Michael Connelly (77 page)

“What are you doing to me?” Billets asked, her piercing eyes clearly fixed on Bosch.

What she was really saying to him was that he was the team leader and the responsibility for this potential fuckup rested squarely on him. That was okay with Bosch, because not only was that right and fair, but in the half hour he’d had to go through the murder book and the other evidence, his confidence had grown.

“What am I doing to you? I’m bringing in your killer.”

“I told you to conduct a quiet and careful investigation,” Billets responded. “I didn’t tell you to conduct some kind of half-assed sting operation and then drag a cop in here! I can’t believe this.”

Billets was now pacing behind Rider’s back without looking at them. The squad room was deserted except for the three of them and the angry lieutenant.

“It’s Powers, Lieutenant,” Bosch said. “If you’d calm down, we —”

“Oh, it’s him, is it? You have the evidence of that? Great! I’ll call a DA in here right now and we’ll write up the charges then. Because you really had me worried there for a minute that you three jerked this guy off the street with just enough probable cause to charge him with jaywalking.”

Now she was looking at Bosch with the angry eyes again. She had even stopped her pacing to level them at him. He responded as calmly as he could.

“First of all, it was my decision to take him off the street. And you’re right, we don’t have enough to call out a DA yet. But we’ll get it. There’s no doubt in my mind he’s the man. It’s him and the widow.”

“Well, I’m glad there’s no doubt in
your
mind but you’re not the DA or the goddamned jury.”

He didn’t respond. It was no use. He had to wait for her anger to ebb and then they could talk sensibly.

“Where is he?” Billets asked.

“Room three,” Bosch said.

“What did you tell the watch commander?”

“Nothing. It happened at the end of shift. Powers was going to grab the suit bag and then go punch out. We were able to bring him in while most everybody else was still up in roll call. I parked his car and dropped the key at the watch office. I told the watch lieutenant we were using Powers for a little while on a warrant, that we wanted a uniform with us when we knocked on a door. He said fine and then I expect he went off shift. As far as I know, nobody knows we have him back there.”

Billets thought for a moment. When she spoke, she was calmer and more like the person who normally sat behind the desk in the glass office.

“Okay, I’m going to go back there and get some coffee, see if I get asked about him. When I come back, we’ll go over all of this in detail and see what we have.”

She walked slowly to the hallway at the rear of the squad room that led to the watch office. Bosch watched her go and then picked up the phone and dialed the number of the security office of the Mirage hotel and casino. He told the officer who answered who he was and that he needed to speak with Hank Meyer immediately. When the officer mentioned that it was after midnight, Bosch told him it was an emergency and that he was sure that if Meyer was informed who needed to speak with him, he would return the call. Bosch gave him all the numbers he could be reached at, beginning with his number at the homicide table, and hung up. He went back to his work with the murder book.

“Did you say he’s in three?”

Bosch looked up. Billets was back, a cup of steaming coffee in her hand. He nodded.

“I want to have a look,” she said.

Bosch got up and walked with her down the hallway to the four doors leading to the interview rooms. Doors marked one and two were on the left, three and four on the right. But there was no fourth interview room. The room marked four was actually a small cubicle with a one-way glass window that allowed for observation of room three. In three, the other side of the glass was a mirror. Billets entered four and looked through the glass at Powers. He sat ramrod straight at a table in a chair directly opposite the mirror. His hands were cuffed behind his back. He still wore his uniform but his equipment belt had been removed. He stared straight ahead at his own reflection in the mirror. This created an eerie effect in the fourth room because it appeared that he was looking right at them, as if there were no mirror or glass between them.

Billets said nothing. She just looked back at the man staring at her.

“There is a lot hanging in the balance tonight, Harry,” she said quietly.

“I know,” he said.

They stood there silently for a few moments until Edgar opened the door and told Bosch that Hank Meyer was on the phone. Bosch headed back, picked up the phone and told Meyer what he needed. Meyer said he was at home and that he’d have to go into the hotel, but he would call back as soon as possible. Bosch thanked him and hung up. Billets had now taken one of the empty seats at the homicide table.

“Okay,” she said, “one of you tell me exactly how this went down tonight.”

Bosch remained in the lead and took the next fifteen minutes to recount how he found Tony Aliso’s suit bag, set up the sting through Veronica Aliso and then waited in the woods off Mulholland until Powers showed up. He explained how the story Powers had offered for his being there did not make sense.

“What else did he say?” Billets asked at the end.

“Nothing. Jerry and Kiz put him in the room and that’s where he’s been ever since.”

“What else have you got?”

“For starters, we have his print on the inside of the trunk lid. We also have a record of association with the widow.”

Billets raised her eyebrows.

“That’s what we were working on when you came in. On Sunday night when Jerry ran the victim’s name through the computer, we got a hit on a burglary report from back in March. Somebody hit the Aliso house. Jerry pulled the report but it looked unconnected. Just a routine burglary. And it was, except the officer who took the initial report from Mrs. Aliso was Powers. We think the relationship started with the burglary. That’s when they met. After that, we have the gate records. Police patrols of Hidden Highlands are recorded on the gate logs by the car’s roof number. The logs show the car assigned to Powers—the Zebra car—has been going in there two, three nights a week on patrol, always on the nights we know from credit card records that Tony was out of town. I think he was poppin’ over there to see Veronica.”

“What else?” the lieutenant asked. “So far all you’ve got is a bunch of coincidences strung together.”

“There are no coincidences,” Bosch said. “Not like this.”

“Then what else have you got?”

“Like I said, his story about why he came down into the woods doesn’t check out. He came down looking for the suit bag and the only way he would have known that it was worth coming back for was through Veronica. It’s him, Lieutenant. It’s him.”

Billets thought about this. Bosch believed the facts he was giving her were beginning to have a cumulative effect in convincing her. He had one thing left with which to nail her down.

“There’s one other thing. Remember our problem with Veronica? If she was involved in this, how did she get out of Hidden Highlands and not have it noted on the gate log?”

“Right.”

“Well, the gate log shows that on the night of the murder, the Zebra car cruised through on patrol. Twice. He was in and out both times. First time he was logged in at ten and out at ten-ten. Then back in at eleven-forty-eight and out four minutes later. It was noted as just routine patrol.”

“Okay, so?”

“So on the first time, he cruises in and picks her up. She gets down on the floor in the back. It’s dark out, the gate guy only sees Powers heading back out. They go and wait for Tony, do the deed and then Powers takes her back home—the second set of entries on the log.”

“It works,” Billets said, nodding her approval. “The actual abduction, how do you see it?”

“We’ve figured all along it took two people to do this job. First off, Veronica had to know from Tony what flight he was taking. So that set the time frame. Powers picks her up that night and they go to Laurel Canyon and Mulholland and wait for the white Rolls to go by. We figure that happens about eleven or so. Powers follows until Tony is close to the curve through the woods. He puts on the lights and pulls him over, like a routine traffic stop. Only he tells Tony to step out and go to the back of the car. Maybe he makes him open the trunk, maybe he does that himself after he cuffs him. Either way, the trunk is opened and Powers has a problem. Tony’s suit bag and a box of videos are in the trunk and that doesn’t leave much room for him. Powers doesn’t have much time. A car could come around the bend any moment and light up the whole thing. So he takes the suit bag and the box out and throws them down the hill into the woods. He then tells Tony to get in the trunk. Tony says no or maybe he struggles a bit. Either way, Powers takes out his pepper spray and gives him a shot in the face. Tony is then real manageable, easy to throw into the trunk. Maybe Powers pulled his shoes off then to stop him from kicking around in there, making noise.”

“That’s when Veronica pops out,” Rider said, picking up the story. “She drives the Rolls while Powers follows in the squad car. They knew where they were going. They needed a spot where the car wouldn’t be found for a couple days, giving Powers time to get over to Vegas on Saturday, plant the gun and lay down a few more clues like the anonymous call to Metro. That call was what was supposed to put the finger on Luke Goshen. Not the fingerprints. That was just luck for them. Anyway, that’s getting ahead of the story. Veronica drives the Rolls and Powers follows. To the clearing over the Bowl. She pops the trunk and Powers leans in and does the job. Or maybe he puts one cap in Tony and he makes Veronica do the second. That way they’re partners for good, partners in blood.”

Billets nodded, a serious look on her face.

“It seems kind of risky. What if he had to take a radio call? The whole plan would go down the drain.”

“We thought of that and Jerry checked with the watch office. Gomez was the CO Friday night. He says he remembers that Powers had such a busy shift he didn’t take a dinner break until ten. He doesn’t recall hearing from him until just before end of watch.”

Billets nodded again.

“What about the shoe prints recovered? Are they his?”

“Powers got lucky there,” Edgar said. “He’s wearing brand-new boots in there. Looks like he maybe just bought ’em today.”

“Shit!”

“Yeah,” Bosch said. “We figure he saw the shoe prints on the table last night at the Cat and Fiddle. He went out and got new ones today.”

“Oh, man . . .”

“Well, maybe there’s still a chance he didn’t get rid of the old ones. We’re working on a search warrant for his place. Oh, and our luck ain’t so bad, either. Jerry, tell her about the spray.”

Edgar leaned forward on the table.

“I went back to the supply post, took a look at the sheet. On Sunday Powers signed out an OC cartridge. Only I then went and looked at the fifty-one list in the watch loo’s office. No use-of-force reported by Powers in this deployment period.”

“So,” Billets said, “he somehow used his pepper spray, because he had to get a refill cartridge but he never reported using the spray to his watch commander.”

“Right.”

Billets thought about things for a few moments before speaking again.

“Okay,” she said, “what you’ve come up with quickly is all good stuff. But it’s not enough. It’s a circumstantial case and most of this can be explained away. Even if you could prove he and the widow have been meeting, it doesn’t prove murder. The fingerprint on the trunk can be explained by sloppy work at the crime scene. Who knows, maybe that’s all it really was.”

“I doubt it,” Bosch said.

“Well, your doubts aren’t good enough. Where do we go from here?”

“We still have some things in the fire. Jerry’s going for a warrant based on what we’ve got so far. If we get inside Powers’s house, maybe we find the shoes, maybe we find something else. We’ll see. I also have an angle in Vegas working. We figure that for them to have pulled this off, Powers had to have followed Tony over there once or twice, you know, to know about Goshen and pick him to hang it all on. If we’re lucky, Powers would’ve wanted to stay right on Tony. That would mean staying at the Mirage. You can’t stay there without a trail. You can pay cash but you’ve got to give a legit credit card imprint to cover room charges, phone calls, things like that. In other words, you can’t register under any name you don’t have on a credit card. I’ve got a guy checking.”

“Okay, it’s a start,” Billets said.

She nodded her head, cupped a hand over her mouth and lapsed into a contemplative silence for a long moment.

“What it all comes down to is that we need to break him, don’t we?” she finally asked.

Bosch nodded.

“Probably. Unless we get lucky with the warrant.”

“You’re not going to break him. He’s a cop, he knows the angles, he knows the rules of evidence.”

“We’ll see.”

She looked at her watch. Bosch looked at his and saw it was now one o’clock.

“We’re in trouble,” Billets said solemnly. “We won’t be able to contain this much past dawn. After that I will have to make proper notification of what we’ve done and what we’ve got going. If that happens, you can count on us not being involved, and worse.”

Bosch leaned forward.

“Go back home, Lieutenant,” he said. “You were never here. Let us have the night. Come back in at nine tomorrow. Bring a DA back with you if you want. Make sure it’s somebody who will go to the edge with you. If you don’t know one, I can call somebody. But give us till nine. Eight hours. Then you come in and we either have the complete package tied up for you or you go ahead and do what you have to do.”

She looked carefully at each one of them, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“Good luck,” she said.

She nodded, got up and left them there.

Outside the door to interview room three, Bosch paused and composed his thoughts. He knew that everything would turn on what happened inside the room. He had to break Powers and that would be no easy task. Powers was a cop. He knew all the tricks. But somehow Bosch had to find a weakness he could exploit until the big man went down. He knew it was going to be a brutal match. He blew out his breath and opened the door.