The Renegades (5 page)

Yolanda led Hood
down a hallway in the rear of the admin building of the Mira Loma Detention Facility, then down a flight of stairs half-hidden behind some vending machines. The door to the IA room had no window, just a plastic shield with the numerals 204 on it. There was no electronic card entry. She opened the door with a bright new key and placed the key in his hand.

Inside, the office was small and cold. Four cubicles shared an empty common area. The carpet was sea green. There was one window in the office, vertical, narrow and fortified with chicken wire. Through it Hood saw the concrete retaining wall for the basement level, and above the wall was a peekaboo view of the west prison grounds, the twenty-foot chain-link fences topped by razor wire, and the sun-bleached gun towers.

Hood looked at the neat, impersonal cubicles.

“This is your station,” she said. She had a pleasant face and bony hands.

Hood’s cubicle was smaller than a prison cell. Yolanda gave him one of her cards, with a county number hand-written on the back for charging long-distance calls on this, the state line. The phone on the desk was black and heavy and had a curled cord and looked Hood’s age. Terry Laws’s package—department slang for a personnel record—sat squarely in the middle of Hood’s new world.

“The state watches every penny,” said Yolanda. “So please turn off the lights when you leave. The thermostat is centrally controlled, so there’s no use trying to turn up the heat.”

“No heat.”

“There is heat. But it’s unavailable.”

On the way out she flicked the lights off, then on again. When the door swung shut behind her, the lock clicked loudly.

HOOD SOON DISCOVERED that Terry Laws had been a solid deputy. He’d played football and graduated from Long Beach State at twenty-three, one year after the L.A. riots. A year later he’d completed training at the L.A. Sheriff’s Academy, and begun his sworn duty at the Twin Towers jail in Los Angeles.

Laws had worked his way up to deputy III, leaving the jail after two years for patrol, then warrants, then back to patrol. His base salary was $4,445 a month. He’d been cited for distinguished service for resuscitating a child after a swimming pool accident. He was LASD bodybuilding champion in 2001, when he was thirty-one, and again the next year.

He had never been cited for excessive use of force and his number of citizens’ complaints was average. He’d fired his weapon only once on duty, at a fleeing assault suspect who had fired at him. Both had missed.

He and his partner, Coleman Draper, had arrested the killer of two
narcotrafficantes
back in the summer of 2007. Hood remembered that story. The murderer was an Aryan Brotherhood head-cracker named Shay Eichrodt. He was later committed to Atascadero State Hospital. Both Laws and Draper had been commended for making the arrest.

Laws had married at twenty-four, had a daughter a year later, and another a year after that. He divorced at age thirty-four and asked to be transferred from L.A. to the desert substation in Lancaster. Just like me, thought Hood. Why the desert? Hood wondered if Laws liked the miles, the motion, the flat, wide-open land, the twisted Joshua trees and the hot orange sunsets. Hood read that Laws had remarried eighteen months ago. For the last four holiday seasons Laws had helped run the sheriff’s Toys for Tots program.

Hood looked at the pictures. Laws’s department mug showed a square-jawed man with wavy dark hair and a forthright smile. There was a picture of him receiving a bodybuilding trophy, the sleeves of his sport jacket taut with muscle. The
Daily News
photographed him with two other LASD deputies, all wearing elf caps and standing behind three large boxes overflowing with new toys.

Hood saw that he would have been forty years old in June.

He remembered what Laws had said the night before, about helping the Housing Authority shake down Jacquilla Roberts:
There’s no profit in this.

He remembered the sound of bullets going through Terry Laws’s award-winning body.

He left a message for one of Terry’s regular partners, saying he wanted to talk with him.

He called another regular partner, the reserve deputy Coleman Draper, who answered on the third ring. Hood told him who he was and what he wanted. Draper said that Terry Laws was one of the finest human beings he’d ever known and there was no time like the present to talk about him, especially if it involved breakfast and would help them find the dirtbag who’d killed him.

THE SNOW STARTED just as Hood left the prison parking lot. It materialized out of an endless silver-gray cloud that looked to be no more than a hundred feet off the ground. He stood for a minute and let the light, dry flakes fall around him. They were cold on his neck but on his hot punctured cheek they were soothing. The snow settled on the spikes of the Joshua trees, rimming them with white. The storm followed him down Highway 14 but at Agua Dulce turned to rain that roared heavily upon the cruiser roof.

Hood met Draper in Santa Clarita, between Lancaster and L.A. Draper was average height, wiry, with a clean-shaven face and white hair cut short in the back with a wavy forelock in front. Hood guessed him at roughly his own age—late twenties. Draper had a sly smile and a spark in his gray eyes. His handshake was strong and his clothes were expensive.

He told Hood that he owned a German car garage down in Venice, lived right around the corner. Hood saw that Draper’s hands were clean.

“Right,” said Draper. “I don’t do the work anymore. Seven years of that is enough. I’m just the manicured boss now.”

Draper smiled at the waitress and ordered the works omelet, extra cheese, with a side of biscuits and gravy.

Hood was agnostic about reservists. He knew that some of them were good people, trying to help, getting a little buzz off the danger. But he also knew that some had a little-dog complex and that some were bullies. Some were rich and some were poor. Whatever they were, Hood knew, once approved, they got a gun, a badge and one dollar a year to work a minimum of five hours a week. Some of them worked full-time for that one dollar a year.

“Terry was a cool guy,” said Draper. “He brought in his VW one day, said he’d heard good things about my shop. We did a valve job for him and Terry and I hit it off. A few months later he brought me into the Reserves. That was four years ago—’05. We rode as partners. But we were friends. Good friends.”

Hood watched as Draper looked out the window. Draper blinked twice, quickly, and sighed. “Black dude in Blood red is what I heard. An M249 SAW machine gun.”

Hood nodded.

“How many shots did Terry take?”

“Many.”

Draper looked at him. “Murder a deputy? That’s a prestige initiation. Fuckin’ animals.”

“Any threats against Terry?” asked Hood.

Draper nodded. “Well, he’d popped his share of punks and gangsters. Aryans, black gangstas, Mexican,
Eme
, MS-13. They all threaten. Even the drunk desert rats threaten. The Antelope Valley, what do you expect? Nothing but the usual trash from those people.”

“How about a Blood with a grudge?”

“We busted a guy named Londell Dwayne a month ago—grand theft auto. That’s what it looked like to us, anyway. Turned out to be his girlfriend’s sister’s boyfriend’s ride. Something like that. By the time we got to the bottom of it, Londell had spent forty-eight in jail. He’s a big mouth. They might have roughed him up some. Not a happy punk. He’s clicked up with the Antelope Valley Bloods and they’ve got ties to L.A. because most of them came from South Central.”

At Dwayne’s name, a jolt of adrenaline went through Hood.

“After the bust Terry tried to help out with Londell’s dog—a pit bull, of course. The dog ended up lost and Londell blamed him. Londell is a hothead. He’s got no self-control. But I don’t know if he could do something like this.”

“The shooter looked like Londell,” said Hood.

“Be careful. He was packing a twenty-five auto when we rousted him.”

The waitress brought more coffee. Hood looked out at the slowing rain and the drenched oleander that ringed the parking lot.

“It looked planned,” he said.

“It sounds planned.”

“Talk to me, Coleman.”

While they ate, Draper told Hood that Terry was an easygoing man, big on fitness and small on ’tude. Smart. Generous, willing to work hard. One of the good guys.

Hood asked for the downside. Draper thought for a minute, then said Terry didn’t have enough ego to stand up to some people. He said Terry was happy to show his good side, like being in shape and helping with the Toys for Tots thing, but wanted to hide the fact that he was prone to drinking and depression. Who wouldn’t?

Draper said Terry’s ex-wife was a bitch but Terry’s two teenaged daughters were good girls who adored him. His second wife was a divorcee, a cute young peach with a taste for nice things.

“He picked the wrong women without fail,” said Draper. “That was a true talent, and a running joke of ours. But he was loyal to them, to a fault.”

Draper looked out at the rain and blinked twice again and Hood saw the moisture come to his eyes. Then his eyes became dry and still.

“What can I do?” he asked.

“Names and l.k.a.’s of black gangsters he’d rousted or busted.”

“I’ll have them to you by noon. I’d look at Londell. Tell him I said hi. How are you holding up, Deputy Hood?”

“I can’t believe what happened.”

Draper was nodding. “How’d you get mixed up in IA?”

“They came to me. You know, I’m doing this for Terry.”

“If you go back to patrol, let’s ride sometime, Charlie. I can learn from you.”

“Judging from history I’m due back on patrol in about three weeks.”

Draper smiled. “I heard about all that. You nailed a bad cop. That was a good thing.”

Hood drank the last of his coffee and got out his wallet. “Draper, how come you do this? You make a dollar a year putting your life on the line. It could have been you sitting next to Laws.”

Draper stared at Hood. “Deputy Hood, I wish I
was
sitting next to Terry. I mean no disrespect. Law enforcement is something I feel strongly about. My father was a reserve deputy. His father was a real one. In Jacumba, down by the border.”

“Rough country.”

“The roughest in the world.”

HOOD CALLED ORR and told him what he’d learned about the bad blood between Terry Laws and Londell Dwayne, and that Londell looked enough like the shooter to warrant a knock-and-talk.

An hour later he met Orr and Bentley in the parking lot of Londell Dwayne’s apartment in Palmdale. The storm had blown through but the sky was dark and shifting. A few inches of fresh white snow lay everywhere. There were snowcapped tumbleweeds piled up against a sign that said “The Oasis—Now Renting.” Londell’s crib was upstairs.

Hood popped the snap on his hip holster and followed the Bulldogs up the concrete steps. Their weight vibrated the metal staircase, and the snowflakes on the railing wobbled and fell. The front windows of Londell’s place were blacked out with tinfoil and Hood heard a bass line throbbing inside. Bentley timed his knocks between the beats.

The door opened and the music got louder and Londell stood eye-to-eye in front of them. He was a slender man, no shirt, heavy bling, shorts below his knees and clean white K-SWISS ankle-highs. Hood watched him focus on the badge that Bentley held up. His eyes were deep brown in the middle and yellow outside. He looked at Bentley, then Orr, then Hood. Hood’s nerves rippled—goddamn if Londell didn’t look like the shooter. Facial type. Body shape. Posture.

“Bentley,” said Dwayne. “The whitest nigga in Antelope Valley.”

“We’d like to talk to you,” said Bentley.

“So talk to me.”

“You’ll have more privacy inside.”

“None of you is coming in here without no paper.”

“You know Terry Laws, the deputy,” said Bentley.

“I know he’s room temperature.”

“What else do you know?”

“I know he busted my ass for something I didn’t do, and he stole my dog and lost her. Her name is Delilah if you see her. She’s running loose somewhere in this world.”

“Were you there when Deputy Laws was shot?”

“Naw,
man
.”

“Yeah, man. We’ve got a witness who says the shooter looked a lot like you. He picked your picture right out.”

“I was here with Latrenya.” He turned back to the room. “Lattie, get over here and tell these guys the truth they want to hear.”

She appeared beside him, a tall woman with cornrows and hoop earrings. She was older and bigger than Londell. “We were right here. My sister, too. We heard about that killing this morning. We don’t know nothing about it. Nothing.”

“There,” said Dwayne. “Can you handle that much truth?”

“You were here all night?” asked Orr.

“Whole night except out for pizza at Little Caesar’s at seven o’clock sharp. Me and Latrenya and Tawna and Anton, right here where I currently stand.”

“They don’t have nothing on you, Lonnie. They acting like they do but they don’t.”

“You heard the woman,” said Londell.

“Give them Tawna’s number,” she said. “Let ’em talk to her. I’m going to write it down.”

She was back a moment later with a matchbook. Londell snatched it away from her and gave it to Bentley.

“See this? This a Pep Boys matchbook and these are the Pep Boys. When you’re done confirming my innocence with the phone number on it, you can poke little holes in their crotches and pull the matches through from the back. Make you laugh. You muthas need to laugh more. I can tell by the looks on your faces.”

The door slammed.

The three deputies stood in the parking lot. The snow-frosted tumbleweeds tried to climb the “Now Renting” sign while Orr called the number and put the phone on speaker.

A polite and soft-spoken girl named Tawna Harris told him she was Latrenya’s sister, and that she and her friend Anton had been with her and Londell from Monday evening around six until just after midnight: TV and King Cobras and Little Caesar’s and more beer and TV. She said that was the whole truth and nothing but.