Trunk Music (46 page)

The police chief stood in the middle of the cramped room with his arms folded and his head down. He was the last to arrive, and it looked as if he was getting the run-down from the others. Occasionally he nodded, but it didn’t look to Bosch as though he was saying much at all. Bosch knew that the main issue they were discussing was how to handle the problem with Powers. There was a killer cop on the loose. Going to the media with that would be an exercise in self-flagellation, but Bosch saw no way around it. They had looked in all the likely places for Powers and had not found him. The patrol car he had commandeered had been found abandoned up in the hills on Fareholm Drive. Where he had gone from there was anyone’s guess. Surveillance teams stationed outside his bungalow and the Aliso house, as well as the lawyer Neil Denton’s house and office, had produced nothing. It was now time to go to the media, to put the rogue cop’s picture on the six o’clock news. Bosch guessed that the reason the police chief had showed up was that he planned to call a press conference. Otherwise he would have left the whole thing for Irving to deal with.

Bosch realized Rider had said something.

“Excuse me?”

“I said what are you going to do with your time?”

“I don’t know. Depends on how much we get. If it’s just one DP, I’ll use it to finish work on my house. If it’s longer than two, I’ll have to see about making some money somehow.”

A DP, or deployment period, was fifteen days. Suspensions were usually handed out in such increments when the offense was serious. Bosch was pretty sure the chief wouldn’t be handing out minor suspensions to them.

“He isn’t going to fire us, is he, Harry?” Edgar asked.

“Doubt it. But it all depends on how they’re telling it to him.”

Bosch looked back at the office window just as the chief was looking out at him. The chief looked away, not a good sign. Bosch had never met him and never expected that he would. He was an outsider brought in to appease the community. Not because of any particular police administrative skills, but because they needed an outsider. He was a large black man with most of his weight around his waist. Cops who didn’t like him, and there were many, often referred to him as Chief Mud Slide. Bosch didn’t know what cops who liked him called him.

“I just want to say I’m sorry, Harry,” Rider said.

“Sorry about what?” Bosch asked.

“About missing the gun. I patted him down. I ran my hands down his legs but somehow I missed it. I don’t understand it.”

“It was small enough that he could fit it in his boot,” Bosch said. “It’s not all on you, Kiz. We all had our chances. Me and Jerry fucked up in the rest room. We should’ve been watching him better.”

She nodded but Bosch could tell she still felt miserable. He looked up and saw that the meeting in the lieutenant’s office was beginning to break up. As the police chief and his aide, followed by LeValley and the IAD dicks, filed out, they left the bureau through the front entrance. It would make for an out-of-the-way walk if their cars were parked in the station lot out back, but it meant they didn’t have to walk by the homicide table and acknowledge Bosch and the others. Another bad sign, he though.

Only Irving and Billets remained in the office after it cleared. Billets then looked out at Bosch and signaled the three of them into her office. They got up slowly and headed in. Edgar and Rider sat down but Bosch stayed on his feet.

“Chief,” Billets said, giving Irving the floor.

“Okay, I’ll give it to you the way it was just given to me,” Irving said.

He looked down at a piece of paper on which he had taken a few notes.

“For conducting an unauthorized investigation and for failure to follow procedure in searching and transporting a prisoner, each of you is suspended without pay two deployment periods and suspended
with
pay for two deployment periods. These are to run consecutively. That’s two months. And, of course, a formal reprimand goes into each of your jackets. Per procedure, you can appeal this to a Board of Rights.”

He waited a beat. It was heavier than Bosch had expected, but he showed nothing on his face. He heard Edgar audibly exhale. As far as the appeal went, disciplinary action by the police chief was rarely overturned. It would require two of the three captains on the Board of Rights to vote against their commander in chief. Overruling an IAD investigator was one thing, overruling the chief was political suicide.

“However,” Irving continued, “the suspensions are being held in abeyance by the chief pending further developments and evaluation.”

There was a moment of silence while the last sentence was computed.

“What does he mean, abeyance?” Edgar asked.

“It means the chief is offering you a break,” Irving said. “He wants to see how things fall out over the next day or two. Each of you is to come to work tomorrow and proceed with the investigation where you can. We talked with the DA’s office. They’re willing to file on Powers. Get the paperwork over there tomorrow first thing. We’ve put the word out and the chief will take it to the media in a couple hours. If we’re lucky, we’ll get this guy before he finds the woman or does any other damage. And if we’re lucky, you three will probably be lucky.”

“What about Veronica Aliso, aren’t they going to file on her?”

“Not yet. Not until we have Powers back. Goff said that without Powers, the taped confession is worthless. He won’t be able to use it against her without Powers on the stand to introduce it or her being able to confront a witness against her.”

Bosch looked down at the floor.

“So without him, she walks.”

“That’s the way it looks.”

Bosch nodded his head.

“What’s he going to say?” he asked. “The chief, I mean.”

“He’s going to tell it like it is. You people will come out okay in some parts, not so okay in others. Overall, it’s not going to be a good day for this department.”

“Is that why we’re getting hit for two months? Because we’re the messengers?”

Irving looked at him a long moment, his jaw clenched, before answering.

“I’m not going to dignify that with a reply.”

He looked at Rider and Edgar and said, “You two can go now. You’re finished here. I need to discuss another matter with Detective Bosch.”

Bosch watched them go and prepared for more of Irving’s ire about the last comment. He wasn’t sure why he had said it. He knew it would bait the deputy chief.

But after Rider closed the door to the office, Irving spoke of another matter.

“Detective, I wanted you to know that I’ve already talked to the federal people and we’re all squared away on that.”

“How is that?”

“I told them that with today’s developments it has become pretty clear — make that crystal clear — that you had nothing to do with planting evidence on their man. I told them it was Powers and that we were terminating that particular aspect of our internal investigation of your conduct.”

“Fine, Chief. Thanks.”

Thinking that was it, Bosch made a move toward the door.

“Detective, there is one other thing.”

Bosch turned back to him.

“In discussing this matter with the chief of police, there is still one other aspect that bothers him.”

“And what is that?”

“The investigation started by Detective Chastain brought in ancillary information about your association with a convicted felon. It’s troubling to me, too. I’d like to be able to get some assurance from you that this is not going to continue. I’d like to take that assurance to the chief.”

Bosch was silent a moment.

“I can’t give you that.”

Irving looked down at the floor. He was working the thick muscles of his jaw again.

“You disappoint me, Detective Bosch,” he finally said. “This department has done a lot by you. So have I. I’ve stood by you through some tough spots. You’ve never been easy, but you have a talent that I think this department and this city certainly need. I suppose that makes you worth it. Do you want to possibly alienate me and others in this department?”

“Not particularly.”

“Then take my advice and do the right thing, son. You know what that is. That’s all I’m going to say on that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s all.”

When Bosch got to his house, he saw a dusty Ford Escort parked at the curb out front. It had Nevada plates. Inside the house, Eleanor Wish was sitting at the table in the small dining room with the classified ads section of the Sunday
Times
. She had a lit cigarette in the ashtray next to the paper and she was using a black marker to circle want ads. Bosch saw all of this and his heart jumped into a higher gear. What it meant to him was that if she was looking for a job, then she might be digging in, staying in L.A. and staying with him. To top it all off, the house was filled with the aroma of an Italian restaurant, heavy on the garlic.

He came around the table and put his hand on her shoulder and tentatively kissed her on the cheek. She patted his hand. As he straightened up, though, he noticed she was looking at ads for furnished apartments in Santa Monica, not the employment section.

“What’s cooking?” he asked.

“My spaghetti sauce. You remember it?”

He nodded that he did but he really didn’t. His memory of the days he had spent with her five years before were all centered on her, the moments they were intimate, and what happened afterward.

“How was Las Vegas?” he asked, just to be saying something.

“It was Vegas. The kind of place you never miss. If I never go back that will be fine with me.”

“You’re looking for a place here?”

“I thought I might as well start looking.”

She had lived in Santa Monica before. Bosch remembered her apartment with the bedroom balcony. You could smell the sea and if you leaned out over the railing, you could look down Ocean Park Boulevard and even see it. He knew she couldn’t afford a place like that now. She was probably looking at the listings east of Lincoln.

“You know there’s no hurry,” he said. “You can stay here. Nice view, it’s private. Why don’t you…I don’t know, take your time.”

She looked up at him but decided not to say what she was about to say. Bosch could tell.

“Do you want a beer?” she asked instead. “I bought some more. They’re in the fridge.”

He nodded, letting her escape from the moment, and went into the kitchen. He saw a Crock-Pot on the counter and wondered if she had bought it or brought it back with her from Las Vegas. He opened the refrigerator and smiled. She knew him. She had bought bottles of Henry Weinhard’s. He took two out and brought them back to the dining room. He opened hers and gave it to her, then his own. They both started to speak at the same time.

“Sorry, go ahead,” she said.

“No, you.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, what?”

“I was just going to ask how things went today.”

“Oh. Well, they went good and bad. We broke the guy down and he told us the story. He gave up the wife.”

“Tony Aliso’s wife?”

“Yeah. It was her plan all along. According to him. The Vegas stuff was just a misdirection.”

“That’s great. What’s the bad part?”

“Well, first of all, our guy is a cop and —”

“Oh, shit!”

“Yeah, but it’s even worse. He got away from us today.”

“Got away? What do you mean got away?”

“I mean he escaped. Right out of the station. He had a pistol, a little Raven, in his boot. We missed it when we hooked him up. Edgar and me took him into the can, and he must’ve stepped on his shoelace while we were going over. You know, on purpose. Then, when Edgar noticed it and told him to tie his shoe, he came up with the Raven. He got away from us, went into the back lot and just took a squad car. He was still in uniform.”

“Jesus, and they didn’t find him yet?”

“That was about eight hours ago. He’s in the wind.”

“Well, where could he go in a patrol car and in a uniform?”

“Oh, he dumped the car — they already found that — and I doubt, wherever he is, he’s in the uniform. It looks like he was into the far-right, white-supremacy thing. He probably knew people who’d get him clothes, no questions asked.”

“Sounds like a helluva cop.”

“Yeah. It’s funny. He was the guy who found the body, you know, last week. It was on his beat. And because he was a cop, I didn’t give him a second thought. I knew that day he was an asshole, but I didn’t even look at him at all as anything other than the cop who found the stiff. And he must’ve known that. And he timed it so that we’d be in a rush out there. He was pretty smart about it.”

“Or she was.”

“Yeah. More likely it was her. But, anyway, I feel more, I don’t know, upset or disappointed about that first day, that I didn’t take a look at him, than I do about letting him get away today. I should’ve looked at him. More often than not the one who finds the body is the one. His uniform blinded me to that.”

She got up from the table and came over to him. She put her arms around his neck and smiled up at him.

“You’ll get him. Don’t worry.”

He nodded. They kissed.

“What were you going to say before?” she asked. “When we both talked at once.”

“Oh…I don’t remember now.”

“Must not have been important, then.”

“I wanted to tell you to stay here with me.”

She put her head down against his chest so that he couldn’t see her eyes.

“Harry…”

“Just to see how it works. I feel like…it’s almost like all this time hasn’t gone by. I want — I just want to be with you. I can take care of you. You can feel safe and you can have all the time you need to make a new start here. Find a job, whatever you want to do.”

She stepped back from him and looked up into his eyes. The warning Irving had given him was the furthest thing from his mind. Right now all he cared about was keeping her close and doing whatever it took to accomplish that.

“But a lot of time has gone by, Harry. We just can’t jump in like this.”

Bosch nodded and lowered his eyes. He knew she was right but he still didn’t care.

“I want you, Harry,” she said. “Nobody else. But I want to take it slow. So that we’re sure. Both of us.”