The Tin Collectors Read Free Page B

complex, through a security door, and into the third basement of police headquarters. They took the elevator to six and got off at the Robbery/Homicide Division, which took up half the floor and was fronted by a thick glass partition.
    Garson Welch buzzed them through and found the OOD, a thin-faced sergeant in uniform, sitting at a computer just inside the squad room. "Is Captain Halley around? He was supposed to get a call out on this activity report."
    The sergeant nodded and pointed down the hall. "Interview room Three," he said.
    They moved single file down the linoleum-floored corridor and turned into a small, windowless interrogation room that contained a scarred desk, two wooden chairs, and Robbery/Homicide Captain Bud Halley. Halley had his jacket off and was showing the beginnings of a twelve-hour beard, having missed his shave at four A . M . He had also missed two belt loops. Other than that, he was a remarkably handsome, fit, prematurely gray man in his mid-forties. He was Shane's Southwest Homicide Bureau commander. They had a good professional relationship. In the two years Shane had been assigned to Southwest Detectives, Halley had given him two excellent evaluation reports. As Shane came through the door, Captain Halley motioned him to a chair. "You guys don't have to stick around unless you need him. I'm gonna send him home after the activity report," he said to the two detectives.
    "Thanks, Cap, check you later," Welch said as they left the room and closed the door behind them.
    "We only have a few minutes and then God knows what happens," Halley said.
    "A few minutes? What're you talking about? You're doing the DFAR. What's the rush?"
    " 'Cept I'm not doing it. Deputy Chief Thomas Mayweather is on his way in. He's doing it."
    "The head of Special Investigations Division is doing my activity report? You can't be serious. Why him?"
    "Chief Brewer ordered it," Halley said.
    "Same question, then."
    "Don't you know what Ray Molar's assignment was?"
    "Yeah ... he was Mayor Clark Crispin's bodyguard and driver. He was also killing his wife with a nightstick. He fired a shot at me. Barbara Molar is my wit. This should be a slam dunk. So what's the deal?"
    "Lemme give you the secret to survival around here." Shane waited for the punch line. "Everything that's not department history is department politics. Chief Brewer was awakened by Mayor Crispin, who called the Big Kahuna from the Dark Side, who got rousted off his sailboat at the marina. He was planning to sail across the channel for a long weekend in Avalon. Now, instead of salt air and sea chanteys, Deputy Chief Mayweather is coming here, in his fucking yacht attire, looking to tear you a new asshole."
    "Cap, let me say this again, so none of us miss it. Steeltooth was killing his wife. He shot first. If I hadn't returned fire, we'd both be in the county icebox bleeding from the ears. I know for a fact Ray has two spousal-abuse beefs in his IAD package. He's a regular at rage-management counseling. Aside from that, we both know he was a head thumper from way back. You don't get the nickname Steeltooth just because your last name's Molar."
    "Don't convince me. Make Mayweather believe it," Halley said softly.
    Shane's hands started to shake. He was coming down from a two-hour adrenaline rush. He had killed Ray Molar, his expartner, a man he had once respected, then came to fear, and then finally to hate. His emotions hovered just below consciousness. He knew he couldn't afford a mistake, so he pushed personal feelings aside and concentrated on his plight, his survival instincts taking precedence.
    Deputy Chief Mayweather was six three and ebony black. He had a shaved head and always carried himself with the athletic grace he had shown as a first-string point guard on the UCLA basketball team in the seventies.
    He moved through the predawn stillness of the Robbery/Homicide Division and looked at the tired collection of swing-shift detectives who were manning their