The Overlook

  Most of the people scattered among the tables were too tired or buzzed to do anything but comply with the demands to show identification. One young woman with a Z shaved into the side of her head started giving one pair of agents some lip but she was a woman and they were looking for a man, so they ignored her and waited patiently for her boyfriend with the matching Z to show some ID.

  Finally, a pair of agents came to the table in the corner. Their creds identified them as FBI agents Ronald Lundy and John Parkyn. They ignored Bosch because he was too old and asked Ferras for his ID.

  “Who are you looking for?” Bosch asked.

  “That’s government business, sir. We just need to check some IDs.”

  Ferras opened his badge wallet. On one side it had his photo and police ID and on the other side his detective’s badge. It seemed to freeze the two agents.

  “It’s funny,” Bosch said. “If you’re looking at IDs that means you have a name. But I never gave Agent Brenner the witness’s name. Makes me wonder. You guys over there in Tactical Intelligence don’t happen to have a bug in our computer or maybe our squad room, do you?”

  Lundy, the one obviously in charge of the pickup detail, looked squarely at Bosch. His eyes were as gray as gravel.

  “And you are?” he asked.

  “You want to see my ID, too? I haven’t passed for a twenty-year-old in a long time, but I’ll take it as a compliment.”

  He pulled out his badge wallet and handed it to Lundy unopened. The agent opened it and examined the contents very closely. He took his time.

  “Hieronymus Bosch,” he said, reading the name on the ID. “Wasn’t there some sick creep of a painter named that? Or have I got it confused with one of the bottom-feeders I’ve read about in the overnights.”

  Bosch smiled back at him.

  “Some people consider the painter a master of the Renaissance period,” he said.

  Lundy dropped the badge wallet on Bosch’s plate. Bosch hadn’t finished his eggs yet but luckily the yolks were overcooked.

  “I don’t know what the game is here, Bosch. Where’s Jesse Mitford?”

  Bosch picked up his badge wallet and used his napkin to clean egg debris off it. He took his time, put the wallet away and then he looked back up at Lundy.

  “Who’s Jesse Mitford?”

  Lundy leaned down and put both hands on the table.

  “You know damn well who he is and we need to take him in.”

  Bosch nodded as though he understood the situation perfectly.

  “We can talk about Mitford and everything else at the meeting at ten. Right after I interview Kent’s partner and his wife.”

  Lundy smiled in a way that carried no friendliness or humor.

  “You know something, pal? You’re going to need a Renaissance period yourself when this is all over.”

  Bosch smiled again.

  “See you at the meeting, Agent Lundy. In the meantime, we’re eating. Can you go bother somebody else?”

  Bosch picked up his knife and started spreading strawberry jam from a little plastic container on his last piece of toast.

  Lundy straightened up and pointed at Bosch’s chest.

  “You better be careful, Bosch.”

  With that he turned and headed toward the door. He signaled to the other team of agents and pointed toward the exit. Bosch watched them go.

  “Thanks for the heads-up,” he said.

  ELEVEN

  T HE SUN WAS STILL BELOW the ridgeline but dawn had a full grip on the sky. In daylight the Mulholland overlook showed no sign of the violence of the night before. Even the debris usually left behind at a crime scene—rubber gloves, coffee cups and yellow tape—had somehow been cleaned up or maybe had blown away. It was as if Stanley Kent had not been shot to death, his body never left on the promontory with the jetliner view of the city below. Bosch had investigated hundreds of murders during his time with the badge. He never got over how quickly the city seemed to heal itself—at least outwardly—and move on. To act as though nothing had ever happened.

  Bosch kicked at the soft, orange ground and watched the dirt drop over the edge into the brush below. He made a decision and headed back toward the car. Ferras watched him go.

  “What are you going to do?” Ferras asked.

  “I’m going in. If you’re coming, get in the car.”

  Ferras hesitated and then trotted after Bosch. They got back in the Crown Vic and drove over to Arrowhead Drive. Bosch knew that the feds had Alicia Kent but he still had the key ring from her husband’s Porsche.

  The fed car they had spotted when they had driven by ten minutes earlier was still parked in front of the Kent house. Bosch pulled into the driveway, got out and headed with purpose to the front door. He ignored the car in the street, even when he heard its door open. He managed to find the right key and get it into the lock before they were hit with a voice from behind.

  “FBI. Hold it right there.”

  Bosch put his hand on the knob.

  “Do not open that door.”

  Bosch turned and looked at the man approaching on the front walkway. He knew that whoever was assigned to watch the house would be the lowest man on the Tactical Intelligence totem pole, a screwup or an agent with baggage. He knew he could use this to his advantage.

  “LAPD Homicide Special,” he said. “We’re just going to finish up in here.”

  “No, you’re not,” the agent said. “The bureau has taken over jurisdiction of this investigation and will be handling everything from here on out.”

  “Sorry, man, I didn’t get the memo,” Bosch said. “If you’ll excuse us.”

  He turned back to the door.

  “Do not open that door,” the agent said again. “This is a national security investigation now. You can check with your superiors.”

  Bosch shook his head.

  “You may have superiors. I have supervisors.”

  “Whatever. You’re not going into that house.”

  “Harry,” Ferras said. “Maybe we—”

  Bosch waved a hand and cut him off. He turned back to the agent.

  “Let me see some ID,” he said.

  The agent put an exasperated look on his face and dug out his creds. He flipped them open and held them out. Bosch was ready. He grabbed the agent by the wrist and pivoted. The agent’s body came forward and past him and Bosch used a forearm to press him face first against the door. He pulled his hand—still clutching his credentials—behind his back.

  The agent started struggling and protesting but it was too late. Bosch leaned his shoulder into him to keep him against the door and slipped his free hand under the man’s jacket. He found and jerked the handcuffs off the agent’s belt and started cuffing him up.

  “Harry, what are you doing?” Ferras yelled.

  “I told you. Nobody’s pushing us aside.”

  Once he had the agent’s hands cuffed behind him he grabbed the credentials out of his hand. He opened them and checked the name. Clifford Maxwell. Bosch turned him around and shoved the creds into the side pocket of his jacket.

  “Your career is over,” Maxwell said calmly.

  “Tell me about it,” Bosch said.

  Maxwell looked at Ferras.

  “You go along with this and you’re in the toilet, too,” he said. “You better think about it.”

  “Shut up, Cliff,” Bosch said. “The only one who is going to be in the toilet is you when you go back to Tactical and tell them how you let two of the local yokels get the drop on you.”

  That shut him up. Bosch opened the front door and walked the agent in. He roughly pushed him down into a stuffed chair in the living room.

  “Have a seat,” he said. “And shut the fuck up.”

  He reached down and opened up Maxwell’s jacket so he could see where he carried his weapon. His gun was in a pancake holster under his left arm. He would not be able to reach it with his wrists cuffed behind his back. Bosch frisked the agent’s lower legs to make sure he
wasn’t carrying a throw-down. Satisfied, he stepped back.

  “Relax now,” he said. “We won’t be long.”

  Bosch started down the hallway, signaling his partner to follow him.

  “You start in the office and I’ll start in the bedroom,” he instructed. “We’re looking for anything and everything. We’ll know it when we see it. Check the computer. Anything unusual, I want to know about it.”

  “Harry.”

  Bosch stopped in the hallway and looked at Ferras. He could tell that his young partner was running scared. He let him have his say even though they were still within earshot of Maxwell.

  “We shouldn’t be doing it this way,” Ferras said.

  “How should we be doing it, Ignacio? Do you mean we should be going through channels? Have our boss talk to his boss, grab a latte and wait for permission to do our job?”

  Ferras pointed down the hallway toward the living room.

  “I understand the need for speed,” he said. “But do you think he’s going to let this go? He’s going to have our badges, Harry, and I don’t mind going down in the line of duty, but not for what we just did.”

  Bosch admired Ferras for saying we and that gave him the patience to calmly step back and put a hand on his partner’s shoulder. He lowered his voice so Maxwell would not hear him from the living room.

  “Listen to me, Ignacio, not one thing is going to happen to you because of this. Not one thing, okay? I’ve been around a little longer than you and I know how the bureau works. Hell, my ex-wife is ex-bureau, okay? And the one thing I know better than anything is that the number-one FBI priority is not to be embarrassed. That is a philosophy they teach them at Quantico and it seeps into the bones of every agent in every field office in every city. Do not embarrass the bureau. So when we are done here and we cut that guy loose he’s not going to tell a single soul what we did or that we were even here. Why do you think they had him sitting on the house? Because he’s F-B-Einstein? Uh-uh. He’s working off an embarrassment—either to himself or the bureau. And he’s not going to do or say a thing that brings him any more heat.”

  Bosch paused to allow Ferras to respond. He didn’t.

  “So let’s just move quickly here and check out the house,” Bosch continued. “When I was here this morning it was all about the widow and dealing with her and then we had to run out the door to Saint Aggy’s. I want to take my time but be quick, you know what I mean? I want to see the place in daylight and grind the case down for a while. This is how I like to work. You’d be surprised what you come up with sometimes. The thing to remember is that there’s always a transfer. Those two killers left their mark somewhere in this house and I think SID and everybody else missed it. There’s got to be a transfer. Let’s go find it.”

  Ferras nodded.

  “Okay, Harry.”

  Bosch clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Good. I’ll start in the bedroom. You check the office.”

  Bosch moved down the hallway and was to the threshold of the bedroom when Ferras called his name again. Bosch turned and went back down the hallway to the office alcove. His partner was standing behind the desk.

  “Where’s the computer?” Ferras asked.

  Bosch shook his head in frustration.

  “It was on the desk. They took it.”

  “The FBI?”

  “Who else? It wasn’t on the SID log, only the mouse pad. Just look around, go through the desk. See what else you can find. We’re not taking anything. We’re just looking.”

  Bosch went down the hall to the master bedroom. It appeared to be undisturbed since he had last seen it. There was still a slight odor of urine due to the soiled mattress.

  He walked over to the night table on the left side of the bed. He saw black fingerprint powder dusted across the knobs on the two drawers and its flat surfaces. On top of the table were a lamp and a framed photograph of Stanley and Alicia Kent. Bosch picked up the photo and studied it. The couple was standing next to a rosebush in full bloom. Alicia had dirt smudged on her face but was smiling broadly, as if she were standing proudly next to her own child. Bosch could tell that the rosebush was hers and in the background he could see others just like it. Farther up the hillside were the first three letters of the Hollywood sign and he realized the photo was probably taken in the backyard of the house. There would be no more pictures of the happy couple like this.

  Bosch put the photo down and slid open the table’s drawers one by one. They were full of personal items belonging to Stanley. Various reading glasses, books and prescription bottles. The lower drawer was empty and Bosch remembered that it was the place where Stanley had kept his gun.

  Bosch closed the drawers and stepped into the corner of the room on the other side of the table. He was looking for a new angle, some sort of fresh take on the crime scene. He realized that he needed the crime scene photos and he had left them in a file in the car.

  He walked down the hallway toward the front door. When he got to the living room he saw Maxwell lying on the floor in front of the chair he had been placed in. He had managed to move his handcuffed wrists down over his hips. His knees were bent up with his wrists cuffed behind them. He looked up at Bosch with a red and sweating face.

  “I’m stuck,” Maxwell said. “Help me out.”

  Bosch almost laughed.

  “In a minute.”

  He walked out the front door and went to the car, where he retrieved the files containing the SID crime scene reports and photos. He had put the copy of the e-mailed photo of Alicia Kent in there as well.

  As he walked back into the house and headed toward the hallway to the rear rooms, Maxwell called out to him.

  “Come on, help me out, man.”

  Bosch ignored him. He walked down the hallway and glanced into the home office as he passed. Ferras was going through the drawers of the desk, stacking things he wanted to look at on top of it.

  In the bedroom Bosch got the e-mail photo out and put the files down on the bed. He held the photo up so he could compare it to the room. He then went to the mirrored closet door and opened it at an angle that matched the photograph. He noticed in the photo the white terry-cloth robe draped over a lounge chair in the corner of the room. He stepped into the closet and looked for the robe, found it and put it in the same position on the lounge chair.

  Bosch moved to the place in the room from which he believed the e-mail photo had been taken. He scanned the room, hoping something would poke through and speak to him. He noticed the dead clock on the bed table and then checked it against the e-mail photo. The clock was dead in the photo, too.

  Bosch walked over to the table, crouched and looked behind it. The clock was unplugged. He reached behind the table and plugged it back in. The digital screen started flashing 12:00 in red numerals. The clock worked. It just needed to be set.

  Bosch thought about this and knew it would be something to ask Alicia Kent about. He assumed the men who were in the house had unplugged the clock. The question was why. Perhaps they didn’t want Alicia Kent to know how much or how little time had gone by while she waited tied up on the bed.

  Bosch put the clock issue aside and moved to the bed, where he opened one of the files and took out the crime scene photographs. He studied these and noticed that the closet door was open at a slightly different angle from the one in the e-mail photo and that the robe was gone, obviously because Alicia Kent had put it on after her rescue. He stepped over to the closet, matched the door’s angle to the one in the crime scene photograph, and then stepped back to the door and scanned the room.

  Nothing broke through. The transfer still eluded him. He felt discomfort in his gut. He felt as though he was missing something. Something that was right there in the room with him.

  Failure brings pressure. Bosch checked his watch and saw that the federal meeting—if there was actually going to be one—was to begin in less than three hours.

  He left the bedroom and made his way down the hall toward
the kitchen, stopping in each room and checking closets and drawers and finding nothing suspicious or amiss. In the workout room he opened a closet door and found it lined with musty cold-weather clothes on hangers. The Kents had obviously migrated to L.A. from colder climes. And like most people who came from somewhere else, they refused to part with their winter gear. Nobody ever knew for sure how much of L.A. they could take. It was always good to be ready to run.

  He left the contents of the closet untouched and closed the door. Before leaving the room he noticed a rectangular discoloration on the wall next to the hooks where rubber workout mats hung. There were slight tape marks indicating that a poster or maybe a large calendar had been taped to the wall.

  When he got to the living room Maxwell was still on the floor, red-faced and sweating from struggling. He now had one leg through the loop created by his cuffed wrists, but he apparently couldn’t get the other through in order to bring his hands to the front of his body. He was lying on the tiled floor with his wrists bound between his legs. He reminded Bosch of a five-year-old holding himself in an effort to maintain bladder control.

  “We’re almost out of here, Agent Maxwell,” Bosch said.

  Maxwell didn’t respond.

  In the kitchen Bosch went to the back door and stepped out onto a rear patio and garden. Seeing the yard in daylight changed his perspective. It was on an incline and he counted four rows of rosebushes going up the embankment. Some were in bloom and some weren’t. Some relied on support sticks that carried markers identifying the different kinds of roses. He stepped up the hillside and studied a few of these, then returned to the house.

  After locking the door behind him, he walked across the kitchen and opened another door, which he knew led to the adjoining two-car garage. A bank of cabinets stretched along the back wall of the garage. One by one he opened them and surveyed the contents. There were mostly tools for gardening and household chores, and several bags of fertilizer and soil nutrients for growing roses.