The Black Box

22

Ca’ Del Sole had become their place. They met there more often than anywhere else in the city. This was a choice based on romance, taste—they agreed on Italian—and price, but most of all it was based on convenience. The North Hollywood restaurant was equidistant in time and traffic from both their homes and jobs, with a little bit of an edge to Hannah Stone.

Edge or no edge, Bosch got there first and was shown to the booth that had become their regular table. Hannah had told him she might arrive late because her appointments at the halfway house in Panorama City had backed up domino-style after the unscheduled interview with Mendenhall. Bosch had brought a file with him and was content to work while he waited.

Before the day ended in the Open-Unsolved Unit, David Chu had compiled short preliminary bios on the five men Bosch wanted to focus on. Drawing from both public and law enforcement databases, Chu was able to put together in two hours what would have taken Bosch two weeks to gather twenty years ago.

Chu had printed out several pages of data on each of the men. Bosch had those pages in the file along with printouts of the photos taken by both Drummond and Jespersen on the Saudi Princess, as well as a translation of the story Anneke Jespersen had submitted to the BT with her photos.

Bosch opened the file and reread the story. It was dated March 11, 1991, almost two weeks after the war had ended and the troops had become peacekeepers. The story was short, and he guessed that it was just a copy block that went with her photos. The Internet translation program he used was basic. It did not translate grammatical nuance and style, leaving the story choppy and awkward in English.

It is called “Love Boat,” but no mistake this is a war ship. Luxury liner Saudi Princess never leaves port but always has maximum security and capacity. The British vessel has been chartered and temporarily used by the U.S. Pentagon as a rest and recreation retreat for American troops from in Operation Desert Storm.

Men and women with service in Saudi Arabia are allowed occasional three-day rest and relaxation leave and since the cease-fire the demand for it is very big. The Princess is only destination in the conservative Persian Gulf where the soldiers can drink alcohol, make the friends and not bring the camouflage equipment.

The ship stays in port and is well guarded by armed Marines in uniform. (The Pentagon asks journalists who visit cannot reveal the ship’s exact location.) But on board there are no uniforms and life is a party. Has two disco, ten 24-hour bars and three pools. Soldiers who stationed in the region for weeks and months and dodged SCUD missile and bullets of Iraqi have 72 hours to have fun, taste their alcohol and flirt with the opposite sex—all of the things forbidden in camp.

“For three days we are civilians once more,” said Beau Bentley, a 22-year-old soldier from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. “Last week I was in a firefight in Kuwait City. Today I sip a cold one with my friends. You cannot beat that.”

The alcohol flows freely in the bars and at the pool edge. Celebrations of the Allied victory are many. Men on board the ship are more than women by fifteen to one—reflecting the composition of the U.S. troops in the Gulf. It is not just men on the Saudi Princess who wish the sides were more even.

“I haven’t had to buy a drink for the time I’ve been here,” said Charlotte Jackson, a soldier from Atlanta, Georgia. “But the guys constantly hitting on you gets olden. I wish I had brought a good book to read. I’d be in my cabin right now.”

Based on the comment from Beau Bentley about being in a firefight only a week before, Bosch figured the story had been written and then held almost a week by the BT before publication. That meant Anneke Jespersen had probably been on board the ship sometime during the first week of March.

Bosch had initially not viewed the Saudi Princess story as significant. But now with the connection established between Jespersen and the members of 237th Company on the ship, things were different. He realized he was looking at the names of two potential witnesses. He pulled his phone and called Chu. The call went to message. Chu was off duty and had probably shut down for the night. Bosch left a message in a low voice so he wouldn’t disturb the other patrons in the restaurant.

“Dave, it’s me. I’m going to need you to take a stab at a couple names. I got them out of a nineteen ninety-one news story, but what the hell, give it a try. The first name is Beau Bentley and he is or was from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The second is Charlotte Jackson. She was listed as from Atlanta. Both were soldiers in Desert Storm. I don’t know what branch. The story didn’t say. Bentley was twenty-two then, so he’s forty-two or forty-three now. I’ve got no age on Jackson, but she could be anywhere from, I’d say, thirty-nine to maybe fifty years old. See what you can do and let me know. Thanks, partner.”

Bosch disconnected and looked toward the front door of the restaurant. Still no sign of Hannah Stone. He went back to his phone and shot a quick text to his daughter to ask if she had gotten something to eat, then went back to the file folder.

He leafed through the biographical material his partner had drawn up on the five men. Four of the reports contained a driver’s license photo at the top. Drummond’s DL was not included, because his law enforcement status kept him out of the DMV computer. Bosch stopped on the sheet for Christopher Henderson. Chu had handwritten DECEASED in large letters next to the photo.

Henderson had survived Desert Storm and the L.A. riots as a member of the Fighting 237th, but he didn’t survive an encounter with an armed robber at a restaurant he managed in Stockton. Chu had included a 1998 newspaper account reporting that Henderson had been accosted while he was alone and locking up at a popular steakhouse called the Steers. An armed man wearing a ski mask and a long coat forced him back inside the restaurant. A passing motorist saw the incident and called 9-1-1, but when police arrived shortly after the emergency call came in, they found the front door unlocked and Henderson dead inside. He had been shot execution-style while kneeling in the kitchen’s walk-in refrigerator. A safe where the restaurant’s operating cash was kept at night was found open and empty in the manager’s office.

The newspaper report said that Henderson had been planning to leave his job at the Steers to open up his own restaurant in Manteca. He never got the chance. According to what Chu could find on the computer, the murder was never solved and no suspects were ever identified by the Stockton police.

Chu’s bio on John James Drummond was extensive because Drummond was a public figure. He joined the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department in 1990 and rose steadily through the ranks until he challenged the incumbent sheriff in 2006 and won an upset election. He successfully ran for reelection in 2010 and was now setting his sights on Washington, DC. He was campaigning for Congress, hoping to represent the district that encompassed both Stanislaus and San Joaquin counties.

A political biography that was circulated online during his first run for sheriff described Drummond as a local kid who made good. He grew up in a single-parent family in the Graceada Park neighborhood of Modesto. As a deputy he served in all capacities in the Sheriff’s Department, even as pilot of the agency’s one helicopter, but it was his superior management skills that accelerated his climb. The biography also called him a war hero, crediting him with serving with the National Guard in Desert Storm, as well as noting that he was injured during the 1992 Los Angeles riots while protecting a dress shop from being looted.

Bosch realized that Drummond accounted for the one injury the 237th Company sustained during the riots. A bottle thrown back then could be one of the little things that got him to Washington now. He also noted that Drummond was already a law officer when called out with the guard to the Persian Gulf and then Los Angeles.

The self-serving material in the campaign biography also noted how crime across the board in Stanislaus County had dropped during Drummond’s watch. It was all canned stuff and Bosch moved on, next looking at the sheet on Reginald Banks, who was forty-six years old and a lifelong resident of Manteca.

Banks had been employed for eighteen years as a salesman at the John Deere dealership in Modesto. He was married and the father of three kids. He had a degree from Modesto Junior College.

On this deeper dig, Chu had also found that in addition to his DUI conviction, Banks also had two other DUI arrests that did not result in conviction. Bosch noted that the one conviction came from an arrest in San Joaquin County, where Manteca was located. But two DUI stops in neighboring Stanislaus County never resulted in charges being filed. Bosch wondered if being foxhole buddies with the Stanislaus County sheriff might have had something to do with that.

He moved on to Francis John Dowler and read a bio not too different from his pal Banks’s curriculum vitae. Born, raised, and still living in Manteca, he attended San Joaquin Valley College in Stockton but didn’t stick around for the two-year degree.

Bosch heard a low snickering sound and looked up to see Pino, their usual waiter, smiling.

“What?” Bosch asked.

“I read your paper, I am sorry.”

Bosch looked down at the data sheet on Dowler and then back at Pino. He was Mexican-born but posed as Italian since he worked in an Italian restaurant.

“That’s okay, Pino. But what’s so funny?”

The waiter pointed at the top line of the data sheet.

“It say there he was born in Manteca. That is funny.”

“Why?”

“I thought you speak Spanish, Mr. Bosch.”

“Just a little. What is Manteca?”

“It is the lard. The fat.”

“Really?”

“Sí.”

Bosch shrugged.

“I guess they must’ve thought it sounded nice when they named the place,” he said. “They probably didn’t know.”

“Where is this town called Lard?” Pino asked.

“North of here. About five hours.”

“If you go, take a picture for me. ‘Welcome to Lard.’”

He laughed and moved away to check on customers at other tables. Bosch checked his watch. Hannah was now a half hour late. He thought about calling to check on her. He pulled out his phone and noticed that his daughter had answered his text with a simple ordered in pizza. That was pizza for the second night in a row while he was out for a supposedly romantic dinner with salad and pasta and wine. A wave of guilt hit him again. He seemed incapable of being the father he knew he should be. The guilt turned to self-directed anger and it gave him all the resolve he needed for what he planned to ask Hannah—if she ever showed up.

He decided he would give it another ten minutes before he pestered her with a call, then went back to his work.

Dowler was forty-eight years old and had logged exactly half of his life in the employ of Cosgrove Ag. His job description was listed on the sheet as Contract Transport and Bosch wondered if that meant he was still a truck driver.

Like Banks, he also had a DUI bust without subsequent filing on his record in Stanislaus County. He also had an arrest warrant that had been sitting on the computer for four years for unpaid parking tickets in Modesto. That would be understandable if he resided in L.A. County, where thousands of minor warrants idled in the computer until the wanted person happened to be stopped by a law officer and their ID was checked for wanteds. But it seemed to Bosch that a county the size of Stanislaus would have the personnel and time to pursue local scofflaws wanted on warrants. The duty to execute a warrant pickup would, of course, fall to the county sheriff’s office. Once again it looked to Bosch like the bonds of Desert Storm and other places were protecting a former soldier in the 237th Company—at least when it came to Stanislaus County.

But just as a pattern seemed to be emerging, it disappeared when Bosch moved on to Carl Cosgrove’s sheet. Cosgrove was born in Manteca as well and was in the same age group, at forty-eight, but resemblance to the other men in the file ended at age and service to the 237th Company. Cosgrove had no arrest record, earned a full degree in agricultural management from UC Davis, and was listed as president and CEO of Cosgrove Ag. A 2005 profile in a publication called California Grower stated that the company held nearly two hundred thousand acres of farm and ranch lands in California. The company managed both livestock and produce and was one of the largest suppliers of beef, almonds, and wine grapes in the state. Not only that, but Cosgrove Ag was even harvesting the wind. The article credited Carl Cosgrove with turning much of the company’s cattle grazing land into wind farms, double dipping on the land by producing electricity and beef.

On the personal side, the article described Cosgrove as a long-divorced bachelor with a penchant for fast cars, fine wines, and finer women. He lived on an estate near Salida on the northern edge of Stanislaus County. It was surrounded by an almond grove and included a helicopter pad so he could proceed by air without delay to any of his other holdings, which included a penthouse in San Francisco and a ski lodge in Mammoth.

It was a classic silver-spoon story. Cosgrove ran a company his father Carl Cosgrove Sr. had built from a sixty-acre strawberry farm and accompanying fruit stand in 1955. At seventy-six, the father remained in place as chairman of the board, but he had passed the reins to his son ten years before. The article focused on Carl Sr.’s grooming his son for the business, making sure that he worked in all facets—from cattle breeding to farm irrigation to wine making. It was also the old man who insisted that the son give back to the community in multiple ways, including his twelve years in the California National Guard.

The article did credit Carl Jr. with taking the fifty-year-old family business to new heights and in bold new directions, most notably with the wind farms that produced green energy and the expansion of the family-owned chain of steakhouses called the Steers, now with six locations throughout the Central Valley. The last line of the article said, “Cosgrove is most proud of the fact that it is virtually impossible to have a meal at any one of the Steers restaurants without eating or drinking something his vast company has produced.”

Bosch read the last four lines twice. They were confirmation of another connection between the men in the Saudi Princess photo. Christopher Henderson had been closing manager at one of Carl Cosgrove’s restaurants—until he was murdered there.

Chu had added a note at the bottom of the California Grower story. It said, “Ran a check on Dad. He died 2010—natural causes. Junior runs the whole show now.”

Bosch translated that to mean that Carl Cosgrove had inherited complete control over Cosgrove Ag and its many holdings and interests. That made him the king of the San Joaquin Valley.

“Hi. Sorry.”

Bosch looked up as Hannah Stone slipped into the booth next to him. She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and said she was starving.