She just grinned.
When I woke the next morning, Alexa was already gone. She left me a note.
Shane, got up at three A. M. Went to work.
Tony gets home in two days. Gotta be ready.
Love, A.
I went into the kitchen and sat at the table drinking burnt coffee, then called the Fiscal Crimes Division at Parker Center. One of their jobs is checking out business ownerships and incorporation papers. I asked the civilian assistant to run a check on the North Van Nuys Transit Authority.
She quickly came up with the NVNTA's operations charter and read it to me. The little Valley bus company was a nonprofit that was created to shuttle the elderly and people with disabilities to their jobs in the morning and pick them up at night. The bus service had its own transit police department that had been certified by Homeland Security. The transit line currently operated five buses. I asked for a list of the police commissioners and the officers of the company.
I was put on hold while she went on Nexis-Lexis to locate the information. A few minutes later she came back on the line.
'Okay, here it is,' she said. 'The address is six-three-five-eight Midline Drive in North Van Nuys.'
I leaned over and grabbed the phone book, which still lay open on the counter displaying the ad for the Church of Destruction.
'You sure? That's a towing service and body shop,' I told her.
'According to their corporation filings, it's also the legal address for NVNTA.'
'Okay, give me the names of the officers and commissioners.'
'There're five. In no order of importance: Tyler Cisneros, Enrico Palomino, and Jose Diego are all police commissioners. Wade Wyatt and Michael Church are commissioners and transit authority officers.'
Most of the people I'd been messing with for the past three days turned out to be part of this little transit authority police department in North Van Nuys.
The more I sanded this pearl, the larger the black spot grew.
Chapter 17
Secada and I were seated at one of the upholstered train booths inside the Pacific Dining Car restaurant in downtown Los Angeles. It was almost nine a. M. I was having Swiss eggs, Engineer Style. Secada was slaughtering a Trainman's Breakfast, pushing the avocado, onions, and eggs into a pile in the center of her plate, knife and fork at the ready.
'You're telling me that every one of these people are P. C. S for that little bus company police department?' she asked, glancing sideways at the list of names the Fiscal Crimes Division had given me. 'What the hell is that all about?' She wrinkled her nose and stabbed an egg yolk for emphasis. Yellow oozed.
'Maybe, like us, they just like the feel of a badge in their pockets.'
'Come on, Shane. These guys are running some kinda scam.'
The information seemed to have cost Secada her appetite and she began poking at the mashed-up contents on the platter in front of her, rearranging it with her fork, peering into the mess as if she was searching for bugs.
Our waiter came up and smiled at her hesitantly.
'Everything all right? Is your meal acceptable?'
He was looking at Secada with concern, holding her eyes for a bit longer than necessary. The Pacific Dining Car is one of L. A.'s gastronomic landmarks, and is housed in an authentic Union Pacific rail car on Sixth Street. Because it's open twenty-four hours, it's a haunt for night owls who often collided with the incoming five a. M. brokerage crowd. The restaurant's also a favorite spot for cops, being just a short drive from Parker Center.
'It's fine,' she told the waiter. 'Just doing some food art.' Then she lanced the poor guy with one of her high- voltage smiles. I heard him exhale before he moaned softly and turned away.
After the waiter left, I said, 'A better question is what's the key that connects this little Valley bus line to them?'
'Are we getting sidetracked here?' she said. 'Does any of this get us any closer to a writ of habeas corpus for Tru Hickman?'
'I think so… I don't know why yet, but there's gotta be a reason Brian Devine and Tito Morales buried that kid on bad evidence. What I want to know is why a cop and a Deputy D. A. were protecting a gangster like Mike Church? We need to come up with that answer, and we need it before our transmittal letters and charge sheets come through from I. A.'
'But there's still a big disconnect here,' she persisted. 'Okay, let's say this miscarriage of justice wasn't just sloppy police work. But does it have anything to do with Wade Wyatt or all of these guys being transit police commissioners?'
'I think it does.'
'But what if it doesn't? What if that's just a random fact? What if it doesn't connect up to the motive for the killing, which as you recall, was over a six-pack of Bud Light.'
'Okay, we don't have it yet. I admit that. But something is definitely not right and it's bigger than just some bad due-process on Tru Hickman's case.'
'I agree. But which of these inconsistencies should we look at first? In a day, we're both gonna be on suspension.'
'Let's split up. You go over to the Van Nuys high school where Mike Church spent his early years conking classmates for their lunch money. Check his senior class yearbook for these names.' I picked up the list I'd made and handed it to her. 'Find out if any of these other characters went there. Also, take that list of license plate names we got from Church's house.'
She was skeptical. 'You think it goes all the way back to high school?'
'Maybe. I saw Van Nuys High Wolves stickers on a few of those cars we ran. Something connects these people. Maybe it's as easy as they all went to Van Nuys High.'
'What're you gonna do?'
'I read in the paper a few weeks ago that Tito Morales had a campaign headquarters in the Valley and was looking for volunteers. I thought I'd go down and join his campaign.'
I saw an envious look cross her beautiful face. 'Oh, that's a very cool idea. But I definitely think I should be the one to do that.'
'The old Wonder Bread thing again?'
'Well, yeah,' she nodded. 'I mean, I'll blend in better, don't you think?'
'Blend in? Are you crazy? I hate to break this to you, Scout, but you blend in about like Eva Longoria at a tractor pull. I'm a better choice. I'll get some glasses and a Woody Allen sweater. I'll fall by and sign up. Don't worry, I'll be so boring, nobody will notice me.'
'Shit, good idea.' She pouted. 'I should've come up with that.' Then she looked down at her plate and started forking food into her mouth. 'When you get to his campaign headquarters, see if you can get your hands on his contributors list,' she said between bites.
'I can't just walk in there and start rifling his files. This is going to require a little finesse.'
She wrinkled her nose and shot me the super-megawatt. A second later, I heard my breath wheeze out. But I didn't moan. At least not until I was safely back inside my car.
Chapter 18
The campaign headquarters was located in a small storefront on Magnolia Avenue in Van Nuys. There was a large, half-block-size Rite-Aid on one of the corners. I pulled into the drugstore's parking lot, then walked inside and
