The Tin Collector s-1

by Stephen Cannell

  He stepped onto the gray carpeted area just inside the door, then slowly withdrew the picklocks and returned them to the case. He closed the door and locked it from the inside. He moved down the carpeted hallway between the reception desks and windows, heading quietly toward the chief advocate's office. Shane knew that all of the active IAD cases were in a file cabinet there. He got to the end of the long reception area, pushed open the door to Warren Zell's office, took two steps inside, and stopped to adjust his eyes to the low light.

  He had stood right in this same spot yesterday, when Zell had informed him that he was IAD's new Xerox machine operator.

  He saw the file cabinet at the far end of the room. As he moved to it, he prayed that the cabinets weren't locked. He didn't want to spend any more time there than necessary. As he crossed the room, he took the small penlight out of his back pocket, turned it on, and stuck it in his mouth, gripping it between his teeth. The narrow light hit the top of the metal cabinet, reflecting the beam off its burnished gray finish. He put his hand on the top drawer handle and tugged on it. It slid open. The sound of the little metal rollers filled the room.

  He looked down into a file crammed full with case folders; each one had a yellow tab with the officer's name and CF number. He cocked his head to aim the light on the tabs and, working alphabetically, quickly went through the cabinet. In the middle of the top drawer, he found a tab marked L. AYERS. He pulled the file out and opened it. Inside was a single slip of paper with the typed words:

  FILE RELOCATED TO S. I. D.

  He looked in the second drawer for Joe Church, the second name on the list, and found a file for him as well. It contained the same slip, indicating that the contents had been sent to the secure files over at Special Investigations Division in Parker Center. He glanced at several of the other case files in that drawer and found that none of them had been relocated, only Ayers and Church.

  He knelt down and opened the bottom drawer, where he figured he would find Samansky's file, if there was one. It was right in the middle of the drawer, also empty, except for the same note.

  What the fuck is this? he thought as he began looking for the Drucker and Kono files. He found both folders empty; the same note was in each. Coy Love didn't have a case pending. He was the only one of Ray's den not facing a Board of Rights.

  Shane closed the drawer and stood up. He was just taking the penlight from between his teeth when he heard a gun cock behind him.

  "Don't move," a woman's voice said. Then the lights were switched on.

  He turned and saw Alexa Hamilton framed in the doorway, a black automatic gripped in both hands, her arms triangled out in front of her in a shooting stance. "You sure are one rule-breaking son of a bitch," she said.

  "I'm just trying to "

  "Shut up, Scully! Where's your piece? Where're you packing?"

  "Huh?" His mind was spinning, looking for a way out.

  "Turn around. Put your hands behind your neck."

  "Come on this Dirty Harriet thing isn't working. I'm assigned down here, same as you. Put the gun down."

  "Do what I say, asshole. Do it now!"

  He turned his back to her and assumed the position; she quickly patted him down. She removed his clip-on holster, took a step back, and put it on the desk.

  Shane assumed she didn't cuff him only because she didn't have her handcuffs handy. She was dressed in a blouse and jeans, her hair was slightly mussed, and he guessed she'd been working late, then fell asleep on the sofa in the back of the advocates' section. He'd awakened her when he'd broken in.

  She shifted her gun to her left hand and held it on him while she picked up the phone, locked the receiver under her ear, and dialed three digits. "This is Sergeant Hamilton… requesting a Code Six Adam at 1567 Spring Street, third floor. I'm in the chief advocate's office. Notify the responding unit that they will be transporting a police officer under arrest to Parker Center, and notify Chief Mayweather, head of Special Investigations, to call me at 555-9878." She listened for a moment, then hung up the phone.

  "You've gotta hear me out before you do this."

  "It's done, Scully. You've just been yanked."

  "I wasn't looking at my file "

  "I don't wanna hear it. I'm prosecuting you, so we're not having an ex parte conversation. Just button it till the backup gets here."

  Shane was down to his last chance. She would either have to shoot him or listen to him, but he was not going to just stand there, mute, waiting to be arrested.

  "Ray Molar was supervising a den of six guys. Five of them have cases going through IAD."

  "Shut up. I don't wanna hear another word outta you."

  "All of their case files are missing. They've been relocated to the secure files at SID. Why? I've never heard of that before, have you?"

  "I said be quiet."

  "Alexa, I need you to listen to me. Those files are missing because they contain dangerous information."

  "Those files could be missing for a lot of reasons."

  "Only the files on the guys in Ray's den are gone," he said incredulously. "Why only those guys?"

  "I don't care. It doesn't matter. The chief advocate can relocate files anywhere he wants. They're his. Maybe he knows what a loose cannon you are, figured you'd pull this dumb-ass burg."

  "Ray has a second home in Lake Arrowhead," Shane went on. "He had a second identity up there: Jay Colter. The house is owned by a real estate company, Cal-VIP Homes. I don't know who owns the company yet, but I have a search being done by the Corporations Commission. When I was up at Ray's Arrowhead house last night, I caught four guys cleaning the place out. After they left, I broke inside."

  "So, you're averaging one illegal entry a night. This some kind of sideline for you?"

  "Listen to me, will ya?" He was getting impatient. He told her about the one-way mirror, the glory hole, and the videotape box with the name Carl Cummins on it.

  "None of this ties to anything," she said. "You're rambling, Scully."

  "What're you talking about? A lot of it ties together. Ray's old den had some kinda deal going with the Hoover Street Bounty Hunters, possibly to blow arrests and let them off. Chief Brewer was on his answering machine at the party house. I can play the tape for you if you don't believe me. I think maybe even the mayor, who Ray was driving, is somehow involved."

  "In what? Involved in what? You think it's some kinda buy-down? Some bullshit collars-for-dollars scheme?" she asked, referring to a situation in which a criminal shares his take with the arresting officer in return for a chance to walk. "Why would the chief of police and the mayor of L. A. be involved in some two-bit street hustle like that? You're delusional."

  "I don't think it's a buy-down. I think it's something else, something much bigger. I got called into Brewer's office yesterday. He threatened me with this ridiculous murder charge, told me he thought I stole a videotape out of Ray's house, and if I gave it back, maybe all my problems would go away. If Ray was videotaping sex parties, maybe this Cummins character or somebody else was getting blackmailed, and if I lean on him hard enough, maybe he'll tell me what's going on. That is, if I can find him." He was rambling now, his own voice sounding desperate to him.

  "This is weak shit, Sergeant delusional and paranoid."

  "Gimme some time. I've only been working on it for two days. Whatever is going on, it's sure got the top floor of the Glass House worried. They're threatening me with a murder indictment to get some tape they think I have."

  "They're threatening you with murder because Ray's wife was your eighty-five. You used to date her, and my IOs say, like the stone-ass moron you're proving to be, you're still actually seeing her."

  "Eighty-five" was police slang for girlfriend. Shane ignored it and went on: "All of these IAD cases involve the Hoover Street Bounty Hunters. Some ex-cop named Calvin Sheets is involved. His fingerprints were on the Carl Cummins videotape box I found up at Ray's house in Arrowhead."

  When Shane mentioned Calvin
Sheets, suddenly Alexa's body posture turned rigid. Her jaw clenched and her expression darkened. "Calvin Sheets is now head of security for the Starmax movie studio," he continued. "It's an independent studio owned by Logan Hunter, who U. S. Customs suspects of drug smuggling."

  She was looking at him differently now. So he took a wild guess, trying to reel her in. "You know Calvin Sheets."

  For a minute, he didn't think she was going to answer him.

  "Another advocate, a good friend of mine, terminated him," she finally said. "He was a rogue officer, a dirty sergeant. How was he involved with Ray?" Shane had finally piqued her interest.

  "I'm not sure. I've got his voice on that same answering-machine tape from Ray's house in Arrowhead. He said, 'Don't fuck around with love.' At first I thought they were talking about love in the romantic sense, but now I know they were talking about Coy Love."

  He waited for her to respond, but she didn't, so he went on. "I'd like you to explain to me why my case jumped over the Shooting Review Board and went straight to a BOR, and why the district attorney is setting me up for this bullshit murder charge, when I have an eyewitness who backs me up."

  "Barbara Molar is a shit witness. She's the motive for the murder. I should've punched your ticket sixteen years ago."

  "Okay, since you brought that up, why didn't you?"

  Her ice-blue eyes were sparking anger. "Why didn't I what?"

  "You threw my board sixteen years ago. Why?"

  "Who told you I threw it? That's ridiculous."

  "DeMarco told me. He said you impeached your own witness and withheld Ray's sworn affidavit."

  Now they could hear men's voices downstairs; they echoed in the hollow atrium. The backup unit had arrived. The elevators were shut down for the night and, after a minute, they heard footsteps marching up the tile stairs.

  "You might have me on this low-grade B and E, but I'll get you for throwing that Board of Rights sixteen years ago," he threatened. "DeMarco will testify that you gave the case away. You'll probably be getting your own CF number down here. Give you a look at this division from the other side."

  "I wish I'd never laid eyes on you," she said sharply.

  He could see the beginning of indecision in her eyes. She was a career cop, high on the lieutenant's list.

  There was a rattling at the front door of the Advocate Section.

  "Anybody in there?" a cop's voice called into the office.

  "What's it gonna be, Sergeant?" he asked. She stood frozen, holding her gun in one hand. Finally she lowered her weapon, turned, and walked to the door, then opened it.

  Two uniforms moved in. Shane could see them through Warren Zell's open office door.

  "It's okay, Officer. My mistake," he heard Alexa say. "It was just one of our sergeants. He works here."

  To punctuate the point, Shane pulled out his badge and flashed it at them.

  "Sorry for the call," she said. "If you could do me a favor… Cancel my Code Six A and ask Communications to cancel my call to Deputy Chief Mayweather."

  The cop nearest to her touched his shoulder mike and started broadcasting a Code Four, which was a stand-down. Both uniforms turned and left. Alexa closed the door and walked back to where Shane was standing. "We're even. Get outta here," she said angrily.

  "Not until you hear the rest of it," he said softly. "And not until you tell me why the hell you threw my board sixteen years ago."

  Chapter 26

  EXPARTE COMMUNICATION

  They walked down Third Street, through the glare of the movie lights, and settled on a small, dingy bar called the Appaloosa, two blocks south of the Bradbury. The proprietor had made a half-assed decorating attempt at a Mexican motif: table candles with corny glass sombreros, badly painted pictures of Appaloosas with stoic Mexican cowboys or dusty regal hombres from Santa Ana's army looking across prairies or valleys, their heads held high, reeking Hispanic nobility.

  "That fucking Schwarzenegger movie is driving me nuts," she said as they slid into a cracked vinyl booth and waved at a Mexican waiter wearing a dirty white coat about the same color as the gray linoleum floor. Mariachi recordings hissed and popped through a bad speaker system. The place was a refried dive.

  "Scotch and water," she said.

  "Two," he added.

  The waiter left and they sat there, each waiting for the other to start. She was pushed back on the ruptured red vinyl seat, as if she were trying to get as far away from him as possible.

  "This is your party," she finally said.

  "I want to know why you threw my board."

  "Ancient history."

  "I wanna know, just the same."

  "I wanna know why Christie Brinkley can't keep a husband. It's a mystery. Leave it at that."

  "You threw my board sixteen years ago, and now you volunteer for this one?"

  "I didn't volunteer. I was ordered. I've been out of Internal Affairs for ten years, running a patrol shift down in Southwest. I wanted to stay in the field, but because of you, I ended up getting called back by Tom Mayweather to handle your board. Don't ask me why."

  "Tom Mayweather?"

  "Yeah. Heard of him?" Cutting sarcasm now, laying it on with a trowel. "He's head of Special Investigations Division. Read your department administration list."

  "I heard you volunteered."

  "Look, Scully, for whatever it's worth, you don't even remotely interest me anymore. I'm gonna try your BOR in seven days because the Glass House wants me to. Then I'm going back to Southwest Patrol, where I can actually do some honest-to-God police work."

  "Why would Tom Mayweather pull you back to handle my board?"

  "If I tell you what I think the reason is, it'll just piss you off."

  "I'm already pissed off."

  "Because I hold the record. I'm the best advocate they ever had down there. I only lost your case and a few others in the time I was in that division. Mayweather wanted the best, so he ordered me back. If that seems egotistical and self-serving tough. That's what I think."

  "You know what I think?"

  She didn't answer, but sat staring at him with those remarkable laser-blue eyes.

  "He pulled you back because you tried me before. Sparks flew back then, and he knew it would piss me off. He's trying to pressure me to turn over that videotape he thinks I have. He thought putting you on the case would up the stakes." He paused while the waiter set down their drinks and left.

  "That's your take, because you always put yourself at ground zero," she said. "To everyone else, you're marginal business, just another dumb mistake that needs to be handled in due course. This has been fun. We've had our one drink. Meeting's over, see ya." She took a long swallow, then set the glass down and started to leave.

  "Hey, Lexie, I'm not through yet."

  "I don't go by 'Lexie,' asshole. The name's Alexa."

  "I don't go by 'asshole,' Alexa. The name's Shane."

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  "So, why did you throw my board?"

  "You won't get off that, huh?"

  "It's pretty unusual. You're the best advocate down there, the Black Witch of the Division, yet you intentionally let me slide? I want to know why."

  "Because I knew Ray Molar was using you. In the years I'd been at IAD, I'd seen a handful of probationers take violence beefs for him… guys he'd handpicked out of the Academy and teamed up with. It became pretty obvious what was happening. He was busting heads and holding court in the street, then getting you dummies to take the heat for him if complaints came down. It was starting to piss me off. Then, when Ray gave the chief advocate that bullshit statement behind my back, saying that you had emotional problems and that he'd been worried about your mental stability, I sorta lost it. Furthermore, I was sure my key wit, that gas-station attendant, was dirty. Ray musta threatened him to get him to say he saw you beat that kid, because he flunked the poly I gave him. The case was an air ball, so I called DeMarco and told him where the holes were."

 
Shane sat there for a long moment and looked at her. She seemed different, somehow softer, more vulnerable. Maybe it was the low light, or the scotch, or maybe it was what she'd done for him sixteen years ago at some risk to her own career. But he was being compelled to view her in a different way, so he sat there, turning dials, trying to regain some focus on her.

  "You just throw cases if they seem wrong to you?"

  "Listen, Scully, I know you think Internal Affairs is a sewer full of ladder-climbing politicians who don't care how many cops' careers they wreck."

  "And it's not?"

  "No, it's not. Don't you think we're drowning in all the politically correct bullshit that goes through this division? The Gay and Lesbian Alliance gets pissed because some cop gets tough trying to bust a two-hundred-pound angel-dusted bull dyke who's brandishing a hammer. The arresting officer ends up putting the bracelets on but has his head opened up in the process. Instead of filing a resisting-arrest charge on the hammer-wielding debutante, the cop gets accused of gay bashing. It's a big news story. Lots of angry meetings in West Hollywood. The L. A. Times does a blue-death dance on the front page, and our fearless leaders dump the whole thing into our basket…

  "Or some gangbanger caught standing over a dead body with a smoking MAC-Ten accuses the arresting officer of beating him in the station I-room. The EMTs are called, and the banger doesn't have a mark on him. But the special-interest groups take it to the press racial violence, forced confessions, cops on the rampage. It's a big deal, and everybody knows all the banger is doing is getting back at the cops who busted him. It's total bullshit. My own IOs are telling me the board won't float, but the perp's a minority. The Glass House and the mayor fold like deck chairs, and the whole mess is back in my office.