L. A. Outlaws (19 page)

“You did as good as you could do, Lenny. You never asked to go to there.”

“Yes, I did ask. I wasn’t old enough after 9/11 but I made up my mind when the buildings came down I was going to do something.”

“I can’t reopen the investigation, Lenny. I wouldn’t even if I could. I did the closest thing to right that I could come up with.”

“Letting four men get murdered and nobody pays is right?”

“You’re paying, Lenny. We all are.”

“I don’t think it’s enough.”

“You’re not the judge of that.”

“It’s about consequences and terrible dreams. I have the most awful dreams you can imagine and they never stop.”

Lenny turned around and looked down at the gun in his hand.

Hood dove for it.

Never took his eyes off it. He hit the sand gut-first with his arms extended and the pistol locked between them, and when he rolled over and aimed up, Overbrook was looking down at him with an expression of crushing hopelessness on his face. Hood popped to his feet and Overbrook charged him, screaming. Hood threw the gun to the sand behind him and got Overbrook in a bear hug and took him down. Hood used his weight and held tight, and Overbrook’s screams slowly devolved into moans, and his struggling ceased, and Hood loosened his grip enough so the man could cry but not break away for the gun.

A while later Hood untangled himself from the still-blubbering Overbrook and retrieved the pistol. It was a Smith & Wesson .22-caliber rimfire revolver, each of its eight cylinders containing a live load.

Hood blew the sand off the gun. A family dragging towels and bodyboards and swim fins stared unabashedly at him and the gun, then at the man lying faceup in the sand breathing hard and sobbing quietly. Hood slipped the gun into the right front pocket of his chinos.

Then he walked back over to Overbrook and squatted in the sand. “So what am I going to do with you, Lenny?”

“I thought I’d be dead by now.”

“I’m glad you were wrong.”

“I hope you don’t think I was going to shoot you, Mr. Hood.”

“I don’t. But it worries me that you were going to shoot you.”

Lenny struggled to his knees, then sat back on them. He wiped the sand off his sleeves, then his thighs. The fine beach silica had stuck to the tears on his face to form a dark sludge that framed his bright blue eyes.

For a long time Lenny stared out at the heavy orange sun beginning its melt into the Pacific. “Okay.”

“Yes, it’s okay.”

More time passed.

“Something’s different, Mr. Hood.”

“What’s different?”

“It’s hard to describe. Like something got lifted off.”

“Yeah,” said Hood. He wondered if grappling with Lenny had left him light-headed, or if maybe the charge of adrenaline had made him giddy. But what he really thought was the truth had lightened their burdens, at least for a moment.

Lenny pulled a folded piece of paper from the pocket of his jacket then stood and walked it over. “These are them. The six. They should say what really happened, too. They were my friends. I did my part.”

Hood took the paper and put it in his shirt pocket without opening it.

“Lenny?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You hang in there. I’m keeping the gun.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go home. Take care of yourself. I like you.”

Hood backpedaled away from Lenny Overbrook, then turned and jogged back to the boardwalk.

21

That night in his small Silver Lake apartment Hood watched and recorded a TV news special on Allison Murrieta. He ate his dinner and drank beer. The windows were open for the cool air, which in August smelled like nightshade and frying tortillas.

The show was hosted by Dave Boyer. It had jolting edits and a soundtrack of very loud and sudden noises, like bullet trains passing or maybe cell doors slamming. The images were of Allison robbing businesses, intercut with the self-promotional video that Boyer had played at the interagency task force briefing.

There was a still shot of an old drawing of Joaquin Murrieta. He was long-haired and appeared crazed. Then the screen split and a still image of masked Allison appeared beside that of her alleged great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. If there was a resemblance, it was faint at best to Hood.

But again he thought he saw Suzanne Jones behind Allison Murrieta’s jeweled mask. When they showed a clip of Allison leaving a McDonald’s after robbing it, Hood watched the way the back of her blouse creased in alternate directions with each step, and he remembered comparable creases in the nightshirt Suzanne wore that Sunday after she’d smelled his face up close then walked away, waving over her shoulder.

As evidence I now present comparable creases, he thought. He burped and shook his head. What were the hundreds of people who knew Suzanne Jones thinking when they saw Allison Murrieta on TV? Good question. Apparently not what he was thinking.

He got out the copy of Suzanne Jones’s phone bill and flattened it against his knee so he could read it.

He chose a Los Angeles number and a woman answered. Hood identified himself as a Los Angeles County deputy and said that he was trying to locate Suzanne Jones. She had suddenly gone out of contact and he was concerned. Hood offered his badge number and a number to call at LASD if she wanted to verify that he was a deputy on official business.

“Did you talk to Ernest?” she asked.

“He’s out of contact, too.”

“And she’s not at home?”

“The family moved out suddenly on Sunday night,” said Hood. “There was an incident in the neighborhood.”

“Incident?”

“She was fine. Her children and Ernest were fine. Then—she stopped returning our calls.”

Then, thought Hood—I almost got her murdered at a motel up in Torrance and I can’t figure out why she hit the wind.

“I’m sorry,” said the woman. “I just don’t know where she would go. We work together at L.A. Unified. But she lives way down in San Diego and I rarely talk to her during the summer. I wish I could help.”

Hood got an idea but he was afraid it was a bad one. At least that’s how it struck him at first but he decided to air it anyway. Maybe it was the beer, but Hood figured if Lenny Overbrook could tell a difficult truth then he, Hood, could ask a difficult question. Something in this woman’s voice made him believe he should try.

“Are you close to a TV set?” he asked.

“Why?”

“I’m asking for your help. Turn on Channel Four.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause. Hood could hear the phone hit something solid like a table or counter. A moment later she was back.

“Allison Murrieta,” she said. “She robbed a place over in Long Beach last night. I kind of like her but I’m afraid she’ll kill somebody someday. What’s this got to do with Suzanne?”

“Do they look alike?” asked Hood.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“I’m not.”

“Well, no. They don’t look much alike. Suzanne is tall and athletically proportioned. This robber is thicker. Look at her. She’s not tall, and she’s full. Allison has black hair but Suzanne’s is light brown. Of course the mask hides the important features, so there’s no resemblance to be seen.”

On-screen Allison was finishing up her KFC heist of Tuesday night, hamming it up with a burly workman who was down on his knees in front of her.

To Hood the guy looked big, even on his knees—thick thighs and heavy arms and a head the size of a Dutch oven—which could make someone standing beside him look shorter. And Allison Murrieta’s loose-fitting black leather vest and roomy, run-for-it trousers—they widened her, suggested a few pounds that might not really be there.

“What if that’s a wig?” Hood asked.

“Possible, but I doubt it. You can almost always tell.”

“What about the face?”

“Same basic face type, maybe, but it’s not her. Suzanne doesn’t carry herself that way. I know how she walks and moves.”

She gave Hood her name, Julie Ensley, and Hood gave her his cell number and asked her to call if she learned anything. Hood said that he would have Suzanne call her when he found her.

“You’re right,” he lied. “Suzanne and Allison don’t look that much alike to me. It was a false hunch.”

“Women notice women more than men do sometimes.”

He got another beer and dialed another Los Angeles number.

 

 

 

Sid Welch, Suzanne’s principal, had not spoken with her since the last day of school back in June. He had no idea where his teachers went for summer break. Suzanne had a way of showing up at pretty much the last minute. Welch’s words were slightly slurred and his attitude was jocular, but Hood didn’t ask him to turn on a TV.

He dialed a Temecula number and got the recording for Oscar’s Septic Service. And another recording for Quality Motors in Alpine.

Then he tried an Anza Valley number.

“Growers West,” said the voice.

And Hood pictured the dour blonde and thought: There it is—a connection between Barry Cohen and Suzanne Jones.

The message was interrupted by a female voice.

“Ronette West.”

Hood reintroduced himself, told Ronette the Suzanne Jones story, offered his shield number.

“Sorry, Deputy. I don’t know any Suzanne Jones. Where’d you get my number, anyhow?”

“From Suzanne’s phone bill.”

“Then you have a problem, dude.”

“What do you grow?”

“The most beautiful flowers on Earth. Nice talking with you. Good-bye.”

Hood stood up and went outside to his deck. From Barry to Melissa to Octavia to Derek to Fred to Ronette to . . . Suzanne Jones?

He felt flush with luck. Back inside he cracked another beer and called information and wrote down the address of Growers West down in Anza Valley, Riverside County. Meth country, thought Hood, Tweak City.

He blew into his hand as if it held dice, then dialed a Bakersfield number and got a woman with a dusky voice but few words.

She listened to his intro, and he could hear her writing down his badge number and the HQ number that would confirm his identity, rank and assignment.

She asked him to call back in ten minutes, which Hood did. Her name was Madeline Jones and she was Suzanne’s mother. She agreed to talk to him in her home at eight the next morning. She gave him her address and hoped that he would be on time.

22

H
ood came up the driveway five minutes early. The desert air was cool and the sky was tinged orange with sunlight and dust. The highways north from L.A. had been a trance of darkness and headlights followed by an ordinary desert sunrise of inordinate beauty. He’d seen an LASD recruiting billboard: “Every Community Needs a Hero. Will It Be You?” In the new light he’d watched the yuccas passing outside the windows of his Camaro, put on some Merle and let the music and the flat, dry land take him back to his days as a boy.

Madeline’s home was a walled adobe alone on a crest of hill northwest of the city. It looked secure, but in Anbar province Hood had learned that all appearances are just appearances, and he was alive now because of that. So as he came up the drive, he thought again of Lupercio and the address book missing from Suzanne’s computer room and slid his .38 Colt from the glove box into his coat pocket. Hood had cleared this visit with Bakersfield PD through Marlon and Wyte, and Bakersfield had agreed to let the LASD investigation proceed so long as Hood behaved himself. He had a number to call if things got hot.

He parked at the adobe wall, between two large clay planters with saguaro cactus reaching up. The weathered wooden gate was open and he stood there looking at the courtyard inside. The floor was decomposed granite sand, clean and raked. The roof was a crosshatch of heavy lumber that filtered the early morning sunlight into a slanting forest of beam and shadow. The fountain was large but made only a soft trickling sound. The rock fireplace was blackened from use. A large black kettle sat in the pit, but Hood saw that it contained not food but an explosion of red canna lilies. There were four heavy wooden chairs held together by black iron studs and upholstered in red horsehair, from one of which a large black cat fixed its yellow eyes on Hood.

“I am Madeline Jones.”

She had materialized without Hood’s knowing.

“A pleasure to meet you,” he said.

She looked midfifties, on the tall side, built with a strength and femininity in which Hood saw her daughter. Her face was an older version of her daughter’s, too—dark eyes and high cheekbones and a general expression of capability and doubt. Her hair was honey-colored and worn loose almost to her shoulders.

“Come in.”

Hood followed her through the courtyard and into the house. It was dim inside, with few windows and the lamps turned low. They passed through a living room and a kitchen. Adjacent to the kitchen was a breakfast alcove with windows looking out on the courtyard. There at a small table sat an older and smaller replica of Madeline—her mother or an aunt, Hood thought. She was reading what looked like a Bible, making notes directly on the pages with a pen. Same distinctive face, same skeptical calm as she looked up from her reading, quietly closed the book and watched him walk by.

Then they passed an entertainment room with east-facing windows and better light. Hood noted the couches tossed with colorful blankets, a big TV and framed posters from a Mexican soap opera featuring a very beautiful woman who looked like Madeline might have looked thirty years ago, or like Suzanne looked now.

Madeline sat him at the end of a long dining room table and took the head for herself. On the walls were framed paintings of old California—Spanish missions, vaqueros, bullbaiting, horses. Hood watched the oddly muted play of the paint lit by the electric candles of a chandelier.