Crime Wave

Murder is a big, continuous twenty-four-hour-a-day mess. Murder spawns a numbingly protracted investigatory process that is rarely direct and linear–chiefly because it overlaps with more and more murder, taxing the resources of the investigative agencies involved and inundating detectives with interviews, courtroom appearances, reports to be written, and next-of-kin to be mollified and cajoled into intimate revelations. Murder seldom slows down and never stops; murder stays true to its Motivational Trinity: dope/sex/money.

The L.A. Sheriff’s Department investigates all murders, suicides, industrial-accident fatalities, and miscellaneous sudden deaths within the confines of Los Angeles County–the vast, unincorporated area in and around the L.A. city limits. The LAPD’s jurisdiction snakes inside, outside, and through the LASD’s turf– city/county borders are sometimes hard to distinguish. The county consists mainly of lower-middle-class suburbs and rat’s ass towns stretching out ninety-odd miles. This is the big bad sprawl visible from low-flying airplanes: cheap stucco, smog, and freeway grids going on forever.

The LASD Homicide Bureau is housed in a courtyard industrial park in the city of Commerce–six miles from downtown L.A. Sheriff’s Homicide is individually subcontracted by numerous police departments inside the county–if you get whacked in Norwalk or Rosemead, the LASD will work your case.

Sheriff’s Homicide investigates about 500 snuffs a year. The L.A. District Attorney’s office has publicly acknowledged its investigators as the best in southern California. Police departments nationwide send their prospective homicide dicks to the LASD for two-week training programs. LASD detectives teach well because theirs is regarded as the pinnacle assignment–one bestowed after a minimum of ten years in jail work, patrol, and other Detective Division jobs. The mid-forties median age says it all: These people have put the rowdier aspects of police work behind them and have matured behind the gravity of murder.

Former sheriff Peter Pitchess dubbed his homicide crew “the Bulldogs”–a nod to their tenacity and salutary solved-case rate. In truth, bulldogs are lazy creatures prone to breathing disorders and hip dysplasia. The vulture should replace the bulldog as Homicide’s mascot.

Vultures wait for people to die. So do homicide cops. Vultures swoop down on the recently dead and guard the surrounding area with sharp claws and beaks. Homicide cops seal crime scenes and kick off their investigations with the evidence culled within.

Sheriff’s Homicide is a centralized division. Its basic makeup is six teams of fourteen detectives apiece, bossed by lieutenants Derry Benedict, Don Bear, Joe Brown, Dave Dietrich, Ray Peavy, and Bill Sieber. Two adjunct units–Unsolved and Missing Persons–work out of the same facility. The teams handle incoming murders on a rotating, forty-eight-hour on-call basis.

On-call detectives carry beepers and sleep very poorly, if at all. Beeper chirps signify death and additions to their already strained caseloads. Late-night beeps are only marginally preferable to what the old-timers called “trash runs”: call-outs for obvious suicides and pro forma viewings of the poor fucker who got decapitated by an exploding boiler.

The bureau is furnished in the white-walled, metal-desked, policework moderne style. All incoming calls originate in the “Barrel,” a desk counter rigged with telephones, memo baskets, and boards for charting murders and assigned personnel. The Barrel adjoins the main squad room–ninety desks arranged in lengthwise rows. The team lieutenants’ desks sit crosswise at the far end, next to a shelf jammed with Sergeant Don Garcia’s bulldog trinkets.

You can purchase bulldog watches and T-shirts at Sergeant Garcia’s cost. A bulldog wall clock will set you back $39.95. Dig the bulldog lapel pin–the giant tongue and spiked collar detailing are worthy of Walt Disney on angel dust. Don’s been running the concession for years. He buys the stuff bulk from various manufacturers. He’s just acquired a new item: a bulldog neon sign to light up your wet bar!

The Unsolved and Missing Persons units reside in separate rooms off the squad bay. The sign on Unsolved’s door reads “UNLOVED.” Unsolved is charged with periodically reviewing cold cases and investigating any new leads pertaining to them. The crew–Dale Christiansen, Rey Verdugo, Louie “the Hat” Danoff, John Yarbrough, and Freddy Castro–is the faculty of the College of Unresolved justice. Their curriculum is the file library that Louie the Hat has lovingly preserved. Louie says the files talk to him. He’s on a spiritual trip and runs his “no body” cases by psychics once in a while.

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