Under the threat of going down for capital murder, he changed his story, copped to a straight first degree homicide, and took a jolt for twenty-five to life. That was last August. Because of prison overcrowding, he was in the inmate classification center for seven months. They should have assigned him to a Level One minimum support unit because he's basically a brain-dead tweaker with no prior violent crimes, but somehow, he got a classification score above fifty-two. The poor schlub ends up being sent to Corcoran and placed in Level Four with a bunch of hardcore assassins. It's a rough car, full of gang killers." A car was what inmates called a housing unit.

"That was over two months ago. He now says the confession was coerced, that he didn't do it."

"Try singing that to 'Over the Rainbow.' It won't change the outcome, but it might sound a little better."

She ignored me and said, "You know Internal Affairs is tasked with checking up on incomplete or inadequate investigations. If we get a complaint alleging any problems with due process, it's our job to check it out. I got this one."

"Sounds like fun." I had no idea where she was going, and certainly didn't want to find out.

"Actually, it hasn't been fun at all." She pulled a stack of photocopied arrest and police reports out of her briefcase and started to push them toward me.

"Don't give that stuff to me. I don't want anything to do with this."

"Just listen then."

I made my face look disinterested and dull, something I'm uncommonly good at.

"The primary investigator on the case is a lieutenant named Brian Devine. As it turns out, Lieutenant Devine has an I. A. record of borderline brutality cases going back fifteen years. It's a thick folder. He's been in all the high testosterone units: SIS;

SWAT. Suffice it to say, the lieutenant's a cowboy. Now he heads the Van Nuys Division Homicide Squad. How dirtbags like him make supervisor baffles me."