The Last Days of Ray Cobb

Chapter 5

If he had learned anything from his time in law enforcement, it was that the story can be more important than the truth. He’d spent most of his career reading people, both criminals and his colleagues. The task force they’d sent from the FBI was no different. They were nothing more than cops with federal badges. Different wrapper, same brand. They wanted their cases solved and closed, ready for the next one. Nick let them build the narrative with the evidence and filled in the minor details for them when something was missing. It was a lot easier than doing it the other way around.

They couldn’t help but enjoy the tale they’d been told. A group of domestic terrorists make enemies with an international crime syndicate and they take each other out. The m******e was a gold mine for the media. On both sides of the conflict were people wanted in connection with dozens of crimes in the Los Angeles area. For the victims of those crimes, it was a righteous cleansing of sinners. Criminals destroying criminals.

Of course, it was more complicated than that, but Nick wasn’t giving out more details than he needed to. He had to explain what he was doing in Big Bear. That was easy enough. He’d handed over his phone as evidence and the honey jar justified his hunch. He’d explained that he didn’t inform local law enforcement of his presence because he didn’t know what he was walking into. It hadn’t been a lie. He wasn’t expecting to find what he did. Solish connected the syndicates, playing both sides. When D’Arby found out about it, he went after Solish, but he found something else he wasn’t expecting.

Nick told the story The Queen had laid out before everything went to s**t. Ray Cobb had been part of the crew that had been the origin of The Bear tattoos. The laptop in the Jeep gave them Solish’s address and information on Culp. D’Arby had already cleaned up the house in Panorama City. Culp was suspected to still be at large.

Deuce and the rest of the evidence at the hideaway in Topanga were gone. D’Arby’s crew was efficient. It looked like it was ready for renters again.

When Solish’s body was discovered, no one wept for him. The tattoo on his arm confirmed all the information Nick had given them to fill in the holes. Investigators connected the The Bear to Victor Mochulyak and Yuri Karsenov. Jimenez called Nick personally to thank him for taking the unsolved cases off his desk.

The one hiccup in the plan was that the feds asked for a deposition from Lauren Ashmore about her involvement with Dr. Solish. Nick wasn’t privy to that conversation, but the whispers his friend Hank had heard in the hallway made it sound like it was a devastating story about a gang rape and a botched abortion. The conclusion of the interview was that she was a victim who wished to move on with her life.

On the day Nick got the all clear to come back to work, he didn’t dress in the suit and tie of a returning detective. Instead, he wore jeans and a t-shirt. It was the uniform he used to wear daily when he was new to the RHD and shoved into the corner doing paperwork. The paperwork that started him on his long journey with Ray Cobb.

He didn’t go back to the bullpen. Instead, he went straight to Jenkins’ office.

“You want to get put back with Hsu or should I spare him the difficulty of having to work with you again?” Jenkins asked, not looking up from his computer.

“Put him with someone else,” Nick said.

He placed the unsealed resignation letter on Jenkins’ desk.

The lieutenant took off his reading glasses and flipped them down onto the blotter. He didn’t make a move to take the letter.

“You heard you were cleared, right?”

“By the department, yeah.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jenkins asked.

“You asked me if this was a job I wanted to do. You saw what happened up in those woods. Even though it worked out in the end, that’s not how I want people brought to justice.”

“That’s why we need good cops like you who don’t shoot first, then justify it after.”

That one stung. Nick hoped Jenkins didn’t see his ears go red.

“I agree,” Nick said. “There are too many cops on the streets doing the wrong thing for what they think are the right reasons. We have to hold ourselves to a higher standard. But if we don’t follow the rules we’re supposed to defend, then why are we even bothering? We have to be what the community wants us to be.”

Jenkins peered down at the letter, but didn’t touch it.

“I’ll forget I saw that. So Hsu or what?”

“Jim.”

Nick never called him by his first name.

“This was a s**t show, Archer. I know. But by going down that path, you got a lot of scumbags off the streets. And not just the assholes who died up in the woods. That girl you found in the clinic? The kid? The guy who got her pregnant was her Mom’s boyfriend. Rapist. A registered s*x offender who was working under an alias. That’s one more pile of human garbage off the street.”

Nick shook his head. He knew there would be a hundred examples. Endless justifications for bending the rules to make the world a better place. It always started with one slight step over the edge. Criminals had taught him that getting away with something is like a drug. And you don’t get the same satisfaction from the rush unless you push the limit a little further until you can’t come back from over the edge.

“I can’t anymore. Not because I don’t want to, but because I can’t. It’s time to get out. Before I become something I can’t live with,” Nick said.

Jenkins sighed a breath out and shrugged. He pushed back from his desk, his rotund belly scraping one of his shirt buttons against the pressboard. It popped off, exposing a stretched thin undershirt.

Nick snorted out a laugh.

“Well, that was f*****g fitting. Was going to shake your hand and wish you luck, but that’s not our style, is it?” Jenkins suppressed a smile.

“Hey, if you can get someone as hot as Carly Wentworth to f**k you with that gut, who the hell cares, right?” Nick smiled.

“I’ll keep your secrets if you keep mine,” Jenkins extended a hand.

Nick shook it.

“I’ll call you if I need to get out of a speeding ticket.”

“f**k you. You’ll pay your fines like every other civvie.”

Nick walked out of the office and went to his desk. There was only a handful of personal items to grab amongst the piles of paperwork. He didn’t even need a box. It all fit in his messenger bag.

“That’s it then, huh?” Hsu asked.

Hsu hadn’t seen the package in his inbox yet. Nick kept his gaze from settling on it. The outline of the firehouse bracelet in the manila envelope. The name Aelan Kham attached.

Aelan’s blood came back positive on Ballantine’s knife and now her name matched the tattoo on his arm. A DNA test would confirm the child’s parentage. The newborn was already in the system, but at least she would know her mother’s name if she went looking for it. It wasn’t justice for Aelan, but it was something.

“I got you something to remember me by,” Nick said.

He handed Hsu a small paper bag with something square in it. Hsu pulled the contents of the bag out and read it.

“Dirty Word of the Day Calendar.”

“Sentimentality isn’t my thing.”

Hsu nodded, “Who knows? It might jar loose some pleasant memories we aren’t expecting.”

Nick smiled. “I guess I knew less about you than I thought. Take care of yourself.”

“I hope your life is full of,” Hsu flipped through the calendar and landed on a random page, “blumpkins.”

Nick laughed. Hsu read what that was.

“Oh, God. Why would someone—?” he peered at the ceiling to think. “I honestly don’t know if that’s something anyone would want. Is it a good thing or a bad thing?”

“See you around, Hsu.”