“That doesn’t impress me.”

“Well, it impresses me,” Stone insisted.

“We don’t want the case to go to trial. And any PD will threaten trial because we’ve all got Rampart hanging over our heads. Another scandal real or imaginary will make all of us look bad.”

“So you’re ignoring a bag of X because no one was there to snap my picture when I took him down?” I asked him.

“You weren’t in uniform, Officer Decker,” Adamson told me.

“I know. I’ve been doing this on my own time.”

“And that makes you look like a hot dog.”

At this point, I shut up.

Stone shook his head. “Damn amateur videographers are never there when you need them.”

I smiled.

“What’s the upshot?” Stone said. “You take the bag away and give him four months in County for the traffic warrant?”

“That’s about it.”

Brill said, “The thing is, Decker, now El Paso has no motivation for nailing his two compadres for the Sarah Sanders rape.”

“Fedek and Renaldes,” I said.

“Yes, them,” Brill said. “El Paso’s not going to flip to avoid a four-month County stint. So unless we have something on Fedek and Renaldes now, like an outstanding warrant, DA’s office says they’re off-limits.”

“El Paso admitted he was at the scene of the rape,” I said. “Can’t we use that?”

“But before that, he had asked for an attorney and you didn’t give him one,” Adamson said. “That conversation has to be disregarded.”

I held my hands tightly in my lap … caught myself tensing and unfurled my hands.

“Can’t I have Sarah Sanders look through a six-pack and see if she can pick out El Paso? I got that information from someone else.”

Stone said, “You got information saying that El Paso was at the rape or just that he was a gang banger?”

I sighed. “The latter.”

“Unfortunately, Officer Decker, that won’t work.”

He was being nice. I didn’t want to try his patience. “Sir, would it be okay if I brought Sarah Sanders down and had her look at mug books?”

“Yeah, sure,” Stone said. “As long as you start with the A’s and don’t do anything to show prejudice.”

“This is the developmentally disabled girl?” Adamson said.

“Yes,” I answered.

“The one who abandoned her infant baby.”

“Yes.”

The DA said, “Considering her mental capacity and it’s a six-month-old rape case, her testimony isn’t going to hold much weight.”

“How about if it’s independently corroborated?”

“By whom?”

“By the boy she was with. By the boy who was assaulted while she was being gang-raped. His name is David Tyler.”

“Decker, the boy is missing,” Brill pointed out.

“What if I could find him? Then what if I gave them both mug books and independently they picked out the same people. Would that work?”

Adamson shrugged. “It would make a stronger case. Do you know where the boy is?”

“I’m working on it.” Relax, relax. “Now maybe I’ll work a little harder.”

Adamson checked his watch. “Give me a call when you’ve found him. In the meantime you don’t say Germando El Paso and the rape in the same breath—especially not to Sarah Sanders.”