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Brewer was arrested. He had been chosen over other candidates because of his record of turning around morale in troubled departments. Los Angeles had had a string of police crises, from Rodney King to the Rampart Division scandal to the Naval Yard disaster.
    Chief Filosiani was short and round and talked out of the side of his mouth in New York Brooklynese. As a result of this and his penchant for large pinky rings, he had been dubbed the Day-Glo Dago.
    "I guess the best thing is to just take a look at Sergeant Dean's death package," Shephard said, interrupting his train of thought.
    Shane nodded.
    Commander Shephard pushed the folders over. Shane sat down in the chair opposite the desk and opened them.
    Shane had never seen Jody in death. He'd pictured it in his mind, of course, but his subconscious had neatly sanitized it. His imagination was nothing like the photographs. As he opened the folder, his stomach lurched.
    His throat constricted. It was worse than he expected. In the pictures, Jody was sprawled in the front seat of a department plainwrap.
    The details were graphic: the puckered blood-drained lips, the huge hole blasting away half of the back of his head, the green flies feasting on heavy arterial ooze. Shane could see Jody's gun, the big Israeli Desert Eagle he'd been using at the end. The .44 magnum automatic was light in weight but 30 percent bigger than the old army .45. It dangled in death, at the end of Jody's broken finger, like a child's forgotten toy. The recoil had obviously snapped his index finger, and as a result, the gun hadn't flown from his hand as was normal in most suicides.
    Shane went through the autopsy and crime - scene pictures carefully, forcing himself to study them: Jody slumped in the front seat leaking fluid fatally; Jody on the coroner's table. The clinical labeling screamed from the bottom of each photo: anterior angle, medial angle, proximal and midline photos; right side, left side, overhead. Jody, naked on a steel autopsy tray, bathed in sterile lighting and antiseptic brutality.
    Finally Shane went to the autopsy report itself. The ME's phrases jumping up, posting themselves forever on his memory: "massive trauma," "self-inflicted gunshot wound," "destroyed distal portion of the cerebellum." Then the death terms: "cadaveric spasm," "adipocere," and "acute cyanosis."
    Shane read it all, finally closing the folder.
    He looked up at Commander Mark Shephard, who had turned his attention to the mail on his desk but now felt the gaze and lifted his friendly blue eyes to meet Shane's. "Well?" the Good Shepherd said. "What do you think?"
    "I must have been wrong," Shane answered softly.

    Chapter 7.

NIGHT MUSIC
    THE PHONE SCREAMED in his ear. He clambered up out of a restless sleep. Where's the damned clock? What the fuck... ? What time is it? Focusing now on the lit dial, trying to read it: a few minutes after two in the middle of the night. You gotta be kidding. He grabbed the phone, fumbling it out of the cradle.
    "Yeah?" his voice raspberried.
    "How they hangin', bro?" Jody's voice was grinning, having fun with this back-from - the-grave moment.
    Shane bolted upright in bed, his heart immediately slamming with adrenaline, banging unevenly, a four-barrel engine with a bad cam. He was gripping the receiver hard, hi s k nuckles turning white, his palm instantly slick on the instrument. "Jody? Is this Jody?"
    "Back from the Great Department in the Sky. Thought you and I needed a little night music," his term for the late-night talks they had during sleepovers as kids.
    Shane was wide awake in less than thirty seconds; sleep was quickly broomed away like corner cobwebs. He swung his feet off the bed. Got them down onto the floor for stability.
    "Why?... Why?... Why did you do it? Why did you make us think you were dead? I cried, man. It really fucked me up."
    "Hey, it's just police work, Salsa. I'm doin' a job." Jody had nicknames for everyone; nicknames were a "Jody" thing. He'd called