The Viking Funeral

Chapter 8

HOOCH AND SHANE went shopping for Alexa's ring on Sunday morning. Murray Steinberg opened his store in the Jewelry Mart on Spring Street at ten, turned on the lights, and began showing them diamonds. Murray was tall, rail-thin, and nerdy. He always seemed to be rubbing his palms together like a huge skeletal insect but had a heart the size of Minnesota.

Shane had been the primary on Sharon Steinberg's rapeurder. She was Murray's sister and only living relative. It had been a particularly gruesome crime that had happened almost three years ago. Shane had promised Murray that he would never let it slide to the back of his too-crowded homicide folder. Sharon Steinberg had been tied up, mutilated, and raped in her own bed before she finally, mercifully died from loss of blood.

The twenty-four/twenty-four-hour rule dominates most homicide cases. This unwritten rule states that the last twenty-four hours of a victim's life and the first twenty-four hours after the murder is committed are the two most important time periods in the investigation.

The reason being that a victim's actions just prior to the crime are just as important in determining the killer as mistakes the perp makes in the first twenty-four hours after the murder. If nothing happens during these two time spans to help solve the investigation, chances are good that the crime will go uncleared.

Because of the vast workloads in L. A. Homicide, with two or three fresh murders hitting the duty board every day, most homicide detectives put old, unsolved cases on the back burner. Because of administrative pressure to keep clearance percentages up, cops always focus on the fresh crimes, where the likelihood of success is higher. The unsolved cases are technically still active, but not actively policed.

In the case of Murray Steinberg's sister, Shane had become so incensed by the level of perimortem violence that he refused to stop working the case. He knew that the perp was in the psychiatric category of "sadistic rapist," a man who had tortured and humiliated Sharon Steinberg before her death, dehumanizing her during the rape, making her an actress in his sexual fantasy. Shane had given up his days off for almost six months, working without overtime. Finally, he had managed to turn a witness that eventually led to the arrest of a thirty-year-old carpet cleaner and weekend dust bunny named Grady White. Grady was a hot-prowl burglar who cased his jobs when he cleaned carpets. He had entered the house to steal appliances but, after seeing Sharon asleep, had descended into glazed sexual rage, finally torturing, raping, and killing her. In Grady's house there were Polaroids neatly pasted into a memory book of not only Sharon's rape-murder but ten others. Shane got him prosecuted and convicted on six of the ten. Four women pictured in his book remained unidentified. Grady was currently awaiting a July 10 execution at San Quentin.

That was why Murray had opened his store on a Sunday and was now showing Chooch and Shane VS-1 diamonds at wholesale prices. Technically, Shane probably should have refused the bargain, but somewhere in the back of his head, he reasoned that it was the right solution. Murray was finally paying Shane back for months of tireless work on Sharon's murder, and Shane was getting a ring he could otherwise not afford.

Shane finally settled for a perfect stone at slightly over two carats, which would have retailed for around five thousand dollars. Murray refused to take a cent more than cost, which he maintained, was thirty-four hundred. The old jeweler left the showroom with a platinum setting to make up the ring so Shane could take it with him.

Chooch and Shane sat silently, looking at the other diamonds glittering on the black velvet show cloth. They looked like stars in a cloudless night sky.

Finally, Murray returned with Shane's ring, now twinkling in a classic setting with two diamond baguettes on each side, which Shane had not paid for.

"My wedding gift," Murray said when Shane asked about them.

Shane thanked the embarrassed jeweler, who said, "Acht, is nothing. I'm wishing I could do more, my friend."

Soon Shane and Chooch were back on the street with the box burning a hole in Shane's pocket, the ring inside waiting to be slipped onto Alexa's slender finger.

"When you gonna give it to her?" Chooch asked nervously.

"At a romantic dinner tonight, after Buddy leaves."

"Good move," Chooch agreed. "Wait'll he's outta town. That guy could sink a Carnival Cruise."

"You don't think it's too soon?" Shane asked, suddenly nervous. "The Medal of Valor and this ring, all in one day."

"Go for it, man."

The Medal of Valor ceremony took place at three in the afternoon, in the Jack Webb Auditorium at the Police Academy, where the LAPD had their biannual graduation ceremonies. The academy was a cluster of Spanish-style buildings located in Elysian Park in the foothills, at the end of a long, two-lane drive. Shane always thought the Police Academy looked like a Spanish hotel or a Franciscan mission, sprawled on its ten landscaped acres, including a full athletic field, swimming pool, and shooting range.

Shane and Chooch got there half an hour early and parked in the reserved-parking lot, already almost full with TV news vans. The annual awarding of the Medal of Valor was always a big deal in L. A. Besides Alexa, there were four other officers receiving the honor, but it was Alexa the press had turned out to see.

The high-profile case that she and Shane had broken eventually made the cover of Time magazine, a full picture of an LAPD shield with a black ribbon across it. The article was titled "Grieving the Police."

There were stories in the issue about the Detroit and Philadelphia police scandals as well as NYPD's problems, but the Long Beach Naval Yard case turned out to be the grand-daddy of them all. Alexa's picture was in a sidebar describing her incredible heroics.

Shane and Chooch walked into the auditorium, which was already almost full. He saw Buddy up near the front. Shane waved at him, but Buddy either pretended not to see him or had decided to ignore him.

A tall, good-looking lieutenant in plain clothes from Press Relations grabbed Shane moments after he arrived.

"Sergeant… Good. I was hoping I'd spot you. We have a special place for you," the lieutenant said. His ID was in a badge holder hanging upside down in his suit pocket like a Spanish leather bat.

"What about my son?"

"He can sit here. We thought you'd want to be up close."

"Go ahead, Shane," Chooch said, grinning. "I'm cool." Then he plopped down in the back.

Shane was led out of the auditorium, along a side corridor, and into a small room with a TV monitor that showed a picture of the empty podium.

"You can see it better from here."

"Whatta you kidding me, Loo?" Shane said, using the nickname reserved for all lieutenants while glowering at the handsome recruiting-poster officer. "I'm supposed to watch it back here, on TV?"

"Look, Sergeant." The Press Relations officer was now talking slowly, as if addressing an irritating child. "The last thing we need today is to have the press make the story." He looked at Shane hopefully. "I'm sure you want Sergeant Hamilton's day to go smoothly."

Shane knew in his heart that the man was probably right, so he finally nodded, but it still pissed him off. Shane was being hidden away like a leper. He reached into his pocket and secretly wrapped his fingers around the jewelry box containing Alexa's diamond ring. "Okay," he finally said. "But will you tell Alexa I'm here?"

"Of course. Absolutely." It sounded like bullshit rolling smoothly out of the handsome press officer's mouth.

"Hey, Loo, no kidding… She needs to know I'm here."

"I wouldn't kid about this. Sergeant. I never kid about anything," he said, revealing a shred of his humorless personality. Then he turned and left Shane alone in the room.

That was when the third strange thing happened.

Shane watched on the color TV in the isolation room as the event was postponed for almost fifteen minutes. He slipped out of his makeshift holding cell and found out that Commander Shephard, who was scheduled to read Alexa's citation, had not yet arrived.

As a result, the award ceremony began half an hour late, and the other four officers received their MOVs first. Their commanders all read their commendations, then the chief awarded the medals. Then it was Alexa's turn. Since Mark Shephard had still not shown up, Chief Tony Filosiani stepped to the microphone and ad-libbed some remarks:

"Obviously, I was still back East, running da Rye, New York, department, when all dis happened," he said in Day-Glo Dago Brooklynese. "Now dat I'm here in Los Angeles and have had the opportunity of dealing with all of you, I wanna say, I'm humbled by the extreme bravery Sergeant Alexa Hamilton displayed in the completion of her assigned task. We all should take pride in her profound dedication to her duty, and to the people of dis city." He turned from the podium and faced her.

"Sergeant Hamilton, you are among the finest officers I have ever been privileged to command, an it is with great pride dat I present you with dis, our department's highest honor."

Alexa blushed, standing at attention in her blue pressed and starched uniform, her black hair shining.

Shane had not returned to the Press Relations room; he was standing in the auditorium's wings, looking out at her. He, like Chief Filosiani, was also very proud of her, while at the same time experiencing a sinking feeling of concern for the missing Commander Shephard.

Has he disappeared like Captain Medwick, his predecessor at DSG?

Chief Filosiani read the citation. It described how, while she was at Internal Affairs, Alexa became aware of a high degree of police malfeasance involving a Hispanic gang named the Hoover Street Bounty Hunters, whose turf was located around the L. A. Coliseum. She discovered that arrested gang members were easily escaping from the police cars in that division. They were often not Mirandized, so their cases were thrown out of court. On one occasion, an arrested Bounty Hunter had been left unattended and just got out of the back of a squad car and walked away. The citation explained that these police screwups had been sent to IAD, where Alexa had noticed that police officers in these incidents were all involved with Shane's dead ex-partner, Ray Molar. Alexa had followed the trail of this investigation to a huge real-estate scam involving the defunct Long Beach Naval Yard. LAPD Chief Burleigh Brewer and L. A. Mayor Clark Crispin had been silent partners in that venture and were arrested two weeks later. The citation further stated that in the apprehension of the criminals, Sergeant Hamilton had been severely wounded. Of course, Shane, who had originally brought all of this to Alexa's attention and had helped solve the case, was not mentioned in either the citation or the chief's portrayal of her heroism.

As he stood in the wings, Shane had a fleeting moment of jealousy and anger directed at Alexa. How had it come to pass that no matter what he did on the job, he always seemed to come out a loser? He knew the answer as soon as he asked the question. He tended to grate on his superiors. Shane had, on occasion, tried to be politically correct, to kiss ass, but it never came off right; plus he hated the taste it left on his lips. Alexa, on the other hand, never kissed ass but seemed to have the ability to get her points across without rancor. She was tough and uncompromising; somehow, unlike Shane, she didn't irritate everyone in the process.

He ultimately had to admit that his failure had been more a question of style than substance. He stuffed these ungallant thoughts away, then watched as Alexa stepped forward after the citation was read and the chief hung the medal around her neck. It glistened there, shining in the TV lights, as the room full of people applauded.

A press and media buffet in the Police Academy cafeteria followed. In its typical killjoy fashion, the department served soft drinks instead of champagne. People stood around in clusters, stealing looks at their watches and saying what a wonderful ceremony it had been. Shane hugged Alexa, then, while she accepted congratulations from staff rank officers, he moved through the room, again looking for Commander Shephard, who had still not arrived.

The Press Relations lieutenant worked Shane like a sheepdog, screening him from the media, herding him here and there, trying to keep him away from anybody holding a mike or a camera. Shane, of course, obliged willingly, not wanting to begin another round of negative press coverage on the case or embarrass Alexa.

Finally, Shane and Chooch were back in the Academy parking lot, looking at the rear door of the Jack Webb Auditorium, waiting for Alexa to come out.

"That was cool," Chooch said, not realizing that Commander Shephard's no-show was a potentially dark omen.

"Yeah," Shane said, holding the leather ring box inside his pants pocket, gripping it, feeling the corners digging into his palm. "Listen, Chooch, I'm gonna go for the quarterback camp. I think that's a good deal. I called the coach, and he's setting it up."

"You sure we can afford it, man?"

"Yep. Gotta do it."

"It starts in two days. I could probably go up a few days late."

"Nope. You gotta be there when it starts. I'll figure out the plane reservations when I take Buddy to the airport." Shane let go of the ring box, reached out, and put his hand on Chooch's shoulder. "But I'm gonna miss you, man."

"Maybe you can come up and watch."

"I'll try," he said, but he already knew what he was going to be doing. The quarterback camp would put Chooch in Palo Alto, safely out of Jody Dean's reach, because he didn't know how ruthless Jody had become. Right now, Shane wouldn't put anything past him.

Alexa walked out of the Jack Webb Auditorium and over to the car. She had changed out of her dress blues and was wearing a plain black skirt, white blouse, and heels, carrying the uniform in a hanging bag, smiling as she approached the car. The MOV was in a gold-lettered leather box stuffed under her arm, significantly larger and more elegant than the box in Shane's pocket.

"Great ceremony," he said giving her a hug.

Chooch did the same. They stood in the Police Academy parking lot, all shifting their weight awkwardly.

"Next stop, dinner with Buddy," she said. Buddy had left the ceremony shortly after it was over. "He had to go back to the hotel and get packed," she alibied.

"So what happened to Mark Shephard?"

Shane finally asked. "That was strange, wasn't it?"

"I don't know. I called his office and his house, but there was no answer," she said.

A heavy cloud passed overhead, further darkening the parking lot and the moment.

"Listen, I think on the way to dinner, we should swing by Shephard's house," Shane said. "There could be more here than the eye can see. This guy is a Glass House commander. I doubt he'd miss a chance to make the six o'clock news."

"It is pretty strange," she agreed.

"So, let's do it." Shane said. And that decision took them on step further down the road to disaster.