Three shirt deal ss-7

by Stephen Cannell

  Chapter 43

  I reached out and took the notebook from her.

  "I'm sorry you saw that," I said gently. "I was so worried after you crashed the car that I went down to the Support Services Division and they recommended a psychologist named Eric Lusk. He told me he couldn't treat you through me, but suggested I keep a journal. I've been doing that in the hope that it will somehow help us."

  Alexa sat in silence for a moment longer, then stood up and walked into the kitchen. I heard her rummaging around and after a couple of minutes she returned with two glasses of champagne in long, stemmed flutes.

  "Here," she said, handing one to me.

  "I think we need to discuss this."

  "You were right to get help, Shane. I should have gone to someone myself. It's time I faced up to the fact that I'm different. I hear things coming out of my mouth and half the time I can't believe it's me saying them. I'm not sure how many men would have put up with what you did this past year. But I don't want to talk about that now." Alexa clinked her glass on mine. We both took a sip. Then she set down her flute, and drew me to her. "Practice time," she said softly.

  She kissed me tentatively at first, then deeply. Her tongue slipped into my mouth and her body pressed hard against me. I felt the sudden driving heat of shared passion. We fumbled with buttons and zippers, pulling off our clothes in a desperate attempt to find each other. She was quickly down to her bra and panties and unbuckling my belt, helping me shed the rest of my clothes. Then we were naked, on the floor.

  "You are everything to me," she whispered.

  She held me tightly and guided me into her. Her breath quickened, warm against my ear as she began to move with me, dictating the passion and the pace of our lovemaking. Tonight was no dutiful performance. She was in control escalating us higher and higher, from one orbit to the next until we both climaxed. She moaned in pleasure as I released inside her. We smothered each other with kisses, inhaling each other, holding tight. Something valuable that once was lost had just been found. We lay like that, out of breath for several minutes.

  "Practice, practice, practice," she whispered.

  I had a friend who once explained his successful thirty-year marriage to me this way. "It's like team sailing," he'd said. "But you are never in the same boat. You are never one craft, always two. You sail along without problems the first few years after marriage, lust and love at the tiller, your two boats easily staying side by side. But as time passes you inevitably encounter strong winds or bad seas, and your two boats start to drift apart. The careless sailor pays no attention. He kids himself that a little separation doesn't matter. It's healthy. No need to smother one another. But soon you are so far apart no line is long enough to pull you back together. The good sailor senses the danger the first moment the boats separate and throws a line." My friend said that conversation, lovemaking, and vacation time are the ropes that keep a marriage together.

  I knew that during the past year, Alexa and I had drifted far apart, but a line had just been thrown and caught. I was determined to pull with all my strength until our boats were again side by side.

  Chapter 44

  Something woke me. I almost went back to sleep, but some instinct, bred from four years of marriage, told me that Alexa was out of bed. I opened my eyes and saw her moving around our darkened bedroom. It was still the middle of the night. I lay quietly and watched while she dressed, putting on black jeans, a dark sweater, and tennis shoes. She clipped her backup gun to her belt, and then slipped into a black windbreaker.

  "Better take a mask," I said, and she jumped, letting out a little squeal.

  "Shane, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

  "Right, thanks. So what's all this?" I pointed to her outfit as I glanced at the clock. It was only twelve-fifty a. M. She was obviously heading out somewhere.

  "Just taking a little canal walk," she said. "Couldn't sleep."

  "You always dress in black and pack a gun when you take canal walks?" I sat up and squinted at her.

  "Shane, I…" She stopped and then gave me a sheepish smile. "Go back to sleep."

  "Come on, babe. We just got our mojo back. Don't run off and ruin it."

  "I'm not ruining it."

  "I want to know what you're doing." I stood up, put my own jeans on, and slipped into a T-shirt. "So what's up?" I said.

  "Okay, look. I can't get those M. E. reports out of my head. You're right. Wade Wyatt or Mike Church committed all three of these murders. And like you said, the same murder weapon might have been used on both Juan Iglesia and Ron Torgason."

  "Exactly."

  "Exactly." She stood with hands on her hips, not wanting to say more.

  "So what's with the cat burglar duds?"

  "I… I just picked what was handy."

  "I don't think so."

  "Look, Shane…"

  "Alexa, I thought you said you wanted us to work this case together. Together doesn't mean sneaking off and doing something stupid while I'm over here sawing lumber."

  I started looking for my tennis shoes and spotted them under her side of the bed. "Please don't tell me you were just about to sneak over to the Church of Destruction and toss that place looking for a murder weapon."

  "Okay, I won't tell you that then."

  "Why would you do that without me?"

  "Because all of a sudden, you've turned into this nagging voice of caution and because these assholes came in here and went through our things, and because I don't know what else to do."

  "Sit down."

  "I don't want another lecture."

  "Sit the fuck down," I commanded, pissed off this time. She finally moved over and sat on the corner of the bed. I sat facing her, our knees almost touching.

  "Since Tony relieved you, you've changed again."

  "Right. I already told you that. I'm finally seeing what you've been saying all these years. You should be flattered."

  "It's just another version of TBI. It's not you."

  "What isn't?"

  "This Bat Girl thing. This don't-give-a-shit methodology."

  She took both my hands in hers. "Shane, you keep telling me about how, before me and Chooch, you used to be this dark person-this negative force-and how after Chooch and I came into your life all that changed and how much better you feel about yourself now. Well, I was just the opposite. I was this boring little Girl Scout. Never broke a rule or caused a problem. I raised my brother, Buddy, after my parents died. I picked up his messes and fixed his screwups. But in the process I became this rigid control freak who was more or less living my life to please other people. Even though I criticized the way you did things, some part of me admired you for being free enough to walk your own path and strong enough to pull it off."

  "So now what? In an attempt to be like me, you're just gonna crash and burn for the amusement of our enemies?"

  "Who says I'm gonna crash and burn?"

  "This isn't you, Alexa, okay? This new person, this gun-toting cat burglar is not you anymore than the angry, disorganized person from before. I want the woman I married."

  "What if she isn't around anymore? What if she's gone forever?"

  "I talked to Luther. He says these kinds of personality changes are just symptoms of the TBI. People often revert back to who they were before. I'm trying to keep you from destroying everything before that happens."

  "But what if I don't want to be the old me anymore? What if I now think the old me was a tedious bore?"

  "You don't know what you want," I said.

  "Don't patronize me," she barked, the intense anger back in a snap.

  "Okay. That didn't come out the way I wanted. But, honey, I don't like where this is heading."

  "You and Scout were right to work the case. Tony, Jane Sasso, everybody up on six just wants us to go away and let Tru rot in there. But we're stuck with this because, like you said, we let it happen. We're probably both finished in the department anyway, so what do you suggest we do? Just let Tru's c
ar up at Corcoran finish the job? I keep asking, but so far you haven't answered. You just lecture me."

  "If we break into that garage and find a murder weapon without paper backing the search, the weapon will no longer be usable evidence."

  "But just like you with that BlackBerry, at least we'll know we're on the right track."

  "That's a terrible answer," I said.

  "I want…" Then she stopped.

  "Go on."

  "I want to make this right. I feel responsible. I never should have put a queen bitch like Sasso in charge of Internal Affairs. Vic Terravicious warned me about her and I didn't listen."

  "But an illegal search will just make things worse."

  "Bottom line? I don't think we can fix this bad due-process thing or set Olivia Hickman's murder straight," she said. "Too much has gone wrong that we can't change. We've already got a big fruit-of-the-poison-tree problem." She was referring to the legal principle that states all facts stemming from illegally obtained evidence are automatically inadmissible. "All that we can do now is get enough information to keep Church from trying to kill Tru again. He won't risk going to prison for premeditated murder if we can discover what his motive is in advance. We have to forget Olivia Hickman, the miscarriage of justice, and just focus on trying to keep Tru alive."

  I'd been slowly moving toward that same conclusion myself.

  All of the questionable searches I did were on Secada's bad due-process case and they were all part of the Olivia Hickman murder. They had nothing to do with any future crime that might be committed such as a second attempt on Tru's life.

  "They won't kill him if we know the motive for the murder. That's your point, right?"

  "Exactly," she said. "That's why I was gonna look in that garage. I didn't think you'd understand."

  Chapter 45

  We drove to the church of destruction in Van Nuys, arriving at a few minutes after two a. M. The place was deserted. I pulled Alexa's rented BMW to the curb and turned out the lights. My wife already had her hand on the door handle and was opening the passenger side when I reached over and stopped her.

  "Hang on a minute," I said, looking at the dark concrete block building.

  "Why? What are we waiting for?"

  "It's called casing the joint," I said.

  "Come on, Shane. What's to case? You're stalling. Let's jump the fence."

  "Hey, you sure this junkyard doesn't have killer rots roaming around inside?"

  That slowed her down and she settled back into the soft leather seat. Across the street in the tow lot, we could see the four new Transit Authority, fifty-passenger buses parked next to the original 1974 Ford van, which was the first vehicle in the North Van Nuys Transit Company. The new buses, like the van, were all painted a fresh pale blue with NVNTA in fancy script on the sides. The rest of the place looked pretty much the way it had when I'd been here two weeks ago-like a rusting parts farm in a Third World country.

  "What now," Alexa said, impatiently.

  "Let's take a slow drive around. Go down the alley in the back and see what we can see."

  "Why?"

  "Because that's the way I do it," I told her.

  I put the car in gear and started slowly around the block with the headlights off. I turned left into the alley that ran behind the garage and drove at five miles an hour before pulling to a stop under a galvanized metal junction box that was affixed to the eaves of the roof.

  "Shine your flash on that," I told her.

  Alexa hit the box with the beam of her police Mag-lite and I grabbed my binoculars off the seat and focused them up at the roof eaves.

  "Video security," I said, reading the name "Land Mark" off the box through my magnified lenses. "We've got to disable that unless you want infrared pictures of us at our trial for trespassing and illegal entry."

  "Good get," she agreed reluctantly.

  "Thank you."

  As I continued our slow roll down the alley, what I was really doing was trying to come up with a way to do this that wouldn't cost us our careers in the process. Then I spotted two huge, dark green Dumpsters parked behind the roll-up door in the back of the garage. I pulled the BMW to a stop half a block up the alley.

  "Gonna check that out," I said.

  "What?" Excitement was shining on her face. "You found a way to scuttle the security?"

  "Gonna take a walk through those garbage cans," I said, pointing at the Dumpsters. "It's discarded trash, which means it isn't personal property anymore and is not subject to a search warrant. We can hunt around in the garbage all we want. Keep a lookout."

  I got out of the car and walked to the Dumpsters while Alexa stood ten yards away with her gun out. I grabbed the edge of the nearest one, threw open the lid, and looked inside. The first thing I saw was a ripped-out interior door panel in brown leather. I pulled it out and examined it. Something seemed familiar. My heart started racing. I vaulted up on top of the bin and dropped inside, landing on green metal.

  SUV green.

  "Holy shit," I whispered.

  "What?" Alexa's voice came through the dark.

  "I think I just found Scout's Suburban."

  I checked the parts in the Dumpster and pulled them out one by one, holding them up to my flashlight. I needed to find the manufacturer's Vehicle Identification Number. I really wasn't too concerned about trying to find those. 06 slugs because they would probably trace back to some street gun, which wasn't going to get Tru out of jail. What I needed was to use this SUV to get enough probable cause to get a search warrant on Church's garage. I was hoping to find an airbag because I could easily trace a car with that installation number. After searching, I realized they weren't here. Church could get a few hundred for each one on the black market, so he'd probably already sold them. I finally found something in the second Dumpster. It weighed about forty pounds but I managed to lift it out and then dropped it at Alexa's feet.

  "Present for m'lady," I grinned over the lip of the Dumpster. "Transmission housing."

  "And here I was hoping for pearls," she quipped.

  I climbed out and then shined my flash on the small stamped number on the broken housing.

  "Write this down." I read the VIN aloud then looked up at

  Alexa and smiled. "If this came off Scout's car, we can get a warrant on this place."

  "What a lucky bastard you are," she said.

  I got into the front seat of our car and took a card from my wallet.

  "Who are you calling?"

  "Yvonne Hope," I said.

  "Tru's old P. D.?" She was frowning. "You sure she wasn't part of this to begin with?"

  "Yeah."

  After ten rings it was picked up. "This better be fucking great," a sleepy voice said.

  Chapter 46

  "I can't wake up a city judge in the middle of the night over a stolen car," Vonnie complained, after I told her what I wanted.

  "Then we'll sit on this place until you can get here with a warrant. My crime scene is being chopped up one piece at a time."

  "This connects up to the Hickman case?"

  "If you get me a broad enough warrant to search this whole garage it could," I said.

  She was quiet, pondering her options.

  "This is your case," I pushed. "Hickman's your client. Why don't you stop hedging and go to work for your guy? Use this transmission part number to get me a warrant on this place."

  "Does anybody actually like you?" she asked.

  "Does it matter?"

  "I'd like to know where to send your fucking ashes."

  She slammed the phone down, but I knew she was onboard.

  The sun came up at six-fifty-five. Alexa and I had reparked the car and were now sitting half a block from the Church of Destruction, sipping McDonald's coffee out of happy-looking red

  Styrofoam cups. At nine-oh-six, Church arrived along with a dozen beefy guys who didn't know where to buy clothes that didn't have the sleeves ripped off. At nine-forty-five, inside the garage I
heard the sound of saws screaming in tortured metallic harmony.

  "They're back to ripping up the Suburban," Alexa noted.

  I tried Vonnie's cell phone for about the fiftieth time. Like all the other attempts, it went straight to voice mail.

  I got out of the car and while Alexa watched the front of the garage, I went to the alley behind the building and stood behind a phone pole. Then, because everything in this case had to be a huge problem, at that very moment, along came a jumbo-sized garbage truck, preceded by a little shepherding forklift that scooped up the full Dumpsters parked along the alley and placed them on the front of the big truck to be tossed over the top into its giant bin.

  As the forklift pulled up to the first of the Dumpsters behind the Church of Destruction, I hustled down the alley to intervene.

  "Hang on," I shouted to the driver.

  "Huh?" the operator said, turning a blank stare at me.

  I showed him my badge. "LAPD. Please don't do that."

  "Huh?" What cave did they find this guy in?

  "The contents of this bin are evidence in an ongoing case. Leave it."

  "Huh?"

  I was wondering how I was going to get through to him when he solved our communication problem by removing his earplugs.

  "Come again?" he said.

  Before I could go through it once more, the huge elephant doors at the back of the garage started to open and Mike Church, along with a rough looking bunch of characters with grease up to their elbows, stood glaring out at me.

  "What the fuck is this?" Church growled. Then recognition dawned. "You again?"

  "Corao esta? How they hangin', bro?"

  "Get away from my garage, asshole. First my house, now my business. The fuck you think you're doing?"

  I saw Alexa moving down the alley. Her purse was slung over her shoulder, her right hand inside. It was one of her favorite bags, but even so, I knew if this went sideways, she wouldn't hesitate to dust this guy right through the expensive polished leather.

  "We have a warrant to search this place. Step aside," I said.