“And one last little thing: it’s M-U-R-R-I-E-T-A. Two R’s and one T. I’ve left enough cards behind, so tell your print media friends to get it right. Oh, and my favorite color is chrome. Thanks, Dave.”

She raised the little gun and aimed it at the camera.

Dave Boyer paused the video. Allison aimed at the law enforcement community, her expression hidden behind the ivory-handled derringer and the jeweled mask.

There were murmurs and a few chuckles then someone finally spoke up. “She won’t last another month.”

“She’s lasted a year and a half,” said Patmore.

“Hey, Dave, you gonna run this on Channel Four?”

Boyer turned up his palms in a show of innocence. “Actually, that’s one of the reasons I came here. I, ah… thought you all should see this. I want to keep the lines of communication open between the law and Channel Four. And to answer your question, well, yes, we are going to show it. This is news.”

“You’re just pumping up a delusionary babe with a death wish,” said a burly cop from Whittier.

The woman sitting next to him said, “Yeah, and you don’t know if one word of what she says is true. You really think she’s got a head up in her closet?”

“Yeah, really, Dave,” said an L.A. Sheriff’s detective, “if you get people on Allison’s side and they start thinking she’s cool and cute or something, well, that’s going to make our jobs a lot more difficult. That’s already starting to happen. My kids think she’s cool. You might want to think this one through.”

“We already had it out with the network attorneys,” said Patmore. “Our lawyers said there’s no way to stop them from running it.”

“Show the damned thing,” said a strong, clear voice near the front. Hood recognized it as Captain Wyte’s. “You show it, and I guarantee you that somebody will strip off that mask during one of her jobs and it’ll be over. The citizen hero will get shot, Murrieta will get made, and the LAPD Foundation will need to find new sources of development.”

This got a chuckle.

“We’re going to give you in law enforcement plenty of airtime in response,” said Boyer. “I’m on your side. That’s why I’m here. But this is a good story and people need to hear it. We’re checking facts as fast as we can. We know you’ve got genuine concerns. We do, too. We’ll let the public know that this isn’t cute or funny. My goal? Bring Allison Murrieta to justice without anybody getting shot. That would be a good story for all of us.”

“And bring up your ratings,” someone called out.

“Ratings up, crime down,” said Boyer with a smile.

When the briefing was over, Hood loitered up near the podium to overhear Patmore and the others. Boyer was assuring them that Channel 4 wasn’t about to spin Allison Murrieta as Robin Hood or Bonnie Parker. He had burned a stack of Allison’s CDs to help the cops, and Hood took one.

“Congratulations on making homicide,” said Wyte.

“Thank you,” said Hood. He knew Wyte only by reputation. He was considered bright and cursed. Years ago his wife had died of a rare cancer. She was thirty. Not long after that, Wyte was seriously injured in an on-duty helicopter crash. He came back to work full-time, though limping and deskbound. He rose to gang unit coordinator, and now oversaw crimes against persons, which made him Hood’s distant boss. He seemed fit and strong in spite of his injuries, Hood thought, and looked like he spent plenty of time outside.

“I heard the auto body shop was pretty bad,” said Wyte.

“Ten men.”

Wyte nodded. “What do you have?”

“A diamond broker tried to pay off a loan from the Wilton Street Asian Boyz, and MS-13 found out. Shot each other dead.”

“Did MS get the diamonds?”

“We think so. Somebody did. We just can’t quite nail that part down.”

“Let me know if I can help,” said Wyte. “I’ve still got some decent sources for MS-13 from my gang days.”

“I appreciate it, sir.”

“The members of Mara Salvatrucha have no fear of us.”

“That’s what I hear. It looks like they underestimated the Asian Boyz.”

“Kyle Ko might help you.”

“I talked to him. Some help, yes.”

“Keep me in the loop,” said Wyte.

In the new detective pen cubicle of which Hood was proud, he called Barry’s girlfriend, Melissa Levery. He offered his condolences and was quiet for a moment while she cried. He explained that he was a junior detective assigned to the case then made an appointment to meet with her.

“Melissa, right now I’d like to clarify one bit of information that will help us very much,” he said.

“What?”

“The night that Barry died, did he have diamonds with him to pay back gambling debts?”

“Of course he did. That’s why they killed him, isn’t it?”

“What was their approximate value?”

“Four hundred fifty grand if sold retail. Forty grand plus change on the black market.”

“Did you actually see him with them in his possession?”

“Yes.”

“That night?”

“Afternoon. He showed them to me. He said that they would buy us back the way we used to be.”

She sobbed again. Hood waited and she hung up.

He thought a minute, then dug Lenny Overbrook’s number out of his wallet.

He dialed the number then punched the OFF button on his cell phone and set it on the desk. Hood couldn’t think of a single good thing that could come of talking with Lenny, but he felt duty bound to call. He picked up the phone and hit redial.

“Lenny.”

“Charlie Hood.”

“Thanks for calling.”

Hood let the silence stretch out a little. “You’re a long way from West Virginia.”

“I came to L.A. to see you, sir.”

“There’s nothing you can say that will change anything for the better, Lenny.”

“It will make it better for me.”

“It’s too late.”

“Are you God, sir?”

Hood felt his ears grow hot and the heavy beating of his heart. “Okay.”

He let Lenny set a time and place.

The interagency e-bulletin about the slaughter in Valley Center hit LASD late that morning. Hood made it to Suzanne Jones’s property in an hour forty minutes just like she said he could.

There were two Sheriff’s cruisers on the property, a coroner’s van, Escondido Police and a Tribal Police unit. Reporters and news crews had stationed themselves in the meadow under the huge oak tree for shade. Hood parked his Camaro where he’d parked the day before and drew the unhappy attention of the sergeant manning the sign-in log outside the barn.

Hood identified himself and signed in, then defaulted to the neutral stare and brevity that they all had adopted in the otherworldy heat of Anbar.

“You’re completely out of jurisdiction, Hood.”

“We’ve got a case open and she’s our best witness,” he said.

“Who?”

“Jones,” said Hood. “She lives here.”

“I know who lives here.”

“I appreciate this, sir.”

And then he walked past the sergeant. There were no bodies by now but Hood saw the blood pooled on the concrete and splashed against the rough-hewn stalls and thrown across the floor almost to the door. He had learned from a Shia executioner that a decapitated adult will send twin jets of blood about ten feet, sometimes more, depending on how afraid he is at the time of his death. A trail of bloody boot prints faded toward the barn door. They seemed hardly larger than a child’s.

He convinced a San Diego Sheriff’s photographer to scroll back through his digitals, and he saw how the big men had fallen, and the terrible work of the blade or blades that had butchered them. He saw practice and efficiency and something that was harder to put into words. Hood asked if they’d found a weapon, and the photog said just a Buck knife still gripped in the fist that was chopped off-actually chopped completely off-one of the Indians. He had several close-ups of this. He said the other one’s head was still on but barely; it must have been one helluva sharp sword or ax or whatever.