Iron River Read online

  A Ruger .22 for Pfleuger of Santa Ana.

  A Colt .45 for Lochte of Tempe.

  Mendoza of Yuma, the Ruger for Pfleuger, Lochte of Tempe. Like poetry, thought Hood: bad fucking poetry. Maybe Holdstock ran his car off the highway and CHP hadn’t found it yet. Was this hope at all?

  A Pace Arms for Gowdy of Phoenix.

  A Bryco for Stevens of Alpine.

  More likely the Zetas had grabbed him and used his own car to take him across. If that was true, Hood thought, then he was probably beheaded by now and someone would find his body in one place and his head in another, and the Iron River would have swept away another life. The cartels had never come north to grab a U.S. lawman. Now they had accomplished what before they had never dared. The old rules were gone. The word unraveling came to Hood’s mind. He saw the ends of fresh-cut ropes twisting in a bitter wind.

  A Winchester for Lopez of L.A.

  A Lorcin for Barret of . . . who cares?

  A Charter Arms for . . .

  A .40-caliber derringer for Allison Murrieta of Norwalk, California.

  Hood looked away and took a deep breath and let it out and looked back at the FTR.

  Allison Murrieta/Suzanne Jones. Take your pick. He recognized her bold handwriting. It conjured her voice and the shape of her face and the feel of her body and the taste of her breath. She had been shot with that derringer in her hand, not quite ready to use it against a boy. It was ivory-handled and beautifully tooled. Now it was Hood’s gun, bequeathed wordlessly to Hood by Allison’s son.

  Hood held the form and looked at her signature and in spite of everything he felt at this moment, he smiled.

  As he put the FTRs in chronological order, Hood looked for patterns. His ATFE task force trainers in Los Angeles had been pattern crazy. Most of Victor Davis’s customers were male, though there was a group of females aged twenty-two to thirty-five, all with east L.A. addresses. This pattern was common: Inner-city moms afraid for their children were often targeted by gun pushers. But an opposing pattern existed, too: Inner-city moms were also often straw buyers purchasing weapons for homies and husbands and boy-friends. Hood had learned that once a buyer purchased two or more handguns in five or fewer days, the dealer was supposed to file an ATFE Multiple Sales Form. These were kept on file in regional ATFE offices, and a pattern of heavy MSF filings suggested organized trafficking. Of course straw buyers knew this, so they would change to the “lie and buy” method, which was to use a counterfeit ID. These IDs not only disguised the true identity of the buyer but easily passed the brief Arizona state background check because fictitious people aren’t listed in databases. If a licensed firearms dealer was scrupulous, he would report any suspicious sales to ATFE. If not, or if the bogus driver’s licenses were convincing, then dealers could sell deadly weapons to criminals with records of violence, underage buyers, the insane, the undocumented, the drunk, the high, or the furious—or to anyone wanting to make money as a middleman for the cartels. A dealer with a pattern of sales to such people always sent up red flags in the ATFE computers, but by the time the flags waved, it was often too late.

  Hood saw that Victor Davis’s source lay along the Arizona-Mexico border. And most of his sales were there, too, with some customers to the north in Orange and Los Angeles counties. He pictured the U.S.-Mexico border between San Diego and Corpus Christi, all two thousand rugged miles of it, and he wondered that some 6,700 gun dealers were licensed to do business along it. That’s more than three gun dealers for every mile of cactus and rattlesnakes, one of Hood’s instructors pointed out. What’s that a pattern for? Fucking death and destruction is what.

  Patterns upon patterns, dollars upon dollars, guns upon guns.

  And that was the legal end of it all, not counting the hundreds of unlicensed profiteers who bought and sold on the blackest of markets.

  Hood examined the appointment books. They were nearly identical, plastic-covered, with calendars and space for notes, differing only by the dates. There was one for each of the past five years. The entries were cryptic and heavily abbreviated but neatly written. Davis had been prone to doodling tight, crosshatched designs that sometimes grew to encompass entire days.

  Hood flipped through, reading the entries with one track of his mind and worrying about Jimmy Holdstock with the other. Using the Firearm Transaction Record date on the derringer sale to Allison Murrieta, Hood found the corresponding appointment book and looked up the day. It was August 2, 2006. In the date box was scribbled in black ink, “Allison M./x-small 2-shot/.40 cal & ammo/6pm IHOP in Escondido.” The entry had been circled in blue ink, and Hood followed a blue line across the page and into the “Notes” section. Here he read, “Chick brought son & when she used head he said he needed six pieces/light & short/no #s/has buyers!/will call.”

  Hood did the math: Bradley Jones, studying Outlaw 101 at the age of fifteen. He scanned through the remaining months of 2006 but found no sale. He figured even bold Victor Davis wouldn’t record an illegal sale to a minor anyway.

  He found the appointment book for 2009. This was the last year that Davis had sold firearms legally. ATFE had revoked his license in March. Hood saw that his sales activity actually increased, beginning in April. Working harder, thought Hood, getting lower prices for the same iron, spending longer hours getting to know his customers enough to determine they weren’t undercover cops. The handwriting had degenerated with the extra work. It was cramped and sometimes illegible.

  On April 4, Davis had written “R. Pace/noon/El Torito N.B.” The entry caught Hood’s eye because it was circled in bold black ink and had a bold red X through it. He wondered if R. Pace was of the Pace Arms company in Orange County. They’d been bankrupted by then, hadn’t they? One of their guns had gone off unexpectedly and killed a boy—a design flaw. Was Davis trying to buy inventory at Chapter 11 prices? Hood flipped forward and saw another “R. Pace” date in May. Another in June. And a final date for 2009, November 4. All of them were circled, as if in hope of great things, and all but the last had been dramatically Xed out. In the space below the last date, Davis had written “F.U.”

  Hood was surprised to get a Pace Arms listing from the operator and a woman’s voice at the other end after he dialed.

  “Pace Arms.”

  “Chuck Reynolds for Mr. Pace, please.”

  Hood was put on hold and a few moments later a young-sounding man spoke.

  “Ron.”

  “I’m calling about Victor Davis.”

  A pause, then, “We’re out of that business.”

  “Davis was killed two days ago during an illegal firearms sale down in Buenavista.”

  “I’m sorry. Are you a cop or ATF?”

  “Neither.”

  “We’re out of that business.”

  “You made four appointments with him last year.”

  “I rescheduled three times and honored the last as a professional courtesy. I never did business with Victor Davis. He was not a friend or an acquaintance. He wanted to buy inventory, but we didn’t have any inventory. We were broke by then, Mr. Reynolds. We’re still broke now. We haven’t made a gun in over a year. We still owe the family of Miles Packard eleven point two million dollars. Good-bye.”

  They were loading the lockboxes and the FTRs into the task force van when two El Centro PD cruisers barreled down the street and double-parked beside them.

  A plainclothes cop hopped from the second car, brandishing his shield holder, introducing himself as he trotted to the van. His name was Atkins.

  “Let’s go inside,” he said.

  They stood in the good light of the kitchen, and Atkins brought a freezer bag from his coat pocket. Inside the bag was a standard-size letter envelope.

  “The desk got a call at ten a.m. from a woman saying where an important letter could be found. It wasn’t on PD property but it was close by. An officer found it five minutes later and I received it five minutes after that.”

  Atkins spilled the envelope onto the granit
e countertop.

  Hood read the handwritten print on the front: BLOWDOWN, all capitals, confidently rendered in red marking pen.

  “It wasn’t sealed,” said Atkins. “The officer opened it and the desk sergeant opened it and I opened it. So . . .”

  He took the envelope by a corner and held it up and shook loose two Polaroids.

  One showed Jimmy Holdstock’s face. It was puffy and pale, but his eyes were open and focused on the camera. He looked hungover.

  The other was a picture of three items resting side by side in a dirty blue plastic tub: a pair of pliers, an electric circular saw, and a long-nozzled barbecue lighter.

  Janet Bly raised a hand to her mouth, and Hood heard her breath catch but she said nothing. They all stared down at the pictures.

  Ozburn whispered something that Hood couldn’t make out.

  “Yeah,” said Atkins.

  “Have you seen the PD security videos?” asked Hood.

  “Nothing. The envelope was placed inside a newspaper that was set on a bus bench a hundred feet from us. Our cameras don’t go there. I’m really damned sorry they don’t.”

  “A bus bench,” said Hood. “What about transit security?”

  “They don’t have cameras at that location.”

  “Greyhound might.”

  “Greyhound is around the corner.”

  “A witness?”

  “We’re working on that. That whole area is dead at night. Especially when it’s up above ninety degrees.”

  “We can get some information from the Polaroids,” said Ozburn. “Did you guys touch them?”

  “None of us touched them. They’re yours.”

  Atkins slid the envelope and pictures into the plastic freezer bag and gave the bag to Ozburn.

  “You haven’t called any reporters, have you?”

  “No reporters.”

  “Because the people who have Jimmy will play for attention. That’s the whole idea. It’s a form of terrorism.”

  “Nobody knows but us and his wife. I haven’t told her about the pictures. It’s up to you now.”

  Janet Bly walked outside and slammed the door.

  Ozburn was already on the phone to the regional director by the time Atkins followed her out.

  “They’ve got Jimmy,” he said. “They took him right off American soil.”

  8

  That evening, Hood sat in the shade of his modest courtyard and watched Bradley’s green Cyclone stream up the hill toward the house. The music blared and the dust danced. Bradley’s fiancée was riding shotgun and Hood could see her red hair flying behind a black scarf.

  He waved them into the carport, and Bradley goosed the car into the shade. It looked good next to his IROC Camaro. Hood had always loved the single-minded power of muscle cars, their half wildness and partial comforts. The music stopped and Erin turned and looked at Hood, then the doors opened at the same time.

  Bradley was wearing plaid shorts and flip-flops and a white guayabera and a narrow-brim hat. His hair was cut short and his face clean shaven. “Why’d you pick this place?”

  “Location,” said Hood.

  “We can’t stay long. Just came by to give you the good news.”

  Erin got out and stretched and tossed the scarf into the car. She pushed her sunglasses up into her hair. She wore a white dress with black polka dots and no shoes. “I’ve got dust on my dust. Good to see you, Charlie.”

  Hood showed them the house, then they sat in the courtyard at a round rough-hewn table and benches without backs. The courtyard faced east to get the cool of evening if there was any. Hood brought out a pitcher of ice water and glasses. The desert spread in a flat infinity below them. Hood thought of Holdstock.

  “There have been some changes since we talked to you,” said Bradley. “Erin? Want to get this show started?”

  He watched Bradley and Erin exchange looks. Erin went to the Cyclone.

  “So, how’s the Iron River?” asked Bradley.

  “Quiet for three whole days.”

  “Not a shot fired?”

  Hood shook his head absently. He couldn’t get Holdstock out of his mind. Pliers and a circular saw, he thought. Christ, what have we come to?

  “You glad you came down here?” asked Bradley.

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  “You don’t look too glad.”

  “That was your word.”

  “Okay, friend. Just talkin’, just filling up space.”

  “Do you know Victor Davis? Your mother bought a gun from him four years ago. The one you gave me after she died.”

  Bradley shook his head. “She had more than one gun.”

  “You tried to buy six.”

  Bradley looked at Hood and nodded. “It never happened. I was fifteen.”

  “That’s what worries me.”

  “Worry about yourself.”

  Erin was back with a plastic garment bag on a hanger slung over one shoulder and a square envelope in her other hand. She lay the bag over the low courtyard wall, then sat back down and handed the envelope to Hood.

  It was heavy and cream colored, and on the front in beautiful cursive writing, it read: Charles Hood & Guest.

  “That’s your handwriting, Erin.”

  “It sure is. Open it.”

  The wedding invitation inside was classy and brief, though Hood read it twice to make sure he hadn’t made a mistake.

  “It’s a three-day wedding celebration?”

  “We hope it’s enough,” said Erin. “The Valley Center ranch is where I first saw you. Bradley and I were moving out. Remember?”

  “I remember.”

  Hood pictured the Valley Center compound where Suzanne Jones had lived, now partially owned by her son, Bradley. It was eight acres in the hills near Escondido. Hood could see the big house and the outbuildings and the grassy expanse of the barnyard and the small creek that formed the south property line. It was tucked back into Cahuilla Indian land.

  “It’s going to be like the rancho days,” said Erin. “The Calironios, you know, they’d party for a week at a time. They’d feast and drink and dance and crash and wake up and keep going. Music, music, music. They wore beautiful clothes, old-world fashions because a lot of them were Spanish. They were generous and gracious and maybe a little dangerous. Anyway. Hope you can come.”

  “I’ll be there,” he said.

  Erin looked at her fiancé. Bradley was drumming his fingers on the old wooden table.

  “You’re on,” she said.

  Bradley set his hat by the invitation, then collected the suit bag and disappeared into Hood’s house.

  “Congratulations again,” said Hood.

  “He’s coming around, Charlie. The old ghosts are clearing out. He’s growing up well.”

  “Good.”

  “He’s nineteen.”

  “I hold him up to high standards,” said Hood with a smile. “I demand the best for you.”

  “I’m a happy woman.”

  “You deserve it.”

  “You’ll be doing the same thing soon.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Yes. And thank God it’s over with that prosecutor of yours. Ariel?”

  “Don’t diss Ariel.”

  “As your guardian angel, I must. She was too intense, too . . . what’s the word, Charlie? Prosecutorial? No. You’re going to meet your match one of these days. Don’t be in a hurry, though. Be picky. Extremely picky.”

  “I like getting advice from twenty-two-year-olds.”

  “Thirty is not old, Charles.”

  Hood saw the small smile on Erin’s face.

  Bradley strode back into the courtyard, wearing a Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department Explorer uniform. It was khaki and slightly baggy for his athletic shape. The nameplate on his chest read JONES. He lay the garment bag back over the wall.

  “They accepted me into the Explorers program, Hood. Without your help or your recommendation or anything else from you. They took me because of who I a
m and what I can be someday. I start next week. Can you believe it? I’m gonna be one of the good guys. I’m proud of me.”

  “Congratulations. I mean it.”

  “Accepted.”

  Hood saw a brief darkness pass through Bradley and it reminded him of the darkness that would sometimes pass through the boy’s mother. Bradley had loved her powerfully, and had despised Hood for intruding into their lives. Just a few weeks later, she had died in a holdup, shot by a boy named Kick. Bradley vowed to kill him. Kick had been murdered last year and Hood suspected Bradley had kept his word. Bradley had an alibi that the LAPD believed and Hood didn’t—Erin.

  “But I still think you took out Kick,” said Hood. “And used Erin to cover your ass. And that is something we should acknowledge here, no matter what costumes we wear and who calls who friend.”

  In the silence, Hood felt the wind come up behind him, then roll on over like a wave, lifting wisps of dust on its way down the slope toward the desert floor. Bradley’s hat started across the tabletop, but Hood caught it and sailed it to him.

  “You tell me I’m a murderer and Erin is a liar. Why am I standing here? I told you this visit was a dumbass idea, sweetie.”

  “I guess,” she said quietly. “Hood? Charlie? He was with me.”

  “I hate the sight of you lying. I hate the sound of it.”

  “I’m going to be an LASD deputy, Hood. Get used to it. You don’t own the department. You don’t own me. I’ll probably be your boss before you know it.”

  “I might have killed him, too,” said Hood.

  “You don’t have the balls. Well, I’ve had enough of this beautiful desert for now. Erin, get in the car.”

  Bradley grabbed the suit bag and jumped the wall. Then he stopped and turned and smiled back at Hood. “But I still want you at the wedding, Charlie. I want a big expensive gift, too.”

  Erin stood by the table. She looked at Hood, then back at Bradley waiting by the car now, then at Hood again.

  “We didn’t deal those cards, Charlie. We played them.”

  Late that night, Hood was back on his courtyard, writing a letter to his mother and father. Only his mother would fully understand it, but she would read it out loud to her husband, a once warm and energetic man now nearly incapacitated by Alzheimer’s disease. Hood’s father loved getting the letters he only partially comprehended, and Hood did this mainly for him. He had bought high-cotton stationery and an expensive pen and a book of stamps. He thought before he wrote and tried to say what he thought.