The Black Box

34

Bosch didn’t have to wait long. No more than ten minutes after he turned off the light, he heard the scraping sound of metal on metal as the slide bar outside was moved. This was done slowly, and Bosch thought maybe Drummond was trying to surprise him.

The door slowly came open. From his angle Bosch could see the outside darkness. He could feel the rush of cooler air enter the barn. And he could just make out the shadow of a single figure entering.

Bosch braced himself and raised the pitchfork. He was standing near the light switch. This is where one of them would go first. To turn on the light. His plan was to thrust from shoulder level and drive the weapon through the body. Take out the first one, go for his gun. Then it would be down to one on one.

But the lone figure did not move toward the light switch. He stood stock-still in the door’s opening as if letting his eyes adjust to the dark. He then moved forward three steps into the barn. Bosch wasn’t ready for this. His attack position was on the switch. He was now too far away from his target.

A light suddenly came on in the barn, but it was not from overhead. The person who had entered was carrying a flashlight. And Bosch now thought it might be a woman.

She was past Bosch’s position now, and the flashlight was held out in front of her body and away. Bosch could not see her face from his angle but he could tell by size and demeanor that it was neither Drummond nor Cosgrove. It was definitely a woman.

The beam swept across the barn and then jerked back to the body on the ground. The woman rushed forward to put the light on the dead man’s face. Banks lay on his back with his eyes wide open and the horrible entry wound to the right temple. His left hand was extended out at an odd angle toward the support column. His discarded watch was lying in the straw next to it.

The woman crouched next to Banks and shifted the light as she played it across his body. In doing so she revealed first the gun in her other hand and then her face. Bosch lowered the pitchfork and stepped out of cover.

“Detective Mendenhall.”

Mendenhall swiveled right and brought the gun’s bead on Bosch. He raised his hands, still holding the pitchfork.

“It’s me.”

He realized he must appear to her as some sort of send-up of the famous American Gothic painting, with the pitchfork-carrying farmer and his wife—minus the wife. He let go of the pitchfork and let it drop to the straw.

Mendenhall lowered her weapon and stood up.

“Bosch, what’s going on here?”

Bosch noted that she had dispensed with her own demand for rank and respect. Rather than answer he moved toward the door and looked out. He could see the lights of the château through the trees, but no sign of Cosgrove or Drummond. He stepped out and went to his rental car, using the key fob to pop the trunk.

Mendenhall followed him out.

“Detective Bosch, I said, what is going on?”

Bosch lifted one of the cardboard boxes out of the trunk and lowered it to the ground.

“Keep your voice down,” he said. “What are you doing here? You followed me up here over O’Toole’s complaint?”

Bosch found the gun box and opened it.

“Not exactly.”

“Then, why?”

He retrieved the Kimber and checked its action.

“I wanted to know something.”

“Know what?”

He holstered the gun, then took the extra magazine out of the box and put it in his pocket.

“What you were doing, for one thing. I had a feeling you weren’t going on vacation.”

Bosch closed the trunk quietly and looked around to get his bearings. He then looked at Mendenhall.

“Where’s your car? How did you get in here?”

“I parked where you parked last night. I got in the same way.”

He looked down at her shoes. They were caked in mud from the almond grove.

“You’ve been following me and you’re alone. Does anyone even know where you are?”

She averted her eyes and he knew the answer was no. She was freelancing on Bosch while he was freelancing on Anneke Jespersen. Somehow, some way, he liked that about her.

“Turn off the flashlight,” he said. “It will only expose us.”

She did as she was told.

“Now, what are you doing here, Detective Mendenhall?”

“I’m working my case.”

“That’s not good enough. You’re freelancing on me and I want to know why.”

“Let’s just say I followed you off the reservation and leave it at that. Who killed that man in there?”

Bosch knew there wasn’t time to go back and forth with Mendenhall over her motives for following him. If they got out of this, he would get back to it at the right time.

“Sheriff J.J. Drummond,” he answered. “In cold blood. Right in front of me, without missing a beat. Did you see him when you were sneaking in here?”

“I saw two men. They both went into the house.”

“Did you see anybody else? A third man arrive?”

She shook her head.

“No, just the two. Can you please just tell me what is going on? I saw you taken here. Now there’s a man in there dead and you were locked in like—”

“Look, we don’t have a lot of time. There is going to be more killing if we don’t stop it. The shorthand is that this is where my cold case has led. The case I told you about and that I went to San Quentin on. It’s here. This is where it ends. Get in.”

Bosch continued in a whisper as he moved toward the driver-side door.

“My victim was Anneke Jespersen from Denmark. She was a war correspondent. Four National Guard soldiers drugged and raped her on an R&R leave during Desert Storm in ’ninety-one. She came over here the next year, looking for them. I don’t know if she was going to write a story or a book or what, but she followed them to L.A. during the riots. And they used the cover of the riots to murder her.”

Bosch got in, put the key in the ignition, and started the car, keeping his foot as light on the gas as possible. Mendenhall got in the passenger side.

“My investigation has caused the conspiracy that binds them to unravel. Banks was a loose end, so they killed him. They mentioned that another man was coming and I think they’re going to kill him, too.”

“Who?”

“A guy named Frank Dowler.”

He put the car in reverse and started backing away from the barn. He left the lights off.

“Why didn’t they kill you?” Mendenhall asked. “Why only Banks?”

“Because they need me alive—for the moment. Drummond has a plan.”

“What plan? This is crazy.”

Bosch had run everything through his data banks while waiting in the darkness with the pitchfork. He had finally come to understand J.J. Drummond’s plan.

“T-O-D,” he said. “He needs me alive because of time of death. The plan is to lay it all on me. They’ll say I became obsessed with the case, had set out to avenge the victim. I killed Banks and then Dowler, but before I could get to Cosgrove, the sheriff got to me. Drummond plans to put me down as soon as he’s done with Dowler. I’m sure the story will cast him as the fearless lawman, going up against the mad dog cop to save one of the Valley’s best and brightest citizens—Cosgrove. After that, Drummond will ride into Congress a hero. Did I mention he’s running for Congress?”

Bosch started down the hill to the château. The exterior lights were still off and a mist was coming in off the grove, cloaking the place in further darkness.

“I don’t understand how Drummond is even involved in this. He’s the sheriff, for God’s sake.”

“He’s the sheriff because Cosgrove made him the sheriff. Just like he’ll put him in Congress. Drummond knows all the secrets. He was in the two-thirty-seventh with them. He was there on the ship during Desert Storm and he was there in L.A. during the riots. He’s the one who killed Anneke Jespersen. And that’s how he kept a hold on Cosgrove all these—”

Bosch stopped as he realized something. He slowed the car to a halt. His mind hit playback to one of the last things Drummond had said before leaving the barn. Carl Junior would’ve been disowned if the old man had learned of his involvement.

“He’s going to kill Cosgrove, too.”

“Why?”

“Because Cosgrove’s old man is dead. Drummond can no longer control him.”

As if to punctuate Bosch’s conclusion, the sound of gunfire came from the direction of the château. Bosch pinned the accelerator and they quickly came around the side of the mansion and into the turnaround.

There was a motorcycle leaning on its stand twenty feet from the front door. Bosch recognized its metallic-blue gas tank.

“That’s Dowler’s,” he said.

They heard another shot from the house. And then another.

“We’re too late.”