The Crossing

30

Kamasi Washington’s tenor sax was coming from the stereo, the sun-scoured desert was hurtling by on either side of the freeway, and Bosch was grinding the case down as he made his way back to L.A.

He loved these solitary moments of concentration and case thought. He always broke his thoughts into three distinct channels of logic: the things he knew, the things he could assume, and the things he wanted to know. The last channel was always the widest.

The trip to Las Vegas to run down the missing watch appeared on surface to be a bust. The watch was accounted for and the explanation of events from Bertrand Gerard was plausible. But Bosch wasn’t quite ready to drop the watch from his investigation. The call Parks made to Nelson Grant & Sons still chafed simply because Peter Nguyen had been evasive and uncooperative with Bosch. Harry decided that he would take another run at Nguyen — and his brother, if possible — and he would also talk to Dr. Schubert to measure his version of the story against Gerard’s. It was a basic elimination strategy. It was covering all the bases.

As he cleared the Las Vegas strip and got onto the open road, Bosch’s thoughts came back to the victim. Alexandra Parks was a public official. Among her duties was running West Hollywood’s consumer protection unit. It would have been highly embarrassing and even job threatening should it turn out that she wore a stolen watch. Bosch wondered what she did in the hours between when Gerard planted the suggestion that she had been doing just that, and the second call when he told her it was a false alarm. He knew she called Nelson Grant & Sons. But who else did she call? Her husband, the Sheriff’s deputy, the man who gave her the watch?

Bosch planned to take a second look at the phone records in the murder book when he got back to Los Angeles. Before he dismissed the watch from having any significance to the case, he still had work to do.

As he was cruising through Primm, the last stop for gambling before the California border, Bosch got a call. It was marked Unknown Caller on his screen but he took it because this most likely meant it was a cop.

“Harry, say it ain’t so.”

“Who is this?”

“Tim Marcia. The word around here today is that you’ve crossed over.”

Marcia had been in the Open-Unsolved Unit with Bosch. He was still fighting the good fight and if anyone deserved an explanation from Bosch it was him.

“Only temporarily,” Bosch said. “And it’s a Sheriff’s case, not LAPD.”

“Well, I’m not sure that’s going to make a lot of difference around here,” Marcia said. “But that’s all right with me. Especially the temporary part.”

“Thanks, Tim. So who’s putting out the word?”

“What I heard was that the Sheriff’s Department was checking you out. Somebody over there put in a call to the captain and then he was more than happy to spread the word that you were working for the other side.”

“No surprise there. Look, like I said, this is temporary. And for the record, I think the Sheriff’s may have blown this case and gotten the wrong guy.”

“I hear ya. Just keep your head down, brother.”

“Yeah, will do.”

Bosch disconnected and went back to grinding the case but was soon interrupted by another call from an unknown caller. He took this one and didn’t recognize the male voice.

“This is Kim.”

“Okay. What’s up, Kim?”

Bosch couldn’t think of who he knew named Kim.

“I have phone number of dead guy’s friend,” Kim said.

Bosch realized he was talking to the manager of Haven House.

“That’s good,” he said. “But I’m on a freeway and can’t write. Can I call you back as soon as I can?”

“You buy number,” Kim said. “Fifty dollar.”

Bosch remembered the bounty he had offered Kim for connecting him to any friends or associates of James Allen.

“Okay, I owe you fifty,” Bosch said.

“You pay me now first,” said Kim.

“Okay, okay. I’m out of town right now. As soon as I get back I will come see you, okay?”

“You pay me. I give you number.”

“That’s a deal.”

Another hour went by and he soon realized he had fueled himself on nothing but coffee and adrenaline through the day and had to stop to eat. He took the Route 66 exit into Victorville and ordered a hamburger at a roadside diner.

The hamburger came between two slices of sourdough toast. It hit the spot and he was soon heading back to the 15. At a truck stop by the freeway entrance, he was gassing up the Cherokee when his phone buzzed and the ID once again said Unknown Caller. He took the call and did not recognize the voice that cursed him.

“You asshole, Bosch. You ever come up against me on a case and I’ll kick your ass.”

“Who is this?”

“It’s your fucking conscience. You know you’re betraying a lot of people around here. You—”

“Fuck off.”

Bosch disconnected. He knew not every one of his former brothers and sisters in blue were going to be as understanding as Tim Marcia and Lucia Soto. He finished gassing up and walked around the Cherokee to eye check the tires, a long-held habit. He then got back out on the road.

Five minutes after he merged onto the freeway, his phone buzzed with yet another call from an unknown caller. Bosch decided he didn’t need the aggravation and distraction. He didn’t take the call and was surprised when the message alert sounded. Leaving a recording of a threatening nature was not smart. Curious about who would make such a bad move, he played the message.

“Harry Bosch, this is Dick Sutton with the Sheriff’s Department. I need you to call me as soon as you get this message. We have a situation here and it’s urgent.”

Sutton left his cell number and before ending the message once again urged Bosch to call back quickly.

Bosch did not immediately return the call. He thought about things first. He knew Dick Sutton. Bosch had worked with him on a few interagency task forces, and though they never got closer than that, Bosch had formed a good opinion of the man. Sutton was a plainspoken Oklahoman who didn’t play games. He was a senior investigator in the Sheriff’s Homicide Unit and Bosch wondered if he was now somehow involved in the Lexi Parks case.

Harry listened to the message one more time to memorize the number, then made the call back. Sutton answered immediately.

“It’s Harry Bosch.”

“Good, Harry, where are you?”

“The fifteen freeway coming back from Vegas.”

“You were in Vegas today?”

“That’s right. What’s up?”

“Harry, we need you to come in and talk to us. How far out are you?”

“Depending on traffic, two hours max. What do I need to talk to you about, Dick?”

“There was a double-homicide today in West Hollywood. Two guys who run a jewelry store in Sunset Plaza. A place called Nelson Grant and Sons. You know it?”

“You know I do, Dick. You found my business card, right?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s right. When were you in there?”

“This morning, when one of them unlocked the door and opened up.”

There was a long pause before Sutton responded.

“Well, Harry,” he said. “You got lucky.”

“Tell me about it.”

“I will when you get here. Come straightaway, okay?”

“No problem. But let me ask you something, Dick. Am I a suspect?”

“Harry, come on, you and I, we go way back. You’re not a suspect. We need your help. We don’t have anything going on this and can use all the help we can get.”

“You at the scene?”

“I am now but I’ll be leaving soon for the West Hollywood substation to start talking to people.”

Bosch knew this meant that others had been brought in to be interviewed.

“You know where it is, right?” Sutton asked.

“On San Vicente,” Bosch said.

“That’s the one.”

“I’ll see you there.”

After disconnecting, Bosch thought about what Sutton had said about him not being a suspect. It was counter to the other thing he said about not having anything going on the investigation. The rule was that when you were drawing blanks on a case, then everybody was a suspect.

Bosch liked and respected Sutton but he had to recognize the situation he was in. He was on the other side of the aisle now, the so-called dark side, and Sutton would certainly view him differently than he did when they were fellow homicide investigators working out of different law enforcement agencies.

Bosch decided to call Mickey Haller to tell him what was going on. There was no answer, so he left a message.

“It’s Bosch. At seven o’clock tonight I’m going to need you to meet me in front of the Sheriff’s West Hollywood substation. I’m going in to see a homicide investigator named Dick Sutton and I think I might need a lawyer.”

Bosch almost disconnected at that point but then added one more thing.

“And Haller, be careful. I don’t know what’s going on but... just watch your back.”