In a few moments he could see the beam of a flashlight cut through the brush. The light was pointed downward and was moving in a back-and-forth sweeping pattern as its holder slowly descended the hill toward the tarp. Under his poncho Bosch held his gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other, his thumb paused on the switch and ready to turn it on.
The movement of the light stopped. Bosch guessed that its holder had found the spot where the suit bag should have been. After a moment of seeming hesitation the beam was lifted and it swept through the woods, flicking across Bosch for a fraction of a second. But it didn’t come back to him. Instead, it held on the blue tarp as Bosch guessed it probably would. The light began advancing, its holder stumbling once as he or she went toward George’s home. A few moments later, Bosch saw the beam moving behind the blue plastic. He felt another charge of adrenaline begin to course through his body. Again, his mind flashed on Vietnam. This time it was the tunnels that he thought of. Coming upon an enemy in the darkness. The fear and thrill of it. It was only after he had left that place safely that he acknowledged to himself there had been a thrill to it. And in looking to replace that thrill, he had joined the cops.
Bosch slowly raised himself, hoping his knees wouldn’t crack, as he watched the light. They had placed the suit bag in underneath the shelter after stuffing it first with crumpled newspaper. Bosch began to move as quietly as he could in behind the tarp. He was coming from the left. According to the plan, Edgar would be coming from the right, but it was still too dark for Bosch to see him.
Bosch was ten feet away now and could hear the excited breathing of the person under the tarp. Then there was the sound of a zipper being pulled open followed by the sharp cutoff of breath.
“Shit!”
Bosch moved in after hearing the curse. He realized he recognized the man’s voice just as he came around the open side of the tarp and raised both his weapon and his flashlight from beneath his poncho.
“Freeze! Police!” Bosch yelled at the same moment he put on his light. “All right, come out of there, Powers.”
Almost immediately Edgar’s light came on from Bosch’s right.
“What the . . . ?” Edgar started to say.
Crouched there in the crossing beams of light was Officer Ray Powers. In full uniform, the big patrol cop held a flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other. A look of utter surprise played across his face. His mouth dropped open.
“Bosch,” he said. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“That’s our line, Powers,” Edgar said angrily. “Don’t you know what the fuck you just did? You walked right into a—what are you doing here, man?”
Powers lowered his gun and slid it back into its holster.
“I was—there was a report. Somebody must’ve seen you guys sneaking in here. They said they saw two men sneaking around.”
Bosch stepped back from the tarp, keeping his gun raised.
“Come out of there, Powers,” he said.
Powers did as he was commanded. Bosch put the beam from his light right in the man’s face.
“What about this report? Who called it in?”
“Just some guy driving by up on the road. Must’ve seen you going in here. Can you get the light out of my face?”
Bosch didn’t move the focus of the light an inch.
“Then what?” he asked. “Who’d he call?”
Bosch knew that after Rider had dropped them off, her job was to park on a nearby street and keep her scanner on. If there had been such a radio call, she would have heard it and called off the patrol response, telling the dispatcher it was a surveillance operation.
“He didn’t call it in. I was cruising by and he waved me down.”
“You mean he claimed he just saw two guys going into the woods?”
“Uh, no. No, he waved me down earlier. I just didn’t get a chance to check it out until now.”
Bosch and Edgar had gone into the woods at two-thirty. It was full daylight then and Powers hadn’t even been on duty yet. And the only car that had been in the area at the time was Rider’s. Bosch knew Powers was lying, and it was all beginning to fall into place. His finding the body, his fingerprint on the trunk, the pepper spray on the victim, the reason the bindings were taken off the wrists. It was already there, in the details.
“How much earlier?” Bosch asked.
“Uh, it was right after I came on duty. I can’t remember the time.”
“Daylight?”
“Yeah, daylight. Can you put the fuckin’ light down?”
Bosch ignored him again.
“What was the citizen’s name?”
“I didn’t get it. Just some guy in a Jag, he waved me down at Laurel Canyon and Mulholland. Told me what he saw and I said I’d check it when I got the chance. So I was checking it out and saw the bag here. I figured it belonged to the guy in the trunk. I saw the bulletin you people put out about the car and the luggage, so I knew you were looking for it. Sorry I blew it, but you people should’ve let the watch commander know what you were doing. Jesus, Bosch, I’m going blind here.”
“Yeah, it’s blown all right,” Bosch said, finally lowering the light. He lowered his gun to his side also but didn’t put it away. He kept it ready there, under the poncho. “Might as well pack it in now. Powers, go on up the hill to your car. Jerry, grab the bag.”
Bosch climbed up the hill behind Powers, careful to keep the light up and back on the patrol cop. He knew that if they had cuffed Powers down by the tarp, they’d never get him up the hill because of the steep terrain and because Powers might fight them. So he had to scam him. He let him think he was clear.
At the top of the hill, Bosch waited until Edgar came up behind them before making a move.
“Know what I don’t get, Powers?” he said.
“What, Bosch?”
“I don’t get why you waited until dark to check out a complaint you got during the day. You’re told that two suspicious-looking characters went into the woods and you decide to wait until it’s late and it’s dark to check it out by yourself.”
“I told you. Didn’t have the time.”
“You’re full of shit, Powers,” Edgar said.
He had either just caught on or had played along with Bosch perfectly.
Bosch saw Powers’s eyes go dead as he went inside to try to figure out what to do. In that instant Bosch raised his gun again and aimed it at a spot between those two vacant portals.
“Don’t think so much, Powers,” he said. “It’s over. Now stand still. Jerry?”
Edgar moved in behind the big cop and yanked his gun out of its holster. He dropped it on the ground and jerked one of Powers’s hands behind his back. He cuffed the hand and then he did the other. When he was done, he picked up the gun. It seemed to Bosch that Powers was still inside, still staring blankly at nothing. Then he came back.
“You people, you have just fucked up big time,” he said, controlled rage in his voice.
“We’ll see about that. Jerry, you got him? I want to call Kiz.”
“Go ahead. I got his ass. I hope he does make a move. Go ahead, Powers, do something stupid for me.”
“Fuck you, Edgar! You don’t know what you’ve just done. You’re goin’ down, bro. You’re going down!”
Edgar remained silent. Bosch took the Motorola two-way out of his pocket, turned it on and keyed the mike.
“Kiz, you there?”
“Here. I’m here.”
“Come on over. Hurry.”
“On my way.”
Bosch put the two-way back and they stood there in silence for a minute until they saw the flashing blue light lead Rider’s car around the bend. When it pulled up, the lights swept repeatedly through the tops of the trees on the incline. Bosch realized that from below, down in George’s shelter, the lights on the trees might look as if they were coming from the sky. It all came to Bosch then. George’s spacecraft had been Powers’s patrol car. The abduction had been a traffic stop. The
perfect way to get a man carrying nearly a half million in cash to stop. Powers had simply waited for Aliso’s white Rolls, probably at Mulholland and Laurel Canyon, then followed and put the lights on when they approached the secluded curve. Tony probably thought he had been speeding. He pulled over.
Rider pulled off the road behind the patrol car. Bosch came over and opened the back door and looked in at her.
“Harry, what is it?” she asked.
“Powers. Powers is it.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah. I want you and Jerry to take him in. I’ll follow with his car.”
He walked back over to Edgar and Powers.
“Okay, let’s go.”
“You people have all lost your jobs,” Powers said. “You fucked yourselves up.”
“You can tell us about it at the station.”
Bosch jerked him by the arm, feeling its thickness and strength. He and Edgar then hustled him into the back of Rider’s car. Edgar went around and got in the other side next to him.
Looking in through the open rear door, Bosch went over what would be the procedure.
“Take all his shit away and lock him in one of the interview rooms,” he said. “Make sure you get his cuff key. I’ll be right behind you.”
Bosch slammed the door and knocked twice on the roof. He then went to the patrol car, put the suit bag in the backseat and got in. Rider pulled out and Bosch followed. They sped west toward Laurel Canyon.
It took Billets less than an hour to come in. When she got there, the three of them were sitting at the homicide table. Bosch was going through the murder book with Rider while she took notes on a legal pad. Edgar was at the typewriter. Billets walked in with a force and look on her face that clearly showed the situation. Bosch hadn’t talked to her yet. It had been Rider who had called her in from home.
“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 a
ssigned 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.”