The Tin Collectors Read online

  “Barb…the night I shot Ray…how well do you remember it? You looked almost unconscious, as if he had stunned you with that blow to the head.”

  “I remember it all. It’s indelible. It’s branded in my memory,” she said bitterly.

  “Do you think I had any other choice but to shoot him?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “If I’d called in some uniforms, would it have made a difference?” he asked.

  She turned in her seat and looked directly at him. “You mean, if you had called in a 415? Would it have changed things?” she said, using the cop’s radio code for a general disturbance, the majority of which ended up being domestic disputes.

  “Yeah. What if two blues had come through that door instead of me, Ray’s ex-partner, your old boyfriend…do you think it would have changed anything?” He was straining to hear her answer as he drove, straining to evaluate any nuance in her voice.

  “Are you joking?” she said, snorting the words derisively. “He was insane.” She was incredulous now. “Ray was crazy. You know it. I know it. He went nuts on spec. Once he snapped, he didn’t care what he did or who he did it to. It wouldn’t have mattered if Robocop or Pope John Paul himself had come through that door.”

  “Do you think if I’d held fire that he—”

  “If you’d held fire, Shane, you and I would both be dead, and somebody else would have the fucking coffin decorations. You can’t be serious.”

  He looked over at her and could see that she was almost angry about it. Finally he nodded. “Yeah, okay,” he said. “I was just wondering.”

  She shook her head in amazement, and they remained silent the rest of the way to Lake Arrowhead.

  The two-lane highway led into a small, lush, wooded valley and then descended into the beauty of Lake Arrowhead. A-frame houses and log-cabin architecture dotted the roadside.

  The buildings on the main street were rustic, the sidewalks narrow. They found Pine Tree Lane, and Shane pulled up to Mountain Cleaners. He and Barbara got out, entered, and found Larry Wright.

  After Shane showed his badge, he gave Mr. Wright the shirt. The man walked into the back, leaving Shane and Barbara standing alone in the neon overhead lighting, looking into the area where the finished dry-cleaning hung on a moving conveyor belt. In less than two minutes, Mr. Wright returned.

  “Got it.” He smiled at them. “These were done for Jay Colter. He lives at 1276 Lake View Drive.

  “Then they’re not Ray’s?” Barbara said.

  Shane waved her off, then reached into his pocket and pulled out an old photograph he had brought of himself and Ray when they were both working together in Southwest. The picture had been taken in a bar. They were EOW in plain clothes and had their arms around each other’s shoulders, grinning drunkenly at the camera. “Is this Jay Colter?” Shane asked, handing the picture to Mr. Wright.

  He looked at the shot and nodded. “Little heavier now, but that’s him.”

  “You know what he was doing up here?”

  “Well, I only talked to him once. Seems to me he said he was a builder, or in construction, maybe…. A builder, I think it was.”

  “Okay, thanks, Mr. Wright. That’s a big help.”

  They moved out of the cleaners and stood on the curb under a streetlight. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Jay Colter? Why would he change his name?”

  “When we were partnered, Ray told me once that if I ever worked undercover and was going to use an alias, I should choose a name that sounds close to my own. So if somebody calls out to you using your assumed name, you will react to it, instead of forgetting it’s your alias. For instance, a good a.k.a. for Shane Scully might be Lane MacCully.”

  “And Ray Molar would be Jay Colter. But why?”

  “Let’s go see who lives at 1276 Lake View Drive,” he said.

  15

  Badger Games

  They found the address on Lake View Drive. Shane drove the black Acura slowly past the house. The small cabin-style bungalow was lit up. They could see men moving around inside.

  “What do you think they’re doing?” Barbara asked as Shane slowed the car but didn’t stop. He pulled up the street and turned left at the first intersecting road. He drove half a block up, parked, and turned off the headlights.

  “Who are they? What’re you gonna do?” Barbara pestered as Shane got his zoom-lens camera out of the trunk.

  “Stay here,” he ordered, and quickly moved down to Lake View, then crept along the sidewalk toward the target house. He heard something behind him and spun around. Barbara was hovering nearby.

  “Go back. This could be dangerous.”

  “Maybe I know one of them,” she said.

  Shane realized that it was a good thought, so he nodded, then put a finger up to his mouth for silence. They crept along, slower this time, finally getting to a position of advantage behind a hedge across the street from the lake cabin. Shane put the zoom-lens camera to his eye and adjusted the focus, bringing the small house closer.

  Through the front window he could see men moving around, carrying boxes and emptying drawers. He snapped a few pictures with the flash off, hoping that if he pushed it in the lab, he would get adequate resolution in spite of the low light. Through the viewfinder, he could see the men clearly. He didn’t recognize any of them.

  “What d’you see?” she whispered in his ear.

  “They’re tossing the place, looking for something, same as at your house,” he said softly, handing her the camera. “You recognize anyone?” After a minute she shook her head and handed the camera back.

  They continued to watch the house for another twenty minutes. Several times one or two of the men carried a cardboard box out and set it near the back door. Shane used up an entire roll of film, and then finally the men turned off the lights, locked up the house, and carried the boxes down to the little dock on the lake.

  Shane moved out from behind the hedge, with Barbara at his heels. He ran in a crouch until he got to the side of the house, in time to see the men load the boxes into a small, old-style, wooden reproduction Chris-Craft, with varnished sides and teak decking. They all jumped aboard, and the boat’s engine roared. It pulled away from the dock and sped off across the lake, leaving a white-foam wake that glistened in the mountain moonlight.

  “Shit,” Shane said, “I was hoping they had a car parked around here so we could follow them.”

  He turned and moved back to the house. He tried the doors. They were all locked. Then he took out a pocketknife. He crept onto the wooden back deck that overlooked the lake, and inserted the blade into the sliding glass door. Slowly he pushed the latch up, then slid the door open. He and Barbara stepped cautiously into the small two-bedroom house.

  Shane moved to the back hallway and turned on a light. It threw a low glow into the front room and would slightly illuminate most of the rooms in the small house. He didn’t want to light up the whole place and call attention to their presence.

  “What’re we looking for?” Barbara whispered.

  “Evidence that Ray lived here or used this place,” he said.

  “Y’mean like this,” she said, picking up a small framed photograph off the living-room TV. It was Ray with his arm around a very pretty dark-haired woman. They were both laughing, holding up glasses of champagne. Slightly out of focus in the background was a small wooden church with a sign that read:

  The Midnight Wedding Chapel

  Las Vegas, Nevada,

  Barbara looked at the picture, and her expression turned dark. “Is this what I think it is?” she asked sharply. “Is this a fucking wedding photo?”

  “I don’t know.” He removed the picture from the frame and put it in his pocket.

  They moved through the house. The cottage appeared to be some kind of party pad. Both bedrooms sported huge king-size waterbeds, complete with ceiling mirrors. Shane looked around, opening drawers, searching closets. All were now empty; everything had been removed. When
he got to the guest bedroom, he noticed that the closet seemed very shallow, with no hanging rods. He tapped on the back wall. It sounded hollow. He searched around the edges of the closet wall until he found a small kick-plate near the floor. He touched it with his toe, and the back wall of the closet opened on a spring hinge. He pushed “the wall” and found that he was in a small, dark area, about six by ten feet. From where he was standing, he was looking through a glass window, directly into the master bedroom.

  “Barbara,” he called to her, “go into the master bedroom and stand by the bed.”

  “Okay,” she called from the kitchen, where she had been searching the cupboards. She went into the bedroom, and he could see her clearly through the window in the wall in front of him.

  “Go to the mirror over the dresser,” he said. She walked to the dresser and was now standing only a few feet away, looking directly at him through a one-way mirror.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “In here, in the guest bedroom.”

  She moved away from the mirror, exited the master bedroom, and in a minute was pushing the wall open and entering the small back closet he had discovered. Shane found the overhead light and flipped it on. The room was empty except for a vacant bookshelf.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  “Glory hole,” Shane said, using the cop term for any opening used for sexual spying. He began looking around the secret room. Finally he pulled an empty bookshelf away from the wall. He found two videotape boxes that had slipped down behind the shelf and had been missed. He picked them up—they were empty. One of the boxes was not labeled, but the other had a name written on the spine:

  Carl Cummins

  “What were they doing?”

  “Looks like some kind of variation on the Badger Game. They get a guy up here, have a party, videotape the funny stuff, then blackmail him.”

  “Ray was doing this? Ray and that girl?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure. Early in an investigation, it’s best not to jump to any conclusions,” he said. “Are there any Baggies in the kitchen?”

  “Yeah, that kitchen is completely stocked,” she said.

  They moved out of the videotape room and into the kitchen. Barbara found a large Baggie, and Shane dropped the videotape box into it while she held it open. Then he pulled the photo out of his pocket and dropped it in, too. Suddenly they heard the back door open, and froze.

  “In there,” he whispered, pointing to the pantry.

  A breathless moment, then the light Shane had turned on in the back hallway went off. The house was thrown into darkness.

  As they crouched in the darkened pantry, Shane slipped his service revolver out of his belt holster and pulled the hammer back. He held the Smith & Wesson .38-caliber roundwheel out in front of him with both hands, using a two-hand Weaver grip. He could hear three, maybe four men conducting a careful search, looking for them. One of the men moved into the kitchen.

  “In here, Cal,” the man called out. The kitchen lights went on, exposing Shane and Barbara cowering in the back of the pantry. Shane aimed his revolver at the overhead light and put a round in the fixture, shattering glass and throwing the kitchen back into blackness.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  Gun muzzles flashed in the darkness. Shane pushed Barbara down, grabbed a can off the pantry shelf, and threw it out into the kitchen. It landed on the counter across the room, and where it hit, shots rang out, breaking glass.

  Shane grabbed Barbara’s hand and pulled her out of the pantry, into the kitchen. He ran full into one of the men, knocking him down, then heard the man’s gun hit the floor and slide on the linoleum. Shane dove into the dining room, pulling Barbara. When they landed, two more shots lit the kitchen with their muzzle flashes as the slugs slammed into the dining-room wall over their heads. Shane rolled off his back, came up into a sitting position, and blindly fired all five of his remaining shots into the kitchen. He heard somebody yell in pain, then there were footsteps running. The back door was thrown open. He could hear people fleeing along the side of the house.

  “Barbara, you okay?” he whispered.

  “Uh-huh,” she replied.

  Shane got to his feet. His gun was empty, so he knocked open the revolver, tilted it up and dropped the hot brass into his palm, then quickly dumped the shells into his jacket pocket. He pulled his quick-load off his belt and pushed the six-slug package into his open revolver, then snapped it shut. A speedboat at the dock started, and he heard it roar away.

  “Stay there,” he said, and stepped into the kitchen, his gun out in front of him, combat-style. He moved slowly across the room and finally found the light switch in the pantry. He flipped it on. Whoever he had hit had left about half a pint of blood behind, but somehow had managed to escape. Then he heard a siren’s distant wail across the lake.

  “These bohunk sheriffs have even better response time than we do,” Shane said. “Let’s get outta here.”

  He had dropped the bagged videotape box in the gun battle, and it took him almost half a minute to find it. On his way out of the kitchen, he saw an answering machine sitting on the counter. He grabbed the entire unit and yanked it out of the wall. Then, leading Barbara, he ran out the side door of the house.

  The siren was dangerously close. Shane ran up the street, pulling Barbara along. Suddenly he stopped, reached down, and stuffed the videotape box, camera, and answering machine into an overgrown hedge, wedging it way down, out of sight.

  Shane and Barbara sprinted to his car. He got behind the wheel, and they took off. As he streaked out of the side street, he ran right into the headlights of the arriving sheriff’s car. Shane jerked the wheel, hit the gas hard, and powered past the black-and-white. The sheriff’s car spun a U-turn and came after them.

  “What’re you doing? Why don’t you stop? You’re a cop!” Barbara shouted.

  Shane didn’t answer. He had his hands full and his foot on it, trying to take as many corners as he could to get out of sight of the pursuing police unit.

  Finally he made a skidding right turn and accelerated down a narrow street. Bad choice. He had picked a residential cul-de-sac and slammed on the brakes. He started to turn around when the sheriff’s car squealed in behind them. The two cops were out instantly, crouching behind their squad-car doors. One had a shotgun resting in the window frame.

  “On your stomach, assholes!” the shotgun officer yelled. “Do it now!”

  “Do as he says,” Shane ordered Barbara. He opened the door, dropped his revolver, and kicked it across the pavement toward the sheriff’s car. “LAPD!” he yelled.

  “On your stomach, now!” the man repeated. Shane and Barbara did as they were told. In seconds he could feel a sheriff’s deputy’s hot breath on his neck, and cold steel handcuffs on his wrists. They were ratcheted down hard. In L.A. it was what they called an “adrenaline cuff.” His hands were pinned painfully behind his back, then he and Barbara were jerked up onto their feet and shoved into the back of the sheriff’s car.

  16

  Cop Shop

  The arrowhead sheriff’s department was wedged in between a gas station and a small country market. The parking let behind the station had three empty Plain Janes.

  Shane and Barbara were unloaded from the back of the patrol car and shoved angrily into the station. The two arresting officers were still burning off their chase adrenaline.

  Shane was pushed into a chair at the booking desk while Barbara was taken into another room. Separate interviews were always the rule in any half-decent police department. All cops quickly learned that most criminals never expect to get caught. As a result, they rarely have a cover story. One would tell you he was going to the market to get beer; the other would say they were picking up a sick aunt. Separating suspects to take statements was pro forma.

  Shane was pissed at himself for making the same dumb mistake as every deadhead felon he had ever busted. He didn’t know what Barbara would say, so he planned
to tell them the exact truth.

  The Arrowhead Sheriff’s Department was in turmoil. Earlier that day they had found a dead body in the lake. From what Shane could pick up, it was so decomposed that they hadn’t been able to make an ID. In L.A., a dead body was no big deal, but up here an unexplained death was the kind of unusual tragedy it should be everywhere. Shane watched as the tall, balding, fifty-five-year-old sheriff of Arrowhead made multiple calls to the coroner’s office. After five minutes he hung up and walked over to Shane. His nameplate read SHERIFF CONKLYN.

  “Sorry to add to your problems, Sheriff,” Shane said pleasantly.

  “What’s your story?” Conklyn asked angrily.

  “I’m LAPD. I’m up here working on a case.”

  The sheriff nodded to one of the deputies, who handed Shane’s leather ID wallet to Conklyn. He opened it and looked at Shane’s tin.

  “If you’re a cop, why did you run?” the sheriff said, looking at him critically.

  “I’m out of my jurisdiction and I didn’t take the time to check with you guys like I should have, so I just decided to get small,” he said. “Bad choice. Your guys were magnificent.”

  “Put away the jar of Vaseline,” Conklyn said. “You got a CO we can call?”

  “I’d really appreciate it if we didn’t have to do that,” Shane said. “He’s not going to be happy.”

  “It’s a big club. I’m not happy.” He pointed to his deputies. “They’re not happy. You’re up here on Lake View Drive, busting caps, and now I’ve got lots of unhappy people in houses up there. All of a sudden it’s like Mexican New Year.”

  “My captain is Bud Halley,” Shane relented. “He’s in Southwest Division Robbery/Homicide.”

  The sheriff took one of Shane’s business cards out of his wallet and went to the phone. He talked softly for a minute, waited, then hung up and dialed another number. The second call was taking entirely too long, and Shane’s danger lights started flashing. After another minute Sheriff Conklyn moved back and unhooked Shane’s cuffs.