“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.
Bosch stepped into the interview room, took the chair directly across from Powers and spread out the two sheets of paper he carried with him in front of Powers.
“Okay, Powers, I’m here to tell you what’s what.”
“You can save it, asshole. The only one I want to talk to is my lawyer.”
“Well, that’s what I’m here for. Why don’t you take it easy and we’ll talk about it?”
“Take it easy? You people arrest me, hook me up like a goddamn criminal and then leave me in here for a fucking hour and a half while you sit out there and figure out how fucked up this is, and you want me to take it easy? What planet are you on, Bosch? I’m not taking anything easy. Now cut me loose or give me the goddamn phone!”
“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? Deciding whether to book you or cut you loose. That’s why I came in, Powers. I thought maybe you could help us out on that.”
Powers didn’t appear to pick up on that. His eyes dropped to the center of the table and they were working—small, quick movements, looking for the angles.
“This is what is what,” Bosch said. “If I book you now, then we call the lawyer and we both know that is going to be that. No lawyer is gonna let his client talk to the cops. We’ll just have to go to court and you know what that means. You’ll be suspended, no pay. We’ll go for no bail and you’ll sit in the can nine, ten months and then maybe it gets straightened out in your favor. And maybe not. Meantime, you’re all over the front page. Your mother, father, neighbors . . . well, you know how that goes.”
Bosch took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. He didn’t light it and he didn’t offer one to Powers. He remembered offering one to the big cop at the crime scene and being turned down.
“The alternative to that,” he continued, “is that we sit here and try to get this straightened out right now. You’ve got two forms there in front of you. The good thing about dealing with a cop like this is I don’t really need to explain this stuff to you. The first one’s a rights form. You know what that is. You sign that you understand your rights and then you make your choice. Talk to me or call your lawyer after we book you. The second form is the attorney waiver.”
Powers stared silently down at the pages and Bosch put a pen down on the table.
“I’ll take the cuffs off when you’re ready to sign,” Bosch said. “See, now the bad thing about dealing with a cop is that I can’t bluff you. You know the game. You know if you sign that waiver and talk to me, you’ll either talk yourself out of this or right into it. . . . I can give you more time to
think about it, if you want.”
“I don’t need any more time,” he said. “Take off the cuffs.”
Bosch got up and went around behind Powers.
“You right or left?”
“Right.”
There was barely enough room between the back of the big man and the wall to work on the cuffs. It was a dangerous position to be in with most suspects. But Powers was a cop and he probably knew that the moment he became violent was the moment he lost any chance of getting out of this room and back to his life. He also had to assume someone was watching and ready behind the glass in room four. Bosch unhooked the right cuff and closed it around one of the metal slats of the chair.
Powers scribbled signatures across both forms. Bosch tried to give no indication of his excitement. Powers was making a mistake. Bosch took the pen from him and put it in his pocket.
“Put your arm behind you.”
“Come on, Bosch. Treat me like a human. If we’re going to talk, let’s talk.”
“Put your arm behind you.”
Powers did as he was told and blew out his breath in frustration. Bosch recuffed his wrists through the metal slat at the back of the chair and then took his seat again. He cleared his throat, going over the last details in his mind. He knew his mission here. He had to make Powers believe he had the edge, that he had a chance to get out. If he believed that, then he might start talking. If he started talking, Bosch thought he could win the fight.
“Okay,” Bosch said. “I’m going to lay it out for you. If you can convince me that we have it wrong, then you’ll be out of here before the sun’s up.”
“That’s all I want.”
“Powers, we know you have a relationship with Veronica Aliso predating her husband’s death. We know you followed him to Vegas on at least two occasions prior to the killing.”
Powers kept his eyes on the table in front of him. But Bosch was able to read them like the needles of a polygraph machine. There had been a slight tremor in the pupils when Bosch mentioned Las Vegas.
“That’s right,” Bosch said. “We’ve got the records from the Mirage. That was careless, Powers, leaving a record like that. We can put you in Vegas with Tony Aliso.”
“So I like goin’ to Vegas, big deal. Tony Aliso was there? Wow, what a coincidence. From what I heard, he went there a lot. What else you got?”
“We’ve got your print, Powers. Fingerprint. Inside the car. You got a refill of pepper spray on Sunday, but you never filed a use-of-force report explaining how you used it.”
“Accidental discharge. I didn’t file a use-of-force because there wasn’t any. You haven’t got shit. My fingerprint? You’re right, you’ve probably got prints. But I was in that car, asshole. I’m the one who found the body, remember? This is a joke, man. I’m thinking I better just get my lawyer in here and take my chances. No DA is going to touch this bullshit with a ten-foot pole.”
Bosch ignored the baiting and went on.
“And last but not least, we have your little climb down the hill tonight. Your story is for shit, Powers. You went down there to look for Aliso’s suit bag because you knew it was there and you thought it had something you and the widow overlooked before. About a half million dollars. The only question I really have is whether she called you up and told you or if that was you in her house this morning when we dropped by.”
Bosch saw the pupils jump again slightly but then they went flat.
“Like I said, I’ll take that lawyer now.”
“I guess you’re just the errand boy, right? She told you to go and get the money while she waited at the mansion.”
Powers started laughing in a fake way.
“I like that, Bosch. Errand boy. Too bad I barely know the woman. But it’s a good try. Good try. I like you, too, Bosch, but I gotta tell you something.”
He leaned across the table and lowered his voice.
“I ever run across you again on the outside, you know, when it’s just me and you, head to head, I’m going to seriously fuck you up.”
He straightened up again and nodded. Bosch smiled.
“You know, I don’t think I was sure until now. But now I’m sure. You did it, Powers. You’re the man. And there is never going to be an outside for you. Never. So tell me, whose idea was it? Was she the first one to bring it up or was that you?”
Powers stared sullenly down at the table and shook his head.
“Let me see if I can figure it out,” Bosch said. “I guess you went up there to that big house and saw all that they had, the money, maybe heard about Tony and his Rolls, and it just went on from there. I’m betting it was your idea, Powers. But I think she knew you would come up with it. See, she’s a smart woman. She knew you would come up with it. And she waited. . . .
“And you know what? We’ve got nothing on her. Nothing. She played you perfect, man. Right down the line. She’s going to do the walk and you”—he pointed at Powers’s chest—“are going to do the time. Is that how you want it?”
Powers leaned back, a bemused smile on his face.
“You don’t get it, do you?” Powers said. “You’re the errand boy here, but look at yourself. You’ve got nothin’ to deliver. Look at what you’ve got. You can’t tie me to Aliso. I found the body, man. I opened the car. If you found a print, then that’s when I left it. All the rest is a bunch of bullshit adding up to nothing. You go in to see a prosecutor with that, they’re going to laugh your ass out onto Temple Street. So go get me the phone, errand boy, and let’s get it on. Just go get me the phone.”
“Not yet, Powers,” Bosch said. “Not just yet.”
Bosch sat at his spot at the homicide table with his head down on his folded arms. An empty coffee cop was near his elbow. A cigarette he had perched on the edge of the table had burned down to the butt, leaving one more scar on the old wood.
Bosch was alone. It was almost six and there was just the hint of dawn’s light coming through the windows that ran high along the east wall of the room. He’d gone at it for more than four hours with Powers and had gained no ground. He hadn’t even made a dent in Powers’s cool demeanor. The first rounds had assuredly gone to the big patrol cop.
Bosch wasn’t asleep, though. He was simply resting and waiting and his thoughts remained focused on Powers. Bosch had no doubts. He was sure that he had the right man sitting handcuffed in the interview room. What minimal evidence they had certainly pointed to Powers. But it was more than the evidence that convinced him. It was experience and gut instinct. Bosch believed an innocent man would have been scared, not smug as Powers had been. An innocent man would not have taunted Bosch. And so what still remained now was to take away that smugness and break him. Bosch was tired but still felt up to the task. The only thing that worried him was time. Time was against him.
Bosch raised his head and looked at his watch. Billets would be back in three hours. He picked up the empty cup, used his palm to push the dead cigarette and its ashes into it and dropped it into the trash can under the table. He stood up, lit another cigarette and took a walk down the aisle between the crime tables. He tried to clear his mind, to get ready for the next round.
He thought about paging Edgar to see if he and Rider had found anything yet, anything at all that could help, but decided against it. They knew that time was important. They would have either called or come back if they had something.
As he stood at the far end of the squad room and these thoughts traveled through his mind, his eyes fell on the sex crimes table, and he realized after a moment that he was looking at a Polaroid photo of the girl who had come into the station with her mother on Friday to report that she had been raped. The photo was on the top of a stack of Polaroids that were paper-clipped to the outside of the case envelope. Detective Mary Cantu had left it on the top of her pile for Monday. Without thinking about it, Bosch pulled the stack of photos from beneath the clip and began to look through them. The girl had been badly mistreated and the bruises documented on her body by Cant
u’s camera were a depressing testament to all that was wrong with the city. Bosch always found it easier to deal with victims who were no longer living. The live ones haunted him because they could never be consoled. Not fully. They were forever left with the question why.
Sometimes Bosch thought of his city as some kind of vast drain that pulled all bad things toward a spot where they swirled around in a deep concentration. It was a place where it seemed the good people were often outnumbered by the bad. The creeps and schemers, the rapists and killers. It was a place that could easily produce someone like Powers. Too easily.
Bosch put the photos back under the clip, embarrassed by his thoughtless voyeurism of the girl’s pain. He went back to the homicide table, picked up the phone and dialed his home number. It was nearly twenty-four hours since he had been to his house, and his hope was that Eleanor Wish would answer—he had left the key under the mat—or there might be a message from her. After three rings the line was picked up and he heard his own voice on tape tell himself to leave a message. He punched in his code to check for messages and the machine told him he had none.