The Tin Collector

Chapter 16

AFTER CALLING Harvard Westlake and leaving a message for Chooch that he'd be late picking him up, Shane spent the morning Xeroxing cases in the narrow one-window office on the second floor. It was the only office that Internal Affairs had rented on two. Except for the occasional secretary who came in and dropped more cases on his stack, he was alone with his thoughts while the Xerox hummed and coughed up copies, passing its white light over the endless pages.

Shane wondered how much longer he should stay on the job. He'd pretty much run out of police department highway. He couldn't believe that the district attorney would ever bring murder charges. That was just being orchestrated by Chief Brewer to put pressure on him. But being terminated by Alexa Hamilton at his upcoming board was a distinct possibility. Except for Bernie Cookson, the judges were stacked against him. He would probably lose his tin and be kicked out, his seventeen-year pension going down the drain with the verdict.

He thought about Barbara Molar, how he wanted to hold her and make love to her, but this was immediately followed by a puzzling feeling of dispirited grief for something he couldn't identify. Moments later he was aware of a thickening depression. As the Xerox machine hummed and kicked pages into a tray, he tried to work it out.

He knew that pursuing a relationship with Barbara was stupid under these circumstances. Beyond that, something else was nibbling at his subconscious. He finally slapped it down and held it up.

It was a simple five-word question.

Why had Barbara married Ray?

What had led her to walk away from him and find solace in the arms of the most brutal cop on the force? She said that it was sweet to see tenderness in such a huge, seemingly brutish man.

Shane had known Ray almost from the day he'd joined the force, and he had never seen tenderness. Ray Molar was buffalo meat. His temper was always close to the surface, hiding there, waiting to explode. So why had Barbara married him? Why had she made such an obviously miserable choice?

With that question came another.

What weakness in her had caused her not to see Ray for what he was? Of course, Shane had also been fooled at first. But he'd had Ray as a partner. Having a kick-ass partner was considered a life-insurance policy in police work. Shane had misevaluated for reasons of his own survival. Why had Barbara been fooled?

His mind left that half-chewed thought and began on another. He had physical desire for her. He had once thought he loved her, but yesterday afternoon at Shutters, she had seemed to be trying to start up their relationship on the heels of Ray's death. He could understand cerebrally why this might be: she was lonely and scared, and Ray had been abusing her. She had come to hate him, but…

Ray had been her husband for twelve years. She had once slept in his arms. Yet his death seemed to hold no consequences for her. Shane had despised Ray, but he had not felt the same way since he'd squeezed off the round from his Mini-Cougar and watched his bullet explode in Ray's head. The picture of that death was on a macabre bulletin board in his psyche. He could not do anything without walking past it. Yet Barbara had no remorse, no guilt, no misgivings. To her, Ray's death was the doorway to her future. What did that say? What did it mean? Had he been too young, immature, and blinded by lust to see any of her shortcomings back then? Had she changed… or had he?

Shane looked at his watch. He was surprised to see that it was just a few minutes to twelve. He finished the case he was Xeroxing, then, following instructions, he put the copies in a manila envelope and addressed them to the defense rep involved. Then he put the packet in the OUT basket, where it would be picked up and sent off by registered mail.

He shut off the Xerox, locked the office door, dropped the key with Mavis, and headed out of the Bradbury Building on his lunch hour make that half hour.

Shane wasn't hungry, so he decided to check on his Scientific Investigation Section request. He began to walk the four blocks to Main Street, where Parker Center was located. He needed to clear his mind. He made it a brisk outing, his arms swinging hard, his stride even and quick. When he got halfway there, he ran into another movie barricade. He badged his way through, walking along the sidewalk while wary assistant directors with head-mikes and walkie-talkies clipped on their belts glared at him. He was ignoring their barricades, trespassing on their superiority.

"You're in our shot, sir," one of them yelled.

Shane hurried along. Arnold was across the street with the director, engaged in an animated discussion. There was a lot of gesturing and arm waving. Tourists and downtown office workers stood behind the barricades, holding their cameras at port arms, hoping for a shot while streetpeople angrily cursed this invasion of their living space.

Shane got to Parker Center and moved quickly to the Scientific Investigations Section on the seventh floor. He went down the corridor, hoping to remain invisible. Occasionally somebody would look at him, grab the arm of a companion, and start whispering. Shane could write the dialogue: "That's him, right over there. Can you believe it? He shot Lieutenant Molar… they used to be partners."

He got to SIS and asked for the results of his laundry tag analysis. A middle-aged woman with thick, red-rimmed Sally Jessy Raphael glasses leaned across the counter with the results. "We got lucky. Most of the laundries in the database are local; this one is a ways away, but was still inside the sample area."

Shane looked at the printout. "Mountain Cleaners, Lake Arrowhead," he read aloud.

"That's what the computer says," she replied. Then almost as an afterthought: "I don't know if you missed it, but on the inside of the tag is a date, April tenth."

"Thanks," he said. "You're right, I missed it."

He moved away from the desk with the printout. The address was on Pine Tree Lane in Lake Arrowhead. He left Parker Center for the walk back to Broadway and Third, wondering why Ray Molar was getting his shirts done in Lake Arrowhead, and whether it really mattered.

Arrowhead was a two-hour drive up in the mountains. Shane had been there once or twice before. He remembered that the town sat in wooded splendor, around the ten-mile circumference of a beautiful freshwater lake. The community was picturesque, catering mostly to artists, writers, and L. A. refugees. A lot of old Hollywood royalty had built huge mansions on the lake in the thirties, and some of these houses still existed out-of-place old European-style homes with their stone walls and slate roofs.

When he got back to IAD, he picked up his key and trudged back down to the Xerox room. He unlocked the door and saw that a new case had been shoved through the mail slot. He picked it up and glanced at it as he walked across the room to drop it on the IN pile. Just as he was setting it down, he saw the name on the face sheet: PATROLMAN I JOSEPH CHURCH.

Shane stopped and looked at the sheet again. Joe Church was the patrolman who had escorted him yesterday morning, red light and siren, to see Chief Brewer. He flipped through the file, reading quickly.

According to the charges, three weeks ago Patrolman Church had been in a Code Thirty burglary car. He had accepted a call on a "hot ringer" in Southwest. A Hoover Street jewelry store was being robbed. It was a "There Now" call. Church had "rogered" the transmission but had not shown up for almost forty-five minutes. His Mobile Data Terminal showed him as being three blocks away. When he finally got there, the owner of the store had been beaten almost to death, and was still in the USC Medical Center. The IOs on the case stated that Church claimed he had never received the call, despite the fact that he had rogered it, and all of his communications and times were logged on his MDT as well as in the Communications Center.

Shane dropped the case back on the pile, not attaching much significance to it, except for one stray thought: Why would an officer whom the chief of police had just personally directed to an IAD Board of Rights be given a special assignment by the chief to pick up and escort Shane to his office? It didn't make sense. But then, nothing that had been going on lately made much sense.

He turned on the Xerox machine and spent the rest of the day burning copies in the hot, narrow room.

Shane punched out at five-thirty, walked back to his car next door, and headed to Harvard Westlake.

Chooch was sitting alone on the curb. Everyone else had been picked up. He stood slowly, then dragged both his book bag and ass over to the car and got in.

"Sorry. We're gonna have to make new arrangements for the pickup. I can't get back here till five forty-five. I sent you a message. I hope they gave it to you."

Chooch was strangely quiet. He just nodded.

Shane put the car in gear and headed up onto the freeway, back to Venice.

"Did you have some kinda talk with Mr. Thackery?" Chooch finally asked after almost ten minutes of silence.

"No, why?" Shane said, glancing over at him.

"I don't know. He pulled me out of study hall. It was like he was a different guy, wants to be my bud. He said I was gonna get another chance, that he had gone to bat for me."

"I'll bet your mom called and set him straight. Sandy did pretty good, huh? I'm telling ya, you got your mother down in the wrong column, Chooch."

"Yeah… What column is that, the 'Don't bother me, I'm always busy' column? She's had me in boarding school since second grade. Up at Webb School in Ventura, I never even got to come home at Christmas. I was the only kid left in the dorm over the holidays. I was being watched by custodians… had to eat at the headmaster's house. Sandy's some mom, all right. We gotta get her a Mother's Day award."

"People aren't always what they appear to be," Shane persisted. "Your mom has reasons. Her job takes her away a lot. She's trying to give you a great education. She wants you to have a good start in life."

"Thackery said if I have any problems, or if I want to talk, I should look him up," Chooch said, changing the subject. "As if I'd even tell that dickhead which way was due north."

"Look, Chooch, if he's changing his tune, don't hawk a lugie at him."

"He's a prick."

"Yeah, maybe. Or maybe he's had a change of heart. If he's trying to cut you some slack, take it."

"And you believe him?"

"Yeah. Yeah, sure, I believe him. Hey, look, Thackery may be okay underneath all that Latin he quotes. Maybe he's just a guy who's scared, like us."

"I ain't scared a' nothin'."

"Then you're the only one on the planet, Chooch. Everybody is scared."

"Were you scared when you shot that guy?"

Shane looked over. He had not discussed the incident with Chooch, and he didn't have a TV. He was foolishly hoping it would never come up.

"It's all over school," Chooch said, reading his look of dismay. "So tell me. When you offed him, were you scared?"

"Yeah. Yeah… I was scared to death. I was shitting bricks."

Chooch sat there for a long moment thinking. "Physical stuff doesn't scare me. I'm not afraid a' getting bombed on or fucked over that way. But" he hesitated for a moment, his eyes on the road ahead "sometimes I'm afraid that what I believe in isn't true, that everything I think is true was just set up by somebody to fool me."

Shane nodded. "Yeah, I've been getting some of that myself lately."

"And sometimes, just once in a while, I want to be the most important, instead of the least" He paused for a long time, his face in a wrinkled frown. "Sometimes I'm scared I'll never have anybody who gives a shit."

They rode in silence.

Finally they got back to East Channel Road. Shane pulled the car into the garage, and they went into the house. Shane closed the door and watched as Chooch dragged his book bag into his room, to sit there with desperate, lonely thoughts that probably matched his own.