The Crossing

11

At 9 a.m. sharp Bosch approached the attorney check-in window in the lobby of the men’s central jail, but Mickey Haller was nowhere to be seen. There was a young woman standing to the side of the window holding an attaché case and she studied Bosch as he approached.

“Mr. Bosch?” she asked.

Bosch paused for a moment and didn’t answer. He was still not used to being addressed as “Mr.”

“That’s me,” he finally said.

The woman held out her hand. Bosch had to move the file he was holding to his other hand to shake hers.

“I’m Jennifer Aronson. I work for Mr. Haller.”

If Bosch had met her before he didn’t remember it.

“He’s supposed to be here,” he said.

“Yes, I know,” she said. “He’s tied up at the moment but I will get you in to see Mr. Foster.”

“Don’t I need an attorney to go with me?”

“I am an attorney, Mr. Bosch. I am associate counsel on this case. I’ve handled a few filings on your civil case.”

Bosch realized he had insulted her, assuming that based on her age — she had to be younger than thirty — she was Haller’s secretary instead of his associate.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “But I expected him to be here. Where exactly is he?”

“Something came up that he had to handle and he was delayed but he will try to join us shortly.”

“That’s not really good enough. I’m going to call him.”

Bosch stepped away from the check-in window to use his phone. Aronson followed him.

“You’re not going to reach him,” she said. “Why don’t we check in and start the interview and Mr. Haller will get here as soon as he can.”

Bosch ended the call when Haller’s recorded voice picked up and asked him to leave a message. He looked at the woman. He could read that she was lying or holding something back.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Excuse me?” she said.

“Where is he? You’re not telling me something.”

She looked disappointed in herself for not being able to get past Bosch.

“All right,” she said. “He’s over at city jail. He was picked up on a trumped-up DUI last night. I’ve posted his bail and he’s waiting to be released.”

“I was with him last night,” Bosch said. “What time did this happen?”

“Around ten o’clock.”

“Why do you say it was trumped up?”

“Because he called me while he was being pulled over and told me. He said they had to have been waiting for him outside Musso’s. It happens often. Targeted enforcement. People get set up.”

“Well, was he drunk? I left him there at seven-thirty or eight. He stayed another two hours or more.”

“He told me no and he’s going to be upset that I told you any of this. Please, can we check in now and set up the interview?”

Bosch shook his head once. This whole thing felt like it was slipping sideways and turning tawdry.

“Let’s get it over with,” he said.

“Here, you’ll need this,” she said, reaching into her attaché.

She handed him a folded piece of paper.

“It’s a letter that says you are an investigator working for Mr. Haller on this case,” she said. “Technically, you are working under the license of Dennis Wojciechowski.”

It sounded like she pronounced the name Watch-Your-House-Key. Bosch unfolded the letter and quickly read it. It was a point of no return. He knew that if he accepted it and used it to get into the jail, then he would officially be a defense investigator.

“You sure I need this?” he asked.

“If you want to get in to see him you need legal standing,” she said.

Bosch put the letter in the pocket inside his jacket.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

Da’Quan Foster was not what Bosch had expected. Because of the brutality of the murder of Lexi Parks, he had expected to see a man of imposing size and musculature. Foster had neither. He was a thin man in jailhouse blues that were two sizes too big. Bosch realized that his wrongful assumption was rooted in his being predisposed to believe Foster was guilty of the crime.

A jail deputy placed Foster in a chair across the table from Bosch and Aronson. He removed the handcuffs from Foster’s wrists and then left the small room. Foster had his hair in tight cornrows. He had a lipstick kiss tattooed on the left side of his neck and another tattoo in blue ink on the other side that Bosch could not read against his dark brown skin. Foster looked confused by the two people in front of him. Aronson quickly made introductions.

“Mr. Foster, I’m not sure if you remember me. I’m Jennifer Aronson and I work with Mr. Haller. I was with him at your arraignment and then at the preliminary hearing.”

Foster nodded as he remembered her.

“You a lawyer?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m one of your lawyers,” she said. “And I want to introduce you to Mr. Bosch, who is working as our investigator on the case. He has some questions for you.”

Bosch didn’t bother to correct her. He had not officially agreed to come on board yet — despite what the letter said.

“Where Haller at?” Foster said.

“He’s tied up on another case at the moment,” Aronson said. “But he plans to be here soon — before Mr. Bosch is finished.”

Tied up on another case was one way of putting it, Bosch thought.

Foster turned his eyes toward Bosch and apparently didn’t like what he saw.

“You look like five-oh to me,” he said.

Bosch nodded.

“I was.”

“LAPD?”

Bosch nodded again.

“Fuck that,” Foster said. “I want somebody else on my case. I ain’t want no LAPD on my side.”

“Mr. Foster,” Aronson said. “First of all, you don’t get to choose. And second, Mr. Bosch specializes in homicide investigations and is one of the best in the business.”

“I still don’t like it,” Foster said. “Down south side the murder cops didn’t do shit. Back when I was running with a crew, we lost nine guys in five years and the LAPD didn’t make no arrests, no trials, nothin’.”

“I didn’t work south side,” Bosch said.

Foster folded his arms and turned his head to ignore Bosch and look at the wall to his left. Bosch could now clearly see the tattoos on the right side of his neck. There was the standard Crips symbol, a 6 in the center of a six-pointed star created by one triangle with a second inverted triangle over it. Bosch knew the points of the star stood for things that the street gang was supposedly founded on — life, loyalty, love, knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. Next to the symbol was a stylized script tattoo that said Tookie RIP. Bosch also knew that this was a reference to Stanley “Tookie” Williams, the well-known cofounder of the gang, who was executed at San Quentin.

Bosch continued.

“You say you didn’t commit the murder you are charged with. If that is true, I can help you. If you are lying, I’m going to hurt you. It’s as simple as that. You want me to go, I’ll go. It’s not my ass on the line here.”

Foster turned his eyes quickly back to Bosch.

“Fuck you, man. If you’re LAPD, then you don’t care whether I did it or not. Just as long as you got somebody to pay for it, that’s all you people care about. You think if I didn’t do this, then I did something else, so what the fuck, same difference.”

Bosch looked at Aronson.

“We’ll be fine,” he said. “Why don’t you go see if you can find Mickey and bring him in here?”

“I think I should stay here while we conduct the interview,” she said.

“No, we’ll be fine. I’m conducting the interview and you can go.”

He gave her a hard look and she got the message. She stood up, insulted again, and went to the door and knocked. As soon as the guard opened the door she stepped out. Bosch watched her go and then turned back to Foster.

“Mr. Foster, I’m not here because I want you to be my friend. And you don’t need me to be yours. But I’ll tell you this. If you are innocent of this crime, then you don’t want anybody else but me on it. Because if you’re innocent, that means there is somebody else out there, not in jail, who did this. And I’m going to find him.”

Bosch opened the file and slid one of the crime scene photos across the table. It was a close-up color shot of Alexandra Parks’s brutalized and unrecognizable face. The reports in the murder book said that when her husband found her, a pillow had been placed over her face. In the psychological profile of the crime scene contained in the murder book, it was suggested that the killer did this because he was ashamed of what he had done and was covering it up. If that was the case, Bosch was expecting a reaction from Foster when he saw the horror of the crime.

He got one. Foster glanced down at the photo and then jerked his head back and looked up at the ceiling.

“Oh my lord! Oh my lord!”

Bosch watched him closely, studying his reaction. He believed that in the next few seconds he would decide whether Foster had murdered Alexandra Parks. He was a one-man jury reading the nuances of facial expression before rendering a verdict.

“Take it away,” Foster said.

“No, I want you to look at it,” Bosch said.

“I can’t.”

Without bringing his eyes down from the ceiling Foster pointed at the photo on the table.

“I can’t believe this. They say I did that, that I would do that to a woman’s face.”

“That’s right.”

“My mother will be at the trial and they’ll show that?”

“Probably. Unless the judge says it’s too prejudicial — good chance of that, I’d say.”

Foster made some kind of keening sound from the back of his throat. A wounded animal sound.

“Look at me, Da’Quan,” Bosch said. “Look at me.”

Foster slowly brought his head and gaze down and looked at Bosch, maintaining an eye-line focus that did not include the photo on the table. Bosch read pain and sympathy in his eyes. He had sat across the table from many murderers in his time as a detective. Most of them, especially the psychopaths, were very good liars. But in the end it was always the eyes that betrayed them. Psychopaths are cold. They can talk sympathy but they can’t show it in their eyes. Bosch always looked at their eyes.

“Did you do this, Da’Quan?” Bosch asked.

“I didn’t,” Foster said.

What Bosch believed he saw in Da’Quan Foster’s eyes now was the truth. He reached over and flipped the photograph over so it was no longer a threat.

“Okay, you can relax about it now,” Bosch said.

Foster’s shoulders were slumped and he looked wrung out. It was dawning on him, possibly for the first time, that he stood accused of the worst kind of crime.

“I think I believe you, Da’Quan. That’s a good thing. What is bad is that your DNA was found in the victim and we need to explain that.”

“It wadn’t mine.”

“That’s just a denial and that doesn’t work as an explanation. The science is against you so far. The DNA makes this a slam-dunk case for the prosecution, Da’Quan. You’re a dead man walking unless we can explain it.”

“I can’t explain it. I know it wasn’t from me. That’s it.”

“Then how did it get there, Da’Quan?”

“I don’t know! It’s like planted evidence.”

“Planted by who?”

“I don’t know!”

“The cops?”

“Somebody.”

“Were you there that night? In this lady’s house?”

“Hell, no!”

“Then where were you?”

“At the studio. I was painting.”

“No, you weren’t. That’s bullshit. The Sheriff’s Department has a witness. He says he went by the studio. You weren’t there.”

“Yes, I was.”

“Their witness is going to get on the stand at your trial and testify that he went to the studio to see you but you weren’t there. You add that to the DNA and you’re done. All over. You understand?”

Bosch pointed to the overturned photo.

“A crime like that, no judge and no jury’s going to have a second thought about giving you the death penalty. You’ll go the way Tookie went.”

He let that sink in for a moment before continuing in a softer voice.

“You want me to help you, Da’Quan? I need to know everything. Good and bad. You can lie to your lawyer but you can’t lie to me. I can read it. So one more time, where were you? You don’t tell me and I’m out of here. What’s it going to be?”

Foster lowered his eyes to the table. Bosch waited him out. He could tell Foster was about to break and tell the story.

“All right,” he said. “This is the deal. I was up there in Hollywood. And I was with someone, not my wife.”

“Okay,” Bosch said. “Who is she?”

“Not a she,” Foster said.