Free Iron River by T. Jefferson Parker Page A

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 am 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.