A/N The wonderful characters of 'The Closer' and 'Rizzoli and Isles' belong to their respective rights holders, no infringement is intended, but as always, thanks for letting us have our way with them, if only for a moment.
A quick thanks to Kyra Sedgwick, Mary McDonnell, Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander for the warmth and depth you bring to the portrayals of our favourite detectives.
Chasing the cartel
Brenda's viewpoint
There are times when staying at home in my disaster of an apartment is preferable to coming to work.
Not only do I now dread going to sleep on Monday night, knowing that I will have a dead woman to deal with the following morning, I've picked up Sharon's habit of loathing the Thursday senior officers meeting as well.
This morning, sandwiched neatly between Tuesday and Thursday, Major Crimes had a review meeting to go over all the info we have on the factory massacre. I was dreading it as we didn't have all that much to go on and even less new information coming in.
The frustration drove me into the welcoming arms of my one true love, the top draw of my desk and far too much chocolate.
Following that I'd done the other thing I do when I'm feeling frustrated, I called Sharon and told her that as long as she didn't mind listening to me rant, lunch was on me.
We met downstairs and she led me to a quiet bar that did a decent lunch menu, we got settled in a rear booth and started chatting, well it was mostly me talking and her listening.
We'd done this plenty of times before, when we couldn't think straight or we needed a second brain thinking something over, drag the other person out to lunch and talk it through.
Given it was her case too, I didn't feel too bad about spending an extended lunch chatting about it, plus I really wanted her input.
"According to Anastasia, the Bureau is certain it was Los Zetas that shot up the warehouse, those people are crazy" I took a tiny sip of wine as she thought about it.
"Aren't they the ex-military, who ended up working for a cartel, they branched off on their own didn't they?" I nodded, putting down my glass of white. We allowed ourselves one each on these working lunches.
"Yep, now they're one of the biggest and definitely the most feared of the cartels. Their trademark is the indiscriminate use of firepower and absolutely no qualms against using it against innocent civilians" She frowned.
"Why here and now?"
"I don't know, but Sanchez brought some interesting news from the Gang Task Force" Sanchez kept close links to Commander Reynolds's people, given how often we ran up against gang influences in our work, Reynolds and I had agreed that it was only prudent.
"After the leader of the Blood Catorcies, a guy known as Amos, got killed in the warehouse, the second in command was a guy called T-Rex, with two senior lieutenants, Kay Jay and Little Dog: I pulled a face. "God who thinks up these names"
"I don't know Brenda, maybe they think they sound tougher that way" I sniggered.
"That usually lasts until they end up in prison and meet the real tough guys, the one's who like fresh meat after dark" She laughed.
"Or the certifiably weird who like the taste of fresh meat, literally" I nodded, remembering one particularly nasty case we closed a few years back.
"Oh yeah, I forgot him" She shook her head a little sadly.
"He's not the only one we've put away who likes their meat… fresh" I shuddered.
"Where do all these crazies come from, why here?"
"Something in the water maybe, I don't know. So what was the news from Reynolds's people?"
"Well it appears that there are a few new vacancies in the Blood Catorcies senior ranks" She sat back, raising one elegant eyebrow in a silent question. "T-Rex and several close friends were gunned down in a drive by early yesterday evening and Kay Jay was found dead together with his brother early this morning, shot down at his home"
"So that leaves Little Dog the defacto leader of the Blood Catorcies? That's a rapid promotion even by the somewhat loose standards of LA street gangs. Makes me wonder why he's still alive when the others aren't" I shrugged, twisting the glass stem on the table
"Apparently he's not in hiding, though whether that's bravado or stupidity I'm not sure" She made a non-committal motion with her hand.
"We'll find out soon enough"
"Probably, Anastasia passed on something an FBI informant in Mexico heard, that a Los Zeta's member with too much to drink had said that the hit on the Catorcies had been part of their move on another cartel, with more planned" Sharon grimaced.
"That's not good, for anyone, not just their targets" We paused as the waitress brought us our meals, a steak in my case, chicken in hers. We spent a few moments enjoying lunch before diving back into it the case. Sharon kicked it off again.
"What else do you have?"
"The Blood Catorcies were affiliated with another cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel. They apparently bought cocaine from them and were cutting it down at the warehouse, then shipping it out in smaller packages to street dealers"
"So Los Zetas decided to hit the Sinaloa where it hurt?" I nodded.
"Seems that way, must have put a crimp in their plans, you can't just walk in and set up a new distribution ring from scratch in a hurry"
Sharon paused, her fork half way to her mouth, as she thought hard. I let her think; it usually meant something good was happening. After a moment she put the fork back down and took a small sip of wine. She was silent for about 30 seconds before coming back to me.
"Ok, down in Mexico, they have a saying, 'plata o plomo'; it means silver or lead. Take a bribe or be killed. It's what they offer to people who are useful, but not too useful. Like a police officer or a bureaucrat of a low level thug. I bet that's what happened here" I frowned, not following her. Seeing my confusion Sharon explained.
"You said it yourself; it's difficult to put together a new distribution system from scratch, so why bother? You kill off the senior people of your rival's distributor and then set it up for someone who you've corrupted to take over" I saw where she was coming from now.
"They got to Little Dog, made him an offer he didn't dare refuse, then killed off everyone above him, so he takes over and starts distributing Los Zeta's product" Sharon smiled.
"Exactly, he's still high enough up in the Catorcies to be able to know who the distribution contacts are, but low enough that he wasn't really going to be a likely choice to take over. Now, they've corrupted him, he sold out his friends and he walks into the job" She leaned back away from the table, meal forgotten for a moment.
"He's acting the tough guy because he knows they won't come after him. Like you said, he's not in hiding, which would be the smartest thing to do if someone was trying to kill him, normally in this sort of situation he'd disappear down a rat hole, trying to stay alive" I smiled.
"He knows he's safe, because Los Zeta's need him to be their man on the ground"
"Plus he gets to act the brave leader in front of the rest of the Catorcies, who must be feeling very nervous about now; they'll rally around someone who's making a stand and looks like they know what to do" I grinned widely, excited at the possibilities.
"That makes sense, it's brilliant. You Sharon Raydor, are brilliant!" She grinned at me.
"I know, but I try not to boast too much" I snickered.
"Modest too" She nodded her head in mocking acceptance.
"So do you pull Little Dog in?" I thought that over, as Sharon went back to her chicken.
"Probably not yet, it's all circumstantial. Brilliant, but circumstantial, I'll need something more to hook him on" Sharon nodded slowly.
"So…"
"I'll get surveillance on Little Dog, if he's being that brazen, it shouldn't be too hard, see who he's talking to, he has to be talking to the Zetas somehow" I thought about it for a moment, as Sharon watched.
"I bet the Catorcies rivals aren't standing still. They must be looking at the Catorcies and thinking they're weak, they can be pushed out" Sharon looked pensive.
"They don't know who's now backing Little Dog, he can probably get the Zeta's to hit them, which not only protects the cartels investment, but weakens a rival"
We sat there for a few mouthfuls of food, both thinking it through.
If the Zeta's were planning additional attacks into California, we needed to shut them down. Based on their past history their attacks would get bigger, messier and involve lots of civilian casualties.
"We'll need a court order for a bunch of wiretap's and intercepts, but we should have enough to take to a judge" Sharon nodded.
"Try and get Judge Rosenberg if you can, he's pretty good for signing off on the warrants"
"Thanks, I will"
We kicked the case around for a few more minutes, before turning to her cases. Fortunately the only cases she had open were pretty open and shut. A domestic had turned nasty, with the husband, drunk, taking shots at the uniforms when they arrived. They'd shot back and hit him in the leg and shoulder.
The other was an addict off his face on PCP, he'd shrugged off batons and repeated taser shots, eventually an officer had put a shot through the perp's knee; he might think he was god when high, but he wasn't walking with a shattered kneecap.
Eventually the conversation turned to the sniper case.
"So how's that going?"
Not too well, we haven't found anything to link the victim's together, plus the shooter's very careful" She looked the question over the last of her wine.
"Each time we eventually find where the shot was taken, there's no physical evidence, no shell casing, no fingerprints, nothing. The shooters even been careful enough to sweep the scene clear of footprints, so we don't have anything"
"Something will turn up, it eventually does" I sighed.
"I know Sharon, but it's hard, knowing that every Tuesday morning a pretty young woman's going to be dead, in a particularly horrible way"
"I understand; I had a bad case way back before I joined FID, a rapist who struck every Saturday evening. Turns out that his wife had walked out on him to escape his drunken abuse on a Saturday night, so he saw it as getting even with her, by taking it out on others" I shook my head.
"Lovely, reaffirms my faith in men"
"It's ok Brenda, they're not all like that, you'll find someone, it's just a matter of time" I laughed, taking the sting out of my words.
"Dating advice from Sharon Raydor, who'd have thought it; and when was the last time you got some sweetie?" She snickered.
"I think it was sometime around the LA riots, or was it earlier? Hmm, I can't seem to remember that far back honey" She drawled out the 'honey', making fun of it.
"Might have been the last big earthquake" I tried to put on a deep masculine voice. "Did the earth move for you too sweetie?" She smiled.
"No, is it supposed too? I thought it was all the wine I'd had?" We sat there, smiling fondly at each other.
God I was glad I had a friend like Sharon, it made the job, the petty annoyances like Taylor, my crappy life here, a lot easier to take. I hoped that I was able to help her the way she helped me, but couldn't ask that question. Not without a lot more wine on board.
"Hey Brenda, sooner or later, they'll make a mistake, they always do, eventually" I sighed.
"I know Sharon; it's just the helplessness that gets to me. Next Tuesday morning I'll be looking at another dead woman, probably with no more clues than we have now"
"And you have nothing on military trained snipers who might be taking the shot?"
"Nope, nothing that's turned up so far, why?" She pursed her lips, looking down at the table.
"You may want to have a look at the LAPD and the various county sheriff's department's, their snipers are pretty good. For that matter the FBI has some really good ones too" I thought that one over for a moment.
"Good point, I'd missed that possibility. God, I hope you're wrong, but given what you have to deal with, maybe you're not"
Looking at my watch I realised that we'd been sitting here for the better part of two hours.
"We'd best be heading back, before Pope has kittens wondering what we're planning"
"Tell him we're planning to take over his job" I snickered.
"We'd need a crowbar to get him out of that seat, it'd be over his dead body" She laughed as we paid the bill.
"That can be arranged. You kill him, Maura hides the evidence, my investigation clears you, you pin the rap on Taylor and voila, LA's first female Chief of Police" I grinned at her.
"This is sounding better and better sweetie, what do you want in return for your help?"
"Assistant Chief's job"
"Sound's good to me, as long as you do all the paperwork"
"Hmm, you'll have to sweeten the deal"
"How about you get to torture Taylor daily for entertainment?"
"Done"