Vertical Coffin

Chapter 21

I met chooch, Alexa, and Delfina at Mijares Restaurant for dinner. Chooch's sports-injury doctor was in Pasadena, and Mijares is one of the best Mexican restaurants on the east end of the L. A. Basin. I arrived last and was led to their table out on an enclosed patio. Chooch was wearing a new white cast and a glum look.

I kissed my wife, said hi to Chooch and Del, then dropped into a wood-backed chair and ordered a double margarita. Long day, so screw it. In the other room was a ranchedo duet, two guitarists in traditional dress, picking Malagueha Salerosa on humpbacked Martins.

"I see you didn't get the plaster off," I said.

"Nope." Chooch was staring morosely down at a Coke on i 3d the placemat in front of him. Delfina reached out and took his hand.

"But the doctor said in a week, maybe," she explained. "It's coming along good. The bone is almost healed."

Chooch nodded bleakly, as if the idea that his foot would ever mend was just too far away to grasp.

I had the Pop Warner League book with me, and I looked at Delfina and gave her a little eyebrow raise. A silent question. She nodded, so I laid the blue binder on the table, then pushed it over to him. I had called the league on the way over and had received some additional information.

"What's that?" Chooch asked.

"Pop Warner League rule book. You're good to go if you want the gig. Emo's team, the Rams, is in the Junior Bantam division." Chooch was looking down despondently at the binder, so I added: "That's twelve through fourteen. The kids can be in the hundred-fifteen-to hundred-sixty-pound range at the beginning of the season, which was August, but nobody can weigh more than one-sixty-nine by the end of the season in December. As of late, they've been holding workouts, but with no head coach they had to forfeit their last game."

Chooch opened the book and stared at the front page. Then, with no enthusiasm, he started flipping through it. Delfina frowned, as Alexa and I traded looks.

"iQue haces tuDelfina said angrily. "We talked about this. You said you wanted to do it for Emo Rojas. Now your father has made it happen and you sit here like a troll on a rock."

"Okay, okay," he said and put the book on the floor by his feet.

"Honey, if you don't want to coach the team, don't coach it," Alexa said. "It's not going to help these kids to have a coach who doesn't want to be there."

"You guys-you don't…" Chooch stopped, then put his head down. "Forget it."

"Do you want me to talk to your coach?" I asked. "Make sure it's okay with him? Is that what you're worried about?"

"No, Coach Norris said it was fine. He even said he'd look at the playbook and help me with some revisions if I wanted."

"So, what's the problem?"

"It's like…" He paused, then took a deep breath. "It's like, by agreeing to do this, I'm saying my season is over. Maybe my college career with it."

"These Pop Warner teams play on Saturday or Sunday. Harvard-Westlake plays Friday nights. Once your foot heals, you go back on your team and set the Pop Warner practices to fit your schedule," I said.

"I know, it's just…"

"Then, don't do it, son," I interrupted. "Mom's right. You have to want to."

"I'll do it, okay? I said I'd do it, so I will."

But he sure didn't sound happy about it.

Then our conversation turned to Delfina's West Side Story rehearsals. She was excited and animated as she told us about the full run-through with music. Chooch remained strangely quiet while she talked.

# # #

When we got home I went to my office and booted up my PC. Then I typed in Cactus West.

A few seconds later a welcome screen came up. There was a window for a password. I punched in: MCAS Yuma TACTS

A message popped up:

Access denied. This is a U. S. Marine Corps secure site. Your computer will be scanned if you attempt to reenter.

I logged off and was still frowning at the screen when Franco yowled to tell me he hadn't been fed. I took him into the kitchen and fixed his dinner while Chooch and Delfina sat in the backyard. She was talking hard at him.

Alexa and I decided to take a walk around the neighborhood to avoid the fallout of what looked like the beginnings of a teenage quarrel. We strolled along the walkways that bordered the canal. The wedge-cut quarter moon hung low in the night sky. It lit the water and turned the mist-wet edges of the houses and garden gates silver. A late-feeding hell-diver took off out of the water, startling us. He beat his wings savagely, disappearing into the sky.

"I talked to Tony and Bill this afternoon," Alexa said. "Bill is going to free up your request with his people at CSI. They're going out to Hidden Ranch sometime tomorrow afternoon to look for the dog's remains and check on that basement bomb shelter." She said it like she thought it was a complete waste of county time.

"I'm not scoring too many points in this family tonight, am I?" I said.

"It's just, you know how badly this is setting up. The sooner we clear it the better. I won't lie to you. I'm getting a lot of pressure, and I think checking Smiley's background and that house isn't going to get us anywhere, but I'm through arguing about it. It's your investigation, so it's your call."

"In that case, can I get you to find out what's on this Web site?" I handed her a slip of paper with 'Cactus West MCAS Yuma TACTS' printed on it. "It's some kind of Marine Corps secure site that Smiley hacked into. If we can't find out through the mayor's office, maybe the geeks in our computer division can see if they could hack into it." She didn't say anything, but wrinkled her nose and put the slip in her pocket.

We walked over and stood on one of the arched bridges that spanned the main canal. I told Alexa that we had a partial print on the shell casing from the apartment, but that it was smudged, with maybe only four identifiers, and that tool marks would look for a match on striations after Sheriff Messenger had his SEB long rifles fired.

She nodded and we both looked across the water at our house. Delfina and Chooch were still sitting in the yard, heads together, talking earnestly.

"So, how's your new partner Joe Brickhouse?" Alexa finally asked, changing to a better subject.

"She's-different," I said.

"She? Joe is a girl?"

"Not in the traditional sense."

"Is she pretty?"

"Very. But she kills that impression effectively, because she's the most opinionated, in-your-face partner I think I've ever had. Present company excluded."

"I don't like this. I know how drawn you are to strong women," she teased.

"And she's gay," I said. "Apparently, I'm not the priceless piece of ass that's going to change that, either."

"I feel better already," Alexa said and held my hand.

"But you might qualify. She thinks you're 'a damn fine package,' or something to that effect. She's also a control freak. I'm biting my tongue trying to keep from tangling with her, but it may require more self-discipline than I possess."

We stood quietly for a long moment. Suddenly a fish surfaced. It's tail slapped the water as it swam away. Both Alexa and I looked down at the spot below us, but our scaly eavesdropper was long gone.

"Look, Shane, this is what Sheriff Messenger wants, so having her for a partner is a small price to pay. If he can test fire his SEB long rifles and prove that the casing didn't come from any of their firearms, then we've gone a long way toward settling all this down."

"Right," I said. "And if it did come from one of his long guns, then I have only one question." "What's that?"

"Who do I have to fuck to get off this damn case?" "Me," she said, then smiled sexily.