The Renegades

25

Tuesday morning, in Superior Courtroom 8, Ariel Reed led Hood through the events last year that had brought IA to a crooked deputy’s criminal emporium in Long Beach.

She asked him how he had met the informant, Allison Murrieta, and what made him think she could be trusted.

Hood told the truth. His ears rang mildly and he hoped his face wasn’t flushing. The fallen deputy glumly regarded him, and regularly whispered into his lawyer’s ear. There were a few LASD deputies in the room-the accused’s loyal supporters-who occasionally smiled at something Hood said. Judge Mabry eyed him with hard curiosity and the jury was a blur to him, thirteen faces that he tried to avoid.

On the cross, the defense did his best to make Hood look like an oversexed bumbler.

And by then you were involved intimately with Ms. Jones, correct?

Yes.

So you never questioned her motive for alleging that the defendant was selling stolen property?

I knew she wanted to hurt him.

Did it ever occur to you that she was using the lieutenant to deflect your attention from her own criminal activities?

No. She had admitted her own criminal activities.

But Mabry sustained Ariel’s several objections, and reminded the defense who was on trial here.

Hood was finished by the noon recess. They ate lunch in the cafeteria.

“You were good,” she said.

“I hope we win.”

“I’ll win. They weren’t able to make it a bad arrest and that’s their best chance.”

They talked small for a while after the meal was done. Two of the defendant’s partisan deputies took a table not far away, after giving them bemused stares. One spoke and the other laughed.

Ariel turned to them. “Can I help you?”

They looked away. Ariel took a call, stood, walked to a window and looked out. Hood saw her nodding but not saying much. When she came back her expression was skeptical.

“Let’s get some air,” she said.

They stood outside the Criminal Courts entrance in the meek downtown sunlight. The cars moved slowly and the pedestrians moved quickly.

“I used to smoke,” she said. “I did a lot of it right here.”

“I still do, once in a while.”

“I can’t do things once in a while. It’s another character flaw, like the way I split atoms.”

“There are plenty of things worse than that.”

“Charlie, look at me. Eichrodt passed the evaluation with flying colors. Both memory and speech, dramatically improved. Dr. Rosen is going to recommend that he be sent back here to stand trial for the murders of Lopes and Vasquez. My boss wants me to be a part of that team. I said yes.”

“I don’t think he killed them.”

“He’ll have his day.”

“Possibly rigged by two sheriff’s deputies.”

Ariel shook her head and looked out at the street. “Life is all curves, Charlie. It’s not straight, like a drag race. Wish somebody would have told me.”

She offered a small smile and her hazel eyes pried at him.

“Let’s walk down the street and get lunch,” he said.

“We just had lunch.”

“Let’s get another one.”

“Perfect.”

It was. Hood hadn’t spent a more pleasant hour in the last six months. He actually ate the second lunch, probably due to nerves. She talked on without a comma. Unlike the lawyer he had just seen in court, Ariel the person was self-deprecating, somewhat goofy and quick to smile. She described her line of the Reeds, especially the women, as “a motley crew obsessed with speed” and the men as “pointlessly energetic.”

He walked her back to the courthouse and felt the late winter chill settling over the city.

In the parking structure his phone rang. It was a sweet-voiced girl saying she wanted to talk to him about Londell Dwayne.