Echo Park (8 page)

Bosch could see that. He nodded.

“So he did,” he said. “And then we come to Marie Gesto. He picks a victim who draws the police and the media’s attention.”

“He was still learning, forming,” she said. “He knew he could kill and now he wanted to go out and hunt. She was his first victim. She crossed his path, something about her fit his fantasy program and she simply became prey. At that time his focus was on victim acquisition and self-protection. In that case he chose badly. He chose a woman who would be sorely missed and whose disappearance would draw an immediate response. He probably didn’t know this going into it. But he learned from it, from the heat he brought upon himself.”

Bosch nodded.

“Anyway, after Gesto he learned to add a third element to his focus: victim backgrounding. He made sure that he chose victims who not only met the needs of his program but who would also come from a societal fringe, where their comings and goings would not be cause for notice, let alone alarm.”

“And he went beneath the surface.”

“Exactly. He went under and he stayed there. Until we got lucky in Echo Park.”

Bosch nodded. All of this was helpful.

“It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” he asked. “About how many of these guys are out there. The under-the-surface killers.”

Walling nodded.

“Yes. Sometimes it scares me to death. Makes me wonder how long this guy would have gone on killing if we hadn’t gotten so lucky.”

She checked her notes and said nothing further.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Bosch asked.

Walling looked up at him sharply and he realized he had chosen his words poorly.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said quickly. “This is all great and it’s going to help me a lot. I just meant is there anything else you wanted to talk about?”

She held his eyes for a moment before replying.

“Yes, there is something else. It’s not about this, though.”

“Then, what is it?”

“You’ve got to give yourself a break on that phone call, Harry. You can’t let that bring you down. The work ahead is too important.”

Bosch nodded insincerely. It was easy for her to say that. She wouldn’t have to live with the ghosts of all the women Raynard Waits would begin to tell them about the next morning.

“Don’t just nod it off like that,” Rachel said. “Do you know how many cases I worked in Behavioral where the guy kept killing? How many times we got calls and notes from these creeps but still couldn’t get to them before the next victim was dead?”

“I know, I know.”

“We all have ghosts. It’s part of the job. With some jobs it’s a bigger part than with others. I had a boss once, he used to say, if you can’t stand the ghosts, get out of the haunted house.”

He nodded again, this time while looking directly at her. He meant it this time.

“How many murders have you solved, Harry? How many killers have you put away?”

“I don’t know. I don’t keep track.”

“Maybe you should.”

“What’s the point?”

“The point is, how many of those killers would have done it again if you hadn’t taken them down? More than a few, I bet.”

“Probably.”

“There you go. You’re way ahead in the long run. Think about that.”

“Okay.”

His mind flashed on one of those killers. Bosch had arrested Roger Boylan many years before. He drove a pickup with a camper shell on the back. He had used marijuana to entice a couple young girls into the back while parked up at Hansen Dam. He raped and killed them, injecting them with an overdose of a horse tranquilizer. He then threw their bodies into the dry bed of the nearby slough. When Bosch put the cuffs on him Boylan had only one thing to say.

“Too bad. I was just getting started.”

Bosch wondered how many victims there would have been if he hadn’t stopped him. He wondered if he could trade Roger Boylan for Raynard Waits and call it even. On the one hand, he thought he could. On the other hand, he knew it wasn’t a zero-sum game. The true detective knew that coming out even in homicide work was not good enough. Not by a long shot.

“I hope I’ve helped,” Rachel said.

He looked up from the memory of Boylan to Rachel’s eyes.

“I think you did. I think I’ll know better who and what I am dealing with when I go into the room with him tomorrow.”

She stood up from the table.

“I meant about the other thing.”

Bosch stood.

“That, too. You’ve helped a lot.”

He came around the table so he could walk her to the door.

“Be careful, Harry.”

“I know. You said that. But you don’t have to worry. It will be a full-security situation.”

“I don’t mean the physical danger as much as I mean the psychological. Guard yourself, Harry. Please.”

“I will,” he said.

It was time to go to the door but she was hesitating. She looked down at the contents of the file spread across the table and then at Bosch.

“I was hoping you would call me sometime,” she said. “But not about a case.”

Bosch had to take a few moments before coming back.

“I thought because of what I said—what we said—that . . .”

He wasn’t sure how to finish. He wasn’t sure what he was trying to say. She reached up and put her hand lightly on his chest. He took a step closer, coming into her space. He then put his arms around her and pulled her close.

9

L
ATER, AFTER THEY HAD
made love, Bosch and Rachel remained in bed, talking about anything they could think of except what they had just done. Eventually they came back around to the case and the next morning’s interview with Raynard Waits.

“I can’t believe that after all this time I’m going to sit down face-to-face with her killer,” Bosch said. “It’s kind of like a dream. I actually have dreamed of catching the guy. I mean, it was never Waits in the dream but I dreamed about closing out the case.”

“Who was it in the dream?” she asked.

Her head was resting on his chest. He couldn’t see her face but he could smell her hair. Under the sheets she had one leg over one of his.

“It was this guy I always thought could be good for it. But I never had anything on him. I guess because he was always an asshole, I wanted it to be him.”

“Well, did he have any connection to Gesto?”

Bosch tried to shrug but it was difficult with their bodies so entwined.

“He knew about the garage where we found the car and had an ex-girlfriend who was a ringer for Gesto. And he had anger-management issues. No real evidence. I just thought it was him. I followed him once way back during the first year of the investigation. He was working as a security guard up in the oil fields behind Baldwin Hills. You know where that is?”

“You mean where you see the oil pumps when you’re coming in on La Cienega from the airport?”

“Yeah, right. That’s the place. Well, this kid’s family owned a chunk of those fields, and his old man was trying to straighten him out, I guess. You know, make him work for a living even though they had all the money in the world. So he was working security up there and I was watching him one day. He came across these kids who were fooling around up in there, just trespassing and messing around. They were just kids, maybe thirteen or fourteen. Two boys from the nearby neighborhood.”

“What did he do to them?”

“He drew down on them, then handcuffed them to one of the pumps. Their backs were to each other and they were cuffed around this pole that was sort of like an anchor for the pump. And then he got back in his pickup and drove away.”

“He just left them there?”

“That’s what I thought he was doing but he was coming back. I was watching with binoculars from a ridge all the way across La Cienega and could see the whole oil field from up there. He had another guy with him and they drove over to this shack where I guess they kept samples of the oil they were pumping out of the ground. They went in there and came out with two buckets of this stuff, put ’em in the back of the pickup and drove back. They then dumped that shit all over the two kids.”

Rachel got up on one elbow and looked at him.

“And you just watched this happen?”

“I told you, I was clear across La Cienega on the next ridge. Before they built houses up there. If he went any further I was going to try to intervene somehow, but then he let them go. Besides, I didn’t want him to know I was watching him. At that point he didn’t know I was thinking of him for Gesto.”

She nodded like she understood and no longer questioned his lack of action.

“He just let them go?” she asked.

“He uncuffed them, kicked one of them in the butt and let them go. I could tell they were crying and scared.”

Rachel shook her head in disgust.

“What’s this guy’s name?”

“Anthony Garland. His father is Thomas Rex Garland. You might have heard of him.”

Rachel shook her head, not recognizing the name.

“Well, Anthony might not have been Gesto’s killer but he sounds like a complete asshole.”

Bosch nodded.

“He is. You want to see him?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve got a ‘greatest hits’ video. I’ve had him in an interview room three times in thirteen years. Each interview was on tape.”

“You have the tape here?”

Bosch nodded, knowing that she might find it strange or off-putting that he studied interrogation tapes at home.

“I had them copied onto one tape. I brought it home to watch the last time I worked the case.”

Rachel seemed to consider his answer before she responded.

“Then pop it in. Let’s take a look at this guy.”

Bosch got out of bed, slipped on his boxer shorts and turned on the lamp. He went out to the living room and looked in the cabinet beneath the television. He had several crime scene tapes from old cases, as well as various other tapes and DVDs. He finally located a VHS tape marked
GARLAND
on the box and took it back to the bedroom.

He had a television with a built-in VCR on the bureau. He turned it on, slid in the tape and sat on the edge of the bed with the remote. He kept his boxers on now that he and Rachel were working. Rachel stayed under the covers and as the tape was cuing up she reached a foot toward him and tapped her toes on his back.

“Is this what you do with all the girls you bring here? Show them your interrogation techniques?”

Bosch glanced back at her and was almost serious with his response.

“Rachel, I think you’re the only person in the world I could do this with.”

She smiled.

“I think I get you, Bosch.”

He looked back at the screen. The tape was playing. He hit the mute with the remote.

“This first one is March eleventh of ’ninety-four. It’s about six months after Gesto disappeared and we were grasping for anything. We didn’t have enough to arrest him—it wasn’t even close—but I was able to convince him to come into the station to give a statement. He didn’t know I had the bead on him. He thought he was just going to talk about the apartment where his ex-girlfriend had lived.”

On the screen was a grainy color picture of a small room with a table at which two men sat. One was a much younger-looking Harry Bosch and the other was a man in his early twenties with wavy surfer-white hair. Anthony Garland. He was wearing a T-shirt that said
Lakers
across the chest. The sleeves were tight on his arms, and tattoo ink was visible on his left biceps. Black barbed wire wrapped the muscles of the arm.

“He came in voluntarily. He came in looking like he was headed to a day at the beach. Anyway . . .”

He brought up the sound. On the screen, Garland was looking all around the room with a slight smile on his face.

“So this is where it happens, huh?” he asked.

“Where what happens?” Bosch asked.

“You know, you break the bad guys down and they confess to all the crimes.”

He smiled coyly.

“Sometimes,” Bosch said. “But let’s talk about Marie Gesto. Did you know her?”

“No, I told you I didn’t know her. Never saw her before in my life.”

“Before what?”

“Before you showed me her picture.”

“So if somebody told me you knew her, then they’d be lying.”

“Fucking-A right. Who told you that shit?”

“But you knew about the empty garage at the High Tower, right?”

“Yeah, well, my girlfriend had just moved out and so, yeah, I knew the place was empty. That doesn’t mean I stashed the car in there. Look, you asked me all of this stuff at the house. I thought there was something new going on here. Am I under arrest or something?”

“No, Anthony, you are not under arrest. I just wanted you to come down so we could go over some of this stuff.”

“I’ve already gone over it with you.”

“But that was before we knew some other things about you and about her. Now it’s important to go over the same ground again. Make a formal record of it.”

Garland’s face seemed to momentarily contort in anger. He leaned across the table.

“What things? What the fuck are you talking about? I had nothing to do with this. I’ve told you that at least twice now. Why aren’t you out there looking for the person who did it?”

Bosch waited until Garland calmed a bit before answering.

“Because maybe I think I’m with the person who did it.”

“Fuck you, man. You’ve got nothing on me because there’s nothing to get. I’ve told you this from day one. I’m not the guy!”

Now Bosch leaned across the table. Their faces were a foot apart.

“I know what you told me, Anthony. But that was before I went to Austin and talked to your girlfriend. She told me some things about you that, frankly, Anthony, require me to pay a little more attention.”

“Fuck her. She’s a whore!”

“Yeah? If she’s all of that, then why’d you get angry with her when she left you? Why did she have to run from you? Why didn’t you just let her go?”

“Because nobody leaves me. I leave them. Okay?”

Bosch leaned back and nodded.

“Okay. So in as much detail as you can remember, tell me what you did on September ninth of last year. Tell me where you went and who you saw.”

Using the remote, Bosch started fast-forwarding the tape.

“He didn’t have an alibi for the time we believed Marie was grabbed outside the supermarket. But we can skip ahead here because that part of the interview took forever.”

Rachel was now sitting up in the bed behind him with the sheet wrapped around her. Bosch looked back at her.

“What do you think of this guy so far?”

She shrugged her bare shoulders.

“He seems like a typical rich asshole. But that doesn’t make him a murderer.”

Bosch nodded.

“This now is two years later. The lawyers from his daddy’s firm slapped a TRO on me and I could only interview the kid if he had counsel present. So there’s nothing much here but there’s one thing I want you to see. His lawyer in this is Dennis Franks, an associate of Cecil Dobbs, a big-shot Century City guy who handles things for T. Rex.”

“T. Rex?”

“The father. Thomas Rex Garland. Likes to be called T. Rex.”

“Figures.”

Bosch slowed the fast-forward down a notch so he could better see where the action on the tape was. On the screen was Garland sitting at a table with a man right next to him. As the image moved in fast motion the lawyer and his client conferred many times in mouth-to-ear communications. Bosch finally slowed it to normal speed and the audio came back up. It was Franks, the lawyer, doing the talking.

“My client has fully cooperated with you but you continue to harass him at work and home with these suspicions and questions that have not one ounce of evidentiary support.”

“I’m working on that part of it, Counselor,” Bosch said. “And when I get it, there won’t be a lawyer in the world who can help him.”

“Fuck you, Bosch!” Garland said. “You better hope you never come for me alone, man. I’ll put you down in the dirt.”

Franks put a calming hand on Garland’s arm. Bosch was silent for a few moments before responding.

“You want to threaten me now, Anthony? You think I’m like one of those teenagers you cuff out in the oil fields and dump crude on? You think I’m going to go away with my tail between my legs?”

Garland’s face pinched together and turned dark. His eyes looked like frozen black marbles.

Bosch hit the pause button on the VCR remote.

“There,” he said to Rachel, pointing at the screen with the remote. “That’s what I wanted you to see. Look at his face. Pure, perfect rage. That’s why I thought it was him.”

Walling didn’t respond. Bosch glanced at her and she looked as though she had seen the face of pure, perfect rage before. She looked to be almost intimidated by it. Bosch wondered if she had seen it in one of the killers she had faced, or in someone else.

Bosch turned back to the television and hit the fast-forward button again.

“Now we jump almost ten years, to when I brought him in last April. Franks was gone and a new guy had the case in Dobbs’s office. He dropped the ball and never went back to the judge when the first restraining order expired. So I took another shot at him. He was surprised to see me. I grabbed him when he came out of Kate Mantilini’s at lunch one day. He probably thought I was long gone from his life.”

He stopped the fast-forward and played the tape. On the screen Garland looked older and wider. His face had spread and he wore his now-thinning hair cropped short. He wore a white shirt with a tie. The taped interviews had followed him from the end of boyhood to well into manhood.

This time he sat in a different interview room. This one was at Parker Center.

“If I’m not under arrest, then I should be free to go,” he said. “Am I free to go?”

“I was hoping you’d answer a few questions first,” Bosch replied.

“I answered all your questions years ago. This is a vendetta, Bosch. You will not give up. You will not leave me alone. Am I free to go or not?”

“Where did you hide her body?”

Garland shook his head.

“My God, this is unbelievable. When will this end?”

“It will never end, Garland. Not until I find her and not until I lock you up.”

“This is fucking crazy!
You’re
crazy, Bosch. What can I say to make you believe me? What can—”

“You can tell me where she is and then I’ll believe you.”

“Well, that’s the one thing I can’t tell you, because I don’t—”

Bosch suddenly killed the TV with the remote. For the first time, he realized how case-blind he had been, going after Garland as relentlessly as a dog chasing a car. He was unaware of the traffic, unaware that right in front of him in the murder book was the clue to the real killer. Watching the tape with Walling had heaped humiliation upon humiliation. He had thought by showing her the tape she would see why he had focused on Garland. She would understand and absolve him of the mistake. But now seeing it through the prism of Waits’s impending confession he couldn’t even absolve himself.

Rachel leaned toward him and touched his back, her soft fingers tracing down his spine.

“It happens to all of us,” she said.

Bosch nodded. Not to me, he thought.

“I guess when this is all over I’m going to have to find him and apologize,” he said.

“Fuck him. He’s still an asshole. I wouldn’t bother.”

Bosch smiled. She was trying to make it easy for him.

“You think?”

She pulled back the elastic waistband on his boxers and then snapped them against his back.