T Parker - The Renegades

“You tell me when he does. No reason for a scene here at work.”

“You’re like him.”

After Juliet’s work they sat at a corner table in the Marine Room. It was late and the evening was cool and downtown Laguna was quiet. Juliet had put on a black faux fox-collar coat that Hood found to be striking.

He told her they were IA, and what that meant within their department, and some of what he knew about Reserve LASD Deputy Coleman Draper. He told her about Draper’s home and business in Venice, his probable connection to the deaths of two men in Los Angeles County, his apparent affiliations with recently murdered Hector Avalos, and with Carlos Herredia’s North Baja. He told her that Draper was manipulative and potentially violent. He didn’t tell her about Alexia Rivas or the warrant for Draper’s arrest.

She looked at him and Stekol with genuine bewilderment but said nothing when Hood was finished. She sipped her wine and stared out the window.

Then she turned back to them with a skeptical rebuke on her face. “What do you mean by Coleman’s ‘probable connection’ to the deaths of two men? Did you see him kill them?”

“No.”

“Did anyone?”

“We have evidence. We have no witness.”

“It’s very hard for me to imagine him doing such a thing. What do you mean, ‘affiliation’? Did you see Coleman with known criminals?”

“In the vicinity of. Coming from and going to.”

“Then he could be undercover, working for a different law enforcement organization than yours. Maybe a state one, or even federal.”

Hood guessed that Coleman himself had planted this seed. “He isn’t working for another department, Juliet. He and his partner framed and beat a man almost to death to cover up a double murder that they committed. It was one of the most brutal things I’ve ever seen done.”

“And you know this as a fact?”

“I have some of it from the man himself. The rest is half buried but I’m digging it up.”

“How can a man that brutal be tender?”

“To get what he wants.”

“I’ve known him for a year and you for ten minutes. You arrive and accuse him of things but he’s not here to defend himself. You come here and give me vapors, smoke. I want facts.”

Stekol leaned toward her with a glitter of cuff links, impressive in his suit. “Do you know Alexia Rivas?” he asked.

“No. Why?”

“She’s a young woman your boyfriend lives with when he’s not living with you. This is a fact.”

She winced and colored and looked out the window again.

“He owns a home in Azusa, same as he owns your condo,” said Hood. “Alexia pays the bills, same as you do here in Laguna. Apparently they have a young daughter.”

“Would you lie to me to get what you want?”

“I won’t lie to you,” he said.

“I know cops do that all the time.”

“Less than you think.”

She took a long sip of the wine, then another, then set the glass back on the table.

“Okay,” she said. “Then I won’t lie to you. I’ve never been sure if Coleman is what he said he was. Once I saw a gun. I think he wanted me to see it. He told me he was part of a federal law enforcement organization that required secrecy of fact. Secrecy of fact. He said nothing about any other kind of business, or another home. Of course, I knew he had to live somewhere when he wasn’t living with me. Our foundation is that I ask no questions about his work. That was our first rule. That was our secrecy of fact. And I’ll tell you right now that he showed no inclination to violence with me, ever. He was…is…very empathetic to me. He listens closely and he understands. He is a gentleman. He asks. He doesn’t take. He’s courteous and generous. He’s passionate. His attention is absolute. He lost his entire family to a fire when he was fifteen years old. Sometimes-often-when we’re not talking or touching or doing something together, he’s quite simply not there. I think he’s back with his family.”

Hood thought for a moment about how a person can be one way to some people and the complete opposite to others. Nature. Training. Necessity. Juliet was not a fool, but she had been fooled by Coleman Draper.

“Juliet,” he said. “Coleman Draper is alone in his own world. The rest of us are only in it to be used. He would explain himself to you with different words. But that’s what he does.”

She took another long draw on the wine, then held up her glass and rocked it at the waitress.

“When was the last time you saw him?” Hood asked.

“He was home last Tuesday and Wednesday.”

“Do you know when he’ll come home to you again?”

“There is no plan. There is never a plan.”

“That just changed,” Hood said. “We’re going to make a plan to arrest him. He’s dangerous-to you, to everyone. You do the right thing and nobody else will get hurt. Will you help us do that?”

“You strip my illusions and break my heart, then demand civic responsibility?”

“That’s right,” said Stekol with a smile. “Same thing that happens to us cops every day we show up for work.”

The waitress set a glass of wine on the table. Juliet looked at it but didn’t drink. “I wondered if he had other women. I convinced myself that it didn’t matter. Coleman and I are an arrangement. But I didn’t simply fall into it. I jumped. I closed my eyes and jumped.”

“You don’t owe him anything,” said Hood.

“I still don’t believe that I’ve been making love to a murderer. I truly felt it in him at times-love.”

“You’re not the only one he fooled, Ms. Brown,” said Stekol. “He fooled our whole force. There’s hundreds and hundreds of us.”

“Can you help us?” Hood asked.

“I will help you.”

“No,” he said. “ Can you? Can you fool him? Can you lie to him convincingly? He’ll be alert to anything different because now he knows that we know.”

She took another long sip of the wine. “I’ve never been a good liar.”

“I’m going to make it easy. If he tells you he’s coming, call me before he gets there. If he arrives unannounced, wait until it’s safe to call me. Wait an hour. Wait a day.”

“And act as if everything is the same.”

“He already knows that nothing is the same. So you can’t give him any reason to suspect you. If you can’t do this, Juliet, say no. It’s dangerous-it can come down to a word, a moment, a look. I won’t ask you to and you don’t have to.”

Juliet looked at the men. Having interviewed so many suspects and dealt with so many crooks, Hood had a good sense for the lie. But he also had a good sense for the truth, and some people are not capable of duplicity.

“We never talked,” said Stekol. “Erase us from your mind. And put Coleman back in. Put him back in just like he was before-cute and full of love for you and so intuitive when it comes to your feelings.”

“Don’t mock me.”

“No mockery at all,” he said. “If a woman was as good to me as Coleman is to you, I’d be with her every minute I could.”

She swirled her wine and frowned down into it. “How sure are you about what he’s done?”

“I took a bullet in the back four nights ago because of him,” said Hood. “That’s how sure I am.”

“But what if you’re wrong?”

“Then he’ll walk and sue us and I’ll still have a nice scar to talk about. And you and Coleman can stay together and be happy and look back on what fools we cops were.”

“I don’t think that that is impossible.”

“He betrayed you,” said Stekol.

She finished her wine and set down the glass. She didn’t look at either of them. “I can do it.”

Stekol glanced at Hood. His expression said: But will you?