Collecting Cooper by Paul Cleave Page A

the area, but I suddenly have a bad feeling Emma Green is inside that dumpster. She isn’t. There are bags of trash and nothing else. The front corner of the dumpster has been edged with red paint from a car. Somebody hit it on their way out.
    I get down on my hands and knees, looking for anything that may be out of place, or something dropped in the struggle. All I can see are patches of oil and weeds poking through the cracked pavement, a few old oil stains, and some old pieces of dog crap. The sun is beating down on my back. My back aches a little as I stand back up. If there was anything here, the police have found it already.
    I head back to my car thinking I’m in the wrong line of work.There isn’t much I can do until I get the police file, other than talk to more of Emma’s friends, most of whom I figure won’t want to talk to me. Donovan Green may have picked the last person on earth that may be of any use. Like Zane Reeves said, a grieving man makes bad decisions.
    The day is moving on and has cooled off a couple of degrees. I still need to talk to the flatmate but that will have to wait until tonight. I head back home, picking up some Chinese takeaway on the way. It’s around six o’clock by the time Schroder shows up. I’ve been on the case six hours and Emma Green is either six hours deader or six hours closer to becoming it. My dining table is covered in empty plastic tubs and smells of good food.
    “This is a bad idea,” Schroder says, holding up the Emma Green file. “Got any beer?”
    “That a joke?”
    “It’s been a long day. You ever seen a body so badly burned it had to be peeled off the floor?” As soon as he’s asked it, he remembers that I have. We both have. And on more than one occasion.
    “Wanna talk about it?”
    “No.”
    “You looked over the file?” I ask, nodding toward it.
    “Yes,” he says, “but it’s not my case,” he says. “My case is figuring out who started today’s fire. You looked over the file I gave you?”
    “I’ve been busy. Is there anything you can tell me that isn’t in here?”
    “Sure there is, but you’re not listening. I keep telling you to let it go, even more so since it’s personal. Come on, Tate, you know if it becomes personal it becomes messy.”
    “Thanks for the advice.”
    “So, look, I know I asked this morning, but what was it like? Prison?”
    “You know when you go on holiday and you’re never sure what the hotel is going to be like, or the restaurants and clubs, or the beach, and it’s always a little different from what you’re expecting? Well, prison isn’t like that. Prison is exactly how you think it’s going to be.”
    “Sorry,” he says, but it isn’t his fault and not a very useful apology. He slaps the file down on the kitchen table but keeps his hand on it. “You owe me,” he says. “When this is done, I want your help on the file I gave you this morning. You get this out of your system, and then you give me one hundred percent on helping me figure out who this Melissa woman is. Deal?”
    “That depends on whether you’re going to hold out on me, or give me the information I need along the way,” I say. “You came to me for a reason, Carl, you came to me because you’re going to want me to do things that you can’t do.”
    “That’s not it.”
    “Bullshit. You’re one of the good guys, Carl, and that restricts you. I don’t know how you justified it to yourself, but when you gave me that file this morning that wasn’t just you asking for my insight, that was you asking me to get my hands dirty.”
    “You’re reading too much into it,” he says.
    “And you’re doing the same thing now.”
    He picks the file back up. “You want me to walk out of here to prove how wrong you are?”
    “I just don’t want you complaining when I’ve crossed a line you knew all along I was going to cross.” I reach out for the file. “We’re on the same side here, Carl. Let me find this girl and then I