Bosch worked out the details in his head while he was driving to Hidden Highlands. The Plan. He had been like a cork floating in a great wide ocean that was the case. Bouncing with the currents, not in control of anything. But now he had an idea, a plan that would hopefully draw Veronica Aliso into the box.
Nash was in the gatehouse when Bosch pulled up. He stepped out and leaned down on Bosch’s door.
“Morning, Detective Bosch.”
“Howzit going, Captain Nash?”
“It’s going. I gotta say your people are creating a bit of a stir already this morning.”
“Yeah, well, that can happen. Whaddaya gonna do?”
“Go with the flow, I guess. You going in to catch up with them or you heading to Mrs. Aliso’s?”
“I’m going to see the lady.”
“Good. Maybe that’ll get her off my back. I gotta call, you know.”
“Why’s she on your back?”
“She’s just been calling up wondering why you people have been talkin’ to the neighbors all morning.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her they got a job to do and a murder investigation requires them to talk to a lot of people.”
“That’s good. I’ll see you.”
Nash waved him off and opened the gate. Bosch drove to the Aliso house, but before he got there he saw Edgar walking from the front door of the home next door to his car. Bosch stopped and waved him over.
“Harry.”
“Jerry. Get anything yet?”
“Nah, not really. Thing about these rich neighborhoods, it’s like working a shooting in South Central. Nobody ever wants to talk, nobody saw nothing. I get tired of these people.”
“Where’s Kiz?”
“She’s working the other side of the street. We met at the station and took one car. She’s on foot down there somewhere. Hey, Harry, what do you think about her?”
“Kiz? I think she’s good.”
“No, I don’t mean as a cop. You know . . . what do you think?”
Bosch looked at him.
“You mean like you and her? What do I think?”
“Yeah. Me and her.”
Bosch knew Edgar was six months divorced and starting to pull his head out of the sand again. But he also knew something about Kiz that he didn’t have the right to tell him.
“I don’t know, Jerry. Partners shouldn’t get involved.”
“I suppose. So you going to see the widow now?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe I better go with you. You never know, if she figures out we think she’s it, then she’s liable to wig out, maybe try to take you out.”
“I doubt it. She’s too cool for that. But let’s go find Kiz. I think both of you should come. I’ve got a plan now.”
Veronica Aliso was waiting for them at her door.
“I’ve been waiting for you people to come by to explain just what is going on.”
“Sorry, Mrs. Aliso,” Bosch said. “We’ve been kind of busy.”
She ushered them in.
“Can I get you something?” she asked over her shoulder as she led them in.
“I think we’re fine.”
Part of the plan was for Bosch to do all the talking, if possible. Rider and Edgar were to intimidate her with their silence and their cold-eyed stares.
Bosch and Rider sat where they had sat before and so did Veronica Aliso. Edgar remained standing on the periphery of the seating section of the living room. He put his hand on the mantel of the fireplace and the look on his face said he would rather be anywhere else on the planet on this Saturday morning.
Veronica Aliso was wearing blue jeans, a light blue Oxford shirt and dirty work boots. Her hair was pulled back and pinned up in the back. She was still very attractive though obviously dressing down. Through her open collar Bosch could see a scattering of freckles that he knew from her video went all the way down her chest.
“Are we interrupting something?” Bosch asked. “Were you about to go out?”
“I wanted to go to the Burbank stables sometime today if I could. I keep a horse there. My husband’s body was cremated and I want to take his ashes up the trail into the hills. He loved the hills . . .”
Bosch somberly nodded.
“Well, this won’t take too long. First off, you’ve seen us in the neighborhood this morning. We’re just conducting a routine canvass. You never know, maybe someone saw something, maybe somebody watching the house or a car here that shouldn’t have been here. You never know.”
“Well, I think I’d be the one who would know about any car that shouldn’t be here.”
“Well, I mean if you weren’t here. If you were out and someone was here, you probably wouldn’t know.”
“How could they get in past the gate?”
“It’s a long shot, we know, Mrs. Aliso. It’s all we’ve got right now.”
She frowned.
“There’s nothing else? What about what you told me the other day? About this man in Las Vegas?”
“Well, Mrs. Aliso, I hate to tell you this, but we went down the wrong path on that. We gathered a lot of information about your husband and initially it looked like that was the way to go. But it didn’t work out. We do think we’re moving in the right direction now, and we’re going to make up for the lost time.”
She seemed genuinely stunned.
“I don’t understand. The wrong path?”
“Yes, well, I can explain it to you, if you want to hear it. But it involves your husband and some unsavory things.”
“Detective, I’ve prepared myself over the last few days for anything. Tell me.”
“Mrs. Aliso, as I think I indicated to you on our last visit, your husband was involved with some very dangerous people in Las Vegas. I think I mentioned them, Joey Marks and Luke Goshen?”
“I don’t recall.”
She kept the look of bewilderment on her face. She was good. Bosch had to give that to her. She might not have made it in the film business but she could act when she needed to.
“To put it bluntly, they’re mobsters,” Bosch said. “Organized crime. And it looks like your husband had been working for them for a long time. He took mob money from Vegas and put it into his films. Laundered it through. Then he gave it back to them, after taking out a fee. It was a lot of money and that’s where we went down the wrong path. Your husband was about to get audited by the IRS. Did you know that?”
“Audited? No. He didn’t tell me anything about an audit.”
“Well, we found out about the audit, which likely would have revealed his illegal activities, and we thought maybe these people he did business with became aware of it, too, and had him killed so he wouldn’t be able to talk about their business. Only we don’t think that anymore.”
“I don’t understand. Are you sure of this? It seems obvious to me that these people had some involvement.”
She faltered a little bit there. Her voice was a little too urgent.
“Well, like I said, we thought that, too. We haven’t fully dropped it, but so far it doesn’t check out. The man we arrested over there in Vegas, this Goshen fellow I mentioned, he looked pretty good for it, I have to say. But then his alibi turned out to be a rock we couldn’t break. It couldn’t have been him, Mrs. Aliso. It looks as though somebody went to great lengths to make it look like it was him, even planted a gun in his house, but we know it wasn’t.”
She looked at him with dull eyes for a moment and then shook her head. Then she made her first real mistake. She should have said that if it wasn’t Goshen, then it was probably the other one Bosch had mentioned or some other mobster associate. But she said nothing and that instinctively told Bosch that she knew of the setup on Goshen. She now knew the plan hadn’t worked and her mind was probably scrambling.
“So then what will you do?” she finally asked.
“Oh, we already had to let him go.”
“No, I mean about the investigation. What’s next?
”
“Well, we’re sort of starting from scratch. Looking at it like maybe it was a planned robbery.”
“You said his watch wasn’t taken.”
“Right. It wasn’t. But the Las Vegas angle wasn’t a total waste. We found out that your husband was carrying a lot of money with him when he landed here that night. He was taking it back here to run through his company. To clean it up. It was a lot of money. Nearly a million dollars. He was carrying it for —”
“A million dollars?”
That was her second mistake. To Bosch, her emphasis on million and her shock betrayed her knowledge that there had been far less than that in Tony Aliso’s briefcase. Bosch watched as her eyes stared blankly and all her movement was interior. He guessed—and hoped—she was now wondering where the rest of the money was.
“Yes,” he said. “See, the man who gave your husband the money, the one we first thought was a suspect, is an FBI agent who infiltrated the organization your husband worked for. That is why his alibi is so solid. Anyway, he told us that your husband was carrying a million dollars. It was all in cash and there was so much that he couldn’t fit it all into his briefcase. He had to put about half of it in his suit bag.”
He paused for a few moments. He could tell the story was playing in her internal theater. Her eyes had that faraway look in them. He remembered that look from her movie. But this time it was for real. He hadn’t even finished the interview, but she was already making plans. He could see it.
“Was the money marked by the FBI?” she asked. “I mean, could they trace it that way?”
“No, unfortunately their agent did not have it long enough to do that. There was too much of it, frankly. But the transaction did take place in an office with a hidden video camera. There is no doubt, Tony left there with a million dollars. Uh . . .”
Bosch paused to open his briefcase and quickly consult a page from a file.
“. . . actually, it was a million, seventy-six thousand. All in cash.”
Veronica’s eyes went down to the floor as she nodded. Bosch studied her but his concentration was interrupted when he thought he heard a sound from somewhere in the house. It suddenly occurred to him that maybe there was someone else there. They had never asked.
“Did you hear that?” Bosch asked.
“What?”
“I thought I heard something. Are you alone in the house?”
“Yes.”
“I thought I heard a bump or something.”
“You want me to look around?” Edgar offered.
“Oh, no,” Veronica said quickly, “. . . uh, it probably was just the cat.”
Bosch didn’t remember seeing any sign of a cat when he had been in the house before. He glanced at Kiz and saw her almost imperceptibly turn her head to signal she didn’t remember a cat either. He decided to let it go for the time being.
“Anyway,” he said, “that’s why we’re canvassing and that’s why we’re here. We need to ask you some questions. They might go over some of the same ground we’ve covered before but, like I said, we’re kind of starting over. It won’t take too much longer. Then you’ll be able to go to the stables.”
“Fine. Go ahead.”
“Would you mind if I have a drink of water first?”
“No, of course not. I’m sorry, I should have asked. Anybody else want something?”
“I’ll pass,” Edgar said.
“I’m fine,” Rider said.
Veronica Aliso stood up and headed toward the hallway. Bosch gave her a head start and then stood up and followed.
“You did ask,” he said to her back. “But I turned it down. I didn’t think I’d get thirsty.”
He followed her into the kitchen, where she opened a cabinet and took down a glass. Bosch looked around. It was a large kitchen with stainless-steel appliances and black granite countertops. There was a center island with a sink in it.
“Tap water’d be fine for me,” he said, taking the glass from her and filling it at the island.
He turned and leaned against the counter and drank from it. He then poured the rest out and put the glass on the counter.
“That’s all you want?”
“Yes. Just needed something to wash the dust down, I guess.”
He smiled and she didn’t.
“Well then, should we go back to the living room?” she asked.
“That’d be fine.”
He followed her out of the kitchen. Just before he entered the hallway, he turned back and his eyes swept across the gray-tiled floor. He didn’t see what he thought should be there.
Bosch spent the next fifteen minutes asking mostly questions that had been asked six days earlier and that had little bearing on the case now. He was going through the motions, the finishing touches. The trap was baited and this was his way of quietly stepping back from it. Finally, when he thought he had said and asked enough, Bosch closed the notebook in which he had been scribbling notes he’d never look at again and stood up. He thanked her for her time and Veronica Aliso walked the three detectives to the door. Bosch was the last one out, and as he stepped over the threshold she spoke to him. He somehow knew that she would. There were parts to her act that had to be played as well.
“Keep me informed, Detective Bosch. Please keep me informed.”
Bosch turned and looked back at her.
“Oh, I will. If anything happens, you’ll be the first to know.”
Bosch drove Edgar and Rider back to their car. He didn’t speak about the interview until he pulled in behind it.
“So what do you think?” he asked as he got out his cigarettes.
“I think we sunk the hook but good,” Edgar said.
“Yeah,” Rider said. “It’s going to be interesting.”
Bosch lit a cigarette.
“What about the cat?” he asked.
“What?” Edgar asked.
“The noise in the house. She said it was the cat. But in the kitchen there were no food bowls on the floor.”
“Maybe they were outside,” Edgar offered.
Bosch shook his head.
“I think people who keep cats inside feed them inside,” he said. “In the hills you’re supposed to keep ’em in. Coyotes. Anyway, I don’t like cats. I get allergic to them. I can usually tell when somebody has a cat. I don’t think she has a cat. Kiz, you didn’t see a cat in there, did you?”
“I spent all Monday morning in there and I never saw a cat.”
“You think maybe it was the guy then?” Edgar asked. “Whoever she worked this with?”
“Maybe. I think somebody was in there. Maybe her lawyer.”
“Nah, lawyers don’t hide like that. They come out and confront.”
“True.”
“Should we watch the place, see who comes out?” Edgar asked.
Bosch thought a moment.
“No,” Bosch said. “They spot us and they’ll know the money thing is just bait. Better we let it go. Better just to get out of here, go get set up. We gotta get ready.”
VII
During his time in Vietnam, Bosch’s primary assignment had been to fight the war in the tunnel networks that ranged beneath the villages in the Cu Chi province, to go into the darkness they called the black echo and to come back alive. But the tunnel work was done quickly, and between those missions he spent days in the bush, fighting and waiting under the jungle canopy. One time he and a handful of others got cut off from their unit and Bosch spent a night sitting in the elephant grass, his back pressed against the back of an Alabama boy named Donnel Fredrick, listening as a company of VC fighters moved through. They sat there and waited for Charlie to stumble onto them. There was nothing else they could do and there were too many to fight. So they waited and the minutes went by like hours. They all made it through, though Donnel was later killed in a foxhole by a direct mortar hit—friendly fire. Bosch always thought that night in the elephant grass was the closest he’d ever come to experiencing a miracle.
&n
bsp; Bosch remembered that night sometimes when he was alone on a stakeout or in a tight spot. He thought about it now as he sat cross-legged against the base of a eucalyptus tree ten yards from the tarp the homeless man, George, had erected. Over his clothes, Bosch wore a green plastic poncho he always kept in the trunk of his work car. The candy bars he had with him were Hershey’s chocolate with almonds, the same kind he had taken with him into the bush so long ago. And like that night in the tall grass, he had not moved for what seemed like hours. It was dark, with only a glimmer of moonlight making it down through the overhead canopy, and he was waiting. He wanted a cigarette but couldn’t afford to open a flame in the blackness. Every now and then he thought he could hear Edgar make a move or readjust himself twenty yards to his right, but he couldn’t be sure that it was his partner and not a deer or maybe a coyote passing through.
George had told him there were coyotes. When he had put the old man into the back of Kiz’s car for the ride to the hotel they were putting him up in, he had warned Bosch. But Bosch wasn’t afraid of coyotes.
The old man had not gone easily. He was sure they were there to take him back to Camarillo. And the truth was, he should have been going back there but the institution wouldn’t have him, not without a government-punched ticket. Instead he was going to be treated to a couple of nights at the Mark Twain Hotel in Hollywood. It wasn’t a bad place. Bosch had lived there for more than a year while his house was being rebuilt. The worst room there beat a tarp in the woods hands down. But Bosch knew George might not see it that way.
By eleven-thirty the traffic up on Mulholland had thinned down to a car every five minutes or so. Bosch couldn’t see them because of the incline and the thickness of the brush, but he could hear them and see the lights wash through the foliage above him as the cars made the curve. He was alert now because a car had slowly gone by twice in the last fifteen minutes, once each way. Bosch had sensed that it was the same car because the engine was over-throttled to compensate for a skip in the engine stroke.
And now it was back for a third time. Bosch listened intently as he heard the familiar engine, and this time there was the added sound of tires turning on gravel. The car was pulling off the road. In a few moments the engine stopped and the following silence was punctuated only by the sound of a car door being opened and then closed. Bosch slowly got up on his haunches, as painful as it was on his knees, and got ready. He looked into the darkness to his right, toward Edgar’s position, and saw nothing. He then looked up the incline, toward the edge, and waited.