Gumshoe: The Walter Sunderland Story

By D.E. Gray

Ten-year LAPD sergeant, Walter Sunderland was about to cross off another item on his personal bucket list. He would soon be transferring out of uniform patrol and head downtown to the elite Robbery Homicide Division as an LAPD detective. Working RHD was his dream job and like most things in his life, whatever he set his mind to, he usually succeeded.

Married to a beautiful woman who made twice the money he did selling million-dollar homes in the trendy upscale neighborhood of Porter Ranch in the northwest San Fernando Valley, where they now lived themselves, was just the frosting on the cake. It would only take one act of pure stupidity to rear its ugly head, that would bring his world crashing down around him.

Now, fired from the police department, divorced from his wife, and after serving a short prison sentence, he was just a heartbeat away from becoming a down and out homeless street person himself. Living in a cheap downtown hotel that overlooked skid row, he was now working menial part-time jobs trying to keep his head above water to survive.

It would be the very woman who accused him of rape under the color of authority that got him fired from the force and sent him to jail, who was now pleading for his help. She herself was now the number one suspect in the murder of her former husband and with limited funds, she had nowhere to turn.

The two unlikely pair would join forces to spar with her former dead husband’s new wife along with the LAPD detectives investigating his murder and at the same time, deal with their own ongoing mistrust for one another.

Without the use of any of the LAPD’s resources provided to regular sworn detectives on the job, Sunderland was now being measured by everyone around him as nothing more than a washed-up Gumshoe, a term he hated with contempt. Even so, he now would have to rely on his own wit and expertise as he follows up on his instincts, leads and scenarios to come up with answers he so desperately needed. Those answers wouldn’t come easy after hitting one roadblock after another as he tried to piece together the realities and assumptions that no one else was willing to tackle. Together, Walt Sunderland and Gretchen Quinn’s journey would take them to an unpredictable and shocking conclusion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664119161

D.E. Gray

D. E. Gray began his law enforcement career in 1967, spending twenty-eight years as a Los Angeles police officer, twenty-six of those years working as a motorcycle officer. After his retirement from the LAPD in 1995, Gray was hired by the Escondido Police Department in North San Diego County. He spent another fourteen years there, much of it as a uniformed street cop. After Gray’s retirement from the force in 2008, he authored his first book titled The Warrior in Me, a memoir following his forty-two-year career at both agencies. After writing his first nonfiction book, The Warrior in Me, Gray decided to write his second book titled True to the Blue. Even though his second book is a work of fiction, it is based in part on a true story that includes actual events that the author experienced or witnessed while on the job. Many of the characters portrayed in True to the Blue are patterned after real people who have either worked or crossed paths with D. E. Gray during his forty-two-year career as a seasoned street cop. After experiencing a forty-two-year high working at the two police agencies, Gray realized that he and others like him were being replaced by a new breed of cop, many of whom never had to think outside the box or, more accurately, outside the police manual. The new breed of cops had new cars, new weapons, newer equipment, newer training, and even more modern, newly built police stations. This gave Gray the idea for his third and newest book titled Eclipse of the Blue: For Greater Glory. This story follows the lives of twelve retired LA police officers who band together to commit the perfect crime, proving to themselves that they aren’t too old to outsmart and outwit the newer generation of cops that have taken their places. This story is part The Sting and part Mission Impossible with a surprise ending that will have you rooting for the twelve former cops who call themselves “The Retired Blues Crew.” D. E. Gray once again decided he had another story to tell. This time it would begin where his second book, True to the Blue, left off. He titled it Conflict in Blue: The Marissa Ortega Story. Marissa Ortega is the daughter of deceased police officer Sergio Ortega, who was fired from the Los Angeles Police Department for a bogus charge of filing a false police report, a charge he was later cleared of. Marissa, now an LAPD officer herself, has a score to settle, not just with the notorious Avenues Street Gang, who delivers terror to the citizens of Southeast LA, but with the LAPD itself. She soon finds herself and her partner on a Mexican Mafia hit list after three Avenues Street Gang members die, one of them the little brother of a Mafioso, after the conclusion of a violent police pursuit. Even though she is on a Mafia hit list, Marissa sets out to find the gang member who killed her uncle back before she was born and who is now back out on the streets with EMERO status and who is now considered a parolee at large. Things get worse when the hit on Marissa and her partner by gang members goes awry, and instead, her aunt Nina is murdered, and her partner’s wife is murdered by accident. Marissa eventually teams up with Bryce Stevens, a detective assigned to the Robbery-Homicide Division of the LAPD. Together they devise a plan to trick an Avenues Street Gang member into becoming a confidential informant, hoping he will lead them to the individual who killed her uncle and to the gang members who killed her aunt and her partner’s wife. Conflict in Blue: The Marissa Ortega Story has thrills, suspense, humor, and romance. Gray presently lives in North San Diego County with his wife, Suzanne. ***  

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Copyright © 2020 by D. E. Gray.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 08/03/2020

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CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter 1 Regrets … I Have a Few

Chapter 2 One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Chapter 3 Apparently, Rock Bottom Has a Basement

Chapter 4 Fool Me Once, Shame on You, Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me

Chapter 5 Things May Look Closer than They Appear in the Mirror

Chapter 6 I Must Play Their Game of Not Seeing, That I See Their Game

Chapter 7 Beware, the Pendulum Effect

Chapter 8 The Sensation of Capitulation

Chapter 9 Karma’s a Bitch

Chapter 10 When Worlds Collide

Chapter 11 Revelations of Significant Importance

Chapter 12 Never Trust a Man Who Doesn’t Wear Socks

Chapter 13 Lend Me Your Ear and Whisper Sweet Nothings

Chapter 14 What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

Chapter 15 This Is Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Chapter 16 The Diary Chronicles

Chapter 17 Can’t Fix Stupid, but We Can Give It a Court Date

Epilogue

Story Characters

Gumshoe

Noun; Detective

Private eye

P I

Shamus

I must play their game of not seeing that I see their game.

d. e. gray

THE WALTER

SUNDERLAND STORY

Preface

A s the old Dragnet TV show would always say, The story you are about to hear is true; only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. With my book, Gumshoe , I might have to change the wording to; " the story you are about to read is based in part on true events. Some of the names of the real people in this story were changed to protect their privacy."

Back when I went through the Los Angeles Police Academy as a recruit, one of our instructors lectured us about the evils of police work. He stressed that the three things that would get you fired from the job were; woman, alcohol, and bad debts. That was in 1967, but today, to keep up with the times, it might be "alcohol, drugs, bad debts, and personal relationships.

Even so, I have to ask myself; why did whoever coined that phrase back in 1967, put woman at the top of the list of evils? After reading this story, you may find the answer to that question, not because it was prevalent back in 1967, but because it’s still prevalent today.

My motivation to write this story came about in one of those moments in time when you just ask yourself, I wonder whatever happened to what’s his name. Not to worry, I know who what’s his name is, but for this story, I’ve given him the name of Walter Sunderland, a ten-year LAPD sergeant who works in one of the five San Fernando Valley police divisions.

While I barely knew of this sergeant before meeting him in person, it wasn’t until the late 1970s or early 1980s that I would hear his story right from the horse’s mouth. What I did know before I really got to know him was, he wasn’t much liked as a supervisor by the troops in the division he worked. It was during the time I really got to know him, that he mellowed out and discovered what humility was.

I was working movie jobs for major movie studio production companies on my days off for extra money. He was on administrative leave without pay from the department and needed some sort of income while he was being investigated by the Internal Affairs Division for a violation of department policy. He turned a citizen’s contact into a personal relationship, something the department frowned on back then. That investigation would eventually turn into a criminal investigation, and he would be charged with California Penal Code Section, 261 (a) (3) and (7), rape under the color of authority, a felony.

One of the officers who supplied off-duty motor cops for movie location work, decided to use him for movie location work to help him out meeting his financial obligations while he was dealing with his legal problems, you know, innocent until proven guilty. When it came to working movie jobs, you might say I was a movie job whore, working as many as I could for the average twelve to sixteen-hour days that included time and a half pay after eight hours. The money to be made working those jobs was definitely something you could not pass up. I spent many hours, over many days, and many weeks listening to a blow-by-blow account of his situation and what was happening to his life until it all came to a screeching end, and he was eventually found guilty and incarcerated.

As in my other books, many of the characters in this story are patterned after real people that I have either worked with or have crossed paths with. Any other similarities to people, places, and incidents are entirely coincidental.

Acknowledgments

T his book is dedicated to everyone who reads my books and thinks I’m writing about them …; they’re right, I am.

After forty-two years working for two police agencies, Los Angeles Police Department, twenty-eight years, and Escondido Police Department, fourteen years, my stories revolve around those of you that have worn the badge and have worked with me, or in some cases, we just crossed paths with one another and you had an interesting story to share that peaked my imagination. I’m not forgetting those of you whom I may have arrested and taken to jail, for had I not known any of you, this book along with all my others may have never come to print, and for that, I humbly thank you for all the memories and stories.

To my wife, Suzanne, who I have been married to for fifty-three years at the time of this writing, thank you for your sacrifice, support, and encouragement while raising my two sons, four dogs, one rabbit, and a gaggle of tropical fish while I went off to play cop.

To my oldest son Sean, who reads none of my books and my youngest son Geoff, who reads all of my books, here is one more book to put on your bookshelf even if it is only to collect dust. I love you all.

Prologue

T en-year LAPD sergeant Walter Sunderland was about to cross off another item on his personal bucket list. He would soon be transferring out of uniform patrol and head downtown to the elite Robbery-Homicide Division as an LAPD detective. Working RHD was his dream job and like most things in his life; whatever he set his mind to, he usually succeeded.

Married to a beautiful woman who made twice the money he did selling million-dollar homes in the trendy upscale neighborhood of Porter Ranch in the northwest San Fernando Valley, where they now lived themselves, was just the frosting on the cake. It would only take one act of pure stupidity to rear its ugly head that would bring his world crashing down around him.

Now, fired from the police department, divorced from his wife, and after serving a short prison sentence, he was just a heartbeat away from becoming a down and out homeless street person himself. Living in a cheap downtown hotel that overlooked skid row, he was now working menial part-time jobs trying to keep his head above water to survive.

It would be the very woman who accused him of rape under the color of authority that got him fired from the force and sent him to jail, who was now pleading for his help. She, herself, was now the number one suspect in the murder of her former husband, and with limited funds, she had nowhere to turn.

The two unlikely pair would join forces to spar with her former dead husband’s new wife along with the LAPD detectives investigating his murder and at the same time, deal with their own ongoing mistrust for one another.

Without the use of any of the LAPD’s resources provided to regular sworn detectives on the job, Sunderland was now being measured by everyone around him as nothing more than a washed-up gumshoe, a term he hated with contempt.

Even so, he now would have to rely on his own wit and expertise as he follows up on his instincts, leads, and scenarios to come up with answers he so desperately needed. Those answers wouldn’t come easy after hitting one roadblock after another as he tried to piece together the realities and assumptions that no one else was willing to tackle. Together, Walt Sunderland and Gretchen Quinn’s journey would take them to an unpredictable and shocking conclusion.

Chapter 1

Regrets … I

Have a Few

Thursday, February 6, Present Time

Marion Hotel, Crocker Street, Downtown L. A.

N ever again were the words Walt Sunderland would utter to himself every time he went on one of those late-night drinking binges. He opened his eyes and found himself lying on the floor just inside the doorway of his small one-bedroom apartment. He was staring up at the cobweb-covered ceiling; his head was pounding unmercifully as he began to feel the effects of nausea kicking in. Trying to cope with the sensitivity of the bright sunlight shining through the small kitchen window along with the sound of a nearby neighbor’s radio playing that god-awful Mexican music, he grabbed his head with both of his hands on an attempt to make the pain go away.

He had no idea how he got back to his apartment after his brouhaha at O’Neil’s Shantytown Pub on San Pedro Street. The Shantytown wasn’t his favorite bar, but it was within a short three-block walking distance from Crocker Street and the Marion Hotel, the place he called home for the last nine months.

The Marion Hotel was a rundown three-story brick structure built back in 1913. Even though it had been through a number of renovations over the years, it was hardly up to code, much like the other nearby buildings in LA. His hotel was surrounded by the homeless, sleeping in makeshift tents at night and then disappearing by midday where a bevy of old rusted shopping carts packed with nonsequential belongings lined both sides of the street. True, the Marion Hotel wasn’t the Taj Mahal, and even though there was an occasional rat or two along with few dozen cockroaches, you still had to be grateful you weren’t dealing with the cold and the threat of rain like the other street dwellers who lived on the streets below him did. The truth be known, Sunderland was just a heartbeat away from being evicted and becoming a street person himself.

The last thing Sunderland remembered about last night was this scrawny little numb-nut, a-hole, telling him he was nothing more than an old washed-up gumshoe. How he hated the label of gumshoe and preferred the title of private investigator or just plain PI. He rattled off a few choice words of his own directed toward the mental midget who couldn’t have been more than five-feet six-inches tall and 150 pounds when soaking wet. That was when the guy laughably offered to kick his ass. Not one to be intimidated easily, especially by a low-life punk, Sunderland simply answered,

I wouldn’t like that, but then again, I don’t think you can do it!

What happened after that was merely speculation. Sunderland looked down and could see dried blood splattered across the front of his shirt. He reached up and felt the bulbous swollen lump above his right cheekbone, just below his eye. It was tender to the touch as well as was his split lower lip.

He struggled to get up off the floor, fighting off the dizziness he was experiencing and made his way to the sofa located to the far side of the room. He collapsed on the couch and without thinking, reached over for his pack of Marlboro cigarettes sitting on the coffee table.

Great! he said to himself after flipping open the top and finding it empty. He crushed the pack with his hand and threw it back where it bounced off his coffee table and landed on the floor. Now he was forced to rummage through his ashtray with his fingers, trying to find a decent cigarette butt that would give him the few tokes he needed to calm his nerves.

Picking the best of the twelve butts, he placed it slightly away from where the injury on his lip was located and started canvasing the room for a match. Standing up, he began frisking over his clothes with his hands until he felt what he was looking for in his left shirt pocket. Removing it, he opened the matchbook cover and pulled a match off the row. He struck the match across the sandpaper strip and then immediately cupped the flame with his hands, lighting the butt and taking one long drag. Before putting his hands back down, he noticed something written on the inside of the match-book cover. He held it out in front of him and read the inscription, Call me. Important. 213-555-2625. Chris.

Who was this Chris person? he said to himself. Was Chris a gal or a guy? Better yet, he was wondering if maybe he just unknowingly picked up someone else’s matchbook off the bar not realizing it was their property and put it in his pocket.

Walt Sunderland’s life wasn’t always this screwed up. At one time he was married to Polly Sunderland, his wife of eight years; he had a good job and lived in an expensive home in Porter Ranch, an upscale suburb of the San Fernando Valley. His downward spiral began a little over two years ago when he left his comfort zone and made the worst decision of his life.

Thirty-Nine Months Ago

Sunderland was a patrol sergeant with the Los Angeles Police Department. He was a ten-year veteran with three years on as a sergeant. He was working the mid-P.M. watch at Mission Division in the north San Fernando Valley and was only three weeks away from being transferred to the elite Robbery-Homicide Division (RHD).

RHD was one of the items on his bucket list of things he wanted to accomplish during his career with the LAPD. For him, being a detective at RHD was a status symbol of a sort. It meant he could leave his house wearing a suit which would certainly appease those snobby condescending neighbors of his who thought a cop living on their street was beneath them.

It was a warm late August night with less than two hours to go before his watch ended. He pulled into the Western Bagel shop on the corner of Sepulveda Blvd. and Stagg Street to pick up a dozen assorted bagels to take home. Western Bagels were always generous to police officers and never charged them for their baker’s dozen. They were probably hit up at least ten or twelve times a day by cops from Van Nuys and Mission Division and if you multiply that by seven days, you had a shit load of bagels walking out the door every week, all free.

Sitting in the parking lot in his black and white, catching up on his sergeant’s log, he looked up and observed a black Mercedes sedan traveling north on Sepulveda Blvd. The light was green for northbound traffic, but for some reason the Mercedes came to a full stop and just sat there through the entire green phase. To a savvy cop, the only explanation for that was the driver was either under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or both, talking on the phone or texting and not paying attention. Even though the intersection was well lit, the Mercedes’s windows were all tinted dark which made it difficult at best to see who was driving the vehicle. When the light turned to red and then green again and the vehicle didn’t move, Sunderland reached over and gave a short yelp on his vehicle’s siren which seemed to alert the driver in the Mercedes who then took off with rapid acceleration.

Sunderland decided it was time for a traffic stop on the Mercedes driver and a probable FST (field sobriety test). If the driver was inebriated, he would just call a patrol unit and have them take over. He quickly caught up and positioned his vehicle behind the Mercedes who was now traveling in excess of fifty mph. He reached over and activated his emergency lights and once again gave a few short yelps on his siren. The Mercedes immediately pulled to the right curb and stopped.

Sunderland exited his vehicle and cautiously walked up to the driver’s door. He tapped his flashlight on the driver’s window while at the ready with his right hand on his holstered weapon. The window retracted down and that was when Sunderland got his first glimpse of the driver.

Her name was Gretchen Quinn. She was a forty-year-old, recent divorcée. It was obvious she had been crying from the dark mascara running down her cheeks. Even so, she was an attractive brunette who could easily turn the heads of many men.

Is there something wrong, officer? she sobbed.

Well, Sunderland began, you sat through two green lights back there at Stagg Street, and then when you did finally pull away, I clocked you at fifty-three mph. This is a posted thirty-five zone. And look at the way you parked your car, you’re halfway out in the street.

Oh, I’m sorry, Officer, she said. It’s just that my life has been a train wreck lately, and as for my bad parking, well, that’s because my husband constantly lied to me about what eight inches is. It was at that point that her sobbing turned to tears.

Sunderland had an inkling he’d be sorry for asking, but he took the chance anyway.

Come on! Things can’t be that bad. You appear to be a very attractive lady, and besides, you’re driving a Mercedes, that has to count for something!

Yea! Tell me about it, she said, tearing up even more. This car was a going-away present, not my going away, my husband’s going away. He left me for some fertile little bimbo who could give him a kid. God only knows, I tried, she cried, but the doctor said there was nothing wrong with him, so I guess that leaves me holding the bag?

It seemed that Gretchen Quinn’s marriage was in trouble the minute her husband found out that she was incapable of bearing children.

Up until now, Gretchen Quinn’s life had been anything but easy. Growing up in the small town of Healdsburg, California, she was an only child. Her father, who worked as a field-hand and a jack of all trades, was employed by PG&E at the Geysers, harnessing the steam to supply power to parts of northern California. The work was hard, leading him into a life of alcohol abuse and domestic violence. By the time she was sixteen, her father died of cirrhosis of the liver leaving her and her mother to fend for themselves.

Things were looking up when she and her mother moved to Los Angeles and her mother found work as a customer service rep at a local department store. It was when Gretchen turned nineteen that her mother would die in a car accident and her world would again come crashing down around her.

Have you had anything to drink tonight? Sunderland asked.

A couple glasses of wine, she said. Oh, who am I trying to kid, she blurted out. I lost track. I spent the last four hours at the Playtime Bar trying to get some guy to hit on me. What’s wrong with me? she sobbed. Am I really that awful? Oh god, go ahead, just take me to jail. I don’t care anymore. I’m ready to check out of this life, she said, weeping uncontrollably.

Well, this was the part of the story where the male intellect has a major malfunction. The smart thing Sunderland should have done was call for that patrol unit to take over the DUI investigation and arrest, but Sunderland decided otherwise, and now he was going to be her knight in shining armor.

An offer to drive her home was quickly accepted, and while that wasn’t in the department manual, it was what would unfold later that would be closely critiqued by those higher up in their ivory towers.

When Sunderland arrived at Quinn’s residence, she asked him if he would like to come inside for a while. Of course, Sunderland declined since he was a gentleman, a cop and he was still on duty.

That figures, she sobbed as she wiped away the tears from her face, another rejection in my pathetic little life.

While his intentions may have been honorable, Sunderland unwittingly signed on for another faux pas with his offer to come back to her house for a cup of coffee after his shift ended, of course, just to talk mind you. After all, she was a lady in distress, and it was up to him to make sure she didn’t do anything to harm herself. It was a well-known fact that cops were recognized as hero’s all the time, especially after talking a suicidal person out of harming themselves. As could be expected, their coffee and conversation lasted a little more than an hour and a half and that’s when Sunderland found himself in her bed doing the dirty.

The ripple effect of his actions put Sunderland on a dangerous, slippery slope and Quinn with a Capricorn of emotions that would derail a freight train. After Sunderland left her residence that morning, Quinn immediately bathed, hoping to wash away some of the guilt that was now deeply seated in her subconscious.

Sunderland, on the other hand, was doing what guys who cheat on their wives do best, trying to justify his own behavior. This was the first time he had done anything like this and now he was trying to figure out why. His reasoning took a sharp turn when he began thinking about his wife Polly. She was a successful real estate agent who sold million-dollar homes in the Porter Ranch area of the San Fernando Valley. There was no way he could afford their lifestyle on his salary and in that she felt her career was more important than having children, then naturally shouldn’t she should bear some of the blame for what he did? There were numerous times when she would have to work late, well into the night for that matter, supposedly meeting clients to close deals.

She was an attractive lady who always left the house dressed to impress. Who was to say she wasn’t having a roll in the hay with one of her coworkers or maybe even a client she may have met? With her hectic schedule as a realtor and he working the mid-P.M. watch that also included way too much overtime for his liking, they seldom had any time for one another, and as hard as he tried, he couldn’t remember the last time they were intimate together. Although it was all conjecture on his part, what was good for the goose was good for the gander, and that was how he was able to deal with it.

By the time Sunderland got home, Polly had already left for work. Sunderland looked at his watch; it was a little after 10:00 a.m. He emptied the contents of his pockets on the kitchen counter and immediately realized he forgot to give Quinn back her car keys after locking it up where he stopped her. Well, he’d just have to leave home early and drop them off on his way to work, but for now, he needed to get some sleep. Sunderland undressed and slipped into his pajamas, hoping he could forget about his unfaithful discretions and fall asleep.

Gretchen Quinn on the other hand, lay awake, she too was thinking about what happened that night but not in a good way. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. As far as she was concerned, she was victimized once again by a man, and not just by any man, but a cop of all things. She vowed that she would never let another man take advantage of her ever again, and she was determined to meet her guilt head on. After several minutes of getting the runaround on the phone, she found herself talking to the watch commander at LAPD’s Mission Division, and it wasn’t about a traffic ticket complaint either.

When she mentioned the word rape and said she knew the cop’s name, she was immediately instructed to come directly to the police station for an interview. That wasn’t going to be easy since her car was parked and locked at the scene where Sunderland stopped her.

It was two hours later when Chessa Sudak, a sergeant assigned to the Internal Affairs Division arrived at Quinn’s residence to investigate her complaint. By the time Sergeant Sudak completed