The Tin Collector

Chapter 29

Seven thirty-five A. M. Alexa pulled the gray Ford Crown Victoria into the parking structure and parked in her spot. She was early, as usual, getting a jump-start on the day while DeMarco slept late.

She got out of the car, dressed for success in a dark charcoal pantsuit tailored to her trim, twenty-three-inch waist. She was carrying another cardboard box full of files, her bulging, faded leather briefcase hanging from a strap over her shoulder. She headed toward the elevators and stopped when she saw him standing next to a concrete pillar in the shadows of the huge, underlit parking garage.

"You shouldn't be here," she said.

"I know, I should be in a slumber room at Forest Lawn."

She walked toward him now, closing the distance, stopping two feet away. He could smell her perfume. He'd never thought of her as wearing perfume.

"What happened?" she asked. "The chief advocate called me at six. He said somebody shot up your house."

"Shot up… My house was massacred. I got enough lead in the walls to go into strip mining. On top of that, I got suspended this morning by Mayweather. He took my gun, badge, and ID, kicked me loose. So I'm back on the street running around, a moving target. It's been way too entertaining. I was expecting to get hit with a murder one indictment, but for some reason it didn't happen. I guess things were bound to slow down sometime."

"The warrant's coming. The writ got signed. I saw it yesterday. Looks like they're holding it in reserve… Let's go back and sit in my car," she said unexpectedly.

They walked to her car. She put the box in the backseat, then they both slid into the Crown Vic and closed the doors.

"Look, I don't understand what's happening. I agree, something's going on. I don't get it myself… but I'm compromised here," Alexa said with some anxiety.

"Lemme see if I got this straight," he said. "I've been threatened by Chief Brewer and most of Ray's old den. Somebody blew the shit out of my living room, Mayweather just suspended me, I got a murder warrant pending, but we're worried you're 'compromised'?"

She sat quietly, deep in thought. He sensed there was something she wasn't telling him.

"What is it? You know something else," he said.

Finally she opened her briefcase and pulled out a sheaf of papers.

"Those are the missing files from the Chief Advocate's Office. On my way in this morning, I stopped by the Office of Administrative Services. They supervise the Officer Representation Section at Parker Center. I have a friend down there. She pulled the duplicates on all missing case folders from the discovery files and made copies for me."

Shane took the missing files and looked through them. "Jesus, look't this, it's just what I thought. All of them involve Hoover Street Bounty Hunters. Lee Ayers was beefed by a store owner just like Drucker; slow response to Code Thirty calls. Kris Kono is also accused of a slow response. Joe Church failed to Mirandize a banger after a street homicide. The case got pitched." He looked up at her and, for the first time, saw indecision on her chiseled face. "Why would Ray's old den be kicking gangsters loose?" he asked.

"I don't know, but it's not my case. You're my case. I'm supposed to be prosecuting you."

"Well, excuse me," he said, anger filling the space between them.

"Look, Shane, I just said I agree you may have stumbled into something, but "

"But you don't wanna see your career go in the bucket with mine."

"What do you want me to do? If I start messing with this, they're going to pull me off your case. The district attorney will file against you anyway. It won't change anything."

"Yes, it will, because you'll be doing the right thing. Alexa, I'm down to just you. Nobody else in the department will even talk to me. With no badge, I'm locked out. I can't even access the computer system."

"And you want me to sacrifice myself for you?"

"All that righteous shit you were giving me last night, the Rodney King speech about IAD policing the police, kicking ass when there's corruption that was just bullshit. Sounds good, but what you really meant is, as long as you can do it without hurting yourself or putting yourself in jeopardy."

"That's not fair."

"Then help me."

"I can't help you. I'm prosecuting you. Don't you get that?" She sat in the car, glaring at him. Shane wondered how it happened: this woman he had despised so recently now seemed like the only chance he had left.

"I'll resign from the department, okay? I'm gonna get terminated anyway, so I'll save you the trouble. I'll send a letter of resignation, and then you won't have to prosecute me. You won't have this monumental ethical problem."

"Don't resign," she said softly.

"Why not?"

"Because… just because."

Then her beeper sounded, and she pulled it out of her purse. She looked at it, then quickly put it away.

"What is it?"

"Prints and Identification. I dropped off one of those empty folders from Zell's files. They're calling me back."

Shane didn't say anything, but he thought it was a good move to see whose fingerprints were on those empty file folders. He was surprised he hadn't thought of it.

She pulled her cell phone out of her briefcase and dialed a number. "This is Sergeant Hamilton, serial number 50791. I got paged to this number. I have a fingerprint request, number 487, April twenty-third," she said, reading off a slip of paper from her purse.

They sat in the still air of the parked Crown Vic as she waited. Then: "Okay… right. Okay, I've got it." She hung up and put the phone back in her purse.

"What?" he asked.

Indecision was tightening her lips, bending them down. "I've been a cop for seventeen years. It's all I ever wanted to do," she said sadly.

"Alexa, whose prints were on the file? They weren't Commander Zell's, right?"

"Zell's were on there, of course. But there was another set, fresh ones."

"Whose were they?"

"Why is the fucking head of Special Investigations Division personally clearing active case folders out of the Chief Advocate's Office?"

"Mayweather?" Shane said.

They sat in the Crown Vic, both realizing the answer was obvious. Mayweather had been doing damage control. There was no way she could ignore it, he thought. Mayweather was actively involved. The deputy police chief was personally emptying sensitive files because he didn't trust anyone else to do it. Shane looked at her and waited. Would she finally admit he was right? Whatever was going on, it was frightening and went straight to the top of the department.