the law is euphemism for more butts, i hope. i'm going with a mix of b99's undercover and witness protection plots, where his cover is that he was fired from the nypd, but he has to be far away to stay safe from the dirty cops he was investigating, hence california. so while he's open with his career stories from brooklyn and everyone knows him as an ex-cop, the only one who knows the truth (so far) that he's actually still a cop is ridicule who's his old roommate in new york. he noses his way around the oc looking for cases and mysteries, which honestly is kinda easy with all these pi's and fbi agents floating around. she could definitely have came upon one of these cases where he's annoying the hell out of whoever was officially/legally investigating it.