The Crossing

31

Haller was waiting for Bosch on the front steps of the Sheriff’s substation on San Vicente Boulevard by the Pacific Design Center. Before going in, Bosch filled him in on what he knew and what he guessed was about to go down. Haller said he would protect Bosch from making any misstep but that he also wanted Bosch to think about what best served their client before he answered every question.

“Remember, you don’t carry a badge anymore,” Haller said as he opened the front door of the substation.

Dick Sutton was waiting for Bosch in the detective bureau. As a well-known defense attorney and former candidate for district attorney, Haller was immediately recognized by Sutton.

“Oh, come on, we’re old friends here,” he said. “A defense attorney, Harry? Really? There’s no need for extreme measures.”

“I don’t think that protecting oneself legally is an extreme measure,” Haller said.

“Sorry, Dick,” Bosch said. “But I’ve got a kid and no wife and I need to make sure I get home tonight.”

He didn’t bother to mention that his kid was out in Big Bear for the next three nights.

“Well, I’ve got a double homicide and I think you might be the only man who can help me make sense of it,” Sutton responded. “Let’s go into the meeting room and put our cards on the table.”

He escorted Bosch and Haller into a large meeting room with a wide oval table big enough to seat the board of directors of a midsize company. It was a smooth move on Sutton’s part, not putting Bosch into a regular interrogation room. That would have iced things over. Instead, he was trying to make Bosch feel like he was part of the investigation, not the subject of it.

Waiting and already seated were Cornell and Schmidt, whom Bosch had just met that morning, and another man he didn’t recognize but assumed was Sutton’s partner.

“I understand you already know Detectives Cornell and Schmidt,” Sutton said. “And this is Gil Contreras, who puts up with me.”

Sutton pointed to the visitors and introduced Bosch and his lawyer. A mild grumbling about the lawyer followed, and Haller attempted to quell it by holding his hands up as if in surrender.

“I’m just here to protect my client and facilitate an exchange of information I hope will be beneficial to us all,” he said.

Haller and Bosch pulled out chairs next to each other and sat down. Sutton moved around the table and sat next to his partner and directly across the table from Bosch.

“Isn’t that some kind of a conflict of interest?” Schmidt said.

Haller calmly clasped his hands together on the table and leaned forward so he could see past Bosch and down the table to Schmidt.

“How so, Detective?” he asked.

“He’s your investigator on the Parks case and now you say he’s your client,” she said.

“I don’t see it,” Haller said. “But if you want to postpone this meeting until we can find a lawyer for Mr. Bosch that passes your conflict test, then we can do that. Not a problem.”

“We don’t want to do that,” Sutton interjected quickly. “Let’s just have a talk among friends here.”

He threw Schmidt a look that said, Stand down.

“Then, where do we start?” Haller said.

Sutton nodded, appearing to be happy to get by the potential roadblock Schmidt had blundered into. He opened a file that was on the table in front of him. Bosch could see several notes written on a piece of paper clipped to the left side. On the right side was a plastic sleeve used to protect documents that had evidentiary value in an investigation.

“Let’s start with this,” Sutton said.

He picked up the sleeve and slid it across the table to a spot where both Bosch and Haller could see it. It contained what Bosch assumed was the same business card he had given Peter Nguyen that morning in the jewelry store.

“Is that your card, Harry?” Sutton asked.

“Looks like it,” Bosch said.

Haller put his hand on Bosch’s arm, a warning about answering questions before he had legally vetted them. Bosch had called Haller but that was for the larger picture. He was not going to engage in games with Sutton for the sake of games. Harry had been across the table from that kind of guy before and it was the last person he wanted to be.

“Can you tell us who you gave it to?” Sutton asked.

“We’re going to step outside,” Haller said quickly. “It’ll just be a quick minute.”

“These are basic questions,” Sutton said, protest in his voice.

“Just a quick conference,” Haller said.

He got up and Bosch reluctantly followed, embarrassed that he was acting the way he had seen so many suspects act with their attorneys over his years as a detective.

They stepped into the hallway and Haller pulled the door closed. Bosch spoke first.

“Look, I need to tell them what I know,” he said. “This may actually help Foster. I didn’t call you out so you could object to every—”

“It’s not Foster that I’m worried about,” Haller said. “If you think they’re not looking at you for this, then you are not as smart as I thought you were, Bosch.”

“They have nothing. When you have nothing, everybody’s a suspect. I get that. They’ll see pretty quick that I’m not the guy.”

Bosch made a move toward the door.

“Then, why am I here?” Haller asked.

Bosch paused with his hand on the doorknob. He looked back at Haller.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to need you,” he said. “But not until we get this basic stuff out of the way.”

“Let me try one thing when we go back in,” Haller said. “Just a quick thing. Let me talk first.”

“What?”

“You’ll see.”

Bosch frowned but opened the door and they went back to their seats.

“Detectives, let’s make this a fair playing field,” Haller said. “Let’s make it a fair trade of information.”

“We’re not trading information on a double homicide,” Sutton said. “We ask questions, Harry answers them. That’s how it goes.”

“How about we ask a question for every question you ask?” Haller insisted. “For example, what are Cornell and Schmidt doing here? Is this double homicide you’re investigating related to the Parks case?”

Sutton looked annoyed and Bosch knew why. The one lawyer in the room was trying to hijack the interview.

“We don’t know what this case is related to,” he said impatiently. “Harry’s card was found at the crime scene and it so happened that I heard these two talking about Bosch earlier today. So I called them out. Does that answer your question? Can I ask mine now?”

“Please,” Haller said. “It’s a two-way street.”

Sutton turned his attention to Bosch.

“Harry, this card was found in the coat pocket of one of two men shot to death late this morning in the rear room of the Nelson Grant and Sons jewelry store. Can you tell me about it?”

“I’m assuming it was in the pocket of Peter Nguyen,” Bosch said. “I gave it to him this morning when I was in the store.”

“Exactly what time was that?”

“I was there as soon as he unlocked the door at ten. I was gone by ten-fifteen tops. Who was the other victim?”

Sutton hesitated before answering but not for too long.

“His brother, Paul.”

“I don’t think he was there when I was but he might have been expected. Peter kept checking the door to the back room like he was waiting for somebody to come through. When did this go down?”

“We’re not sure yet. They were found by a customer about noon. They were on the floor in the back room. The coroner will narrow it down later.”

“No video?”

Cornell raised his hands in frustration.

“He’s asking all of the questions,” he said. “Just ask him what the fuck he was doing in there.”

Sutton held Cornell with his eyes, silently communicating the rebuke for the interruption and the language. Sutton’s glare reminded Cornell and Schmidt that they were observers. This was Sutton and his partner’s case.

“No, no video,” Sutton said. “Whoever killed them took the disc out of the recorder. It’s an old system with no backup to the cloud. The shopkeeper next door thought she saw two men go in that back door off the rear parking lot about ten forty-five. They were wearing white overalls. She thought they were window washers. She didn’t hear any shots.”

“Two men...”

“Yes, two men. We’re looking for cameras in the area but so far no luck with that. So what were you doing in there, Harry?”

Bosch felt a sense of dread crowd into his chest. He couldn’t help but feel responsible for the killing of the Nguyen brothers. All of his instincts told him he had led the killers there, or at the very least created the need for the Nguyen brothers to be killed.

“What was taken?” he asked.

“Harry, your lawyer said this is a two-way street,” Sutton said. “You’re giving me nothing and you’re asking all the questions.”

“Just answer one last question. Was it a robbery or an execution?”

Sutton shook his head. He had let the interview get away from him. Bosch had seized control.

“It was certainly either a robbery or made to look like a robbery,” he said. “One of the display cases was cleaned out.”

“Only one?” Bosch asked. “Which one?”

“The case on the right when you walk in the front door.”

“That was the estate stuff, right?”

Sutton shook his head.

“That’s it, Harry. No more. You answer questions now. Why did you go in there this morning?”

Haller leaned in close to Bosch and whispered.

“Let me remind you that you are working for me and the protection of confidentiality that my client enjoys extends from me to you,” he said. “So you be careful here.”

Bosch looked at Sutton.

“I have a confidentiality issue here,” he said. “I am working as a defense investigator and I can’t talk to you about things pertaining to that case without my client or his attorney’s approval.”

“And you’re not going to get that,” Haller added.

Bosch backed him off with his hand and continued.

“Suffice it to say I don’t know who killed the Nguyen brothers,” he said. “If I did, I would tell you, client or no client.”

“What were you doing there?” Sutton asked.

Bosch looked directly at Cornell while he answered.

“I was asking about a watch they sold about six months ago to the husband of an Alexandra Parks. As you know, she was murdered. Her watch was unaccounted for in the investigative file. I don’t like loose ends like that and was trying to tie it up.”

“Was Peter Nguyen helpful?”

“No, he was not.”

“Was that where the watch was bought?”

“I believe so.”

“And what makes you believe that?”

Haller answered before Bosch could.

“He’s not going to answer that,” Haller said. “I think we need to cut this off here, Detectives.”

Cornell muttered something under his breath again and Haller jumped on it.

“What’s that? You have a problem with Harry Bosch doing your job for you?”

“Fuck you, lawyer,” Cornell said. “This is all just smoke and mirrors — trying to muddy the waters your client is drowning in. He’s still going down.”

“You keep thinking that,” Haller said. “And we might go out and solve this thing for you. I mean really solve it, not pin it on somebody.”

“I’m truly frightened of that.”

Haller shook off the sarcasm with a killer smile aimed at Cornell and then slowly turned toward Sutton.

“What do you say, Detective? Anything else?”

“Not for now,” Sutton said.

“Then we won’t trouble you any further.”

Haller got up and Bosch followed. They didn’t speak until they were standing on the sidewalk outside the building. Bosch was upset. He felt as though he had betrayed someone — maybe himself.

“Look, I don’t like doing it this way,” he said. “I should be telling them everything I know.”

“Really?” Haller said. “What exactly do you know? The truth is, you don’t know anything. We don’t know anything. Not yet.”

“I know that I probably led those two killers to the two brothers in that store.”

“Really? How? You’re saying that the two brothers weren’t involved in this and they got whacked because you talked to them?”

“No, I... Look, less than an hour after I was in that store, they get hit. You’re saying that’s a coincidence?”

“What I’m saying is we don’t know enough to go around telling the cops anything, not when we have a client in county who is looking at the rest of his life in prison.”

Haller pointed in the direction of downtown even though it was miles from where they stood.

“That is where our allegiance lies,” he said. “Not to those assholes in that room.”

“I used to be one of those assholes,” Bosch said.

“Look, all I’m saying is we’re still pulling in the nets, Harry. Let’s finish pulling them in and then see what we got. Then we decide what we tell and who we tell it to and, most important of all, where we tell it. We’ve got a trial in five weeks and we need to know the whole story by then.”

Bosch broke away from him and walked out to the curb. He realized he had made a terrible mistake crossing to the other side of the aisle. Haller came up behind him and spoke to his back.

“Anything we tell them now, we give them the opportunity to turn it against us and our client. Our client, Harry. You have to remember that.”

Bosch shook his head and looked off down the street.

“What did those two brothers know?” Haller asked. “Why were they killed?”

Bosch turned and looked at Haller.

“I don’t know yet. But I will.”

“All right, then. What’s next?”

“I picked up a name in Vegas. A guy in Beverly Hills who may know the secret behind this watch. Behind everything. He’s next.”

“All right. Keep me informed.”

“Yeah, will do. And listen, if they followed me to the jewelry store, they might also be following you.”

“I haven’t seen any sign of that.”

“That’s the point. You wouldn’t. You have anyone who can check your car? I’m going to check mine.”

“I’ll get it done.”

“Good. Like I said before, be careful. Watch your back.”

“You, too.”