Under a Raging Moon (6 page)

The reserve officer in Kopriva’s car was a green one, just three rides out of the Academy. Kopriva didn’t mind. The kid seemed bright and eager to learn. Kopriva had discovered in his
sensei’s
karate
dojo
that it gave him satisfaction to show someone a skill and then see that person ‘get it.’ Police work, som
e
times a very play-it-by-ear profession with a lot of gray area, was tricky to actually teach someone and thus, even more gratifying when someone caught on.

Kopriva let the reserve, Ken Travis, drive for the first half of the shift until oh-one-hundred. Then they switched. Not surprisingly, none of the officers in his previous three rides had allowed him to drive.

“Were they from the sit down and shut up school of thought?” he asked.

Travis nodded. “Pretty much. But you learn a lot from watching.”

“Not as much as from doing,” Kopriva said.

Ten minutes later, Kopriva spotted a car sneaking down Regal, a side street with a lot of offsetting inte
r
sections. This allowed drivers to treat it like an arterial. The street was fr
e
quented by drivers without a valid license, a practice so common that Kopriva and his sector-mates had dubbed any car on Regal after midnight in violation of the “felony Regal law” and therefore fair game.

Kopriva whipped the cruiser around with a u-turn and swooped in behind the car, a ‘71 or ’72 Monte Ca
r
lo. “Find the stop,” he instructed Travis. He’d already noticed the driver’s side headlight was burned out, an Easter Egg of a stop. The vehicle sped along thirty miles per hour, five over the limit. And to make things even easier, the passenger-side taillight was broken and showing white light to the rear.

Travis peered closely at the car for a block. In that time, the vehicle slowed to twenty-three miles per hour.

“How fast is he going?” Travis asked him.

“Twenty-three, twenty-four now.”

He stared at the car for another long moment, then saw it. “Broken tail-light?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?” Kopriva asked good-naturedly.

“Telling.”

“Do we stop them?”

Travis didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

Kopriva picked up the microphone. Before notifying radio, he told Travis, “There’s two of them. If one runs, stay with the car. If both run, you take the passenger. Okay?”

Travis nodded, his eyes dancing with excitement.

Kopriva recited the license plate and their location to radio and activated his overhead lights. The car i
m
mediately pulled to the side while Kopriva put his spotlight and takedown lights on the vehicle. He slammed the car into park and still managed to beat Travis out of the car.

Both occupants remained seated, neither one seat-belted. Kopriva approached cautiously, lighting up the back seat with his heavy maglight and then searching for the driver’s hands. They were on the wheel. The passe
n
ger’s hands rested on his lap.

The driver was a white male in his mid-twenties with long, greasy hair and a scraggly growth of beard. “Is there a problem, officer?” asked with careful politeness.

This is going to be a good stop.

“You have several equipment defects, sir,” Kopriva told him. “Your headlight is out and one tail-light is broken.”

“They are?” The driver acted surprised.

Kopriva nodded. “You were also traveling at thirty miles per hour. The speed limit here is twenty-five.”

“I thought it was thirty.”

“It’s twenty-five. May I see your driver’s license, registration and proof of insurance?”

“Yes, sir.” The driver began to dig through a pile of papers above the visor.

Kopriva motioned over the top of the car to Travis, who stood beside the passenger window. “Get his I.D.”

Travis nodded and spoke to the passenger.

The driver nervously handed Kopriva an insurance card that had expired four months ago, along with the registr
a
tion. The registered owner was Pete Maxwell.

“Are you Pete?”

The driver shook his head. “No. Pete’s my friend. He loaned me the car.” He handed Kopriva his license.

Kopriva looked at it. Right away, he noticed it was a state identif
i
cation card, not a driver’s license. While a perfectly legal form of ident
i
fication, even issued by Department of Licensing, it was not a license. And it usually meant that the driver’s status was suspended.

“Well, Mr...” Kopriva glanced down at the card. “Mr. Rousse. This isn’t a license. Do you have a l
i
cense?”

Rousse shook his head. “It’s suspended,” he said ru
e
fully.

“And Mr. Maxwell’s insurance has lapsed.”

Rousse nodded glumly.

“Okay, wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.” Kopriva glanced at Tr
a
vis. “Got his I.D.?”

Travis shook his head. “He won’t give it to me.”

Oh
really
? Kopriva peered at the passenger through the driver’s wi
n
dow. “What’s your name?”

The thin passenger had jet-black hair, shaved on the sides and long in the back. His beard stubble was thick. He stared straight ahead and didn’t respond to Kopriva’s question.

“I said, what’s your name, passenger!” Kopriva put an edge in his voice.

The man turned. “Why do I have to tell you?”

He has a warrant
.

“Are you wearing a seat-belt?” Kopriva asked.

“No. Well, I was. I took it off when we stopped.”

Kopriva shook his head. “No, you didn’t. You weren’t wearing one. That’s a traffic infraction. You are now required to identify yourself. If you don’t, I’ll arrest you for Refusal To Cooperate. Now what’s your name?”

The passenger considered briefly, then said, “I’m Dennis Maxwell.”

Travis wrote it in his pocket notebook.

“Middle initial?” Kopriva asked.

“G.”

“Date of birth?”

“Uh, ten…seventeen, sixty-three. I mean, sixty-two.” He gave a nervous grin. “Listen, I’m not trying to be a jerk. I’ve just been hassled by cops in the past.”

“I’m not hassling you,” Kopriva stated coldly. “I’m doing my job.”

Dennis nodded. “Yeah, all right. Sorry.”

“No problem,” Kopriva said. As he walked back to the car, he muttered, “You lying, lying,
lying
bag of crap.”

Back in the car, Kopriva switched to the data channel so Travis could run both names. “Get the listed phys
i
cal description on Maxwell. And have them run the registered owner, too.”

The data channel was busy and the dispatcher took forever to respond with their requested information. Kopriva wondered when they would ever get the computers in the patrol car. Los Angeles cops had been using them for the better part of a decade.

While they waited for the dispatcher, he quizzed Travis on all the i
n
fractions they could write Rousse for. The reserve did well on his answers.

“What about the passenger?” Kopriva asked him.

“Kind of a jerk,” Travis said.

“You think he’s telling the truth?”

Travis shrugged. “I suppose. He just doesn’t like the p
o
lice.”

Kopriva suppressed a smile. Three years ago, he would have thought the same thing. Now he knew better.

Travis had almost finished writing the infractions before radio called out for Baker-123. Kopriva ignored it, giving Travis a chance to answer. The reserve didn’t notice. On the second call, he picked up the mike himself.

“Baker-123, go ahead.”

“Rousse is in locally, extensive record, but no current wants. DOL is suspended for refusing the breath test. Also.”

“Go ahead.”

“Bravo-123.”

Kopriva felt a tickle of frustration. The code was designed to inform the police officer that one of the su
b
jects being checked had a warrant. Calling the unit by the military alphan
u
meric ensured that if the suspect were in earshot, he would not inadvertently overhear traffic.

“Go ahead, I’m clear for traffic,” he told radio, keeping his tone neutral. The dispatcher should have told him about the warrant first, not in the order he gave the names. But his anger quickly washed away with the satisfa
c
tion of having been right.

“It’s for Maxwell, Pete, your registered owner. A misdemeanor drug charge with a $2,030 bond. Pete Maxwell is five-ten, one-fifty, black hair, brown eyes. Also.”

“Have records confirm the warrant. Go ahead your also.”

“Maxwell, Dennis G. in locally, no wants. He’s six-two, two-hundred thirty, blond and blue.”

“Copy, thanks.” Kopriva replaced the mike and turned to Travis, who sat open-mouthed throughout the exchange. “Now, what do we have?”

Travis thought for a moment. “Well, the driver’s suspended, so we write him for that.”

Kopriva nodded. “What else?”

“The registered owner has a warrant.”

Kopriva waited for a long minute, giving Travis a chance to think some more. Travis furrowed his brow, but said nothing.

“Did the passenger have hard I.D.?” Kopriva finally asked.

“No.”

“Is he six-two?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Travis started to squirm.

Kopriva shrugged. “Maybe,” he said easily. “Hard to tell when someone is sitting down. Did he look like he weighed two-thirty? Did he have blonde hair?”

“No.” Realization flooded Ken Travis’ face. “He’s not Dennis. He’s Pete.”

Kopriva nodded. “Exactly. He’s probably Pete, the registered owner. He has a warrant, so he decided to play the name game. Only he’s not very good at it. He picked Dennis, probably a brother or a cousin, whose physicals don’t even come close.”

“Not too smart,” Travis observed.

“Hey, these people aren’t rocket scientists. Thank God.”

Travis chuckled.

Kopriva continued, “So now what do we do?”

“Arrest him.”

Kopriva gave a slow half-nod. “Well, yes. But first we get confirmation from records through radio. A records clerk will pull the actual wa
r
rant and confirm that it exists and is currently valid. While we’re waiting for that, let’s cut a ticket for Rousse on his suspended driving. Do we know for sure that this passe
n
ger is Pete?”

“Not for sure, no.”

“So we play the name game back and we get confirmation. Leave that to me. Then we arrest him. After the arrest, then what?”

“We give Rousse his tickets?”

Kopriva smiled. “We’ll do that first. Travis, don’t be afraid to be wrong. Tell me, don’t ask. It’s okay to make a mistake.”

Travis nodded several times. “Okay. After the arrest, we take him to jail.”

“True, but first we get to do something. What?”

Travis paused, thinking. Then he smiled. “We get to search the car.”

“Why?”

“Search incident to an arrest.” His smile broadened. “If the arrest is made out of a vehicle, officers may search the vehicle.”

“Excellent. Now finish those tickets. I’ll keep an eye on our little misdemeanant.”

Travis wrote quickly, obviously enthused. Kopriva felt the same way. His job was like a puzzle som
e
times. Fit in who was who, figure out the truth, the partial truth and the lies. Then make the call.

“Baker-123, warrant is confirmed.”

“Copy. Have records hold it.”

Travis finished the tickets and they stepped out of the patrol car. Kopriva called Rousse back to the car, directing him to stand at the push-bar in the center of the front bumper. He kept the front corner of the vehicle between himself and Rousse.

“Mr. Rousse,” he said, placing the tickets on the hood of the car, “I am citing you tonight.” He explained each of the tickets and directed him where to sign. Rousse cooperated and didn’t appear angry. Once he’d signed the ticket, Kopriva tore off his copies and handed them to him.

“Mr. Rousse, what is your passenger’s name?”

Rousse’s eyes flitted nervously from the car to Kopriva and back again. “Dennis. Dennis Maxwell.”

“And where’s Pete tonight?”

“Home, I guess.”

“What is Pete to Dennis?”

“His brother.”

Kopriva stared at Rousse. “Why are you lying for him, Mr. Rousse?”

“I’m not. His name is Dennis. Honest, you can ask him.”

“Okay, if that’s how you want it.” Kopriva pointed. “Go back to your car, put your hands on the steering wheel and stay there.”