Trunk Music

PART VI

BOSCH PICKED UP two containers of coffee and two glazed doughnuts from Bob’s in the farmers market at seven Saturday morning, then drove to the clearing where Tony Aliso’s body had been found in the trunk of his car. As he ate and drank, he looked out on the marine layer shrouding the quiet city below. The sun rising behind the towers of downtown cast them as opaque monoliths in the haze. It was beautiful but Bosch felt as though he were the only one in the world seeing it.

When he had finished eating, he used a napkin he had wet in the water fountain at the farmers market to clean the sticky residue of sugar off his fingers. He then stuffed all the papers and the first empty coffee cup back into the doughnut bag and started the car.

Bosch had fallen asleep early Friday evening and awakened in his clothes before sunrise. He felt the need to get out of the house and do something. He had always believed that you could make things happen in an investigation by staying busy and with hard work. He decided that he would use the morning to try to find the spot where Tony Aliso’s Rolls-Royce was intercepted and pulled over by his killers.

He concluded for a couple of reasons that the abduction had to have taken place on Mulholland Drive near the entrance to Hidden Highlands. First, the clearing where the car had been found was off Mulholland. If the abduction had taken place near the airport, it was likely the car would have been dumped near the airport, not fifteen miles away. And second, the abduction could be done more easily and quietly up on Mulholland in the dark. The airport and the surrounding area were always congested with traffic and people and would have presented too much of a risk.

The next question was whether Aliso had been followed from the airport or his killers simply waited for him at the abduction spot on Mulholland. Bosch decided on the latter, figuring that it was a small operation-two people, tops-and a tail and vehicle stop would be too iffy a proposition, particularly in Los Angeles, where every owner of a Rolls-Royce would be acutely aware of the danger of carjackings. He thought that they had waited on Mulholland and somehow created a trap or scene that made Aliso stop his car, even though he was carrying $480,000 in cash in his briefcase. And Bosch guessed that the only way Aliso would make such a stop was if that scenario involved his wife. In his mind Bosch saw the headlights of the Rolls-Royce sweeping around a curve and illuminating a frantically waving Veronica Aliso. Tony would stop for that.

Bosch knew that the waiting spot had to be on a place on Mulholland they were sure Tony would pass. There were only two logical routes from the airport to Mulholland Drive and then to the gatehouse at Hidden Highlands. One way would be to go north on the 405 freeway and simply take the Mulholland Drive exit. The other way would have been to take La Cienega Boulevard from the airport north to Laurel Canyon and up the hill to Mulholland.

The two routes had only a one-mile stretch of Mulholland in common. And since there was no way of knowing for sure which route Aliso would take home that night, it seemed obvious to Bosch that the car stop and abduction would have been somewhere along that one mile of road. It was here that Bosch came, and for nearly an hour he drove back and forth along the stretch, finally settling on the spot he would have chosen for the abduction if it had been his plan. The location was at the bend in a hairpin curve a half mile from the Hidden Highlands gatehouse. It was in an area with few homes and those that were there were built on the south side on a promontory well above the road. On the north side, the undeveloped land dropped steeply away from the road into a heavily wooded arroyo where eucalyptus and acacia trees crowded one another. It was the perfect spot. Secluded, out of sight.

Once again Bosch envisioned Tony Aliso coming around the curve and the lights of his Rolls coming upon his own wife in the road. Aliso stops, confused-what is she doing there? He gets out and from the north side of the road her accomplice emerges. She hits her husband with the spray, the accomplice goes to the Rolls and pops the trunk. Aliso’s hands are clawing at his eyes when he is roughly thrown into the trunk and his hands tied behind him. All they had to worry about was a car coming around the curve and throwing its lights on them. But at that late hour on Mulholland, it didn’t seem likely. The whole thing could have been done in fifteen seconds. That’s why the spray was used. Not because it was a woman, but because it would make it fast.

Bosch pulled off the road, got out and looked around. The spot had the right feel to him. It was as quiet as death. He decided that he would come back that night to see it in darkness, to further confirm what he felt in his gut to be true.

He crossed the street and looked down into the arroyo where her accomplice would have hidden and waited. Looking down he tried to find a spot just off the road where a man could have ducked down and been concealed. He noticed a dirt trail going into the woods and stepped down to it, looking for shoe prints. There were many prints and he squatted down to study them. The ground here was dusty and some of the prints were fully recognizable. He found prints from two distinctly different sets of shoes, an old pair of shoes with worn heels and a much newer pair with heels that left sharp lines in the dirt. Neither pair was what he was looking for, the work-shoe pattern with the cut in the sole that Donovan had noticed.

Bosch’s eyes looked up from the ground and followed the trail into the brush and trees. He decided to take a few more steps in, lifted a branch of an acacia and ducked under it. After his eyes adjusted to the darkness under the canopy of foliage, they were drawn to a blue object he could see but not identify about twenty yards further into the dense growth. He would have to leave the trail to get to it, but he decided to investigate.

After slowly moving ten feet into the brush, he could see that the blue object was part of a plastic tarp, the kind you saw on roofs all over the city after an earthquake knocked down chimneys and opened up the seams of buildings. Bosch stepped closer and saw that two corners of the tarp were tied to trees and it was hung over the branch of a third, creating a small shelter on a level portion of the hillside. He watched for a few moments but saw no movement.

It was impossible to come up on the shelter quietly. The ground was covered with a thick layer of dead and dried leaves and twigs that crackled under Bosch’s feet. When he was ten feet from the canvas tarp, a man’s hoarse voice stopped him.

“I’ve got a gun, you fuckers!”

Bosch stood stock-still and stared at the tarp. Because it was draped over the long branch of an acacia tree, he was in a blind spot. He could not see whoever it was who had yelled. And the man who yelled probably couldn’t see him. Bosch decided to take a chance.

“I’ve got one, too,” he called back. “And a badge.”

“Police? I didn’t call the police!”

There was a hysterical tinge to the voice now, and Bosch suspected he was dealing with one of the homeless wanderers who were dumped out of mental institutions during the massive cutbacks in public assistance in the 1980s. The city was teeming with them. They stood at almost every major intersection holding their signs and shaking their change cups, they slept under overpasses or burrowed like termites into the woods on the hillsides, living in makeshift camps just yards from million-dollar mansions.

“I’m just passing through,” Bosch yelled. “You put down yours, I’ll put down mine.”

Bosch guessed that the man behind the scared voice didn’t even have a gun.

“Okay. It’s a deal.”

Bosch unsnapped the holster under his arm but left his gun in place. He walked the final few steps and came slowly around the trunk of the acacia. A man with long gray hair and beard flowing over a blue silk Hawaiian shirt sat cross-legged on a blanket under the tarp. There was a wild look in his eyes. Bosch quickly scanned the man’s hands and the surroundings within his immediate reach and saw no weapon. He eased up a bit and nodded at the man.

“Hello,” he said.

“I didn’t do nothin’.”

“I understand.”

Bosch looked around. There were folded clothes and towels under the shelter of the tarp. There was a small folding card table with a frying pan on it along with some candles and Sterno cans, two forks and a spoon, but no knife. Bosch figured the man had the knife under his shirt or maybe hidden in the blanket. There was also a bottle of cologne on the table, and Bosch could tell that it had been liberally sprinkled about the shelter. Also under the tarp were an old tar bucket filled with crushed aluminum cans, a stack of newspapers and a dog-eared paperback copy of Stranger in a Strange Land.

He stepped to the edge of the man’s clearing and squatted like a baseball catcher so they could face each other on the same level. He took a look around the outer edge of the clearing and saw that this was where the man discarded what he didn’t need. There were bags of trash and remnants of clothing. By the base of another acacia there was a brown-and-green suit bag. It was unzipped and lying open like a gutted fish. Bosch looked back at the man. He could see he wore two other Hawaiian shirts beneath the blue one on top, which had a pattern of hula girls on surfboards. His pants were dirty but had a sharper crease in them than a homeless man’s pants would usually have. His shoes were too well polished for a man of the woods. Bosch guessed that the pair he wore had made some of the prints up on the trail, the ones with the sharp-edged heels.

“That’s a nice shirt,” Bosch said.

“It’s mine.”

“I know. I just said it was nice. What’s your name?”

“Name’s George.”

“George what?”

“George whatever the hell you want it to be.”

“Okay, George whatever the hell you want it to be, why don’t you tell me about that suit bag over there and those clothes you’re wearing? The new shoes. Where did it all come from?”

“It was delivered. It’s mine now.”

“What do you mean by delivered?”

“Delivered. That’s what I mean. Delivered. They gave it all to me.”

Bosch took out his cigarettes, took one and offered the pack to the man. He waved them away.

“Can’t afford it. Take me half a day to find enough cans to buy a pack of smokes. I quit.”

Bosch nodded.

“How long you been livin’ up here, George?”

“All my life.”

“When did they kick you out of Camarillo?”

“Who told you that?”

It had been an educated guess, Camarillo being the nearest state institution.

“They did. How long ago was that?”

“If they told you about me, then they would’ve told you that. I’m not stupid, you know.”

“You got me there, George. About the bag and the clothes, when was it all delivered?”

“I don’t know.”

Bosch got up and went over to the suit bag. There was an identification tag attached to the handle. He turned it over and read Anthony Aliso’s name and address. He noticed the bag was lying on top of a cardboard box that was damaged from a tumble down the hill. Bosch tipped the box with his foot and read the markings on the side.

Scotch standard HS/T-90 VHS 96-count

He left the box and the suit bag there and went back to the man and squatted again.

“How’s last Friday night sound for the delivery?”

“Whatever you say is good.”

“It’s not what I say, George. Now if you want me to leave you alone and you want to stay here, you’ve got to help me. If you go into your nut bag, you’re not helping me. When was it delivered?”

George tucked his chin down on his chest like a boy who’d been chastised by a teacher. He brought a thumb and forefinger up and pressed them against his eyes. His voice came out as if it were being strangled with piano wire.

“I don’t know. They just came and dropped it off for me. That’s all I know.”

“Who dropped it off?”

George looked up, his eyes bright, and pointed upward with one of his dirty fingers. Bosch looked up and saw a patch of blue sky through the upper limbs of the trees. He blew out his breath in exasperation. This wasn’t going anywhere.

“So little green men dropped it down from their spaceship, is that right, George? Is that your story?”

“I didn’t say that. I don’t know if they were green. I didn’t see them.”

“But you saw the spaceship?”

“Nope. I didn’t say that, neither. I didn’t see their craft. Only the landing lights.”

Bosch looked at him a moment.

“Perfect size,” George said. “They got an invisible beam that measures you from up there, you don’t even know it, then they send down the clothes.”

“That’s great.”

Bosch’s knees were beginning to ache. He stood up and they painfully cracked.

“I’m getting too old for this shit, George.”

“That’s a policeman’s line. I watched ‘Kojak’ when I had the house.”

“I know. Tell you what, I’m going to take this suit bag with me, if you don’t mind. And the box of videotapes.”

“Help yourself. I’m not going anywhere. And I don’t have no video machine, either.”

Bosch walked toward the box and bag, wondering why they had been discarded and not just left in the Rolls. After a moment he decided they must have been in the trunk. And in order to make room for Aliso in there, the killers had yanked them out and thrown them down the hill out of sight. They were in a hurry. It was the kind of decision made in haste. A mistake.

He picked up the suit bag by a corner, careful not to touch the handle, though he doubted there would be any prints on it other than George’s. The box was light but bulky. He would have to make a second trip for it. He turned and looked at the homeless man. He decided not to ruin his day yet.

“George, you can keep the clothes for now.”

“Okay, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

As he climbed back up the hill to the road, Bosch was thinking about how he should declare the area a crime scene and call out SID to process everything. But he couldn’t do that. Not without announcing he had been continuing an investigation he had been ordered away from.

It didn’t bother him, however, because by the time he got up to the road, he knew he had a new direction. A plan was coming together. Quickly. Bosch was jazzed. When he stepped onto level ground he punched his fist in the air and walked quickly to his car.

Bosch worked out the details in his head while he was driving to Hidden Highlands. The Plan. He had been like a cork floating in a great wide ocean that was the case. Bouncing with the currents, not in control of anything. But now he had an idea, a plan that would hopefully draw Veronica Aliso into the box.

Nash was in the gatehouse when Bosch pulled up. He stepped out and leaned down on Bosch’s door.

“Morning, Detective Bosch.”

“Howzit going, Captain Nash?”

“It’s going. I gotta say your people are creating a bit of a stir already this morning.”

“Yeah, well, that can happen. Whaddaya gonna do?”

“Go with the flow, I guess. You going in to catch up with them or you heading to Mrs. Aliso’s?”

“I’m going to see the lady.”

“Good. Maybe that’ll get her off my back. I gotta call, you know.”

“Why’s she on your back?”

“She’s just been calling up wondering why you people have been talkin’ to the neighbors all morning.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her they got a job to do and a murder investigation requires them to talk to a lot of people.”

“That’s good. I’ll see you.”

Nash waved him off and opened the gate. Bosch drove to the Aliso house, but before he got there he saw Edgar walking from the front door of the home next door to his car. Bosch stopped and waved him over.

“Harry.”

“Jerry. Get anything yet?”

“Nah, not really. Thing about these rich neighborhoods, it’s like working a shooting in South Central. Nobody ever wants to talk, nobody saw nothing. I get tired of these people.”

“Where’s Kiz?”

“She’s working the other side of the street. We met at the station and took one car. She’s on foot down there somewhere. Hey, Harry, what do you think about her?”

“Kiz? I think she’s good.”

“No, I don’t mean as a cop. You know…what do you think?”

Bosch looked at him.

“You mean like you and her? What do I think?”

“Yeah. Me and her.”

Bosch knew Edgar was six months divorced and starting to pull his head out of the sand again. But he also knew something about Kiz that he didn’t have the right to tell him.

“I don’t know, Jerry. Partners shouldn’t get involved.”

“I suppose. So you going to see the widow now?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe I better go with you. You never know, if she figures out we think she’s it, then she’s liable to wig out, maybe try to take you out.”

“I doubt it. She’s too cool for that. But let’s go find Kiz. I think both of you should come. I’ve got a plan now.”

Veronica Aliso was waiting for them at her door.

“I’ve been waiting for you people to come by to explain just what is going on.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Aliso,” Bosch said. “We’ve been kind of busy.”

She ushered them in.

“Can I get you something?” she asked over her shoulder as she led them in.

“I think we’re fine.”

Part of the plan was for Bosch to do all the talking, if possible. Rider and Edgar were to intimidate her with their silence and their cold-eyed stares.

Bosch and Rider sat where they had sat before and so did Veronica Aliso. Edgar remained standing on the periphery of the seating section of the living room. He put his hand on the mantel of the fireplace and the look on his face said he would rather be anywhere else on the planet on this Saturday morning.

Veronica Aliso was wearing blue jeans, a light blue Oxford shirt and dirty work boots. Her hair was pulled back and pinned up in the back. She was still very attractive though obviously dressing down. Through her open collar Bosch could see a scattering of freckles that he knew from her video went all the way down her chest.

“Are we interrupting something?” Bosch asked. “Were you about to go out?”

“I wanted to go to the Burbank stables sometime today if I could. I keep a horse there. My husband’s body was cremated and I want to take his ashes up the trail into the hills. He loved the hills…”

Bosch somberly nodded.

“Well, this won’t take too long. First off, you’ve seen us in the neighborhood this morning. We’re just conducting a routine canvass. You never know, maybe someone saw something, maybe somebody watching the house or a car here that shouldn’t have been here. You never know.”

“Well, I think I’d be the one who would know about any car that shouldn’t be here.”

“Well, I mean if you weren’t here. If you were out and someone was here, you probably wouldn’t know.”

“How could they get in past the gate?”

“It’s a long shot, we know, Mrs. Aliso. It’s all we’ve got right now.”

She frowned.

“There’s nothing else? What about what you told me the other day? About this man in Las Vegas?”

“Well, Mrs. Aliso, I hate to tell you this, but we went down the wrong path on that. We gathered a lot of information about your husband and initially it looked like that was the way to go. But it didn’t work out. We do think we’re moving in the right direction now, and we’re going to make up for the lost time.”

She seemed genuinely stunned.

“I don’t understand. The wrong path?”

“Yes, well, I can explain it to you, if you want to hear it. But it involves your husband and some unsavory things.”

“Detective, I’ve prepared myself over the last few days for anything. Tell me.”

“Mrs. Aliso, as I think I indicated to you on our last visit, your husband was involved with some very dangerous people in Las Vegas. I think I mentioned them, Joey Marks and Luke Goshen?”

“I don’t recall.”

She kept the look of bewilderment on her face. She was good. Bosch had to give that to her. She might not have made it in the film business but she could act when she needed to.

“To put it bluntly, they’re mobsters,” Bosch said. “Organized crime. And it looks like your husband had been working for them for a long time. He took mob money from Vegas and put it into his films. Laundered it through. Then he gave it back to them, after taking out a fee. It was a lot of money and that’s where we went down the wrong path. Your husband was about to get audited by the IRS. Did you know that?”

“Audited? No. He didn’t tell me anything about an audit.”

“Well, we found out about the audit, which likely would have revealed his illegal activities, and we thought maybe these people he did business with became aware of it, too, and had him killed so he wouldn’t be able to talk about their business. Only we don’t think that anymore.”

“I don’t understand. Are you sure of this? It seems obvious to me that these people had some involvement.”

She faltered a little bit there. Her voice was a little too urgent.

“Well, like I said, we thought that, too. We haven’t fully dropped it, but so far it doesn’t check out. The man we arrested over there in Vegas, this Goshen fellow I mentioned, he looked pretty good for it, I have to say. But then his alibi turned out to be a rock we couldn’t break. It couldn’t have been him, Mrs. Aliso. It looks as though somebody went to great lengths to make it look like it was him, even planted a gun in his house, but we know it wasn’t.”

She looked at him with dull eyes for a moment and then shook her head. Then she made her first real mistake. She should have said that if it wasn’t Goshen, then it was probably the other one Bosch had mentioned or some other mobster associate. But she said nothing and that instinctively told Bosch that she knew of the setup on Goshen. She now knew the plan hadn’t worked and her mind was probably scrambling.

“So then what will you do?” she finally asked.

“Oh, we already had to let him go.”

“No, I mean about the investigation. What’s next?”

“Well, we’re sort of starting from scratch. Looking at it like maybe it was a planned robbery.”

“You said his watch wasn’t taken.”

“Right. It wasn’t. But the Las Vegas angle wasn’t a total waste. We found out that your husband was carrying a lot of money with him when he landed here that night. He was taking it back here to run through his company. To clean it up. It was a lot of money. Nearly a million dollars. He was carrying it for-”

“A million dollars?”

That was her second mistake. To Bosch, her emphasis on million and her shock betrayed her knowledge that there had been far less than that in Tony Aliso’s briefcase. Bosch watched as her eyes stared blankly and all her movement was interior. He guessed-and hoped-she was now wondering where the rest of the money was.

“Yes,” he said. “See, the man who gave your husband the money, the one we first thought was a suspect, is an FBI agent who infiltrated the organization your husband worked for. That is why his alibi is so solid. Anyway, he told us that your husband was carrying a million dollars. It was all in cash and there was so much that he couldn’t fit it all into his briefcase. He had to put about half of it in his suit bag.”

He paused for a few moments. He could tell the story was playing in her internal theater. Her eyes had that faraway look in them. He remembered that look from her movie. But this time it was for real. He hadn’t even finished the interview, but she was already making plans. He could see it.

“Was the money marked by the FBI?” she asked. “I mean, could they trace it that way?”

“No, unfortunately their agent did not have it long enough to do that. There was too much of it, frankly. But the transaction did take place in an office with a hidden video camera. There is no doubt, Tony left there with a million dollars. Uh…”

Bosch paused to open his briefcase and quickly consult a page from a file.

“…actually, it was a million, seventy-six thousand. All in cash.”

Veronica’s eyes went down to the floor as she nodded. Bosch studied her but his concentration was interrupted when he thought he heard a sound from somewhere in the house. It suddenly occurred to him that maybe there was someone else there. They had never asked.

“Did you hear that?” Bosch asked.

“What?”

“I thought I heard something. Are you alone in the house?”

“Yes.”

“I thought I heard a bump or something.”

“You want me to look around?” Edgar offered.

“Oh, no,” Veronica said quickly, “…uh, it probably was just the cat.”

Bosch didn’t remember seeing any sign of a cat when he had been in the house before. He glanced at Kiz and saw her almost imperceptibly turn her head to signal she didn’t remember a cat either. He decided to let it go for the time being.

“Anyway,” he said, “that’s why we’re canvassing and that’s why we’re here. We need to ask you some questions. They might go over some of the same ground we’ve covered before but, like I said, we’re kind of starting over. It won’t take too much longer. Then you’ll be able to go to the stables.”

“Fine. Go ahead.”

“Would you mind if I have a drink of water first?”

“No, of course not. I’m sorry, I should have asked. Anybody else want something?”

“I’ll pass,” Edgar said.

“I’m fine,” Rider said.

Veronica Aliso stood up and headed toward the hallway. Bosch gave her a head start and then stood up and followed.

“You did ask,” he said to her back. “But I turned it down. I didn’t think I’d get thirsty.”

He followed her into the kitchen, where she opened a cabinet and took down a glass. Bosch looked around. It was a large kitchen with stainless-steel appliances and black granite countertops. There was a center island with a sink in it.

“Tap water’d be fine for me,” he said, taking the glass from her and filling it at the island.

He turned and leaned against the counter and drank from it. He then poured the rest out and put the glass on the counter.

“That’s all you want?”

“Yes. Just needed something to wash the dust down, I guess.”

He smiled and she didn’t.

“Well then, should we go back to the living room?” she asked.

“That’d be fine.”

He followed her out of the kitchen. Just before he entered the hallway, he turned back and his eyes swept across the gray-tiled floor. He didn’t see what he thought should be there.

Bosch spent the next fifteen minutes asking mostly questions that had been asked six days earlier and that had little bearing on the case now. He was going through the motions, the finishing touches. The trap was baited and this was his way of quietly stepping back from it. Finally, when he thought he had said and asked enough, Bosch closed the notebook in which he had been scribbling notes he’d never look at again and stood up. He thanked her for her time and Veronica Aliso walked the three detectives to the door. Bosch was the last one out, and as he stepped over the threshold she spoke to him. He somehow knew that she would. There were parts to her act that had to be played as well.

“Keep me informed, Detective Bosch. Please keep me informed.”

Bosch turned and looked back at her.

“Oh, I will. If anything happens, you’ll be the first to know.”

Bosch drove Edgar and Rider back to their car. He didn’t speak about the interview until he pulled in behind it.

“So what do you think?” he asked as he got out his cigarettes.

“I think we sunk the hook but good,” Edgar said.

“Yeah,” Rider said. “It’s going to be interesting.”

Bosch lit a cigarette.

“What about the cat?” he asked.

“What?” Edgar asked.

“The noise in the house. She said it was the cat. But in the kitchen there were no food bowls on the floor.”

“Maybe they were outside,” Edgar offered.

Bosch shook his head.

“I think people who keep cats inside feed them inside,” he said. “In the hills you’re supposed to keep ’ em in. Coyotes. Anyway, I don’t like cats. I get allergic to them. I can usually tell when somebody has a cat. I don’t think she has a cat. Kiz, you didn’t see a cat in there, did you?”

“I spent all Monday morning in there and I never saw a cat.”

“You think maybe it was the guy then?” Edgar asked. “Whoever she worked this with?”

“Maybe. I think somebody was in there. Maybe her lawyer.”

“Nah, lawyers don’t hide like that. They come out and confront.”

“True.”

“Should we watch the place, see who comes out?” Edgar asked.

Bosch thought a moment.

“No,” Bosch said. “They spot us and they’ll know the money thing is just bait. Better we let it go. Better just to get out of here, go get set up. We gotta get ready.”