The Black Box

21

Bosch went to his computer and pulled up a map of Modesto so he could get a better geographic understanding of where Manteca, Francis Dowler’s hometown, was in relation to Modesto.

Both were in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley, which was better known as the Central Valley and the food basket of the state. Livestock, fruit, nuts, vegetables—everything that was put down on the kitchen or restaurant table in Los Angeles and most parts of California came from the Central Valley. And that included some of the wine on those tables as well.

Modesto was the anchor city of Stanislaus County, while Manteca was just across the northern border and part of San Joaquin County. The county seat there was Stockton, the largest city in the Valley.

Bosch did not know these places. He had spent little time in the Valley except to pass through on trips to San Francisco and Oakland. But he knew that on Interstate 5 you could smell the stockyards outside Stockton long before you got to them. You could also pull off at almost any exit on California 99 and quickly find a fruit or vegetable stand with produce that reaffirmed your belief that you were living in the right place. The Central Valley was a big part of what had made California the Golden State.

Bosch went back to Francis Dowler’s statement. Though he had already read it at least twice since reopening the case, he now read it again, looking for any detail that he might have missed.

I, the undersigned, Francis John Dowler (7/21/64), was on duty with California National Guard, 237th Company, on Friday, May 1, 1992, in Los Angeles. My unit’s responsibilities were to secure and maintain major traffic arteries during the civil unrest that occurred following the verdicts in the Rodney King police beating trial. On the evening of May 1 my unit was stationed along Crenshaw Boulevard from Florence Avenue north to Slauson Avenue. We had arrived in the area late the night before after it had already been hit extensively by looters and arsonists. My position was at Crenshaw and Sixty-seventh Street. At approximately 10 P.M. I retreated to a nearby alley next to the tire store to relieve myself. At this time I noticed the body of a woman lying near the wall of a burned-out structure. I did not see anyone else in the alley at this time and did not recognize the dead woman. It appeared to me that she had been shot. I confirmed that she was deceased by checking for a pulse on her arm and then proceeded out of the alley. I went to radioman Arthur Fogle and told him to contact our supervisor, Sgt. Eugene Burstin, and tell him that we had a dead body in the alley. Sgt. Burstin came and inspected the alley and the body and then LAPD homicide was informed by radio communication. I returned to post and later was moved down to Florence Avenue when crowd control was needed because of angry residents at that intersection. This is a complete, truthful, and accurate account of my activities on the night of Friday, May 1, 1992. So attested by my signature below.

Bosch wrote the names Francis Dowler, Arthur Fogle, and Eugene Burstin on a page in his notebook under the name J.J. Drummond. At least he had the names of four of the sixty-two soldiers on the 1992 roll of 237th Company. Bosch stared at Dowler’s statement as he considered what his next move should be.

That was when he noticed the printing along the bottom edge of the page. It was a fax tag. Gary Harrod had obviously typed up the statement and faxed it to Dowler for his approval and signature. It had then been faxed back. The fax identification along the bottom of the page gave the phone number and a company name: Cosgrove Agriculture, Manteca, California. Bosch guessed that it was Dowler’s employer.

“Cosgrove,” Bosch said.

The same name was on the John Deere dealership where the Alex White call had come from ten years ago.

“Yeah, I’ve got that,” Chu said from behind him.

Bosch turned around.

“Got what?”

“Cosgrove. Carl Cosgrove. He was in the unit. I got him in some of the pictures here. He’s some sort of a bigwig up there.”

Bosch realized that they had stumbled onto a connection.

“Send me that link, will you?”

“Sure thing.”

Bosch turned to his computer and waited for the email to come through.

“This is the two thirty-seventh’s website you’re looking at?” he asked.

“Yeah. They got stuff on here going back to the riots and Desert Storm.”

“What about a list of personnel?”

“No list, but there are some names in these stories and with the pictures. Cosgrove’s one.”

The email came through. Bosch quickly opened it and clicked on the link.

Chu was right. The website looked amateurish, to say the least. At sixteen, his own daughter had created better-looking web pages for school assignments. This one had obviously been started years earlier, when websites were a new cultural phenomenon. No one had bothered to update it with contemporary graphics and design.

The main heading announced the site as the “Home of the Fighting 237th.” Below this were what seemed to be the company’s motto and logo, the words Keep on Truckin’ and a variation on comic artist Robert Crumb’s iconic truckin’ man striding forward, one large foot in front of his body. The 237th version had the man in an army uniform, a rifle slung over his shoulder.

Beneath that were blocks of information about the current company’s training outings and recreational activities. There were links for making contact with the site manager or for joining group discussions. There was also one marked “History,” and Bosch clicked on it.

The link brought him to a blog that required him to scroll down through twenty years of reports about the company’s accomplishments. Luckily, the callouts for the Guard had been few and far between and it didn’t take long to get to the early nineties. These reports had obviously been loaded onto the site when it was first constructed in 1996.

There was a short written piece on the call-up for the Los Angeles riots that held no information that Bosch didn’t already know. But it was accompanied by several photos of soldiers from the 237th on station at various positions around South L.A. and included several names that Bosch didn’t have. He copied every name into his notebook and then continued to scroll down.

When he got to the 237th’s exploits during Desert Shield and Desert Storm, his pulse quickened as he viewed several photos similar to those Anneke Jespersen had taken while shooting and writing about the war. The 237th had bivouacked at Dhahran and was in close proximity to the barracks that were bombed by the Iraqi SCUD strike. The transportation company had ferried soldiers, civilians, and prisoners up and down the main roadways between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. And there were even photos of members of the 237th on R&R leave on a cruise ship anchored in the Persian Gulf.

There were more names here, and Bosch continued copying them into his notebook, thinking that the chances were good that the 237th’s personnel did not change much between the Gulf War and the Los Angeles riots. Men listed in the war photos were most likely part of the unit sent to L.A. a year later.

He came to a set of photos that showed several members of the 237th on a ship called the Saudi Princess during R&R leave. There were shots of a volleyball team competing in a poolside tournament, but most of the pictures were of obviously drunk men holding up bottles of beer and posing for the camera.

Bosch stopped dead when he read the names under one of the photos. It was a shot of four men on the wood decking surrounding the ship’s swimming pool. They were shirtless, holding up bottles of beer and shooting peace signs at the camera. Their wet bathing suits were cutoff camouflage pants. They looked very drunk and very sunburned. The names listed were Carl Cosgrove, Frank Dowler, Chris Henderson, and Reggie Banks.

Bosch now had another connection. Reggie Banks was the salesman who sold Alex White his tractor mower ten years before. He wrote the new names down on his list and underlined Banks’s name three times.

Bosch expanded the photo on his screen and studied it again. Three of the men—all except Cosgrove—had matching tattoos on their right shoulders. Bosch could tell it was the Keep on Truckin’ man in camouflage—the unit’s logo. Bosch then noticed that behind them and to the right was an overturned trash can that had spilled bottles and cans across the deck. As Bosch stared at the photo, he realized he had seen it before. Same scene, different angle.

Harry quickly opened up a new window on his screen and went to the Anneke Jespersen memorial site. He then opened the file containing her photos from Desert Storm. He quickly went through them until he got to the portfolio she had taken on the cruise ship. The third shot in the set of six was taken on the pool deck. It showed a ship’s houseman righting an upended trash can.

By flipping from one window to the other, and from photo to photo, Bosch was able to match the combination of bottles, cans, and brands strewn on the deck. The configuration of the spilled containers was exactly the same. It meant without a doubt that Anneke Jespersen had been on the cruise ship at the same time as members of the 237th Company. To confirm this Bosch compared other markers in the photos. In both he noted the same lifeguard on a poolside perch, wearing the same floppy hat and zinc-coated nose in each photo. A woman in a bikini lounging on the edge of the pool, her right hand dipped into the water. And finally, the bartender behind the counter of the tiki hut. Same bent cigarette behind his ear.

There was no doubt. Anneke’s photo was taken within minutes of the photo on the 237th Company’s website. She had been there with them.

The saying is that law enforcement work is ninety-nine percent boredom and one percent adrenaline—screaming high-intensity moments of life-and-death consequence. Bosch didn’t know if there was life-and-death consequence attached to this discovery, but he could feel the intensity of the moment. He quickly opened his desk drawer and pulled out his magnifying glass. He then turned the pages of the murder book until he found the sleeve containing the proof sheets and 8 × 10 photos that were developed from the four rolls of film found in Anneke Jespersen’s vest.

There were only sixteen 8 × 10 photos, and each was marked on the back with the number of the film roll it came from. Bosch guessed that investigators randomly selected and processed four shots from each of the rolls of film. Harry urgently looked through these now, comparing the soldiers in each one to the photo of the four men on the Saudi Princess. He drew a blank until he got to the four shots from roll three. All four of the shots showed several soldiers lining up to climb into a troop transport truck outside the Coliseum. But clearly at center and in focus in each shot was a tall, well-built man who looked like the man identified as Carl Cosgrove in the cruise ship shot.

Bosch used the magnifying glass to fine-tune the comparison but he could not be sure. The man in the Jespersen shot wore a helmet and was not looking directly at the camera. Bosch knew that he would need to turn the photos, proof sheets, and film negative strips over to the photo unit for comparison using better means than a handheld magnifying glass.

As Bosch took a final glance at the 237th photo, he noticed the photographer credit running in small letters along the right edge.

PHOTO BY J.J. DRUMMOND

Bosch now underlined Drummond’s name on his list and paused as he considered the coincidence he was staring at. Three names he already knew from the investigation—Banks, Dowler, and Drummond—belonged to men who had been on the pool deck of the Saudi Princess on the same day and time as photojournalist Anneke Jespersen. A year later, one of them would find her body in a back alley in riot-torn Los Angeles. Another would lead Bosch to the body, and the third presumably would call to check on the case a decade later.

Another connection involved Carl Cosgrove. He was on the ship in 1991 and appeared to have been in Los Angeles the year after. His name was on the fax ID on Francis Dowler’s statement and on the John Deere dealership where Reggie Banks worked.

In every case, there comes a moment when things start tumbling together and the focus becomes white-hot in its intensity. Bosch was there now. He knew what he had to do and where he had to go.

“David?” he said, his eyes still holding on the image on his computer screen. Four men drunk and happy in the burning sun and away from the fear and randomness of war.

“Yeah, Harry.”

“Stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop what you’re doing.”

“What do you mean? Why?”

Bosch turned his screen so his partner could see the photo. He then looked at Chu.

“These four men,” he said. “Start with them. Run them down. Find them. Find out everything you can about them.”

“Okay, Harry. What about Sheriff Drummond? Should we contact him about these guys?”

Bosch thought for a moment before answering.

“No,” he finally said. “Add him to the list.”

Chu seemed surprised.

“You want me to background him?”

Bosch nodded.

“Yeah, and keep it quiet.”

Bosch got up and left the cubicle. He walked down the middle aisle to the lieutenant’s office. The door was open and he saw O’Toole working at his desk with his head down as he wrote something in an open file. Harry knocked on the doorframe and O’Toole looked up. He hesitated, then signaled Bosch in.

“Let the record show that you came in here of your own volition,” he said as Bosch stepped in. “No harassment, no coercion.”

“So noted.”

“What can I do for you, Detective?”

“I want to put in for some vacation time. I think I need some time to think about things.”

O’Toole paused as though considering whether he was walking into a trap.

“When do you want to go?” he finally asked.

“I was thinking next week,” Bosch said. “I know it’s Friday and this is short notice, but my partner can cover anything we have open and he’s already working on a pickup trip with Trish Allmand.”

“What about the Snow White case? Weren’t you telling me not two days ago that nothing was going to hold you up on it?”

Bosch nodded contritely.

“Yeah, well, it’s sort of cooled down at the moment. I’m waiting on developments.”

O’Toole nodded like he knew all along that Bosch would hit a wall on the case.

“You know this isn’t going to change the internal investigation,” he said.

“I know,” Bosch said. “I just need to get away, think about priorities for a little bit.”

Bosch saw O’Toole trying to hold back a self-congratulatory smile. He couldn’t wait to call the tenth floor and report that Bosch was not going to be a problem, that the prodigal detective had finally seen the light and returned to the fold.

“So, you’re taking the week, then?” he asked.

“Yeah, just a week,” Bosch replied. “I’ve got about two months banked.”

“I normally want a little more notice, but I’ll allow the exception this time. You’re good to go, Detective. I’ll mark it down.”

“Thanks, L-T.”

“Do you mind closing the door when you leave?”

“Gladly.”

Bosch left him there to quietly make his call to the chief. Before Harry got back to his cubicle, he already had a plan for taking care of things at home while he was gone.