Trunk Music (39 page)

“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 —”