Hood ran back to the cruiser and hit the flashers. He stood looking down at Laws, then covered him with his duty jacket. He made a promise. The cold hit his back and he felt the sharp pain in his right cheek. He wiped away the blood and looked in the sideview mirror and saw the dark shard of metal, or perhaps lead, hooked into his skin.
By then the residents were gathering in the street, wrapped in jackets and robes. Hood told them a deputy had been shot to death and the gunman was still out there, go back inside and stay safe. A few of them did this, but most of them stood staring at the bullet-riddled radio car as if hypnotized by the flashing lights. Hood saw the steam coming from their mouths and noses and he kept them away from the car and his dead partner, shivering as he waited for help.
2
Hood tried to talk to the homicide detectives at the scene, but two men emerged from the darkness, badged the dicks and said they were part of the Internal Affairs “shoot unit” and this was theirs.
The detectives cursed and the IA men cursed back. But the bald black IA man in a sharp suit guided Hood away from the detectives, and the other, a white man in a beaten bomber jacket, fell in behind them. Half a block down the street, in a dark patch midway between two street lamps, a black plainwrap Mercury waited by the curb.
Sharp Suit got into the driver’s seat and Bomber held open the rear driver’s-side door. In the faint dome light Hood saw a big craggy-faced man with a graying buzz cut and round, wire-rimmed glasses. Late fifties, high mileage, thought Hood. He wore cowboy boots and jeans and a white shirt with a leather vest.
“I’m Warren,” he said. “Get in.”
Hood sat and Bomber shut the door then went around and got in the front passenger seat.
No one spoke until they were out on Twentieth Street, headed toward Edwards Air Force Base. The air conditioner was turned up high and Hood felt his muscles shuddering against the cold. He thought of his duty jacket, soon to be riding away in the coroner’s van with Terry.