Robert Crais - L.A. Requiem

We turned a corner into a section of aisle marked T-Z . Rogin said, “Here ya go, V as in Vincent.” Six boxes were marked with V 's. He pulled down the one that would hold Vi . “All you wanna do is look through the file?”

Dolan glanced at me, and nodded.

I said, “That's right.”

Rogin had the lid off, pulling out a thick file that had been tied with a string. He frowned. “It's awful thick, Sammy. You gotta read through the whole thing?”

“You look busy, Sid. Sorry to put you out this way.”

“Well, it's not that. They just don't like people back here.”

Dolan raised her eyebrows back at him and stiffened. “Well, Sidney, I guess if you'd rather I go back to Parker and have them call down.” She let it drop, watching him.

“Oh, no, hell, you don't have to do that. It's just I gotta get back up and watch the front.”

I said, “I'll be done by the time you guys get back from the second floor. No sweat.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.”

Dolan clapped Sid on the shoulder and grinned at him some more. “Let's do it, Sid. Get outta this goddamned heat.”

I pretended to be interested in Vincent's file until their steps were gone, then I searched down the aisle for the W 's. Twelve boxes were marked with a W , the eighth and ninth file boxes holding Wo .

We could have asked for Wozniak's file and signed for it, but we didn't want a written record connecting Dolan to what we were doing. She was in enough trouble, and if things went wrong I didn't want her in more.

I pulled Wozniak's file, then pushed the boxes back in their rows.

Wozniak's personnel file was too thick to shove down my pants, but most of it didn't concern me. I pulled the sheet listing his partners prior to Pike and their badge numbers, then flipped back to the beginning of his career and pulled the sheet noting his training officers. Wozniak was a top cop: He'd been awarded the Medal of Valor twice, twelve certificates of commendation, and a half dozen public service commendations for working with schools and troubled youth. The list of his arrests went on for pages, listing the arrestee, date of arrest, and charge. I jerked those pages, folded them, and put them in my jacket. The next section in the file was devoted to disciplinary actions. I wasn't even thinking to look at it except that Abel Wozniak had been called to appear before the Internal Affairs Group on two occasions six weeks prior to his death. The requesting Internal Affairs officer being one Detective Harvey Krantz.

I said, “Damn.”

No other information was given except the notation that the inquiry was terminated, along with the date of termination.

Krantz.

I jerked that page, too, and put it with the others.

Dolan's voice came along the aisle, Dolan saying, “Hey, buddy, I hope you're ready to go. We're outta here.”

I stuffed the remains of the file together and pushed it between the boxes, then hurried back to the V 's. I picked up Vin-cent's file just as Dolan and Rogin came around the corner.

She said, “You find what you need?”

“Yeah. You?”

She shook her head. Slow.

“DeVille's file isn't here.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Where is it?”

Rogin waved his hand. “Some other dick probably checked it out. You want me to look it up?”

I said, “If you don't mind. Maybe I can call the guy and get what we need.”

We followed him back to the counter and waited while he fingered through a box of little index cards. He scratched his head, checked some numbers he'd written on a little pad, then frowned. “Hell, it ain't here. If it was signed out, I woulda had the log-out card in here, but it ain't.”

“Any way to tell how long it's been gone?”

“Not without the card. Ain't this the shits?”

Dolan glanced at me again, then pulled at my arm.

“Maybe you just misfiled it, Sid. It's no big deal.”

When we were on our way out to her car, she said, “I don't believe in coincidences.”

“You thinking someone ripped off that file?”

“I'm thinking I don't believe in coincidences. But we can still get a copy. The district attorney's office keeps a record of all their case files in their own storage facility. I can order up theirs.”

“How long will that take?”

“A couple of days. Don't be peevish, World's Greatest. What'd you get?”

“I got some names, and his collar jacket, but something else, too.” I told her about the disciplinary notation showing Wozniak had been the subject of an investigation, and that Krantz was the investigating officer.

Dolan made a hissing sound. “That's IAG, man. You can't just ask Krantz.”

We got into her car. The leather was so hot it burned through my pants. Dolan lifted her butt off the seat.

“I never should've got black.”

She started the engine and turned on the air conditioner, but didn't put the car in gear.

I took out the pages and looked at them again. I skimmed over the arrest pages, but ended up back with the disciplinary sheet and the two meetings with Krantz. The dates were there. “If I can't get the files, and I can't ask Krantz, maybe there's someone else I can ask.”

She held out her hand for the sheet. “This doesn't say shit.”

“No. It doesn't.”

“It doesn't say if he was the subject, or if they wanted to question him about someone else.”

“Nope.”

She handed the sheet back, thinking, then took out her cell phone and punched a number.

“Hang on.”

She made three phone calls and spoke for almost twenty minutes, twice writing in a notepad. “This guy might be able to help you. He was an IA supervisor when Krantz was there.”

“Who is he?”

She handed me the sheet. “Mike McConnell. He's retired now, living out in Sierra Madre. That's his number. He owns a sod farm.”

“Sod.”

“He grows grass.”

“I know what it means.”

“I wasn't sure. Sometimes you're stupid.”

She floored the gas, spun her tires, and brought me back to my car.

Sierra Madre is a relaxed community in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains to the east of Los Angeles. Mature green trees line the streets and kids still ride bikes without worrying about getting shot in a drive-by. The town has a peaceful, rural feel that Los Angeles lost when the developers took over city hall. It is also where Don Siegel filmed the exterior locations of the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I haven't yet seen a pod person there, though I keep looking. Farther west, L.A. is filled with them.

Mike McConnell's sod farm was on a broad flat plain near the Eaton Canyon Reservoir. The reservoir has been dry for years, and the property beneath it has been leased to farmers and nurseries who've put it to good use. Model airplane builders come fly their tiny machines out of the unused land, which is scrubby and dead, but the irrigated parcels are brightly alive with acre after acre of flowers and yearling plants, and sod.

I turned off the paved street and followed a gravel road between flat green fields of buffalo grass, Bahia grass, St. Augustine and Bermuda grasses, and others I didn't recognize. Rainbirds dotted the fields like Erector Set scarecrows, spraying water, and the air smelled of fertilizer. I was hoping to find a field of pulsating pods, but instead I came to a service area where a trailer and a large metal shed sat surrounded by spindly eucalyptus trees. Live in hope.

Three Hispanic guys were sitting in the bed of a Ford pickup, eating sandwiches and laughing. They were soiled from working in the sod fields, and burned deep umber by the sun. They smiled politely as I pulled up and got out of my car. A thin brown dog was lying beneath the pickup's gate. He looked at me, too.