“You’re talking about a very powerful and politically connected family.”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the car czar.”
Bosch checked her look to make sure she was kidding.
“I’m afraid of moving too fast and blowing it. We’ve got nothing that directly links anybody to Stacey Kincaid or Howard Elias. If we bring Mom down here and don’t turn her, then we watch the car czar drive away. That’s what I’m afraid of, okay?”
Rider nodded.
“She’s dying to be turned,” Edgar said. “Why else send those notes to Elias?”
Bosch put his elbows on the desk and washed his face with his hands as he thought about things. He had to make a decision.
“What about Charlotte’s Web Site?” he asked, his face still covered by his hands. “What do we do with that?”
“We give that to Inglert and the O’Connors,” Rider said. “They’ll jump all over it. Like I said, they’ll be able to trace the good guy list to the users. They’ll identify them and take them down. We’re talking multiple arrests of an Internet pedophile ring. That’s just for starters. The DA might want to try to link them all to the homicides.”
“They’re probably all over the country,” Edgar said. “Not just L.A.”
“They might be all over the world but it won’t matter. Our people will work with the bureau on it.”
More silence passed by and Bosch finally dropped his hands to the desk. He’d made his decision.
“Okay,” he said. “You two stay here and work on the search warrants. I want them ready to go tonight, in case we decide to move. We want all weapons, computer equipment—you know what to do. I want warrants for the old house, which they still own, as well as the new house, all cars and Kincaid’s office. Also, Jerry, see what you can find out about the security guy.”
“D.C. Richter, will do. What —”
“In fact, on the warrants, write up one for his car.”
“What’s the PC?” Rider asked.
Bosch thought a moment. He knew what he wanted but he needed a legal means of getting there.
“Just say that as Kincaid’s director of security it is believed that his vehicle may have been used in the commission of crimes relating to Stacey Kincaid.”
“That’s not probable cause, Harry.”
“We stick the warrant in with the other ones,” he said. “Maybe the judge won’t care after he’s read what is in them. In fact, check the judge list. Let’s take these to a woman.”
Rider smiled and said, “Aren’t we sly?”
“What are you going to be doing, Harry?” Edgar asked.
“I’m going downtown to talk to Irving and Lindell, tell them what we got and see how they want to play it.”
Bosch looked at Rider and now saw disappointment.
“Harry, this isn’t like you,” she said. “You know that if you go to Irving he’ll take the conservative route. He won’t let us move until we’ve nailed down every possibility.”
Bosch nodded and said, “Normally, that would be true. But these aren’t normal times. He wants to prevent the city from burning. Going with this, and going fast, might be the way. Irving’s smart enough to see that.”
“You have too much faith in human nature,” she said.
“What are you talking about?”
“The best way of cooling this city off is to arrest a cop. Irving’s already down there with Sheehan in the box. He isn’t going to want to hear this, Harry.”
“You think that if you arrest the car czar and say he did Elias that everybody will believe you and be cool,” Edgar added. “You don’t understand. There are people out there who need this to be a cop and they won’t listen to anything else. Irving’s smart enough to see that, too.”
Bosch thought of Sheehan downtown at Parker Center in a room. He was being measured as the department’s sacrificial lamb.
“Just work on the warrants,” he said. “I’ll worry about the rest.”
27
Bosch looked out the window and down at the protesters lining the sidewalks in front of Parker Center and across Los Angeles Street. They moved in orderly lines, carrying signs that said JUSTICE NOW on one side and JUSTICE FOR HOWARD ELIAS on the other. The duplication of the signs attested to the careful orchestration of the protest for the benefit of the media. Bosch saw Reverend Preston Tuggins was one of the marchers. As he walked, reporters walked along with him, sticking microphones in front of him and focusing cameras at his face. Bosch didn’t see any signs that said anything about Catalina Perez.
“Detective Bosch,” Deputy Chief Irving said from behind him. “Run it down for us. You’ve told us what information you’ve accumulated. Now put it into perspective. Tell us what you think it means.”
Bosch turned around. He looked at Irving, then at Lindell. They were in Irving’s office. Irving was ensconced behind his desk, sitting ramrod straight in his full uniform—an indication he would be appearing at a press conference later. Lindell sat in one of the chairs across the desk. Bosch had just recounted for them what Rider had come up with and the steps his team had taken to that point. Irving now wanted his interpretation of it all.
Bosch composed his thoughts as he stepped back to the desk and took the seat next to Lindell.
“I think Sam Kincaid killed his stepdaughter or had something to do with it. There never was an abduction. That was the story he cooked up. Then he got lucky. He caught a big break when those fingerprints happened to point to Harris. After that was discovered he was practically home free.”
“Start at the start.”
“Okay. You start with Kincaid being a pedophile. He married Kate six years ago, probably as a cover. And to get at her daughter. The girl’s body was too decomposed for the coroner to determine if there was indication of long-term sexual abuse. But I’m saying there was. And at —”
“The mother knew?”
“I don’t know. She found out at some point but when that was is the question.”
“Go on. Sorry to interrupt.”
“Something happened last summer. Maybe the girl threatened to tell someone—her mother, if she didn’t know yet—or maybe go to the authorities. Or maybe Kincaid simply grew tired of her. Pedophiles target a specific age group. They’re not interested in children older than their target group. Stacey Kincaid was about to turn twelve. She may have been too old for her stepfather’s . . . tastes. If she was no longer of use to him in that way, she was only a danger to him.”
“This conversation is turning my stomach, Detective. We are talking about an eleven-year-old girl.”
“What do you want me to do about it, Chief? It’s turning mine, too. I’ve seen the pictures.”
“Then move on please.”
“So something happened and he killed her. He hid the body and jimmied the window. He then let events take place. In the morning the mother finds her gone and calls the cops. The abduction story starts to unfold.”
“He then gets lucky,” Lindell said.
“Right. He catches a nice piece of luck. Of all the prints collected in the girl’s room and the rest of the house, the computer spits out a match with Michael Harris, ex-convict and all-around dirtbag. RHD was off to the races then. Like they were wearing blinders. They dropped everything and Harris became the only focus. They picked him up and did their thing with him. Only a funny thing happened on the way to a conviction. Harris didn’t confess and there was no other evidence to go with those fingerprints. Meantime, Harris’s name was leaked to the media. It became known that the cops had a suspect. Kincaid found out where Harris lived—maybe he got it from a friendly cop who was just keeping the parents of the victim informed. However it happened, he knew where Harris lived. He went to the spot where he’d hidden the body and moved it. My guess is that it was in the trunk of a car all along. Probably on one of his car lots. Anyway, he took the body to Harris’s neighborhood and dumped it in a trash lot a couple blocks from the suspect’s apartment.
When it was found the next morning, the cops finally had another piece of evidence—circumstantial as it was—to go with the fingerprints. But all Harris was was a patsy.”
“His prints had been left when he washed Mrs. Kincaid’s car,” Irving said.
“Right.”
“So what about Elias?” Lindell asked. “How did he get himself killed?”
“I think Mrs. Kincaid did that. By mistake. At some point since she put her daughter in the ground I think she started seeing ghosts. She was feeling guilty about her daughter and maybe tried to make it right. She knew what her husband was capable of, maybe he had even threatened her outright, so she tried to do it on the sly. She started sending anonymous letters to Elias, to help him along. It did. Elias was able to get to the secret web site, Charlotte’s Web. Once he saw those pictures of the girl, he knew who the real killer probably was. He was going about it very quietly. But he was going to subpoena Kincaid and spring it on him in court. Only he made a mistake and showed his hand. He left a trail on the web site. Kincaid or the operators of the site learned they had been compromised.”
“They sent out a gun,” Lindell said.
“I seriously doubt it was Kincaid himself. But probably somebody working for him. He’s got a security guy. We’re checking him out.”
They all sat silent for a long moment. Irving clasped his hands on the desk in front of him. There was nothing on top of it. It was just polished wood.
“You have to cut Sheehan loose,” Bosch said. “He didn’t do it.”
“Don’t worry about Sheehan,” Irving said. “If he’s clean he goes home. I want to know how we proceed with Kincaid. It seems so . . .”
Bosch ignored his hesitancy.
“We do what we’re doing,” he said. “We get search warrants signed and ready to go. I’m supposed to meet Mrs. Kincaid tomorrow morning at the old house. I go, try to play her, try to get an admission. I think she’s fragile, maybe ready to be flipped. Either way, we spring the warrants. We use everybody and hit all places at once—the homes, the cars, the offices. We see what they bring. We also have to pull records on his dealerships. Find out what cars Kincaid was using back in July. Richter, too.”
“Richter?”
“He’s the security guy.”
Irving got up and went to the window this time.
“You’re talking about a member of a family that helped build this city,” he said. “The son of Jackson Kincaid.”
“I know that,” Bosch replied. “The guy’s from a powerful family. He’s even proprietary about the smog. He looks at it like it’s a family accomplishment. But that doesn’t matter, Chief. Not after what he’s done.”
Irving’s eyes dropped and Bosch knew he was looking down at the protest march.
“The city’s held together . . .”
He didn’t finish. Bosch knew what he was thinking. That those people down on the sidewalks were expecting news of charges being filed—against a cop.
“Where are we with Detective Sheehan?” Irving asked.
Lindell looked at his watch.
“We’ve been talking to him for six hours now. When I left he had yet to say a single self-incriminating word in regard to the murder of Howard Elias.”
“He previously threatened the victim in the manner in which the victim was killed.”
“That was a long time ago. Plus, it was said in public, in front of witnesses. It’s been my experience that people who make threats like that usually don’t carry them out. They are blowing off steam most of the time.”
Irving nodded, his face still to the window.
“What about ballistics?” he asked.
“Nothing yet. The autopsy on Elias was supposed to start this afternoon. I sent Detective Chastain over. They’ll dig the slugs out and he’ll take them over to your firearms people. It will take too long to send them to my people in Washington. But remember, Chief, Sheehan volunteered his gun. He said, ‘Do the ballistics.’ Yes, he carries a nine but I kinda think he wouldn’t have offered the gun if he didn’t know the gun wouldn’t match the bullets.”
“And his home?”
“We searched it top to bottom—again, with his permission. Nothing. No other weapons, no hate notes about Elias, nothing.”
“Alibi?”
“Only place he’s hurting. He was home alone Friday night.”
“What about his wife?” Bosch asked.
“The wife and kids were up in Bakersfield,” Lindell said. “Apparently they’ve been up there a good long time.”
It was one more surprise about Sheehan. Bosch wondered why Sheehan hadn’t mentioned it when Bosch had asked about his family.
Irving remained silent and Lindell continued.
“I guess what I’m saying is that we can hold him and wait till tomorrow when we’ve got the ballistics report to clear him. Or we can hop on Harry’s wagon and kick him loose now. But we keep him overnight and the expectations out on the street will just rise that much further . . .”
“And if we release him without explanation we could touch off a riot,” Irving said.
Irving continued to stare at the window, brooding. This time Lindell waited.
“Kick him loose at six,” Irving finally said. “At the five o’clock briefing I will say he is being released pending further investigation. I can hear the howls already from Preston Tuggins and his people.”
“That’s not good enough, Chief,” Bosch said. “You have to say he’s clear. ‘Pending further investigation’? You might as well say we think he did it but we don’t have the evidence to charge him yet.”
Irving wheeled from the window and looked at Bosch.
“Do not dare to tell me what is good enough, Detective. You do your job and I will do mine. Speaking of which, the briefing is in an hour. I want your two partners there for it. I am not going to stand up there with a bunch of white faces behind me and say we are letting a white cop go pending further investigation. I want your people there this time. And absolutely no excuse will be acceptable.”
“They’ll be there.”
“Good. Now let’s talk about what we will say to the media about the direction the investigation is heading in.”
The press conference was short. This time there was no sign of the chief of police. It was left to Irving to explain that the investigation was continuing and widening. He also said that the police officer who had been interviewed for several hours was being released. This brought an immediate chorus of shouted questions from the reporters. Irving raised his hands as if the action might in some way control the crowd. He was wrong.
“We are not going to turn this into a shouting match,” he barked. “I will take a handful of questions and that is it. We have an investigation to get back to. We —”
“What do you mean by released, Chief?” Harvey Button called out. “Are you saying he has been cleared or you just don’t have evidence to hold him?”
Irving looked at Button for a moment before answering.
“What I am saying is that the investigation is now moving into other areas.”
“Then Detective Sheehan has been cleared, correct?”
“I am not getting into naming people we talk to.”
“Chief, we all know the name. Why can’t you answer the question?”
Bosch thought it was amusing in a cynical sort of way to watch this exchange because Lindell had convinced him it was Irving who had first leaked Frankie Sheehan’s name to the media. Now the deputy chief was trying to act insulted that it was out there.
“All I am saying is that the police officer we have talked to provided satisfactory answers at this time. He is going home and that is all I am —”
“What other directions is the investigation going in?” another reporter called out.
“I cannot get into detail,” Irving said. “Suffice it to say we will be turning over every stone.”
“Can we ask the FBI agent questions?”
Irving glanced at Lindell
, who was standing at the rear of the stage next to Bosch, Edgar and Rider. He then looked back at the crowd of lights, cameras and reporters.
“The FBI and the LAPD have decided this will best be handled by funneling information through the police department. If you have a question, ask me.”
“Are other cops being questioned?” Button called out.
Irving had to think again to make sure he put the right words in the right order.
“Yes, police officers are being questioned in a routine manner. At this point there are no police officers that we would classify as suspects.”
“Then you are saying Sheehan is not a suspect.”
Button got him. Irving knew it. He had talked himself into a logic corner. But he took the easy, if not disingenuous, way out.
“No comment.”
“Chief,” Button continued, above the din of other reporters, “the murders are almost forty-eight hours old. Are you saying there are no solid suspects at this time?”
“We’re not going to get into what suspects there may or may not be. Next.”
Irving quickly pointed to another reporter in order to steer things away from Button. The questioning went on for another ten minutes. At one point Bosch looked over at Rider and she gave him a look that said, What are we doing here? And Bosch returned a look that answered, We are wasting our time.
When it was finally over, Bosch huddled on the stage with Edgar and Rider. They had arrived from Hollywood station just as the press conference had begun and he hadn’t had time to talk to them.
“So where are we on the search warrants?” he asked.
“Almost done,” Edgar said. “It didn’t help that we had to come down here for the dog and pony show.”
“I know.”
“Harry, I thought you were going to steer us clear of this stuff,” Rider said.
“I know. It was selfish. Frankie Sheehan is a friend. What they did to him, leaking his name like that, was bullshit. I was hoping that having you two here might add some credibility to the announcement that he was being let go.”