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Chapter 29

I sat in the living room making more entries into my journal. I remembered Alexa striding into Cal's office, laying that writ of mandamus on Lieutenant Sheppard, telling him she'd drop-kick him out a window if he gave her any trouble. It was magnificent, just like the old days. But just when I thought she was back, she ran off, refusing to talk to me. Preferring to be alone.

I finally finished writing and closed the journal, then turned off the lights and lay on the sofa listening to the distant surf thunder two blocks away. The marine layer must have been rolling in because I heard the long, mournful wail of a foghorn. My thoughts turned inward.

I've never taken good fortune for granted. From an early age, my life as an orphan was a series of fistfights, manipulations, and lies. Like a wolf hovering at the edge of a campfire, I was always waiting for any sign of weakness so I could sweep in and take advantage. Cynicism was my armor, violence a reaction to loneliness, sex a physical release performed mostly with strangers. In all of this, I was only trying to survive.

After I met Alexa and Chooch, I let my guard down. I soon learned that I needed different things to survive. Respect, redemption, and love. I found myself on a new eye-opening path where good deeds were performed for no selfish reason. And finally, in the end, I developed the ability to become vulnerable to others. The next thing that happened was I began to accept love, and then even take it for granted. I never expected to experience the old emptiness, or deal again with the dark creatures that once crawled on the floor of my mind.

But now I was back where I started. All of it courtesy of one sixteen-gram hollow point round that scrambled Alexa's brain, causing a chain reaction that ended up changing everything.

I closed my eyes and wished that I could escape from all of this. Then, mercifully, I fell asleep.

The ringing of the telephone jolted me awake. I scrambled up off the sofa and snatched the receiver out of its cradle.

"Yes?" I was hoping for Alexa, but got Secada instead.

"Sorry it's so late," she said.

"What time is it?"

"Midnight."

"What's up?"

"Somebody got to Tru Hickman right after chow tonight. It happened in the cafeteria. Shanked. I just got a call from the prison hospital because my name's in his letter file. He's in ICU. It's critical."

"Who did him?"

"Gang-bangers from his car."

"Fuck!" I shouted at the walls. We'd been too slow, too predictable.

"I'm going up there now," Scout said.

"Okay. Me, too."

"Want me to pick you up?"

"Where are you?"

"Just leaving downtown. No traffic at this hour. I can be at your place in twenty."

She made it in eighteen. I was waiting out front and jumped into her green Suburban, and we roared out.

It was past one by the time we hit California 1-99 to Bakers-field. Big, empty, sixteen-wheel produce trucks churned relentlessly up the Grapevine, grinding through their gears heading over the San Gabriel Mountains into the Central Valley. As Secada drove she filled me in on a few things she'd learned while I'd been in my supervisor review and chasing after Alexa.

"I ran through Mike Church's background this afternoon looking for recent deaths. His father, Juan Iglesia, died in his shower eighteen months ago. There'd been bad blood between them since Mike got jumped into the Vanowen Street Locos at age fifteen. It got worse when he changed his name to Church. After Juan's death, Mike inherited the old man's auto body shop and tow service."

I looked over at her. "You sure Church didn't kill him?"

"I'm having the investigators' report and the M. E.'s statement faxed over to us. According to the coroner's assistant I talked to over at North Mission Road, it was a pinpoint injury. A heavy blow, but only a few centimeters in diameter. His skull was hit with such force it exploded some blood vessels inside his head. A single, massive stroke ensued."

"Do they know what caused the head trauma?"

"They think he just slipped in his shower and went down, hitting the faucet handle. At least, that's what the primary and the M. E. wrote. Death by accidental causes."

"But as a result, Church inherits his father's tow service and bus company," I mused. "I'm not going for it."

"Apparently, Juan Iglesia was 'El Corazon Oro,' " she said. "A friend with a heart of gold. I checked around. People loved this old man. He was the exact opposite of his deadbeat son. He started that little bus company and ran it as a nonprofit because he wanted to help the elderly and disabled. Kind of his way of giving back to America."

We rode in silence for a minute and then I said, "Okay, so what's the story on the Transit Authority Police Department then? Whose idea was that?"

"Probably Mike's. He inherited this little bus company with only one van that his father originally obtained by trading three broken motorcycles. Mike also inherited Iglesia Auto Body, which he promptly renamed the Church of Destruction. Then in September of last year the bus company bought four new Metro Coach fifty-seven passenger buses-big ones. A month later they form a transit police department and buy all kinds of topflight security to go inside the buses-elaborate, infrared cameras and state-of-the-art satellite GPS units to locate a bus if it's hijacked. Except, who's gonna hijack a bunch of disabled senior citizens?"

I looked over at her. "You've been busy. That's a lot of good info."

"Yeah, looks like a lot. But if you want the real truth, I was relieved of duty. I'm still getting paid, but Sasso put me on the rack. Apparently my undercarriage is getting checked for wet spots. Her words, not mine. That left me with an afternoon to kill. Most of this stuff I got off the NVNTA Web site."

I nodded.

"How 'bout you? How'd your supervisor's review go?" she asked.

"Pretty good. I'm off the hook."

"Get outta here." She turned and looked over at me, then almost hit a slow-moving truck before swerving at the last minute and powering on.

"That was good thinking, getting Alexa to be my defense rep."

Then I told her what had happened and how Alexa had saved my ass. After I was finished, Secada nodded her head in approval.

"Awesome."

"Alexa was removed from command by Chief Filosiani, so technically, after that happened she became eligible to represent me," I concluded.

Secada drove in silence for almost ten minutes and then we transitioned onto California 137 heading toward Corcoran. Another ten minutes passed before she spoke again.

"Want to hear something strange?"

"Sure."

"Ever since Doug and I got divorced, I've been looking to fill a huge hole in my life. I thought I would do it with work. I didn't want to start a new relationship. But sometimes we can't control our emotions or the events that produce them." She looked over at me. "You happened to be exactly the right guy at exactly the wrong time and now I feel very lost and lonely."

"Let's wait and see what happens."

"No, I won't do that," her voice firm, almost angry. "I told you already, I won't take what's not mine."

When we got to the hospital ward at Corcoran, we were greeted by an old warhorse, assistant warden who led us into the ICU. The unit was half prison, half hospital. Bars and electric doors with white painted walls. The orderlies wore green medical scrubs with matching prison ink tattoos.

We looked through a glass window at an unconscious Tru Hickman. Fluids dripped into his arm from hanging IV bags. Two pounds of surgical tape and gauze encased his skinny chest.

"Got him twenty-three times in six seconds," the assistant warden told us. He was a big, gray, overweight guy with hair growing out of his ears.

"This is my fault," I whispered, as I looked at Tru's inert form. "This one's on me."