Vertical Coffin

Chapter 28

The way it was explained to me by my stressed and emotionally frayed wife, two plainclothes lieutenants from the Warrant Control Office, along with an LAPD Special Weapons and Tactics Team, under the command of a captain from our Internal Affairs Division, drove out to 130 South Fetterly Avenue in East L. A. and served a search warrant on the captain in charge of the Sheriff's Enforcement Bureau. Scott Cook, who had commanded the Gray team at Hidden Ranch and his scout, Rick Manos, watched angrily as two LAPD SWAT team members in body armor collected five Tango 51s and seven 40-X long guns. They were put in one of the sheriff's ARVs to be driven out to Spring Ranch and test fired.

A warrant was also served on SRT by two SWAT teams about an hour later, at 4 p. M. SRT had nine AR-15s, which were very versatile weapons that could be switched in seconds from a sniper rifle to a fully automatic carbine simply by swapping the upper receiver. All nine SRT guns were picked up and taken out to their training facility in Moorpark to be test fired.

The collection of the weapons had gone down without incident, but Alexa told me that nobody was happy about it. "An insult," is what she'd heard Scott Cook had called it.

In the past I'd found out that the best way to get the pieces of a confusing case to line up correctly was to focus my head on something else for a while. Let some fresh air in. It was five in the afternoon when I called home, and Delfina told me that Chooch had driven out to Agoura High to run his first Pop Warner football practice for the Rams. I was only a few miles away, so I said good-bye to Jo and drove over.

The high school was in the foothills, not far from where this had all started. I parked behind the athletic building and walked around the big fieldhouse until I saw the practice fields on a terraced level about five feet above me. There were fences everywhere. The Agoura High football team was also running a practice using the two full-sized fields, but the Rams were on a fifty-yard overflow field on the far right. The problem was, I kept hitting locked gates when I tried to get up there. I had to ask a student for directions.

"Gotta go around by the administration building." Then he added: "You can't get there from here."

Story of my life.

I eventually found my way onto the grass, snuck up into the bleachers a short distance away, and watched Chooch without letting him know I was here. He had a clipboard under his arm, a walking cast on his foot, and was working with two twelve-year-old quarterbacks. Both boys were wearing red no-contact jerseys, watching Chooch, with his broken foot, trying to demonstrate how to throw a quick out off a three-step drop.

Across the field, Sonny Lopez was working with the linemen- the wide bodies, such as they were. The heaviest kid on the field was still under 170.

Finally Chooch blew a whistle. "Okay, everybody over here and take a knee," he yelled.

The twenty or so members of the team surged toward him. You could spot the serious athletes from the wannabes, even from where I was sitting in the bleachers. The committed players ran all the way to Chooch, some even raced each other. The other kids, the ones who were just there for their fathers, walked. I got up from the bleacher seat, and, trying to stay unobserved, moved down closer so I could hear.

"Okay," Chooch said, "good warm-ups. In a minute we'll start walking through plays, then do a half hour of scrimmage. I'm not gonna have all of your names for a while, so when I talk to you, if I don't call you by name, you guys tell me who you are. I'll get it straight pretty quick."

I watched Sonny Lopez pulling a blocking sled out of the way, getting the short field ready for play.

"I've been studying Coach Rojas's offense, and even though I've never had much experience with a Veer, this one looks good. But I'm gonna have to put you guys through some new speed tests. Forty-yard dashes. Sorry about that, but I need to see for myself where the quickness is."

The kids were a little subdued, all of them down on one knee, helmets off, looking at the grass instead of at Chooch.

He sensed it, so he said, "On this team, anybody can say anything. I'm only a few years older than you guys. I'm your coach, but I also want to be a friend. I feel a lot of stuff going on under the surface-stuff you're thinking about me, or what happened to Coach Rojas. We gotta get that all behind us if we want to have a winning spirit."

Nobody looked at him.

"I want you guys to tell me what you're thinking. How you feel about all this-Coach Rojas dying. If it's on your mind, let's get it out in the open and deal with it."

Still nothing.

"Can't somebody please say something?" he said, smiling slightly.

One of the larger boys in the back raised his hand. He was an African-American wearing number 58 on his jersey. Probably a linebacker.

"Yeah," Chooch pointed at him.

"How come we…"

"First gimme your name," Chooch said.

"Deshawn Zook."

My blood chilled a little.

"Okay, Deshawn. How come what?"

"How come we gotta play for you when your dad is trying to fuck ours?"

I almost got up and walked over to Chooch to answer that, but before I could move Chooch was talking.

"I know most of you guys have sheriffs for dads, and I know a lot is going on between the LAPD and the sheriffs right now, but whatever happens down there, it isn't part of this team. This team is about us. You and me. It's about our values and how much we want to win, for ourselves and each other. It's about that and nothing else."

Now they were listening. Most had their heads up watching him.

"I was friends with Emo Rojas. That's why I'm here. I wanted to do this for him. What happens between our fathers can't be part of what happens on this field, but I'll tell you this, Deshawn, my dad is one of the fairest people you'll ever meet. I met your dad, Darren, on an Iron Pig rally this summer. He seemed really cool and really nice. With your dad and mine working on it, I just don't think whatever's going on is gonna be that big of a problem."

Deshawn Zook nodded his head. He was smaller version of his father.

Then Chooch looked down at his clipboard and said, "Deshawn, you're playing inside linebacker, right?"

"Yes."

"You like that position?"

"Not really."

"Why not?"

"Used to play fullback. Like that better."

"Okay, then here's the deal. All positions are open again for two days. Everybody write down the position you prefer, the position you'll take, and the position you're playing now. Hand 'em in after practice. I'll work with each of you to try and get you where you want to go. I can't promise to move you, but everybody can have one tryout at any position he asks for. By Tuesday any position changes will be posted, and then we'll get back to work. Fair?"

The boys started nodding, some were even smiling.

Half an hour later, when the scrimmage started, I left, slipping out behind the bleachers. I don't think Chooch ever saw me. As I walked back to the Acura I was thinking how proud I was of the way he handled that-how smart. Throwing everything open and giving everybody a second chance was a great idea. The kids were now focussed on the future, not on Emo, or me, or any of the other angry nonsense that had washed over them.

When I reached my car I had another surprise. Scott Cook and Rick Manos were standing there with Darren Zook and Sonny Lopez. As I took out my keys, Rick Manos intercepted me.

"You know what happened this afternoon?" he asked, not waiting for an answer. "Warrants got served on us. They think we shot that fed. Your SWAT guys rolled in and took all our long guns."

I stared at him, not sure how to play it. Then I glanced over at Sonny. "You call these guys when you saw me arrive?"

"No sir," he said, leaning on the sir so it sounded more like a curse than anything else. "All our kids play on the team. Pickup is in half an hour."

I turned back to Manos. "I'm getting sick of this. I'm just doing a job, what do you want from me?"

Now Scott Cook leaned forward and fixed me with a level, no-nonsense stare, frightening in its focus. "You don't know where this is headed Scully. If you did, you'd play it differently."

"Then you know something," I said.

They started to walk away, but Scott Cook turned back.

"I know what those assholes at Treasury are capable of," he said. "I know whatever those casing striations show, we didn't shoot Greenridge. And I know this has just started, Scully. Nobody can stop it now."