White sister

Chapter 26

The first thing I noticed when we brought Bodine out into the sunlight was that somebody had hacked off his dreadlocks. What hair he had left was now unbraided and sticking out at strange angles, chopped and uneven. It made him look even crazier than he probably was. Lawrence Fischer and I were carrying him. As we hurried up Lucas Avenue toward my car, I asked him, "Who cut off your hair?"

"I did. African prince don't be needin' no fancy man hair. It's a tribal thing," he ranted. "In Africa, you see a brotha with no hair, says he's a revolutionary, 'cause first thing a freedom fighter in the Bassaland goes an' does is breaks his muthafuckin' hair pick, 'cause a hair pick look just like a field tool, like for pickin' cotton. Be like a rake or some such. I say to hell with the rake and the pick and the whole exploitation of my African brothers." Naturally, I was sorry I had asked.

We set his feet down so that I could unlock the car door. When we did that, he stopped talking about hair combs as a symbol of slavery and started screaming in pain.

"What you bust-out-muthafuckas doing to me?" he shrieked.

Gary and I loaded him into the front seat of the Acura. We must have opened the wound carrying him a mile out of the tunnel, because when he slid in he left a streak of fresh blood on the gray leather. I slammed the door shut while he was still braying insults at me and looked at Rosey, Dario, Adrian, and Lawrence, who were all now shaking their heads in disbelief.

"That's the sorriest human being I've ever seen," Adrian Young said.

"This is as far as we're gonna take it," Dario added. "We'll stay here and call in the tunnel DB. Wait for the coroner. But we aren't gonna get involved. Gonna have nothing more to say on it."

"Thanks for finding him," I said.

"Shane, you want some advice from a friend?" Rosey said.

"Sure."

"I wouldn't lone wolf this thing. You're gonna get caught in the net."

"I'll be careful."

Then I got into the car and pulled away from the taco stand.

"Ohhh… OHHH! Watch them bumps. Got myself gizmoed here. Got guts an' shit hanging all out."

"I'm taking you back to the hospital."

"That be our thing, ain't it. First you downs me, then you clowns me."

"How'd I down you? You stole my wife's computer. I need it back."

"How'd you down me? Is that the question? 'Cause a you, I end up with four hundred in Benjies I shouldn't never have plus what I got for selling all your dumb-ass junk. Bunch a no-good quality-of-life criminals put me down with a hobo's birthday, take all the money. 'Cept for you, I never would a had all that coin in the first place."

Tortured logic, but I pushed on. "What's a hobo's birthday?"

"Put a blanket over your head and start hitting ya with a pipe till it blow out your candle."

"Where's the computer, John? I need it. It's got important stuff on it."

"It be G-O-N-E."

"Where to?"

"Man, I'm dying here. Why I gotta be constantly in da mix? Do we got to talk about this now?"

"Yes!"

"I pawned it at Jungle Jack's on Alvarado at Seventh. Next to the produce market."

"You got the pawn ticket?" A crafty look came across his face. "Gimme the ticket, John. I'm not screwing around here."

He fumbled deep in Chooch's loose jean pockets and finally pulled it out and handed it to me.

Fifteen minutes later, I parked under the porte cochere at County-USC. I went inside the ER, found a wheelchair, got John out of my car, loaded him into the chair and pushed him into the waiting room. He was slumped over, bitching and moaning. His wound was still bleeding. Fresh blood was again seeping through Chooch's sweatshirt and beginning to puddle under the wheelchair. I tapped on the glass and got the nurse's attention. It was early afternoon and the ER wasn't busy yet.

"I need some help here. This guy has a knife wound in the gut."

She looked through the glass, saw blood was leaking all over her clean ER floor and quickly buzzed a male nurse through the door. He grabbed the wheelchair and started to push John into the back. Before he left, I got my watch back.

I waited while they gave John a preliminary exam. I wanted to rush right over to Alameda and Seventh and retrieve Alexa's computer, but I also needed to make sure Bodine was okay. Thirty minutes later a pleasant-looking female doctor came out of the back and found me. She had some of John's blood on her ER smock.

"That's one lucky dude," she said. "The blade missed his stomach by a fraction. Missed his large intestine by even less. It went in clean, nicked his bottom rib, and hit nothing but muscle and bone. If I was trying for that same track with a laproscope I doubt I could do it."

"What are you going to do with him?"

"We'll keep him overnight. He'll need some whole blood transfusions. He's lost a lot. From the smell of him, he doesn't have insurance, so he's gonna be a charity ward case."

"He's a material witness in a murder. I want him to have good care. If he needs anything beyond just normal M. T., the City of Los Angeles will cover it." I showed her my badge. "He should have an admittance form from earlier yesterday when his wrist was broken and you guys set it. Put any charges with that and I'll make sure it gets covered."

"Sure cusses a lot," the doctor said.

"He's an African prince. That gives him verbal immunity."

The doctor raised her eyebrows. "A prince? Really. Last royalty I got to treat was the Count of Crisco, but he was just a transvestite porn star."

"Not the same thing," I told her. Then I wrote my new cell number on a business card and handed it to her. "I don't want him to leave here until I get back. If he tries, have somebody sit on him."

As I was walking out of the ER waiting room, Alexa's story was on TV again. This tragedy had not only taken over our lives, but it was now becoming entertainment for the entire country. mystery at the lapd was the graphic scrawled across the TV screen. It displayed a collage of shots, including Alexa's shooting range still. A handsome news anchor with blond-tipped hair came on with a fresh angle.

"A new break on the David Slade LAPD killing," he announced gravely. "Police are speculating that there may be yet another explanation for the murder."

"Finally," I whispered. Then I watched as my own picture hit the screen.

"In a new scenario floated this afternoon by sources close to law enforcement officials, Lieutenant Scully's husband, Detective Shane Scully, is now being called a person of interest in the execution-style murder of LAPD Sergeant David Slade. Shane Scully, a member of the LAPD's elite Homicide Special unit, has reportedly been picked up by detectives working on the Slade murder and whisked off to Parker Center in handcuffs, where he underwent a prolonged and intense interrogation conducted by acting Police Chief Michael Ramsey.

The shot switched to a gray-haired man whose on-screen graphic identified him as retired LAPD homicide detective Chuck Bowman.

"If reports are true, and Lieutenant Alexa Scully was romantically involved with Sergeant Slade, then her husband should certainly be considered a suspect in both acts of violence," the retired cop said.

I didn't stick around to hear the rest. I sprinted to my car and pulled out. How could I have missed it? Of course, I was going to be a prime suspect. If I'd been working the case as a homicide dick instead of a grieving husband, I would have put that together in a heartbeat. Rosey's warning had been right. I was caught in the net.

I decided as I drove away from the emergency room that I'd rather have the story be about me than Alexa. If they started focusing on me, maybe they'd stop pounding her. However, if I was a suspect, my movements were soon going to become seriously limited. I had to work fast. I decided to see how much trouble I was really in, so I picked up my cell and called Captain Calloway's direct line at Homicide Special.

"Calloway," he said, coming right on.

"Cal, it's Shane."

"Hey." His voice sounded cool, but friendly. "Where are you?"

"You hearing what these jerks on TV are saying about me?"

"You need to come in, Shane. We need to talk."

"Captain, you can't believe I did this any more than Alexa did. Slade and Alexa weren't having an affair. There's some other reason he was in her car."

"Rafie, Tommy, and I don't buy any of this either, but now that it's come up we gotta deal with it. We'll get it straightened out, but you gotta come in."

Yeah, right, I thought.

Then he said, "We need your time line for yesterday, and if you have an alibi for your whereabouts when Slade got killed, we're gonna need that, too."

"I can't come in yet. I'm trying to get Alexa's computer," I hedged. "I made a deal with Great White Mike to get it for him."

"That can wait," Cal said. "Your alibi, if there is one, can't."

"Don't worry, I have an alibi," I promised.

"It better be solid."

I didn't answer. I just hung up. The guy who could vouch for my whereabouts was lying in a hospital bed at County-USC with a knife wound in his gut, and all of his hair chopped off. He looked like he'd just been hit by a thousand volts of electricity. My alibi was raving like a lunatic, crazy as a shithouse rat.