The Tin Collector

Chapter 30

Alexa Hamilton sat in the Crown Vic for another minute, saying nothing. Then she opened the door and stepped out, retrieving her box of files from the backseat. She kicked the back door closed with her foot and stood looking over the roof of the car at Shane, who had also exited the vehicle.

"I don't know what you expect me to do," she said, her voice ringing in the cold, empty structure.

"I don't, either," he said. "If the district attorney files that 187 warrant, I'm going to be sitting this out in jail. I've got a lot of ground to cover, six cops to check out."

She stood there, reluctant to stay, unable to go. The heavy box was balanced on her slender knee. "What're you gonna do?" she asked, finally sliding the box up onto the trunk so she wouldn't have to hold it.

"On the tape in Ray's Arrowhead house, Don and Lee left a message. It said, 'We're on for Friday night, the Web. Bring the jerseys.' I don't have a clue what that means, but it's Friday, so tonight I thought I'd tail Drucker or Ayers, see what and where the Web is."

She listened but said nothing.

"Then I've gotta find out about Cal-VIP Homes… research who owns that company."

A car came up the ramp in the garage and pulled past them.

"I can't stand around here talking to you. Give me your cell phone number. I'll call you," Alexa said impatiently.

"When?"

" When I'm through. I've got six affidavits scheduled for today, starting with Bud Halley at eight-fifteen this morning. I've gotta go to the Patrol Division and dig out your old TA reports, then over to the Traffic Coordination Section and pull the reckless-driving sheets. You sure busted your share of city vehicles."

"You can't be serious?"

She pressed the alarm activation button on her car key, and the Crown Vic chirped loudly, cutting him off, ending the argument. Then she pulled the file box off the trunk and headed away from him toward the elevator. He watched as she stood in front of the elevator, balancing the heavy box; then the door slid open and she stepped inside. Just as it started to close, she stuck her foot out and stopped it.

"Meet me at the Appaloosa after work, five-thirty. We'll follow Drucker and Ayers together." Before he could answer, the door closed, taking her from view.

???

Shane spent the morning getting himself settled. He rented a room in a building called the Spring Summer Apartments, picking it because it cost only two hundred for one week. It was also within walking distance of the Bradbury.

The room was small but clean. He sat on the faded blue bedspread and dialed Budget Rent-a-Car. He reserved a Mustang from the rental agency located a few blocks away on Third, and walked over to pick up the car.

As he started down Third Street, he could see signs posted on telephone poles and buildings that notified residents and store owners that there would be no parking permitted on Saturday, by order of the LAPD, as a motion picture would be shooting on these streets. Schwarzenegger, no doubt.

When he got to Budget, they showed him to a red Mustang convertible, a year or two newer than Barbara's but totally unacceptable for a tail job. He turned it down in favor of a dull-brown four-door Ford Taurus.

He drove the Taurus back to the Spring Summer Apartments, parked, went back up to his room, and checked in with the Corporations Commission on his request for a printout of corporate ownership of Cal-VIP Homes. He was informed by a cold female voice that his request was in line but had not been processed yet. Maybe sometime after noon. He gave his cell phone number to her, stressing the urgency, and the woman promised to call back.

He hung up and sat in the room, feeling restless and caged. After pacing for almost half an hour, he called the Electronics Scientific Investigation Section (ESIS) to check on Ray's answering-machine tape analysis. He got a clerk there, somebody named Boyd Miller, who told Shane that ESIS had picked up fragments of old voices on the tape.

"Some of this is kinda jumbled," Miller said. "On one message, our best fragment sounded like 'If this is Susan Burbick or Burdick, we have your… something.' I couldn't make out the rest."

"Anything else?" Shane said, writing it down.

"No. That's it. You want to pick this up or shall we send it back to your office?"

"Hold it for me. I'll pick it up."

He hung up and sat there for several moments before reluctantly calling Barbara Molar at her house. He got the machine, so he tried her new cell phone. After he identified himself, she brightened.

"Hi, stranger. How you doing?"

"Terrible. How 'bout you?"

"Well, actually, pretty good. It's nice you finally called. I was worried."

"Have you ever heard of someone named Susan Burdick or Burbick?" he asked.

"What do I get if I say yes?"

"You get to find out if Ray was actually married to her or not."

"Oh… well, I'll have to think about it. I'll look in Ray's address book. How 'bout we get together for a drink, talk it over?"

"I can't, I'm meeting someone at five."

"Don't play hard-to-get with me, Shane. I don't like being dumped."

"Neither did I," he said softly, and hung up.

He sat in the transient apartment with its chipped, broken bathroom fixtures and fly-speckled wallpaper and wondered what to do next. Finally he got the number for the Arrowhead Sheriff's Department, called, and asked for Sheriff Conklyn. After a few minutes the tall, middle-aged sheriff was on the phone.

"Sheriff, it's Sergeant Scully. Remember me?"

"Whatta you want?" He was angry now, or maybe just impatient.

"When I was up there, you had a murder, a body you pulled out of the lake and couldn't identify. I never heard if it was a man or a woman."

"Woman."

"You ever ID the corpse?"

"Nope, still a Jane Doe." There was a sliver of interest in his manner now.

"Check out a woman named Susan Burdick or Burbick. I don't know which. I also don't have an address, but maybe you can get a line on her through her marriage license. I think she was married to Ray Molar using the name Jay Colter. They tied the knot at the Midnight Wedding Chapel in Vegas six months ago. If that checks, you could get a dental match and maybe pin it."

"Why do I get the feeling I'm doing your footwork?"

"Hey, Sheriff, I'm trying to help you. If you don't wanna ID your icebox cases, don't bother with it."

"But if I do, you'd probably be interested in who she is and where she came from."

"I'm a curious guy."

"Okay, this will probably take a day or so. Call me back."

After he hung up, Shane drove back to the Fotomat to pick up the Arrowhead pictures. He was told by the clerk that they had to push the negative four stops to get an exposure. Shane opened the envelope and looked at six grainy snapshots of the men inside Ray's house. He could see most of their faces but didn't recognize any of them. He wondered which one was Calvin Sheets. Since his camera was in the Acura back in Venice, he bought a new Canon with a zoom lens and some film. He was loading the film when his cell phone rang. It was Sandy.

"Chooch ran away," she told him straight out.

"I was afraid of that."

"You've gotta find him."

"How'm I gonna find him, Sandy? All I can do is put a 'runaway juvie' out on him, and he's gonna get arrested. Then you'll be fooling around with the LACCSD that's children's social services. If they find out what you do for a living, they'll take him away from you. Then he's gonna be a ward of the court."

"Well, what can we do?"

"I don't know. I'll try and find him, but I don't even know where to start. It's not going to be easy."

But it was easier than he thought. As soon as he hung up from Sandy, his phone rang. It was Chooch.

"I'm in a phone booth over by UCLA, the Texaco just off the freeway on Sunset," the teenager said. "I gotta see you."

"On my way." Shane got into his rental car and headed back to West L. A.