position.'
'You got four recruiting letters. You're gonna have coaches' visits from Arizona, Oregon, Tulane, and Miami of Ohio. The SMU scout wants to talk to you when he comes through next month.'
'Dad, I'm not playing. They're not gonna give a full ride to some guy holding a clipboard.'
'They understand injuries, son.'
'No they don't. I'm missing almost a full year of experience. They're gonna think I'm just some green, two- year high school player. I'll probably do better going to a junior college, where I could at least start as a freshman, then transfer to a D-one school my junior year.'
'Chooch-life isn't just about football. What's important is your education.'
He sat quietly, looking at his offending foot. He was really in the dumps.
'I had an idea the other day. You know Emo coached a Pop Warner team? The Rams, I think.'
'Yeah, you told me.' 'With him gone, they're probably looking for a new head coach.'
He didn't say anything.
'Sonny Lopez is coaching defensive linemen and linebackers. They need someone who knows how to run a Veer Offense.'
'I don't know anything about a Veer. We run a Wing-T.'
'Not much difference. They're both option offenses.'
'There's a lot of difference, Dad.'
'Okay, but you know fundamentals. You could teach the quarterbacks the reason for a three-step drop as opposed to five-how to do defensive reads, or look off a defender, stuff like that.'
'I can't coach a buncha twelve-year-old kids. What good is that gonna do me?'
'This was Emo's team. You were his friend. He cared about these boys. Sometimes you gotta do things for other reasons than just, 'What's in it for me.' '
Chooch sat quietly for a long minute.
'Hey, I don't even know if I can get you the gig. I didn't want to ask Sonny to float the idea past the league if you were gonna say no. But it might get your spirits up, give you something else to focus on.'
He was still glowering at his foot.
'Son, most of the mistakes I've made in my life, I made because I've been a loner. I started out an orphan, and it's been hard for me to let my guard down, invest in other people.'
He still wasn't looking at me.
'You and Alexa have helped me understand that life is about more than just survival, but I don't always share my feelings, and there are times when I feel so desperate and alone I don't think I can stand it. Sometimes I'm not always the best partner, husband, or dad, because some part of me is always holding back. I don't want you to be like that. It's important that you learn how to give parts of yourself to others without wanting something in return.'
He didn't speak, but he had a puzzled look on his face.
'Give it some time. Talk it over with your mom and Delfina. Think about it for a day. Will you at least do that?'
Yeah, sure,' he said. Then he got up, grabbed his other crutch, and lumbered back into the house.
I rubbed my eyes. I felt I hadn't said it right. Then I went back to the shooting reviews. But it took me a while to get into it.
I had Vincent Smiley's Arcadia P. D. application, which was dated June 15, 2000. I'd already read it twice, now I looked again at the same vacant picture the Times had used. It was clipped to the top of the form. There wasn't much in his police application that helped. He went to middle school in Glendale. There was nothing listed for high school, except a note that said he had done home schooling from grades ten to twelve. He got his GED in '95, then two years of junior college at Glendale Community. His mother and father died in a car wreck in '95. I read a short essay that was attached, where he detailed his reasons for wanting to be a police officer. It was filled with the kind of vacuous nonsense that beauty contestants utter. I want to be a policeman to help people and foster peace among diverse segments of society. ZZZZZ.
An hour later, Alexa came out and handed me a cold beer. She plopped down in the chair Chooch had vacated, and we clinked bottles.
'Where you gonna start?' she asked.
'Out at the crime scene. Hidden Ranch Road, first thing in the morning.'
'Shane, far be it from me to tell you how to do your job…'
'But?'
'But the guy is dead. Smiley is gone. His DNA is patched and matched. What's the point of starting out there? The neighbors have been interviewed. There's nothing much in their statements, except he acted like his elevator got stuck between floors and he was storing illegal weapons in his garage. We already know all that.'
'I always start with the inciting incident, then work out from there. That's the way I was trained to do it.'
'Except, we only have two days. Maybe you should take a shortcut.'
'No shortcuts in a thorough investigation, babe. You know that.'
'But…'
'You can always get another detective,' I said, and sipped my beer, looking out at the water. 'Okay with me, if that's what you decide.'
'Nope. Can't get out of it that easy. You're my guy. Do it your way. Now take me to bed and give me a party.'
'Thought you'd never ask.'
Chapter 10
The next morning I drove out to Hidden Ranch. On the way I kept thinking about the incident reports I'd read the previous night.
At the beginning of every investigation I start by looking for coincidences and inconsistencies. In police work, you quickly learn it's never wise to trust a coincidence, because coincidences are often caused by criminal lies or mistakes. Inconsistencies occur when two people have conflicting opinions about a shared event, and there is often a lie or a misunderstanding at its core. In both of these circumstances it is generally profitable for an investigator to take a closer look.
After reading the deputies' statements, it seemed that almost all the sheriffs at the scene agreed that Vincent Smiley was a suicide, that he had staged it so the police would be forced to kill him. Death by cop. Even after shooting Emo, Smiley had plenty of chances to surrender. He could have thrown down his weapon, come out and saved his life, but instead he chose to barricade himself inside the house and shoot it out with the police until there was no possible solution but his own extinction.
I had to agree that on the surface it looked like a manufactured suicide. Except for two things. First, the guy had been wearing Kevlar. From my perspective, you don't wear Kevlar when you're trying to get the cops to kill you. It was inconsistent, but not unheard of.
The second inconsistency occurred in two of the neighbors' post-event statements. According to a neighbor named William Palmer, who lived four houses away on Hidden Ranch Road, Smiley had spent most of the previous summer building a bomb shelter in his basement. A woman down the street named Katie Clark had also mentioned the same thing. So the question is, why does someone who is so afraid he might die in a nuclear blast that he builds a bomb shelter in his basement commit suicide, and why was he wearing Kevlar? Those two facts didn't seem to fit in the same emotional quadrant with the Death-by-Cop theory.
I called Katie Clark, and her baby-sitter told me she was out of town on business until next Friday. That left William Palmer. He agreed to stay home and wait for me until 9 a. M.
As I turned back onto Hidden Ranch Road I remembered the bizarre insanity of my last visit here. I was still
