The Innocents Read online

  “I’m ready.” I took another step back out of range of his finger.

  “Get your mind right. Go over scenarios in your head. What if this guy pulls a gun? What if he runs? What if he tries to run you over with his car? Continually ask yourself the ‘what-ifs’ so your mind is ready when it does go down. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Cut that shit out. When we’re alone, you call me Robby.” He reached under his coat to the small of his back and came out with a large blue-steel automatic, a Smith and Wesson model 59 9mm. “Here, carry this. Get a shoulder holster for it. Keep it out of sight under a big shirt or jacket. This is your backup from now on. It’s got a fifteen-round mag.” He pushed the release button on the side and popped out the magazine. “It has two safeties, one on the side, here.” He pointed to a little lever. “And unlike other autoloaders, once the mag is out, this weapon will not fire the round still in the chamber. That’s the second safety feature. Take it to the range and get real familiar with it. Shoot the hell out of it.”

  I took the gun, the steel warm from his body heat.

  He read my expression. “What?”

  I said, “This is a ten-thirty weapon. It’s not approved by the department to carry.”

  “Of course it’s not; that’s why it’s a backup only.”

  “It’s still not approved, even as a backup.”

  He smiled. “Kid, your dedication to the policy manual is refreshing. Listen, if you go through all your rounds in your duty weapon and that little belly gun, then that means you’re in deep shit, and some bullshit policy isn’t going to save your ass. You pull that 9mm and kill ’em all. You’ll be alive and they won’t. It’s better to be judged by twelve than carried by six. Now put your foot back up here.”

  I did.

  He pulled my model 60 Chief from my ankle holster and stuck it in my waistband. “Keep it here, the stock hooked in your belt just barely peeking up like that. No one will know what it is, and you’ll be able to get to it when you need to. And if you ever have to pull that nine when I’m not with you, you call me right after the last shell casing hits the ground. I’ll take care of everything. I’ll cover for you. You got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, about this afternoon, you understand what’s expected of you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Listen to those other guys; they have a lot of experience. But make your own choices.”

  “I know. I will.”

  “And, when you catch up to this guy Armendez?”

  I knew what he wanted me to say and couldn’t. “We use whatever force necessary to effect the arrest.”

  Wicks didn’t smile; he grinned with no teeth showing. “You’re a smart guy, Bruno, or you wouldn’t be here.” He hesitated. “An escapee from state prison can be shot if he runs from you. That’s the law. So, you do what your heart tells you. But if that son of a bitch runs, I want you to do your job.” He brought his finger up ready to poke. I stepped back out of range as he stepped toward me.

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” I said. “I will always do my job.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  DETECTIVE GIBBS SAT in the passenger seat of my Ford Ranger, one foot up on my dash as he sipped from a Big Gulp cola and munched on a bag of salted peanuts. We parked down the street from Armendez’s girlfriend’s house in Ontario, a city in San Bernardino County and one that adjoins Chino, where Armendez escaped.

  “This is my personal vehicle,” I said.

  Gibbs turned to look at me and grinned. “Very good, Deputy, brilliant deduction. Another couple of weeks working with me and you’ll be a real detective.”

  I didn’t like him, and he didn’t like me. “Please take your foot off my dash.”

  He tilted his head back and tossed some peanuts into his open maw, then took a glug of cola. He spoke around the mash in his mouth. “Get a life, ya twit.”

  I let it slide off. No way could I risk a problem on the first day in operation, the first day with me running the team. I suspected Wicks made me case agent for this very reason, to test the cohesiveness of the team, to see if we could all get along without killing each other. No doubt, if Gibbs had not sounded off this morning in the office, one of the others would be running things instead of me.

  We’d met up with two SIU agents in the parking lot of Industry Station. I split up the other two deputies on our team and put each with a parole agent to make our communications interagency compatible. I knew Gibbs would be a problem. I wanted the problem close to me to keep a handle on him. I already regretted it.

  The SIU guys looked experienced and handled themselves well, at least in the parking lot and on the radio. We had three teams of two to take down a low-grade, nonviolent paperhanger. Overkill for sure.

  I could only hope the girlfriend moved soon, before I pulled Gibbs out of my truck and put the boot to him.

  Darkness took a long time to catch up to us, to help cover our surveillance. Gibbs sat with one shoulder on the door, the other on the seat, his head back, his Dodgers ball cap down over his eyes. “Let me know if anything moves.”

  Yes, by all means, go to sleep so I don’t have to listen to your childish tripe anymore.

  He must’ve read my mind and fired one more jibe from under his tilted cap. “Good thing it finally got dark; no one in this hood’s gonna believe a white guy and a smoke just sittin’ in a pickup doin’ nothin’.”

  Jack Hendricks in Zebra Two came on the radio. “We have movement. Looks like the primary just came out of her apartment. Stand by.”

  Gibbs didn’t move. “Perfect. Just when I was about to grab a coupla z’s.”

  “Zebra Two, it’s confirmed the primary’s moving. She’s in a maroon Toyota Celica, driving east from the location. Anyone have her?”

  I picked up the large handheld radio. “We’ll take the eye.”

  The Celica drove by us. I started up, pulled a U-turn with my headlights off. After a block, I turned them on. I followed her south to Holt Boulevard and turned west. I shoved the radio over to Gibbs. “Hey, call it out. I’m driving.”

  He didn’t move, the ball cap still down over his eyes. I keyed the radio and gave the other two units our direction of travel.

  After several miles, Zebra Two, in an old beat-up blue VW bug, came up beside us. The SIU agent in the passenger seat put the radio to his mouth; his words came across in my radio. “You’ve been on her too long, we’ll take the eye. Go ahead and fall back.”

  Jack Hendricks gave me a two-fingered salute and smiled. I gave it back to him. He pointed at Gibbs. I just shrugged, as if saying, “What can I do?” I eased off the accelerator and dropped back. The VW bug had a headlight out and wouldn’t be able to stay with the Celica too long if it started making a lot of turns. As long as it stayed in a straight line, the driver shouldn’t tumble to the tail.

  The surveillance left Ontario and went through Montclair and into Pomona, the first city at the east end of Los Angeles County. I switched the radio to channel nine and spoke to the dispatcher. “Zebra One to control, can you please ten-twenty-one Pomona Police Department and tell them we are in their city on a surveillance, and give them the description of our vehicles?”

  “Ten-four, Zebra One.”

  I caught a stale red signal and stopped. I switched back to the tactical frequency in time to hear Zebra Two say, “Zebra Three, do you have the primary?”

  Zebra Three said, “Negative.”

  I looked both ways, waited for a break in the opposing traffic, and busted the red light. A car skidded and almost broadsided us. Gibbs came alive, put both hands on the dash. “Hey, hey, what the hell you doin’? You trying to get us killed? Take it easy, man.”

  I shoved the radio at him, grabbed the stick shift, and went through the gears, weaving in and out of traffic. “Ask Zebra Two where they lost her.”

  Gibbs keyed the mike. “Zebra Two, what was the primary’s last DOT?”

  “Westbound
Holt at Lewis. She might have turned somewhere while in a cluster of cars and we missed it.”

  I said, “Tell Zebra Two to haul ass westbound on Holt in case she got ahead of us. Tell Zebra Three to take the northwest quadrant of Lewis and Holt and start a widening grid search. We’ll take the northeast quadrant.”

  Gibbs looked at me for a second and then relayed the information.

  We’d been on her for less than fifteen minutes and we already lost her. A simple little task and we’d blown it. I started to envision how the conversation with Wicks would go when I paged him, his anger, his disappointment. He’d never again trust me to run another op. If he didn’t bounce me back to patrol.

  Zebra Two came up on the radio. “I got the primary walking south on Lewis toward Holt.”

  Gibbs asked, “Where’s her car?”

  Zebra Two said, “Not her, the primary. We have the primary, Armendez, walking south on Lewis toward Holt.”

  I had turned into the residential neighborhood in the northeast quadrant to start the grid search. I pulled a fast U-turn and headed back to Holt just as Zebra Two started screaming in the radio.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “ZEBRA ONE, THE suspect is running. Foot pursuit. Southbound Lewis at Holt.”

  I came up on the intersection of Lewis and Holt, the six-cylinder engine of my Ford Ranger wound wide open. In front of us, Armendez ran south and turned west on Holt. Hendricks was still at least a full block behind, running on the sidewalk. I blew through the intersection against the red and braked hard to keep a Bimbo bread truck from slamming into us. I shoved the gearshift into first, popped the clutch, and smoked the back tires. I gained on Armendez, who ran too fast for a skinny-assed heroin hype.

  In the seat next to me, Gibbs had his gun in hand. He stuck his head out the window, the wind blowing in his hair, the look of a predator in his eyes.

  I quickly caught up to Armendez and cut the wheel, aiming to hit him on the sidewalk. The front tires of my Ford blew out when we hit the curb, or I would have hit Armendez and ended it right there.

  He kept going, running hard.

  Gibbs got out first and ran after him. I caught up to Gibbs, running full out. Gibbs brought his gun up and took aim at Armendez’s back, his arm bouncing too much for a decent shot. I shoved him. He stumbled but immediately righted his balance. I pulled ahead. I yelled, “Don’t shoot him! We can catch him!”

  Behind us, I heard Hendricks and the SIU agent as they rounded the corner to westbound Holt, too far behind to do us any good. The SIU agent yelled, “Shoot him! Shoot him! Don’t let him get away!”

  Gibbs caught up, running beside me and huffing. “Don’t you . . . ever . . . put your . . . hands . . . on me again.”

  I’d had enough of Gibbs and poured on the speed. He wouldn’t fall back and did the same, staying with me, only two steps behind. The distance between us and Armendez shortened. He slowed to step off the curb to a side-street intersection.

  He made it to the other side as I leaped.

  Gibbs slipped off the curb, turned his ankle, and went down. I tackled Armendez high. We went down in a jumble on the sidewalk. Armendez, desperate to escape, kicked and clawed and tried to bite.

  I was angry with myself for being unable to gun Armendez like Robby Wicks wanted, shoot him down like a dog in cold blood. Armendez continued to squirm and kick and try to get away. I couldn’t get control of his hands. And the hands were what killed you. I pulled back my gun and pistol-whipped him in the head. I pulled back to hit him again and felt a wetness on my face and a coppery taste on my lips. I hit him one more time. He went limp.

  I stood up, breathing hard, just as a Pomona black-and-white slid to a stop in the street right in front of us, its overhead red-and-blue lights turning. The two uniformed police officers jumped out, guns drawn and aiming right at me, a black guy with a gun assaulting a Hispanic who lay on the sidewalk unconscious.

  I didn’t understand why they didn’t shoot.

  I thrust my hands in the air and yelled, “Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff’s Department. Don’t shoot.”

  Even in the summer heat, I’d put on a white cotton bomber jacket to cover the shoulder-holstered 9mm Wicks had given me, the one he’d ordered me to carry. When I put my hands high in the air, the jacket rode up and exposed the gold Sheriff’s star clipped to my belt. The Pomona police officers must’ve seen it. They lowered their weapons and put both spotlights on us, the light blinding in the dark night. I raised my arm as a shield.

  Gibbs got up off the ground, brushing off his pants, and came over, favoring his injured foot. “Shit, that was close. These bastards almost gunned us.”

  He said it as if he’d been a part of the takedown and had been in real jeopardy.

  The two Pomona cops came around their car doors just as another unit pulled up and got out. All four walked over to us. In the brightness, I could only see their shadows. One of them said, “Jesus, H. What the hell did you shoot him with?”

  “What?” I asked. “No, no, we didn’t shoot him.” For the first time, I looked down at Armendez lying at my feet. Blood soaked his shirt and the top of his pants. It covered the sidewalk underneath him in a dark reflective pool. I looked closer, stunned. Blood pumped from a gash that gaped open on his neck. I looked down at my jacket, which was splattered with blood, and quickly wiped my mouth on my jacket sleeve and spit several times.

  One of the cops said, “If you didn’t shoot him, what the hell happened to him?”

  I looked at Gibbs. He shrugged, clueless.

  I said, “I guess he must’ve cut his own throat.”

  One of the cops said, “Oh, no. Shit no.” They all ran for their cars, got in, slammed their doors, and took off. They wanted no part of a caper that stank of cover-up like this one.

  Gibbs laughed. “Cut his own throat? Really? Come on, man, I’m your partner, and I don’t believe that one. Come on, you can tell me. Where’s your knife? It’s cool, really. This mope’s an escaped prisoner from state prison. You were fighting with him and . . .” He suddenly lost his smile. “Hey, wait a minute, you did this with a knife just to get on the good side of the lieutenant, didn’t you?”

  “Are you outta your mind? I don’t have a knife and I didn’t cut this man.”

  Off in the distance a siren headed our way from the west, parting traffic.

  Paramedics.

  I bent over and put my hand on Armendez’s neck to stem the flow, his blood hot and wet on my fingers. The throb under my hand immediately started to ebb.

  Hendricks and the SIU agent caught up, huffing and puffing. They both stood close, bent at the waist, hands on their knees, eyes wide. Hendricks said, “Holy shit.”

  The SIU agent said, “Good . . . job . . . guys.”

  I said, “No, it’s not.”

  The ambulance skidded up. Two paramedics jumped out and pulled rescue boxes from the side of their truck. They ran over, set the boxes down, and donned blue latex gloves. One of them got on his knees and said, “Okay, let go. I got him.”

  I stood and said to my team, “Bring the cars over here. Tape off this area as a crime scene. Get your flashlights, walk back the way we came, and look for the knife. He must’ve tossed it somewhere back there.”

  They all stood staring at me. I yelled, “Move!”

  They took off running.

  I needed to find a phone and fast. I had to page Wicks.

  Jeez, what a mess.

  I started to do what he’d told me to do, go over in my head the “what-ifs.” Only in this case it was the “what-if” explanations that even I didn’t believe. The words echoed in my brain as I practiced saying them to Lieutenant Wicks. “I think this guy cut his own throat.”

  No matter how I wrote it, this caper came out as an “Ah, shit.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  SEVEN AND A half hours later, homicide released me, sent me on my way with my badge and gun still in my possession.

  A small miracle.

 
I walked out of the Industry Station’s detective bureau, into the lobby and then on out into bright morning sun, exhaustion hanging off me like a warm, wet blanket. The light burned my eyes and I squinted.

  Under similar circumstances—had I been assigned to investigate the Pedro Armendez incident—that’s what they called it, an incident—I probably would’ve booked my sorry ass for murder. The Pedro Armendez incident was considered an “in custody death,” the true cause of which was yet to be determined.

  In those seven hours of interrogation, homicide continually asked if anyone had identified themselves during the foot pursuit. I told them I hadn’t and didn’t remember if anyone else had either. A screwup of monumental proportions. Nobody yelled, “Stop, Sheriff’s Department.” I only recalled the SIU agent yelling, “Shoot him! Shoot him!”

  The night before, paramedics tried to save Mr. Armendez and failed. I notified dispatch by radio, as I stood over the corpse and while the medics gathered up their gear and left. Dispatch, in turn, notified homicide and paged Lieutenant Wicks several times to no avail.

  Homicide grilled me again and again, trying to break down my outrageous story. During those seven hours, I sat alone in an interview room just like a crook and assumed they did the same to Gibbs.

  Armendez’s blood dried on my jacket and pants to splotches of dark brown. I’d cleaned most of the blood off my hands and face with a bottle of saline at the scene.

  No one believed Armendez slit his own throat. Why would they? When they asked me why I thought that he did what he did, I postulated that he saw us gaining on him and didn’t want to go back to prison. He didn’t want to go back so badly, he took his own life with his own knife. That’s what I wanted to believe.

  Only no one found the knife at the scene. And the investigators made no excuses for the impropriety of the situation; they searched me from head to toe looking for the blade.