Vertical Coffin

Chapter 12

When we got there Billy Greenridge from SRT was dead in a vertical coffin. His feet were still inside the living room, his large body spilled headfirst across the threshold, half in and half out of the front door of his house. The back of his head was a pulpy mess, dripping blood and brain matter onto the oleander bushes that grew just under the railing.

It was nine-fifteen the following morning.

The house was a small, wood-shingled, California Craftsman in the Rampart Division. Rampart is inside LAPD jurisdiction, so, although Greenridge was a fed, for now it was an LAPD crime scene. However, if they pressed, I knew ATF could take it away. He was their murdered agent.

Alexa and I arrived in separate cars from Parker Center. We parked and found three LAPD tech vans already on the scene, along with four LAPD black-and-whites. There were two unmarked cars with federal license plates. I recognized the ATF ASAC, Brady Cagel, already up on the porch looking down at his dead agent. Eight LAPD blues and two other men not in uniform formed a choir around the body. As I approached, I realized that the two non-uniforms were also members of SRT. Gordon Grundy was on Cagel's right, tall, square-headed, and rawboned. His stoic face looked like someone had painted a straight-line mouth and gunmetal eyes on a block of granite. Next to Grundy was stocky Ignacio Rosano, whom I remembered from the bar fight. I'd learned he was called Nacho. The LAPD uniforms were trying to get the three feds off the porch, but the Justice Department agents didn't seem inclined to cooperate.

"Here's our division commander." One of the LAPD blues said, pointing at Alexa as we walked up.

Brady Cagel pulled out his shield and badged us. "You guys don't belong here," he said, "I'm claiming the crime scene."

"All my uniformed people who don't have a reason to be up here right now, get off this porch and secure the street out front. One of you stay here and start an incident log. The rest of you tape off a staging area, then wait by your cars." Alexa issued instructions and seven uniformed officers turned and left the porch. One of the cops remained behind, opened a notebook and started the crime scene attendance sheet. The CSI techs faded back into the house.

Brady Cagel and his two feds held their ground. "This is a dead federal agent," he said. "That makes it our investigation, according to Title Eighteen of the U. S. Code of Crimes and Criminal Procedures. I have somebody from our homicide division on his way."

"It's in our jurisdiction," Alexa said. "There's also a strong possibility that this is connected to the death of Deputy Sheriff Emo Rojas, which we've been ordered to investigate by Mayor MacKenzie. Until you file a jurisdictional claim and get a favorable ruling, it's gonna stay our case." Alexa looked right at Cagel. "So, for now, you three guys get off this porch, or I'm instructing my officers to come back up here and arrest you for interfering in an active homicide investigation and obstructing justice."

"What horseshit," he growled.

"Get moving or face the consequences," she warned.

Cagel gave it a moment's thought, looked at the eight LAPD officers twenty feet away, realized he was badly outnumbered, then motioned to his two teammates and they stepped back and headed to their cars.

Alexa watched as they walked across the street. But they didn't leave. Cagel was already on his cell phone, probably calling the U. S. Attorney for a legal opinion. Just then, another unmarked vehicle with government plates pulled in. I recognized two more members of SRT: Bill Wagner, who was nicknamed "Ringo," and Bob Zant, called "Happy." This collection of catchy nicknames stood across the street in a tight huddle, looking like a terrorist cell getting set to run a play.

"The case will end up getting transferred, unless I can get the U. S. Attorney to block the Title Eighteen," Alexa said softly.

"How's he gonna come down on our side?" I asked. "We're municipal. He's federal."

"Mayor Mac has to convince him we have a potential SWAT war going on here." Alexa for the first time put into words what everyone feared. "We need a neutral homicide team working this, and right now we're it. So let's do it right. If we do end up transferring the case, I don't want a lot of complaints about the way we handled the preliminary investigation." Then she looked around the crime scene. "Where the hell is my homicide team?"

"Rampart homicide dicks and the M. E. are en route," one of the crime techs said.

An LAPD crime photographer was already inside taking pictures. I could hear his motorized camera firing off frames. I took a quick tour of the two-bedroom house. It was furnished with bad art and vinyl furniture. It looked as if Greenridge lived alone. No female accessories in the bedroom, bath, or shower.

Finally, a Rampart Division homicide car slid to the curb and the last cop I wanted to see working this murder hauled his obese, 280-pound ass out of the D-car and started to waddle up the walk. Lou Ruta was fat, red-faced, and out of shape. He'd gained at least twenty pounds since we'd tangled at Carol White's murder scene last year. He struggled up the front steps gasping like a torn windbag, until he finally caught sight of me.

"What's going on here, a boy scout meeting?"

"That'll be enough of that, Sergeant." Alexa said, stepping out from behind the front door into his view. Ruta's face whitened, then darkened. Last came a ghastly expression where fleshy jowls pulled away from tobacco-stained ivory in a gargoyle's smile.

"Sorry, Lieutenant, didn't see ya back there," he muttered, then kneeled and studied the corpse.

The bullet had hit Greenridge in the forehead, leaving a delicate, dime-sized hole positioned like an Indian caste mark right between his eyes. Then it blew the back of his head off, leaving bone chips and gore all over the porch.

"Somebody look for the bullet," Ruta told the CSI techs, who were now standing nearby waiting for instructions. "Looks like a drive-by. Guy was comin' out his door. If the shot came from the passenger seat of a car parked down on the street, we got an upward trajectory, so start looking high in the walls across from the front door and in the living room ceiling."

The techs jumped into action.

I pulled Alexa aside, leading her down off the porch. "This guy's a joke, Alexa. The vie fell forward. How's that an upshot? Ruta's gonna screw this up."

She looked troubled. Her problem was that, as head of DSG, she couldn't favor one detective over another. Since Ruta had been next up on the homicide rotation at Rampart, she couldn't just pull him off without cause. He'd go to the union, file a complaint, and he'd win. She also couldn't admit she had a bad detective out here working active shootings. But the truth was, Ruta had lost interest years ago, and everybody was holding their breath until he got his twenty in and pulled the pin in March.

Just then, two sheriff's units roared past the LAPD squad cars blocking the end of the street and chirped to a stop. Four deputies got out and started toward the house, but the LAPD officers stationed there stopped them. The deputies gathered back by their cars. It didn't take long for ATF and sheriffs to start giving stink-eye to each other.

"This is going to the dogs," Alexa said, observing the cliques of angry agents and deputies gathering out on the street.

Happy Zant had picked up the microphone in his federal car and started talking to someone, probably calling in reinforcements.

"You gotta move some of this meat outta here before we have another fistfight," I told Alexa.

She nodded, looked at the street, then turned back to me. "Okay, here's how this is gonna work. As of now, I'm reassigning you to Rampart homicide. You're gonna be the primary on this shooting. Work it with Ruta and his partner, but you're on point."

"What about the Hidden Ranch investigation?"

"This is the Hidden Ranch investigation. That's your case, so as far as I'm concerned, all crimes that flow from it are yours. You work this hit, while I try and keep us from getting shot down by Title Eighteen."

Then she turned and addressed the blues who had wandered back up toward the porch. "Get enough police presence out here to move the sheriffs and ATF guys out of our staging area and down the street." One of the uniforms hustled to his car to make a call.

I crossed to where Lou Ruta was standing over the body, peeling a cigar. He let the wrapper fall and it blew away in the morning breeze, landing in the bushes by the far end of the porch. I walked down the steps and picked the cellophane off the oleander. I took it back up onto the porch and handed it to him.

"Got your fingerprints, Sarge. CSI finds it, you could get busted for this murder."

He glowered, but stuffed the wrapper in his pocket, then jammed the cigar into his mouth and started searching for a match.

"And if you light that stogie and spew ash on this site, you're gonna be smokin' it out of your ass."

"Big tough guy," he said. But he pocketed the unlit cigar as well, then started looking out at the street. "Where the fuck's my split-tail partner?"

A few minutes later Alexa took Ruta aside and gave him the news that from now on he was reporting to me on this homicide. His face contorted when she told him, but he said nothing. Then Alexa left to try and cut a deal with the U. S. Attorney.

Five minutes later Ruta's partner arrived. She was a nervous-looking honey-blonde with too-big hair. Her name was Beverly King, and from the way she looked at him, I could instantly tell she hated his guts.