Return To LA

Chapter 10

                    They headed to Robert's office the next morning. It was decided that they should take separate cars, as they didn't know what they were going to be doing all day. Brenda rode with James in his old Ford, while Walt followed in his Mercury.

The three of them filed into Robert's office without knocking. Robert looked as they came in.

"You feeling better Jim?"

"Some, at least I'm not shaking, and my heads not pounding anymore." He responded. As the found places to sit in the small office. Brenda sat on James lap while Walt took the other chair. The remaining chair had several old evidence boxes piled in it.

Robert looked from Walt to James and Brenda and back. Slowly he sighed.

"James, I found your connection to Philip Dorrsol. And the hat."

He let it sink a second. James and Brenda just looked at him expectantly.

Finally he got up and went around the desk to the top evidence box in the chair, "James, you remember when you were 17 and you shot the kid, ? "

Slowly it came back to him. That had been a lifetime ago. He had used a gun he found in a alley to shoot a drug dealer who was attacking him and his friends. The case was closed, and sealed. It wasn't in his record, He had been cleared and charges dropped. That was back in 1938. Almost ten years ago.

Robert handed James a large back and white picture of a hat. James looked at it. "Yes, that's the hat, Where was it?"

"It was on the man you shot back in '38, Edward Lane. Turns out, Edward Lane was Philip Drossels son. He was wearing this hat when you killed him. The blood on it came from him. That's where you saw the hat before. Robert held up the hat and the picture together, One and the same.

The three sat sat quietly for several seconds letting it sink in.

"No wonder Drossel wants you dead, You killed his son But that doesn't explain how the hat wound up on Wanda Reed.".

" I did a lot more checking. It seems back then the property rooms weren't as secure as they are now. Several months after the shooting, We had a breakin. A lot of guns were taken, along with various pieces of evidence. Among them, James, This hat, and the gun you used to shoot him with. None of the guns were ever recovered. James " when you came back, You bought several guns from pawn shops didn't you?"

"Yes, you went with me at least once." James confirmed.

"Right, and one of the guns is a Smith & Wesson, Victory model from before the war.?"

"That's the one I gave Brenda. " James said. Branda opened her purse and retrieved the revolver. She carefully handed it to James, Out of habit he flipped the cylinder, and checked to see that it was loaded. Shutting it he handed the gun to Robert. Robert, turned it over and found the serial numbers on the bottom of the grip. He pulled a paper from the file on his desk. He spent several minutes looking that the numbers on the report, and on the bottom of the gun.

"I was right. This is the same gun you used to shoot Edward Lane. Stolen from the property room, and has been floating around LA all these years, finally winding up in the pawn shop you bought it in." Robert handed the gun back to James. Jame took the back up gun from his holster. He handed it to Branda. "I want to keep this one." He slid the Victory Model into the holster.

They spent some time discussing their next movies, and how now knowing the connection to Philp Drosel would help them. No one had any clear idea, of how all of the recent event with the FBI agents and drug smuggling had any relation to James other than the original history.