Trunk Music (50 page)

“The bank people, are they cooperating or do you need a warrant for every move you make?” Bosch asked.

“No, they’re on board. The manager’s in there shaking like a leaf. Not every day you get a massacre outside your front door.”

“Then ask them to check their records and see if there’s a box in there under the name Gretchen Alexander.”

“Gretchen Alexander? Who’s that?”

“You know her, Roy. It’s Layla.”

“Layla? Are you fuckin’ kidding me? You think he’d give that bimbo two million duckets while he goes off and gets himself killed?”

“Just check, Roy. It’s worth a shot.”

Lindell went off toward the bank doors. Bosch looked at his partners.

“Jerry, you going to want your gun back? We should tell them now so they don’t destroy them or file them away forever.”

“My gun?”

Edgar looked at all of the yellow plastic with a pained look on his face.

“No, Harry, I don’t think so. That piece is haunted now. I don’t ever want it back.”

“Yeah,” Bosch said. “I was thinking the same thing.”

Bosch brooded about things for a while and then heard his name being called. He turned and saw Lindell beckoning him from the door of the bank. He headed over.

“Bingo,” Lindell said. “She’s got a box.”

They walked back into the bank and Bosch saw several agents conducting interviews with the branch’s stunned employees. Lindell led him to a desk where the branch manager sat. She was a woman of about thirty with brown curly hair. The nameplate on her desk said Jeanne Connors. Lindell picked up a file that was on her desk and showed it to Bosch.

“She has a box here and she made Tony Aliso a signatory on it. He pulled the box at the same time he pulled his own on the Friday before he got nailed. You know what I’m thinking? I think he emptied his and put it all in hers.”

“Probably.”

Bosch was looking at the safe deposit entry records in the file. They were handwritten on a three by five card.

“So,” Lindell said, “what we do is we get a warrant for her box and drill the sucker — maybe get Maury out there to do it, since he’s being so cooperative. We seize the money and the federal government is that much ahead. You guys’d get a split, too.”

Bosch looked at him.

“You can drill it, if you’ve got the probable cause, but there isn’t going to be anything in it.”

Bosch pointed to the last entry on the box card. Gretchen Alexander had pulled the box herself five days earlier — the Wednesday after Tony Aliso was killed. Lindell stared at it a long moment before reacting.

“Jesus, you think she cleared it out?”

“Yeah, Roy, I do.”

“She’s gone, isn’t she? You’ve been looking for her, haven’t you?”

“She’s in the wind, man. And I guess so am I.”

“You’re leaving?”

“I gave my statement, I’m clear. I’ll see you, Roy.”

“Yeah, okay, Bosch.”

Bosch headed to the door of the bank. As he opened it, Lindell came up behind him.

“But why’d he put it all in her box?”

He was still holding the box card and staring at it as if it might suddenly answer all his questions.

“I don’t know but I’ve got a guess.”

“What’s that, Bosch?”

“He was in love with her.”

“Him? A girl like that?”

“You never know. People can kill each other for all kinds of reasons. I guess they can fall in love with each other for all kinds of reasons. You gotta take it when it comes, no matter if it’s a girl like that or…someone else.”

Lindell just nodded and Bosch stepped through the door.

Bosch, Edgar and Rider took a cab to the federal building and picked up their car. Bosch said he wanted to stop by the house in North Las Vegas where Gretchen Alexander had grown up.

“She isn’t going to be there, Harry,” Edgar said. “Are you kidding?”

“I know she won’t be there. I just want to talk to the old lady for a minute.”

He found the house without getting lost and pulled into the driveway. The RX7 was still there and didn’t look like it had moved.

“This will only take a minute, if you want to stay in the car.”

“I’ll go in,” Rider said.

“I’ll stay and keep the AC going,” Edgar said. “In fact, I’ll drive the first leg, Harry.”

He got out as Bosch and Rider exited and came around and took Bosch’s place behind the wheel.

Bosch’s knock on the front door was answered quickly. The woman had heard or seen the car and was ready.

“You,” she said, looking through the two-inch crack she had allowed in the door. “Gretchen still isn’t here.”

“I know, Mrs. Alexander. It’s you I want to talk to.”

“Me? What on earth for?”

“Would you please let us in? It’s hot out here.”

She opened the door with a resigned look on her face.

“Hot in here, too. I can’t afford to put the thermostat lower than eighty.”

Bosch and Rider entered and moved into the living room. He introduced Rider and all three of them sat down. This time Bosch sat on the edge of the sofa, remembering how he had sunk in last time.

“All right, what’s this about? Why do you want to talk to me?”

“I want to know about your granddaughter’s mother,” Bosch said.

The old woman’s mouth went slack and Bosch could tell Rider wasn’t much less confused.

“Her mother?” Dorothy asked. “Her mother’s long gone. Didn’t have the decency to see her own child through. Never mind her mother.”

“When did she leave?”

“Long time ago. Gretchen wasn’t even out of diapers. She just left me a note saying good-bye and good luck. She was gone.”

“Where’d she go?”

“I have no earthly idea and I don’t want to know. Good riddance, is what I say. She turned her back on that beautiful little girl. Didn’t have the decency to ever call or even send for a picture.”

“How did you know she was even alive?”

“I didn’t. She could be dead all these years for all I know or care.”

She was a bad liar, the type who got louder and indignant when she lied.

“You know,” Bosch said. “She sent you money, didn’t she?”

The woman looked sullenly down at her hands for a long moment. It was her way of confirming his guess.

“How often?”

“Once or twice a year. It wasn’t near enough to make up for what she did.”

Bosch wanted to ask how much would have been enough but let it go.

“How did the money come?”

“Mail. It was in cash. I know it came from Sherman Oaks, California. That was always the postmark. What does this have to do with anything now?”

“Tell me your daughter’s name, Dorothy.”

“She was born to me and my first husband. My name was Gilroy back then and that was hers.”

“Jennifer Gilroy,” Rider said, repeating Veronica Aliso’s true name.

The old woman looked at Rider with surprise but didn’t ask how she knew.

“We called her Jenny,” she said. “Anyway, you see, when I took over with Gretchen I was remarried and had a new name. I gave it to Gretchen so the kids at school wouldn’t bother her about it. Everybody always thought I was her momma and that was fine with the both of us. Nobody needed to know diff’rent.”

Bosch just nodded. It had all come together now. Veronica Aliso was Layla’s mother. Tony Aliso had gone from the mother to the daughter. There was nothing else to ask or say. He thanked the old woman and touched Rider on the back so that she would go through the door first. Out on the front step, he paused and looked back at Dorothy Alexander. He waited until Rider was a few steps toward the car before speaking.

“When you hear from Layla — I mean, Gretchen — tell her not to come home. Tell her to stay as far away from here as she can.”

He shook his head.

“She shouldn’t ever come home.”

The woman didn’t say anything. Bosch waited a couple moments while looking down at the worn welcome mat. He then nodded and headed to the car.

Bosch took the backseat behind Edgar, Rider sat in the front. As soon as they were in the car and Edgar was backing out of the driveway, Rider turned around and looked at Bosch.

“Harry, how did you ever put that together?”

“Her last words. Veronica’s. She said, ‘Let my daughter go.’ I just sort of knew then. There’s a resemblance there. I just didn’t place it before.”

“You’ve never even seen her.”

“I’ve seen her picture.”

“What?” Edgar said. “What’s going on?”

“Do you think Tony Aliso knew who she was?” Rider asked, ignoring Edgar.

“Hard to say,” Bosch said. “If he did, it makes what happened to him easier to understand, easier to take. Maybe he was flaunting it with Veronica. Maybe it’s what sent her over the edge.”

“And Layla-slash-Gretchen?”

Edgar’s head was swiveling back and forth between them and the road, a look of confusion on his face.

“Something tells me she didn’t know. I think if she did, she would have told her grandmother. And the old lady didn’t know.”

“If he was just using her to get to Veronica, why’d he move all the money into her box?”

“He could’ve been using her but he also could’ve been in love with her. We’ll never know. Might’ve just been coincidence that it happened on the day he got killed. He could’ve just transferred the cash because he had the IRS on him. Maybe he was afraid they’d find out about the box and freeze his access to it. It could’ve been a lot of things. But we’ll never know now. Everybody’s dead.”

“Except for the girl.”

Edgar made a hard stop, pulling to the side of the road. Coincidentally, they happened to be across the street from Dolly’s on Madison.

“Is somebody gonna tell me what the hell is going on?” he demanded. “I do you people a favor and keep the car cool while you two go inside for a chat and then I’m left in the dark. Now what the hell are you two talking about?”

He was looking at Bosch in the rearview mirror.

“Just drive, Jed. Kiz will tell you when we get to the Flamingo.”

They drove into the front circle of the Hilton Flamingo and Bosch left them there. He moved quickly through the football field-sized casino, dodging rows of slot machines, until he reached the poker room, where Eleanor had said she would be when they were done. They had dropped her at the Flamingo that morning after she had shown them the bank she had once seen Tony Aliso going into with Gretchen Alexander.

There were five tables going in the poker room. Bosch quickly scanned the faces of the players but did not see Eleanor. Then, as he turned to look back across the casino, she was there, just as when she had appeared on the first night he’d gone looking for her.

“Harry.”

“Eleanor. I thought you’d be playing.”

“I couldn’t play while thinking about you out there. Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine. We’re leaving.”

“Good. I don’t like Las Vegas anymore.”

He hesitated for a moment before saying anything. He almost faltered but then the resolve came back to him.

“There is that one stop I’d still like to make before we leave. The one we talked about. That is, if you’ve decided.”

She looked at him for a long moment and then a smile broke across her face.

IX

B
OSCH WALKED ACROSS
the polished linoleum on the sixth floor of Parker Center, purposely driving his heels down with each step. He wanted to put scuff marks on the carefully tended finish. He turned into the alcove entrance to the Internal Affairs Division and asked the secretary behind the counter for Chastain. She asked if he had an appointment and Bosch told her he didn’t make appointments with people like Chastain. She stared at him a moment and he stared back until she picked up a phone and punched in an extension. After whispering into the line, she held the phone to her chest and looked up at Bosch and then eyed the shoebox and file he held in his hands.

“He wants to know what it’s about.”

“Tell him it’s about his case against me falling apart.”

She whispered some more and then Bosch was finally buzzed through the counter’s half door. He went into the IAD squad room, where several of the desks were occupied by investigators. Chastain stood up from behind one of these.

“What are you doing here, Bosch? You’re on suspension for letting that prisoner escape.”

He said it loudly so that the others in the squad room would know that Bosch was a guilty man.

“The chief cut it down to a week,” Bosch said. “I call that a vacation.”

“Well, that’s only round one. I still got your file open.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

Chastain pointed to the interview room Bosch had been in the week before with Zane.

“Let’s talk in there.”

“No,” Bosch said. “We’re not talking, Chastain. I’m just showing.”

He dropped the file he was carrying on the desk. Chastain remained standing and looked at it without opening it.

“What is this?”

“It’s the end of the case. Open it.”

Chastain sat down and opened the file, exhaling loudly, as if he were embarking on a distasteful and worthless chore. On top was a copy of a page from the department’s manual of procedure and officer conduct. The manual was to IAD dicks what the state penal code was to the rest of the officers and investigators in the department.

The page in the file pertained to officers associating with known criminals, convicted felons and members of organized crime. Such association was strictly forbidden and punishable by dismissal from the department, according to the code.

“Bosch, you didn’t need to bring me this, I’ve got the whole book,” Chastain said.

He was trying out some light banter because he didn’t know what Bosch was doing and was well aware that his peers were watching from their desks while trying to act as if they weren’t.

“Yeah? Well, you better get your book out and read the bottom line there, pal. The exception.”

Chastain looked down at the bottom of the page.

“Says, ‘Exception to this code can be established if the officer can show to the satisfaction of superior officers a family relationship through blood or marriage. If that is established, officer must —’”