogues. Commander Shephard had a Viking tattoo. Jody was in SIS, and since I got that glass two hours ago, we know Rodriquez is still alive, just like Jody. This is a criminal conspiracy."

There was a strange silence in the under-furnished office.

"This ain't gonna be easy," the Super Chief said. "Matter a'fact, it's gonna be tricky and dangerous as hell… But if you two are willin' t'play a little loose, I think maybe we can reel this bunch in."

"Let's hear it," Alexa said.

"I'd tell ya t'pull up a chair, but since I don't have one, how 'bout we all go across the street and get a cuppa coffee?"

So that's what they did.

Shane didn't get home until almost ten-thirty that night. His mind was picking up the dangerous pieces of Chief Filosiani's plan and then putting them back where he found them.

Jigsaw pieces that had made a convincing picture an hour ago now didn't seem to fit. In theory it could all come together, but the plan was physically dangerous for both him and Alexa. But despite his nervousness, it seemed as if it might be the only way to lure Jody out-the only way Shane could get Jody to trust him enough to let him infiltrate his secret squad.

Shane had the black UHF radio under his arm as he entered his Venice house from the garage. He could feel the reloaded Mini-Cougar heavy on his ankle. He had filled the nine-shot clip with light loads that would protect Alexa when he eventually fired at her per Filosiani's plan. He set the radio down on the kitchen counter and switched it on. Shane had to wait until the rogue unit went hot again; then while they had the UHF satellite radio on, he would step on their transmission, trigger the mike, talk to Jody, and make his pitch. He hoped Filosiani had given him enough information to get Jody to agree to meet him. As the radio hissed softly from the kitchen counter, Shane fished a beer out of the refrigerator and held it up to his face, rolling it along his forehead to cool his throbbing brain.

Then he sensed movement behind him.

He spun around, but he was way too late.