Page 2 of The Overlook

“What is it?”

  “There’s an FBI agent here. She’s asking permission to enter the crime scene.”

  “Where is she?”

  The officer led the way back to the yellow tape. As Bosch got close he saw a woman standing next to the open door of a car. She was alone and she wasn’t smiling. Bosch felt the thud of uneasy recognition hit his chest.

  “Hello, Harry,” she said when she saw him.

  “Hello, Rachel,” he said.

  TWO

  I T HAD BEEN ALMOST SIX MONTHS since he had seen Special Agent Rachel Walling of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. As he approached her at the tape, Bosch was sure that not a day had gone by in that time when he hadn’t thought about her. He had never imagined, however, that they would be reunited—if they ever were reunited—in the middle of the night at a murder scene. She was dressed in jeans, an oxford shirt and a dark blue blazer. Her dark hair was unkempt but she still looked beautiful. She obviously had been called in from home, just as Bosch had. She wasn’t smiling and Bosch was reminded of how badly things had ended the last time.

  “Look,” he said, “I know I’ve been ignoring you but you didn’t have to go to all the trouble of tracking me down at a crime scene just to—”

  “It’s not really a time for humor,” she said, cutting him off. “If this is what I think it might be.”

  They’d last had contact on the Echo Park case. He had found her at the time working for a shadowy FBI unit called Tactical Intelligence. She had never explained what exactly the unit did and Bosch had never pushed it, since it wasn’t important to the Echo Park investigation. He had reached out to her because of her past tenure as a profiler—and their past personal history. The Echo Park case had gone sideways and so had any chance for another romance. As Bosch looked at her now, he knew she was all business and he had a feeling he was about to find out what the Tactical Intelligence Unit was all about.

  “What is it you think it might be?” he asked.

  “I’ll tell you when I can tell you. Can I please see the scene?”

  Reluctantly, Bosch lifted the crime scene tape and returned her perfunctory attitude with his standard sarcasm.

  “Come on in, then, Agent Walling,” he said. “Why don’t you just make yourself at home?”

  She stepped under and stopped, at least respecting his right to lead her to his crime scene.

  “I actually might be able to help you here,” she said. “If I can see the body I might be able to make a formal identification for you.”

  She held up a file that she had been carrying down at her side.

  “This way, then,” Bosch said.

  He led her to the clearing, where the victim was cast in the sterilizing fluorescent light from the mobile units. The dead man was lying on the orange dirt about five feet from the drop-off at the edge of the overlook. Beyond the body and over the edge the moonlight reflected off the reservoir below. Past the dam the city spread out in a blanket of a million lights. The cool evening air made the lights shimmer like floating dreams.

  Bosch put out his arm to stop Walling at the edge of the light circle. The victim had been rolled over by the medical examiner and was now faceup. There were abrasions on the dead man’s face and forehead but Bosch thought he could recognize the man in the photos on the hospital tags in the glove box. Stanley Kent. His shirt was open, exposing a hairless chest of pale white skin. There was an incision mark on one side of the torso where the medical examiner had pushed a temperature probe into the liver.

  “Evening, Harry,” said Joe Felton, the medical examiner. “Or I guess I should say, good morning. Who’s your friend there? I thought they teamed you with Iggy Ferras.”

  “I am with Ferras,” Bosch responded. “This is Special Agent Walling from the FBI’s Tactical Intelligence Unit.”

  “Tactical Intelligence? What will they think of next?”

  “I think it’s one of those Homeland Security–type operations. You know, don’t ask, don’t tell, that sort of thing. She says she might be able to confirm an ID for us.”

  Walling gave Bosch a look that told him he was being juvenile.

  “All right if we come in, Doc?” Bosch asked.

  “Sure, Harry, we’re pretty much squared away here.”

  Bosch started to step forward but Walling moved quickly in front of him and walked into the harsh light. Without hesitation she took a position over the body. She opened the file and took out a color 8 × 10 face shot. She bent down and held it next to the dead man’s face. Bosch stepped in close at her side to make a comparison himself.

  “It’s him,” she said. “Stanley Kent.”

  Bosch nodded his agreement and then offered his hand to her so that she could step back over the body. She ignored it and did it without help. Bosch looked down at Felton, who was squatting next to the body.

  “So, Doc, you want to tell us what we’ve got here?”

  Bosch stooped down on the other side of the body to get a better look.

  “We’ve got a man who was brought here or came here for whatever reason and was made to get down on his knees.”

  Felton pointed to the victim’s pants. There were smudges of orange dirt on both knees.

  “Then somebody shot him twice in the back of the head and he went down face first. The facial injuries you see came when he hit the ground. He was already dead by then.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “No exit wounds,” Felton added. “Probably something small like a twenty-two with the ricochet effect inside the skull. Very efficient.”

  Bosch realized now that Lieutenant Gandle had been speaking figuratively when he mentioned that the victim’s brains had been blown across the view from the overlook. He would have to remember Gandle’s tendency toward hyperbole in the future.

  “Time of death?” he asked Felton.

  “Going by the liver temp I would say four or five hours,” the medical examiner replied. “Eight o’clock, give or take.”

  That last part troubled Bosch. He knew that by eight it would have been dark and all the sunset worshippers would have been long gone. But the two shots would have echoed from the overlook and into the houses on the nearby bluffs. Yet no one had made a call to the police, and the body wasn’t found until a patrol car happened by three hours later.

  “I know what you are thinking,” Felton said. “What about the sound? There is a possible explanation. Guys, let’s roll him back over.”

  Bosch stood up and stepped out of the way while Felton and one of his assistants turned the body over. Bosch glanced at Walling and for a moment their eyes locked, until she looked back down at the body.

  Turning the body had exposed the bullet entry wounds in the back of the head. The victim’s black hair was matted with blood. The back of his white shirt was spattered with a fine spray of a brown substance that immediately drew Bosch’s attention. He had been to too many crime scenes to remember or count. He didn’t think that was blood on the dead man’s shirt.

  “That’s not blood, is it?”

  “No, it’s not,” Felton said. “I think we’ll find out from the lab that it’s good old Coca-Cola syrup. The residue you might find in the bottom of an empty bottle or can.”

  Before Bosch could respond Walling did.

  “An improvised silencer to dampen the sound of the shots,” she said. “You tape an empty plastic liter Coke bottle to the muzzle of the weapon and the sound of the shot is significantly reduced as sound waves are projected into the bottle rather than the open air. If the bottle had a residue of Coke in it, the liquid would be spattered onto the target of the shot.”

  Felton looked at Bosch and nodded approvingly.

  “Where’d you get her, Harry? She’s a keeper.”

  Bosch looked at Walling. He, too, was impressed.

  “Internet,” she said.

  Bosch nodded though he didn’t believe her.

  “And there is one other thing you should note,” Felton said, drawing attention back t
o the body.

  Bosch stooped down again. Felton reached across the body to point at the hand on Bosch’s side.

  “We have one of these on each hand.”

  He was pointing to a red plastic ring on the middle finger. Bosch looked at it and then checked the other hand. There was a matching red ring. On the inside of each hand the ring had a white facing that looked like some sort of tape.

  “What are they?” Bosch asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” Felton said. “But I think—”

  “I do,” Walling said.

  Bosch looked up at her. He nodded. Of course she knew.

  “They’re called TLD rings,” Walling said. “Stands for thermal luminescent dosimetry. It’s an early-warning device. It’s a ring that reads radiation exposure.”

  The news brought an eerie silence to the gathering. Until Walling continued.

  “And I’ll give you a tip,” she said. “When they are turned inward like that, with the TLD screen on the inside of the hand, that usually means the wearer directly handles radioactive materials.”

  Bosch stood up.

  “Okay, everybody,” he ordered, “back away from the body. Everybody just back away.”

  The crime scene techs, the coroner’s people and Bosch all started moving away from the body. But Walling didn’t move. She raised her hands like she was calling for a congregation’s attention in church.

  “Hold on, hold on,” she said. “Nobody has to back away. It’s cool, it’s cool. It’s safe.”

  Everybody paused but nobody moved back to their original positions.

  “If there was an exposure threat here, then the TLD screens on the rings would be black,” she said. “That’s the early warning. But they haven’t turned black, so we’re all safe. Additionally, I have this.”

  She pulled back her jacket to reveal a small black box clipped to her belt like a pager.

  “Radiation monitor,” she explained. “If we had a problem, believe me, this thing would be screaming bloody murder and I’d be running at the front of the pack. But we don’t. Everything is cool here, okay?”

  The people at the crime scene hesitantly started to return to their positions. Harry Bosch moved in close to Walling and took her by an elbow.

  “Can we talk over here for a minute?”

  They moved out of the clearing toward the curb at Mulholland. Bosch felt things shifting but tried not to show it. He was agitated. He didn’t want to lose control of the crime scene, and this sort of information threatened to do just that.

  “What are you doing here, Rachel?” he asked. “What’s going on?”

  “Just like you, I got a call in the middle of the night. I was told to roll out.”

  “That tells me nothing.”

  “I assure you that I am here to help.”

  “Then start by telling me exactly what you are doing here and who sent you out. That would help me a lot.”

  Walling looked around and then back at Bosch. She pointed out beyond the yellow tape.

  “Can we?”

  Bosch held out his hand, telling her to lead the way. They went under the tape and out into the street. When he judged that they were out of earshot of everyone else at the crime scene, Bosch stopped and looked at her.

  “Okay, this is far enough,” he said. “What is going on here? Who called you out here?”

  She locked eyes with him again.

  “Listen, what I tell you here has to remain confidential,” she said. “For now.”

  “Look, Rachel, I don’t have time for—”

  “Stanley Kent is on a list. When you or one of your colleagues ran his name on the National Crime Index Computer tonight a flag went up in Washington, DC, and a call went out to me at Tactical.”

  “What, was he a terrorist?”

  “No, he was a medical physicist. And, as far as I know, a law-abiding citizen.”

  “Then what’s with the radiation rings and the FBI showing up in the middle of the night? What list was Stanley Kent on?”

  Walling ignored the question.

  “Let me ask you something, Harry. Has anyone checked on this man’s home or wife yet?”

  “Not yet. We were working the crime scene first. I plan to—”

  “Then I think we need to do that right now,” she said in an urgent tone. “You can ask your questions along the way. Get the guy’s keys in case we need to go in. And I’ll go get my car.”

  Walling started to move away but Bosch caught her by the arm.

  “I’m driving,” he said.

  He pointed toward his Mustang and left her there. He headed to the patrol car, where the evidence bags were still spread on the trunk. As he made his way he regretted having already cut Edgar loose from the scene. He signaled the watch sergeant over.

  “Listen, I have to leave the scene to check on the victim’s house. I shouldn’t be gone long and Detective Ferras should be here any minute. Just maintain the scene until one of us gets here.”

  “You got it.”

  Bosch pulled out his cell phone and called his partner.

  “Where are you?”

  “I just cleared Parker Center. I’m twenty minutes away.”

  Bosch explained that he was leaving the scene and that Ferras needed to hurry. He disconnected, grabbed the evidence bag containing the key ring off the cruiser’s trunk and shoved it into his coat pocket.

  As he got to his car he saw Walling already in the passenger seat. She was finishing a call and closing her cell phone.

  “Who was that?” Bosch asked after getting in. “The president?”

  “My partner,” she replied. “I told him to meet me at the house. Where’s your partner?”

  “He’s coming.”

  Bosch started the car. As soon as they pulled out he began asking questions.

  “If Stanley Kent wasn’t a terrorist, then what list was he on?”

  “As a medical physicist he had direct access to radioactive materials. That put him on a list.”

  Bosch thought of all the hospital name tags he had found in the dead man’s Porsche.

  “Access where? In the hospitals?”

  “Exactly. That’s where it’s kept. These are materials primarily used in the treatment of cancer.”

  Bosch nodded. He was getting the picture but still didn’t have enough information.

  “Okay, so what am I missing here, Rachel? Lay it out for me.”

  “Stanley Kent had direct access to materials that some people in the world would like to get their hands on. Materials that could be very, very valuable to these other people. But not in the treatment of cancer.”

  “Terrorists.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Are you saying that this guy could just waltz into a hospital and get this stuff? Aren’t there regulations?”

  Walling nodded.

  “There are always regulations, Harry. But just having them is not always enough. Repetition, routine—these are the cracks in any security system. We used to leave the cockpit doors on commercial airlines unlocked. Now we don’t. It takes an event of life-altering consequences to change procedures and strengthen precautions. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  He thought of the notations on the back of some of the ID cards in the victim’s Porsche. Could Stanley Kent have been so lax about the security of these materials that he wrote access combinations on the back of his ID cards? Bosch’s instincts told him the answer was probably yes.

  “I understand,” he told Walling.

  “So, then, if you were going to circumvent an existing security system, no matter how strong or weak, who would you go to?” she asked.

  Bosch nodded.

  “Somebody with intimate knowledge of that security system.”

  “Exactly.”

  Bosch turned onto Arrowhead Drive and started looking at address numbers on the curb.

  “So you’re saying this could be an event of life-altering consequences?”

  “No, I’m
not saying that. Not yet.”

  “Did you know Kent?”

  Bosch looked at Walling as he asked and she looked surprised by the question. It had been a long shot but he threw it out there for the reaction, not necessarily the answer. Walling turned from him and looked out her window before answering. Bosch knew the move. A classic tell. He knew she would now lie to him.

  “No, I never met the man.”

  Bosch pulled into the next driveway and stopped the car.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “This is it. It’s Kent’s house.”

  They were in front of a house that had no lights on inside or out. It looked like no one lived there.

  “No, it isn’t,” Walling said. “His house is down another block and—”

  She stopped when she realized Bosch had smoked her out. Bosch stared at her for a moment in the dark car before speaking.

  “You want to level with me now or do you want to get out of the car?”

  “Look, Harry, I told you. There are things I can’t—”

  “Get out of the car, Agent Walling. I’ll handle this myself.”

  “Look, you have to under—”

  “This is a homicide. My homicide. Get out of the car.”

  She didn’t move.

  “I can make one phone call and you’d be removed from this investigation before you got back to the scene,” she said.

  “Then do it. I’d rather be kicked to the curb right now than be a mushroom for the feds. Isn’t that one of the bureau’s slogans? Keep the locals in the dark and bury them in cow shit? Well, not me, not tonight and not on my own case.”

  He started to reach across her lap to open her door. Walling pushed him back and raised her hands in surrender.

  “All right, all right,” she said. “What is it you want to know?”

  “I want the truth this time. All of it.”

  THREE

  B OSCH TURNED IN HIS SEAT TO LOOK directly at Walling. He was not going to move the car until she started talking.

  “You obviously knew who Stanley Kent was and where he lived,” he said. “You lied to me. Now, was he a terrorist or not?”

  “I told you, no, and that is the truth. He was a citizen. He was a physicist. He was on a watch list because he handled radioactive sources which could be used—in the wrong hands—to harm members of the public.”