Earth Angels Read Free Page A

line from here to the door." Then his left pointed the opposite way: "Give me all witnesses over here in this corner. Stepanovich, keep this area clear."
    Stepanovich gave a "Yes sir" to the order and moved to obey. As he ordered wedding guests toward the rear of the church a TV news crew stepped inside the door. The camera focused on Harger.
    "Seal the front door!" Harger shouted to a uniformed sergeant. "No prints and photos until the detectives finish." With a few more commands, Captain Harger turned an utterly chaotic crime scene into a "manageable police problem," to use the lexicon of the in service training classes.
    As far as Stepanovich was concerned, Harger was a born leader. He wasn't just a champion on the police handball court, but actually taught a class in the sport. Not only was he a decorated Vietnam War veteran, but a major in the Army Reserves. And it was well known he had shot it out with bad guys more than once during his career. But perhaps most of all, Stepanovich admired Harger's humility: he preferred to chug beers with the men rather than schmooze with the brass. He was an ass kicker, a policeman's policeman, in direct contrast to many of the up and coming young LAPD lieutenants. Stepanovich and other street detectives referred to these policemen as pogues: aggressive, ass kissing yuppies who excelled at nothing more than scoring high on the written portion of promotional examinations.
    In fact, one of the most oft told LAPD war stories concerned Harger. As Stepanovich heard it, in a struggle with an armed robber for a weapon Harger had managed to turn the barrel of the gun toward his opponent. As the desperate man scrambled frantically, Harger had smiled broadly, then fired the weapon directly into the man's mouth. Perhaps because the legend fulfilled the subconscious wish of every cop who'd ever felt his bowels weaken during such a struggle, the story had become a Los Angeles police legend. In some versions of the tale the crook, whose teeth were blown down his throat, was a dope dealer. In others he was a child molester.
    "Harger the Charger, a man with a whole bucket of balls," said Detective C.R. Black, a tall, rangy man looming behind Stepanovich.
    Black looked much older than his thirty-five years. He had worked as a hod carrier in Bakersfield, California, before joining the department, and though he had a red and leathery neck as a result, his face held the toxic pallor common to cops who preferred working nights. His slicked back black hair was thinning, the roots smothered by years of wearing a black uniform hat. He was wearing cowboy boots and a brown, Western style polyester suit jacket that reeked of tobacco smoke. "Stones," Black said. "A basket of fucking stones."
    "A real street cop," said the boyish, freckled Detective Tim Fordyce, standing to Stepanovich's right spinning a roll of evidence tape on his index finger. His detective badge was pinned to the lapel of a green corduroy sports coat, the only jacket Stepanovich had ever seen him wear. Fordyce was a meticulous, frugal young man who lived with his elderly parents, liked to talk computers, and professed to live for the weekends he spent in his Winnebago. Stepanovich liked Fordyce, but because he always seemed to avoid taking a definite position on anything, considered him to be less than stalwart.
    Two hours later, the atmosphere in the church had changed. Frenzy was replaced by orderly and dull police procedure as men collected shotgun pellets, wadded them into small clear plastic bags, and measured and remeasured ballistic distances. Photos were retaken, and potential witnesses were interviewed.
    Because he spoke Spanish, Stepanovich's job had been to interview these potential witnesses. As with virtually every gang murder, no one interviewed, even those who'd been within a few feet of the victims and perpetrators, admitted seeing anything.
    Stepanovich found this response unsurprising. Unlike the black gang murders in South