White sister

Chapter 13

There are more videotapes running in Parker Center than at NBC Burbank. Five security cameras photograph the lobby and multiple cameras cover all the main hallways of each floor. Everything is fed down to a tape room in the sub-basement. I knew that there was very little I could do to defeat all that high tech security. After what happened up on Mulholland, the Deputy Chief wouldn't have to think very hard to figure out what I was doing in my wife's office on the command floor at three a. M. I was disobeying direct orders and the tapes would confirm it.

I didn't care.

I pulled out Alexa's spare office key and used it to open the door, moving through Ellen's neat outer office, past a stack of crime manuals and new forensic journals that the chief made mandatory reading for all command rank officers.

I sat behind Alexa's desk and turned on her computer. While it booted I looked at a photograph of us taken in Nevis last year. In the shot, Alexa's black hair was lustrous in bright sunlight, blowing in a tropical breeze. Her dark tan and bright smile made my heart clutch. In the picture, two glasses of Planter's Punch with colorful umbrellas rested between us on the wooden plank table of the beach bar where we'd stopped. She wore her beauty like a casual gift, I wore a Hawaiian shirt and a jackass smile. It was as good as it gets. A roving photographer had taken the picture. Twenty bucks to memorialize a romantic moment that now broke my heart.

As I studied the photo the knot in my stomach tightened. Memories of those five romantic days flooded over me, underlining my loss. That time spent on a Caribbean island had been a glimpse into our future. In a few more years we'd both have twenty-five years on the job and be out with full pensions, able to travel the world. I hadn't told her, but lately I had started to look past the daily uncertainty and harsh realities of police work, contemplating a more tranquil existence.

We had made love in the sweet-smelling garden suite at our hotel. We made love in the ocean at midnight. We talked about secrets and shared our fears. I'd told her about parts of me that nobody else knew. Instead of being repelled, she had caressed my shortcomings. She told me that fear is at the heart of the human condition, that it's one of the two basic reasons that anyone does anything. The other reason, she said, was love. I knew she was right. In a few short years she had changed what motivated me.

Now she was missing maybe gone forever. Would I ever see her again? Would I even recover her remains? Desperate thoughts arced around inside my head murderous plans of violence and revenge. I thought about what I'd do to Maluga if he had hurt her.

The computer had loaded and I turned toward it. Her password was "lacey." The TV show Cagney amp; Lacey was what had motivated her to be a cop when she was a girl. I typed it in and started opening windows.

I found a file on undercover assignments. I could find nothing in the file on David Slade.

Next I accessed the e-mails. All communications from yesterday and today had been purged. I wondered if Ellen had come back in to do that after Alexa's car was found or if Alexa had done it before she left for that mysterious appointment. When we'd walked back from the jail, did she know she was in danger? I sat there for a moment, turning that over in my mind. Then I went back to the document files. I opened half-a-dozen with coded names like "Operation Rhinestone," which turned out to be an undercover op on a ring of jewelry store burgs. "Walking Tiger" was a sting on Chinese gangs. The last one I opened was called "Dark Angel." It contained one short sentence.

File Transferred to AHC

I had no idea what AHC stood for.

Then I heard footsteps in the hall. I turned off the computer and crossed to the door where I met Tommy Sepulveda.

"Scully," he said, looking at me with tired eyes.

I was so busted, it was pathetic.

We stood there, each not knowing what to say.

"What're you doing here?" he finally managed.

"Thought maybe Alexa might be…" I didn't finish the sentence because the frown on Sepulveda's face was so deep it was almost comical.

"This isn't working," he said.

"For me either."

"I'm not gonna try and take you down, Shane. But I'm putting it all in the report. Me and Rafie look like morons letting you run around gumming this up."

"Right. When I get the PSB charge sheet, I'll tell them you gave me the word and I wouldn't listen."

He heaved a disappointed sigh before he said, "As long as you already shook this place, you find anything worthwhile?"

"There's a purged file on Alexa's computer, code named 'Dark Angel.' That seems a little strange. Says it's been transferred to AHC. Whatever that is."

I still wasn't convinced that Sepulveda wouldn't try something. If it were me, I'd have gone for it, so I kept my eyes on him as I slipped past and out the door. He watched me walk down the corridor and get in the elevator. As the doors closed, he was still staring.

It was three-thirty a. M. when I left Parker Center. I was pretty sure Sepulveda and Figueroa wouldn't be able to get a warrant to search my house until at least eight a. M., so I decided to risk it and headed home. Something was buzzing in my head. It felt as if there was some piece of this that linked up, but because of all the adrenaline and emotion, I had walked right past it. It wasn't until I pulled up in front of my garage that I suddenly knew what it was. I scrambled out of the car and ran to the front door. Once I got into the entry, I was immediately struck by the fact that it was cold inside. We usually keep the temperature at seventy-five. It was well below that. Then I saw the reason. The window in the den was half open, cold marine air was blowing in. I closed and latched it. Bodine must have opened it when I found him standing in here two hours ago, looking out.

I walked into the bedroom. I was looking for a blue book that was about an inch thick. It was not in the bookcase or in Alexa's bedroom chest of drawers. I finally found it in the bottom of her closet in a cardboard box that had been in the garage when we'd redone the space for Chooch after Delfina came to live with us last year. I pulled out the book and took it to the front room, sat down by the light, and opened it up. It was Alexa's LAPD Cadet Academy class book. I felt something brush my leg, looked down and saw Franco rubbing against me. He looked up, knew something was wrong, and let out a pitiful cry. I patted him but didn't speak. I opened the blue Police Academy yearbook.

The thing I had just remembered was that both Alexa and David Slade had joined the department in 1982. There were only two Academy classes a year. That meant there was a fifty-fifty chance they'd gone through police training together.

I leafed through the book, looking at the graduating cadet pictures. They were all standing straight, hats off, looking sternly into camera. There were several people I knew in this class. William Rosencamp. His picture showed a tall, handsome African-American officer whom I hadn't seen in about a year but I thought was now a patrol sergeant in Devonshire Division. The caption under his picture said he was tenth in a class of fifty-six. He had won a cadet street combat tactics competition and had a long-gun shooting classification of Marksman. His Academy nickname was "Rosey." Still was.

I found Alexa's picture. Even though she had her game face on, she looked breathtaking as usual. I skimmed through her cadet accomplishments. Alexa Hamilton was second in her class. She had won the Distinguished Marksman shooting medal and held a dozen other cadet honors including obstacle course champion in the one-hundred-fifteen-pound division. Her academy nickname was "Hambone."

And then, toward the back of the graduation shots, I found David M. Slade. He was rakishly handsome and clean cut, smiling through perfect teeth. His coffee-colored skin glowed against his crisp blue Academy uniform. His moustache was clipped and perfect. Slade had graduated forty-fourth. He had a sharpshooter's medal and came in third in an academy martial arts competition.

His nickname was "Dark Angel."