The Competition

56

For several long seconds, no one moved. Bailey recovered first. “Uh, Todd, you can stand down. I believe we can safely say he’s unarmed.” She looked at Shane. “No offense. Feel free to get your towel.”

Shane nodded but kept his eyes trained on Todd as he bent down to get the towel and draped it around his waist.

“Where are your clothes?” Todd asked. Shane pointed to a chair. Todd gave the T-shirt and jeans a thorough going-over, then tossed them to Shane one at a time. Bailey and I checked his wallet and license to confirm his identity, then ripped through the room. We found a.38 Smith and Wesson under his pillow, a 9 mm Glock in the top drawer of the dresser, and an SBR AR-15 in the closet. They were all fully loaded. Bailey read him his rights. He waived them in a shaky voice.

We took him into the living room, handcuffed him, and tied him to a kitchen chair with some electrical cord Todd found under the sink. Bailey and Todd hovered over him, guns at their sides. Shane didn’t look so good now, trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, all pale and trembling. But looking past that, I could see that his photo hadn’t done him justice. The wavy brown hair curling over his forehead, hazel eyes, and full, sensual lips that had a rebellious curl made for an undeniably sexy package. I’d always been wary of the type, myself.

Since I was the only one not visibly armed, I was unofficially elected to play good cop. “Where’s Logan Jarvis?”

His eyes narrowed with fury. “That lunatic asshole. I don’t know and I don’t want to know.”

This was not the answer, or the attitude, I’d been expecting. “You two just shot up that theater, said adios, and went your separate ways?”

Shane’s mouth dropped open. “Theater? Shooting? What the hell are you talking about?” He looked a little green around the gills. Some guys can do a pretty good job of feigning shock, but nausea-that’s a toughie.

“Shane, now is not the time to play dumb. We might be able to save you from death row if you help us. But you can’t waste our time with this ‘who me?’ bullshit.”

“Lady, I’m not kidding. I don’t know about any theater shooting. And the last time I saw Logan was a few weeks before the school shooting.”

I folded my arms and gave him my best “give me a fucking break” look. “So you had nothing to do with the shooting at Fairmont High.”

He teared up. His lips trembled, and for a few seconds it looked as though he was going to break down. But he closed his eyes, swallowed, and held it back. When he spoke, his voice was ragged. “Why in the hell would I want to shoot up a bunch of kids?” Shane looked at me, his expression tortured. “If I’d known that’s what that fucking freak was getting the guns for, I’d have called the cops. I sure as hell wouldn’t have sold him any.” He dropped his head, and I saw tears fall into his lap. “I had no idea that’s why he bought them until I saw the news that day.”

“But we didn’t release his name for a couple of days.”

“Yeah, but I knew what school he went to, and I knew what I’d sold him. The reports all said what kind of weapons they used.” He was right about that. “Plus, Logan talked some really weird shit just before…it all happened. He sent me this off-the-wall email the day before about seeing me ‘on the other side.’ At the time I just thought he was being his usual strange, geeky self. But then, when I saw the news about the shooting at Fairmont, I put it all together.”

“And ran.”

Shane gave me a hard look. “Bet your ass I ran.”

Because he was, at the very least, on the hook for selling guns to a minor, for selling guns without registration, probably for buying stolen guns, possibly for burning off the registration numbers. The list went on and on.

“Where were you at the time of the Fairmont shooting?”

“At the VA hospital in Westwood, getting my meds. Check it out; they keep records.”

“Don’t worry, we will.” Or rather, we’d been trying. The VA records were a mess. When Bailey got the tip about Shane being in La Conchita, she’d told the unis to drop everything else and focus on any records dated on or near the day of the shooting. With a little luck, we’d have our answer soon. “What were you getting meds for?”

Shane tightened his lips for a moment and looked away. Finally, he answered. “PTSD. I’m not saying I was a model citizen before the war, but when I got back…” He shook his head. “I couldn’t deal. Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t think straight. The only thing that made me feel better was getting high. It was the only way I could block out the memories. I couldn’t hold down a job, and after getting fired a couple of times, I was totally hosed.” Shane looked up at me. “But I’m guessing Luke already told you about that.”

“Some, yeah.”

Shane nodded. “After Luke moved out, things really went to shit. I fell apart. They denied my disability claims, I lost my job at the garage, so I couldn’t pay the rent. The landlord gave me a three-day notice. I was pretty much homeless. That’s when I met up with a guy at a gun range out in Agoura Hills.”

I figured out where this was heading. “And that’s the guy who got you into gun sales.”

“Yeah. It was a natural move for me. I was raised in Montana. Learned to shoot before I learned to read. So I knew guns. And the money was great. I got myself out of debt and out of L.A. and got myself a job at the tree service. And I’m practically off the meds. Doing good now.” Shane looked at the three of us surrounding him. “Well, I was.”

“Good? You call illegal gunrunning good?”

He leaned back and glared at me. “What the fuck do I care? The U.S. government screwed me over. Hard. Used me up and spit me out. The VA takes a year to process my claims. They were worthless when I needed help finding work. So the government wants to regulate gun sales? Fuck ’em. It’s my constitutional right to bear arms.”

“And to sell them to kids?” Shane looked away. “Where have you been for the past two days?” I deliberately didn’t give him the date of the theater shooting. I wanted to see how much of his time he could account for.

“Up north, near Red Bluff.”

“When did you get down here?”

“This morning. I dumped the car-”

“The Jetta?”

“Yeah. Figured you guys might be onto that. Picked up the bike-”

“You mean stole-”

Shane glared at me. “Bought-just outside Sacramento.”

“When?”

“Yesterday.”

If that was true, there was no way he could’ve done the theater shooting. “Who’d you buy it from?”

“Look in my wallet. There’s a receipt. Seller was a guy named Trinidad…something. Got his phone number on there and everything. You’ll see.”

Bailey leaned over and whispered to Todd and he nodded. “Be right back,” she said. “You keep going.” I knew she was going to check Shane’s alibis.

“Assuming your alibis check out and you’re not one of the shooters, you’re still on the hook for selling the guns to them-”

“Them? I didn’t sell anything to ‘them.’ The only person I sold to was Logan. I never saw anyone else.” His voice was firm. “I kept my customer list tight. Never spread my net too wide.”

“You didn’t deal with any friends of Logan’s?”

“Never. Our deals were always one-on-one.”

“Didn’t it strike you as odd that one kid would buy that many weapons? All those AKs and at least four handguns?”

“No, it didn’t strike me as ‘odd.’” He tilted his head to indicate air quotes. “I had more guns than that by my thirteenth birthday.”

“Your dad gave you an AK for your thirteenth birthday?”

Shane looked away.

“How’d you get your hands on a fully automatic AK?”

“I didn’t. I converted it myself. It’s not that hard.”

“How many guns did you sell to Logan?”

“Two assault rifles and four handguns.”

I had an idea, but before I could pursue it, Bailey came back and pulled me aside. “The VA story checks out,” she whispered. “He was there at eighty thirty a.m. the day of the Fairmont shooting and he was in the pharmacy getting his script filled at ten forty-five. No way he could’ve been at the school.”

“And Cinemark?”

“We’re waiting to hear back about him buying the bike the day of that shooting, but the receipt was in his wallet and the voice on the answering machine gave the name Trinidad. It’s probably going to check out.”

And in any case, he had an airtight alibi for the school shooting. If Shane hadn’t been involved in the Fairmont shooting, then he probably hadn’t done the theater shooting either. Which only begged the question: who the hell was the second shooter? I’d never been wild about the theory that a grown man like Shane would be Logan’s sidekick. But clearing Shane meant we had no one on the hook.

When I went back to Shane, his head was hanging down and his expression was tortured.

“Logan never brought a friend who talked guns with you? You’re sure about that?”

Shane shook his head emphatically. “I don’t remember ever meeting any friends of his and I sure as hell didn’t talk guns with any other kids. I only talked to him because he was Luke’s brother.”

I couldn’t think of a reason for him to hold back any names at this point. He knew he was on the hook for so much already, admitting that another kid was involved wasn’t worth lying about. He really didn’t know. But maybe he could help us find Logan. “Did Logan ever tell you about any places he liked to go?”

“You mean places to hide?” I nodded. “No. And you gotta believe me, I’d tell you. I would. You’ve got to catch that kid, he’s a friggin’ maniac.”

Coming from the man who’d given him the firepower, that was some kind of irony.