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.