The Crossing

38

It wasn’t that Bosch had expected Cisco to identify one of his attackers as Ellis or Long, but he had hoped for further confirmation of his belief that the two vice cops were behind everything that had happened involving the case.

Still, he was undaunted and knew of other ways to close in on the proof. First stop on that path was the Hollywood Athletic Club. He went directly from Westwood and along the way called Haller, who picked up right away.

“Good morning,” he said cheerily. “I was just about to call you.”

“I was going to leave a message,” Bosch said. “Last night you said you had court.”

“I did, but I’m done.”

“You sound happy. Let me guess, you got another case dismissed and another drug dealer goes free.”

“I’m happy but not because of another case. I have news. But you go first. You called me.”

“All right, well, I just came from talking to Cisco. He never got a look at whoever ran him off the road. But he did describe the car — right down to the yellow brake calipers. It was a burnt-orange Camaro with black rims. I was calling to see if it rings any bells with you.”

There was a moment before Haller answered.

“No,” he finally said. “Should it?”

“What about the car that pulled you over on the DUI?” Bosch asked.

“No, it wasn’t a Camaro. It was a Dodge. A Challenger or a Charger. I didn’t look all that closely but definitely not a Camaro.”

“You sure?”

“Hey, I’m the Lincoln Lawyer. I know cars. Plus it wasn’t burnt orange. It was jet-black. Like the souls of those two fuckers who were riding in it.”

“Okay, well, that’s all I had. Strike two. First Cisco, now you. Lift my spirits. What’s your news?”

“Got our DNA back today.”

“And Foster isn’t a match.”

“No, not quite. He’s a match, all right.”

“And that’s what’s making you so happy?”

“No, the condom trace evidence is what’s doing that. You were right. They found it in the sample.”

Bosch thought about that. It was a moment of vindication. The finding supported the case theory that semen from Da’Quan Foster could have been transported to the murder scene and planted in and on the body of Alexandra Parks.

“Next, they have to try to match it to a specific brand,” Haller said. “Allen’s brand. We get that, and they won’t be able to wriggle out of this by claiming he had a condom all along and it just broke.”

“Okay,” Bosch said.

“You know, usually I feel like I’m shooting at the state’s case with a damn BB gun. I’m beginning to think we got ourselves a shotgun on this one. Double-barrel. We are going to blow big holes in their case. Big fucking holes.”

Haller sounded almost giddy about the DNA analysis. But for Bosch the upcoming trial was still too far distant. Long and Ellis were running around loose and five weeks was too long to wait to get something done.

“All you think about is the trial,” Bosch snapped.

“Because that’s my job,” Haller said. “Our job. What’s going on, Harry? I thought this would be good news for you. You’re on the right track, man.”

“What’s going on is Ellis and Long are out there doing what they do. They’re watching my house, they know about my kid. I can’t prove it yet but I think they took out Cisco because somehow he threatened them, and now I’m threatening them. The trial is more than a month away and we have to be thinking about the right now. You get Foster off at trial and so what? The prosecution will spin it, call it smoke and mirrors and not do anything about these two guys. What happens then?”

Haller took some time to compose his response.

“Harry, you spent all those years chasing killers and I know that’s your natural instinct, to do it here,” he said. “But I keep telling you, we are working this from a different angle. It’s not what you’re used to, but our responsibility above all is to the client. We can’t do anything that may hurt the possibility of a successful defense at trial. Now, I know it’s going to take some getting used to but—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bosch interrupted. “I don’t want to get used to it. After this, I’m done.”

“Well, suit yourself. We’ll talk about it down the line.”

“What about us going into LAPD and showing what we got? I can make the case that they need to take these two off the street. At the very least, they’ll put eyeballs on them.”

“Not going to happen,” Haller said emphatically. “We do that and we are giving the prosecution five weeks to prepare for what they’ll know we are bringing.”

“Maybe there won’t even be a trial. They bring these two in, play them against each other, and one guy coughs up the other — oldest trick in the book. End of case.”

“Too risky. I’m not going to do it. And you aren’t either.”

Bosch was silent. He had to consider Haller’s motives. Was he really protecting his client’s chances at a not-guilty verdict or preserving his own shot at glory at trial? A murder case provided the biggest stage in the courthouse. If Haller won at trial, he’d be the hero and prospective clients would start lining up. If the case never made it to trial, somebody else would get the applause.

“You still there?” Haller asked.

“Yeah,” Bosch said. “We’re not done talking about this.”

“All right, all right. Tell you what, let’s meet tomorrow morning. Breakfast at Du-Par’s. How’s eight o’clock sound? You make your case to me. I’ll listen.”

“Which Du-Par’s?”

“Farmer’s Market.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Where are you headed now?”

“Hollywood. To check something out.”

Haller waited for more but Bosch wasn’t giving. He tried to shake off his upset and refocus.

“I’ll let you know if it pans out,” he finally said.

“Okay,” Haller said. “See you tomorrow.”

Bosch disconnected, pulled the earbud out, and dropped the phone into one of the cup holders in the center console. He regretted his outburst with Haller but there was nothing to do about it now. He focused on his driving as he took Fairfax up from Santa Monica to Sunset.

A few years earlier it was discovered that members of an Armenian street gang had rented an office suite in the twelve-story building located at Sunset and Wilcox. The office was on the seventh floor and at the back of the building, where its windows overlooked the LAPD Hollywood Station with a full view of its rear door and adjoining parking lots. By posting someone behind a telescope in the office twenty-four hours a day the gang was able to gather intelligence on the undercover Narcotics and Vice Units as well as the gang-suppression teams. They learned the times when the various units were on duty, when they were out on the streets, and the general direction they went after mounting up in the parking lot and heading through the gate.

At some point an informant revealed the existence of the spy post to a DEA handler and it was shut down in an FBI raid that thoroughly embarrassed the department. The FBI seized surveillance logbooks that had individual code names for various members of the Hollywood Station units, describing both their personal cars and their undercover vehicles. It was also discovered that the Armenian gang had been selling the fruits of their intelligence gathering to other gangs and criminal enterprises operating in Hollywood.

The department instituted several procedural changes designed to prevent such embarrassment from happening again. Among them was moving the undercover car pool from the station lot to an off-site lot where space was donated by a supportive local business — the Hollywood Athletic Club. As with most secrets within the department, the location of the undercover lot was not so secret. The spy post scandal had occurred after Bosch moved to the Open-Unsolved Unit in the downtown PAB, but even he had heard where they had moved the UC car lot to.

The HAC was on Sunset and only a few blocks from the Hollywood Station. Its parking lot was behind it and was surrounded by buildings on three sides and a fence on the fourth that ran along Selma. There was no parking attendant on-site but a key card was required to enter through the gate.

Bosch didn’t have a key card but he didn’t need to enter the lot. He parked at the curb on Selma, got out, and walked to the fence. He knew it was a good time to inventory the UC cars, because almost all of them would be in the lot. It was only 10 a.m. and the vice, drug, and gang teams that used the cars kept the same hours as their prey. That is, they started operations in the afternoons and worked into the nights. The mornings were for sleeping late.

The pool cars used by the undercover teams were changed out or swapped with other divisions at least once a year to avoid familiarity on the street. Some were pulled out of circulation for a month here and there as well. Some were traded with other divisions so each would have fresh cars. It had been two months since Cisco Wojciechowski had been run into oncoming traffic and so there was a possibility that the burnt-orange Camaro that Bosch was looking for would be gone already. The fact that Ellis and Long were using a different UC car when they bagged Haller on the DUI seemed to indicate that the car had been changed over. On the other hand, Bosch thought, if they had committed a crime in the Camaro, they might trade it in right away for a different car. A jet-black Dodge, for example.

Either way Bosch had to make sure, and his diligence paid off. He spotted the familiar front lights of a Camaro that was backed into a parking spot against the rear wall of the lot. It had a heavy layer of smog dust on its windshield and obviously had not been driven for quite a while. He had to move down the fence a few paces to get a side angle on it and confirm its color: burnt orange.

He used his phone to take a photo of the car. He then texted it to the number Cisco had given him earlier with a question: Is this the car?

Bosch walked back to his rental. Cisco answered as he was opening the door: I think so. Looks like it.

Bosch got into the car. He felt the spark ignite in his bloodstream. Seeing the Camaro confirmed only a small part of his theory and was proof of nothing, but the charge of adrenaline came nonetheless. He was putting pieces of the puzzle together, and there was always a charge when even the smallest pieces fit. The Camaro was important. If Ellis and Long were using it when they ran Cisco off the road, they may have been using it a few weeks earlier when James Allen’s body was transported to the alley off of El Centro.

He got back in the Chrysler and worked his way down to Santa Monica and then over to the Hollywood Forever cemetery. He parked in front of the office, went in, and found Oscar Gascon behind the desk in his little office. He recognized Bosch from the prior visit.

“Detective, you’re back,” he said.

“I am,” Bosch said. “How’s business?”

“Still dead. You need to look at my cameras again?”

“That’s right. But I’ve got a different date for you. When I was here before, you said the LAPD guys came by to look at tape for the night of that murder down at the Haven House.”

“That’s right.”

“All right if I take a look at the same night?”

Gascon studied Bosch for a moment like he was trying to figure out his angle. Finally, he shrugged.

“Don’t see why not.”

It took Gascon five minutes to retrieve the video from the cloud of the night James Allen was murdered. He put it on fast play and Bosch watched the entrance of the motel property.

“What are we looking for?” Gascon asked.

Bosch answered without taking his eyes off the screen.

“A burnt-orange Camaro,” he said.

They watched silently for the next ten minutes. Cars moved up and down Santa Monica with an unnatural speed. Bosch decided that if they got through the night without seeing the Camaro, he would ask to watch it again on a slower speed. Gascon might object to that but Bosch would push for it.

“There,” Gascon suddenly said. “Was that a Camaro?”

“Slow it,” Bosch said.

The playback went to normal speed and they watched wordlessly. The car they had seen enter the Haven House parking lot did not come back out. Bosch realized that there was no reason to think the car would reemerge quickly.

“Let’s back it up and see that again,” he said.

Gascon did as instructed. Then on his own he put the playback on slow motion. They waited and an orange car came into the screen from the left side and turned left toward the motel entrance.

“Freeze it,” Bosch ordered.

Gascon froze the image as the car was crossing the westbound lanes of Santa Monica. It was directly sideways to the camera but the image was grainy and undefined. The general lines of the car appeared to match those of a Camaro. A two-door coupe design with a sleek, low profile roof.

“What do you think?” Gascon asked.

Bosch didn’t answer. He was studying the dark band of windows on the car and the matching dark wheels. It was close but Bosch couldn’t call it. He wondered if Haller’s videoenhancement person could improve the image.

“Go ahead and play it,” he said. “Speed it up.”

He noted the time on the bottom of the screen. The orange car entered the motel lot at 11:09 p.m. Gascon went back to triple speed and they sat and watched silently for several minutes. Several cars went in and out. It was a busy night at the motel. Finally, the orange car appeared and disappeared. Gascon reversed the video and they watched again on slow speed. The car pulled out of the motel without stopping, turned right, and went west on Santa Monica and out of the frame.

“He’s in a hurry now,” Gascon said.

Bosch looked at the time counter. The orange car left at 11:32 p.m., just twenty-three minutes after entering. Bosch wondered if that was enough time for them to go into Allen’s room and extricate him, alive or dead.

“When the LAPD guys were here, did they key on this car?” Bosch asked.

“Uh, no, not really,” Gascon said. “They watched for a while and seemed like they thought it was kind of useless. They took a copy to give to the Video Tech Unit for enhancement. I never heard from them after that.”

Bosch kept his eyes on the playback while they talked. From the right side of the screen he now saw an orange car moving west on Santa Monica toward the Haven House. It crossed the screen and turned into the entryway before disappearing.

“He’s back,” he said.

Gascon looked at the screen but the car was already gone.

“Back it up,” Bosch instructed. “He comes in from the east this time. Freeze it when he gets to the center.”

Gascon quickly executed and Bosch leaned in close to the screen. There was a head visible in the car as it crossed directly in front of the cemetery. The image was still small and grainy but it was more defined because the car was closer to the camera. Bosch had no doubt now that it was a Camaro. From this angle, he could even see a few yellow pixels in the center of the black wheels — the yellow brake calipers that Cisco Wojciechowski had described.

But the distance from the camera and the dark-tinted windows made it impossible for Bosch to get a bead on the driver.

“Okay, play it,” he said. “Let’s see how long they stay this time.”

Bosch noted that the time on the video was now 11:41 p.m. They watched the Camaro turn into the motel entrance again. Gascon then sped the playback and they watched and waited. Bosch thought about why there had been two visits to the motel. He guessed that the first time, Ellis and Long may have been casing the motel and Allen’s room. Another possibility was that the rear parking lot was too busy with people coming and going. A third possibility was that Allen was with a client.

This time the Camaro did not emerge for fifty-one minutes. Once again it left quickly, turning right without stopping as it emerged and then going west and out of the picture. Bosch considered the time that had elapsed, and his instincts told him that James Allen was dead and in the trunk of the Camaro when it drove out of the frame.

“What do you think?” Gascon asked.

“I think I need a copy of that,” he said.

“Got a drive?”

“Nope.”

“How about two hundred beans, like I got before?”

“I have that.”

“Then let me see if I can find somebody around here with a drive.”