The Black Box

28

Bosch was dragged from a deep sleep by his phone buzzing on his chest. His first thought was that it was his daughter, either in trouble or upset about Hannah for some reason. The bedside clock said 4:22 A.M.

He grabbed the phone but didn’t see the photo of Maddie, tongue sticking out at him, which came up on screen when she called. He checked the number on the screen and saw the 404 area code. Atlanta.

“This is Detective Bosch.”

He pulled himself up and looked around for his notebook, remembering again that it was in the car. He realized he was naked except for the towel wrapped around his waist.

“Yes, my name is Charlotte Jackson and you left a message for me yesterday. I didn’t get it until late last night. Is it too early there?”

Bosch’s head cleared. He remembered the call he got at the restaurant from Charlotte Jackson number four. This had to be Charlotte Jackson number three. It was the only outstanding callback. He remembered she lived on Ora Avenue in East Atlanta.

“That’s okay, Ms. Jackson,” he said. “I’m glad you called me back. As my message said, I’m a detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. I work in the Open-Unsolved Unit, which is a cold-case squad, if that makes any sense to you.”

“I used to watch Cold Case on TV. It was a good show.”

“Okay, well, I’m working on an old homicide case and I’m trying to reach a Charlotte Jackson who served in the military during Desert Storm in nineteen ninety-one.”

There was a silence but Bosch waited for a response.

“Well . . . I did. I was there but I don’t know anybody in Los Angeles or anybody that got murdered. This is very strange.”

“Yes, I understand and I know this whole thing may seem confusing. If you would bear with me for a few questions, I think I’ll be able to make things a little clearer.”

He waited again for a response. None came.

“Ms. Jackson? Are you there?”

“Yes, I’m here. Go ahead with your questions. I don’t have a lot of time. I need to get going to work soon.”

“Okay, then, I’ll try to move quickly. First of all, is this your home number or a cell?”

“It’s a cell. It’s my only number.”

“Okay, and you said you were in the armed services and served during Desert Storm. What branch of the military was that?”

“U.S. Army.”

“Are you still in the army?”

“No.”

She said it like he had asked a stupid question.

“Where were you based stateside, Ms. Jackson?”

“Benning.”

Bosch had spent time at Fort Benning himself when he was in the military. It had been his last stop before Vietnam. He knew it was a two-hour drive from Atlanta, Anneke Jespersen’s first stop after flying to the United States. Bosch started feeling like he was getting close to something. Some hidden truth was about to come into the open. He tried to keep his voice at a constant measured tone.

“How long were you in the Persian Gulf?”

“About seven months total. First in Saudi for Desert Shield and then we moved into Kuwait for the ground war. Desert Storm. I was never actually in Iraq.”

“During that time did you ever go on leave and spend any time on the cruise ship called the Saudi Princess?”

“Of course,” Jackson said. “Practically everybody did at some point. What’s this have to do with a murder in L.A.? I really don’t understand why you called me, and like I said, I got work today, so—”

“Ms. Jackson, I assure you that this is a very legitimate call and you may be able to help us solve a murder. Can I ask, what do you do for a living now?”

“I work at the Justice Center of Atlanta. It’s in Inman Park.”

“Okay. Are you a lawyer?”

“No. God, no.”

That same tone, as if Bosch had asked a stupid or obvious question about her when he had never even spoken to her before.

“What do you do then at the Justice Center?”

“I work in mediation, and my boss doesn’t like it when I come in late. I should go now.”

Somehow Bosch had gone far afield from the central purpose of the interview. It rankled him whenever a step-by-step interview went off the pathway. He chalked it up to being yanked from sleep and thrown into the conversation.

“Just a few more questions. It’s very important. Let’s go back to the Saudi Princess. Do you remember when you were on the ship?”

“It was in March, right before my unit got sent home. I remember thinking I wouldn’t have gone if I’d known I’d be back in Georgia a month later. But the army didn’t tell me that, so I went on a seventy-two-hour leave.”

Bosch nodded. He was back on the path. He just needed to stay there.

“Do you remember being interviewed by a journalist? A woman named Anneke Jespersen?”

There was only a short pause before Jackson answered.

“The Dutch girl? Yes, I remember her.”

“Anneke was Danish. Are we talking about the same woman? A Caucasian blond, pretty, about thirty?”

“Yes, yes, I only did one interview. Dutch, Danish—I remember that name and I remember her.”

“Okay, where did she interview you, do you remember?”

“I was in a bar. I don’t remember which one, but it was near the pool. That’s where I hung out.”

“Do you remember anything about the interview besides that?”

“The interview? Not really. It was just a few quick questions. She interviewed a bunch of us. And it was loud in there and people were drunk, you know?”

“Right.”

Now was the moment. The only question he really had to ask.

“Did you ever see Anneke again after that day?”

“Well, first I saw her the next night in the same place. Only she wasn’t working. She said she filed her story or sent her pictures in or something and now she had her own leave. She had two more days on the boat and she was off the clock.”

Bosch paused. That wasn’t what he had been expecting to hear. He was thinking about Jespersen’s trip to Atlanta.

“Why are you asking about her?” Jackson asked. “Is she the one that’s dead?”

“Yes, she’s dead, I’m afraid. She was murdered twenty years ago in L.A.”

“Oh, dear Lord.”

“It was during the riots in ’ninety-two. It was a year after Desert Storm.”

He waited to see if she would react to that, but there was only silence.

“I think it was somehow connected to that boat,” he said. “Do you remember anything else about her being on the boat? Was she drunk when you saw her the next day?”

“I don’t know about drunk. But she had a bottle in her hand. We both did. That’s what you did on that boat. Drink.”

“Right. Anything else you remember about it?”

“I just remember that her being the blond bombshell that she was, she was having a harder time than any of us keeping the boys at bay.”

“Us” meaning the women in the bar and on the boat.

“That’s what she asked me about when she came to see me at Benning.”

Bosch froze. He didn’t make a sound, he didn’t take a breath. He waited for more. When nothing came forth, he tried to gently coax the story out.

“When was that?” he asked.

“About a year after Storm. I remember I was a short-timer by then. It was like two weeks before my discharge. She somehow found me and came to the base, asking all these questions.”

“What exactly did she ask, do you remember?”

“She asked about that second day, you know, when she was off duty. First she asked if I’d seen her, and I said, don’t you remember? She then asked me who she was with and when was the last time I saw her.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I remembered that she went off with some of the guys. They said they were going to go to the disco and I didn’t want to go. So they left. I didn’t see her again until she came to Fort Benning.”

“Did you ask her why she wanted this information?”

“Not really. I think I kind of knew.”

Bosch nodded. It was likely the reason she remembered the last conversation so clearly after twenty years.

“Something happened to her on that boat,” he said.

“I think so,” Jackson said. “But I didn’t ask the specifics. I didn’t think she wanted to tell me. She just wanted answers to her questions. She wanted to know who she was with.”

Bosch thought he now understood many of the mysteries of the case. What the war crime was that Anneke Jespersen was investigating, and why she shared what she was doing with no one else. He felt a deeper heartbreak for the woman he never met or knew.

“Tell me about the men she went off with on the boat. How many were there?”

“I don’t remember, three or four.”

“Do you remember anything else about them? Anything at all?”

“They were from California.”

Now Bosch paused as Jackson’s answer rang in his head like a bell.

“Is that all, Detective? I need to go.”

“Just a few more, Ms. Jackson. You are being very helpful. How did you know the men were from California?”

“I don’t know. I just knew it. They must’ve told us, because I knew they were California guys. That’s what I told her when she came to see me at the base.”

“Do you remember any names or anything like that?”

“No, not now. It’s been forever since then. I only remember what I’m telling you because she came to see me that time.”

“What about back then? Do you remember if you gave her any of the names of these guys?”

There was a long pause while Jackson thought about it.

“I can’t remember if I knew any names. I mean, I might have known their first names when we were on the boat, but I don’t know if I remembered them a year later. There were so many guys on that boat. I just remember they were from California and we were calling them the truckers.”

“The truckers?”

“Yeah.”

“Why did you call them that? Did they say they drove trucks?”

“They might have, but what I remember is that they had tattoos of the Keep on Truckin’ guy with the big shoes. You remember that comic?”

Bosch nodded, not at her question but at the confirmation of things.

“Yes, I do. So these guys had that tattoo? Where?”

“On their shoulders. It was hot on that boat and we were in the pool bar so they either weren’t wearing shirts or they had their wifebeaters on. At least a couple of them had matching tattoos and so we—meaning the girls in the bar—just started calling them the truckers. It’s hard for me to remember the details and I’m already going to be late for work.”

“You are doing good, Ms. Jackson. I can’t thank you enough.”

“Did those guys kill her?”

“I don’t know yet. Do you have email?”

“Of course.”

“Can I send you a link? It will be to a photo on a website that shows some guys on the Saudi Princess back then. Can you look at it and tell me if you recognize any of them?”

“Can I do it when I get to work? I need to go.”

“Yes, that will be fine. I’ll send it as soon as we hang up.”

“Okay.”

She gave him her email address and he wrote it down on a pad that was on the bedside table.

“Thank you, Ms. Jackson. Let me know about the link as soon as you can.”

Bosch disconnected. He went to the kitchenette table, fired up his laptop, and connected to the Wi-Fi signal of the house behind the motel. Using skills picked up from both his partner and daughter, he then located the link to the Saudi Princess photo on the 237th Company’s website and sent it in an email to the Charlotte Jackson he had just spoken to.

He went to the window and checked through the curtain. It was still dark outside without even a hint of sunrise yet. Overnight the parking lot had somehow gotten almost half full. He decided to shower and get ready for the day while waiting for the response on the photo.

Twenty minutes later he was drying off with a towel that had been washed a thousand times. He heard the email ding from his computer and went to the kitchenette to check it. Charlotte Jackson had replied.

I think it’s them. I can’t be sure but I think so. The tattoos are right and that’s the boat. But it has been a long time and I was drinking. But, yes, I think it’s them.

Bosch sat down at the table and reread the email. He felt a growing sense of both dread and excitement. It was not a rock-solid identification from Charlotte Jackson, but it was close. He knew that occurrences of twenty years ago or longer were now coming together at an undeniable speed. The hand of the past was reaching up through the ground, and there was no telling who or what it would grab and pull down when it finally broke through the surface of the earth.