Bosch went back to the chrono. The letter from Cronyn clearly got the ball rolling. Soto and Tapscott pulled the files and went to property control, where the evidence box was found and opened on camera. While the forensics unit studied the contents for new or overlooked evidence, the two detectives went to work reviewing and reinvestigating the case—this time with another suspect as the leading person of interest.
Bosch knew it was not the right way to work a murder case. Rather than looking for a suspect, they started with the suspect already in hand. It narrowed the possibilities. Here they started with the name Lucas John Olmer and they stuck with it. Their efforts to confirm that he had been in Los Angeles at the time of the Skyler murder were less than conclusive. They found employment records at the billboard company where he worked as an installer that appeared to place him in L.A. but little else in terms of housing records or live witnesses who could attest to his whereabouts. It wasn’t nearly enough to take the case further, but then the lab reported finding a minute amount of semen on the victim’s clothing. The material had not been stored under today’s DNA evidence protocols, but because the piece of clothing had been in a sealed paper bag, it was in remarkably good condition and could be tested against samples from both Olmer and Borders.
Olmer’s DNA was already in the state’s offender data bank. It had been used at trial to link him to the rapes of seven different women. But genetic material had never been collected from Borders because he had been convicted and sentenced to death row a year before DNA was approved for use in California in courts and by law enforcement. Tapscott flew up to San Francisco to go to San Quentin and collect a sample from Borders. It was then analyzed by an independent lab and comparisons were made between the evidence taken from Danielle Skyler’s pajamas and the samples from Olmer and Borders.
After three weeks, the lab finally reported that the DNA on the victim’s clothing had come from Olmer and not Borders.
Just reading it in the chronological record made Bosch break into a cold sweat. He had been as sure of Borders’s guilt as that of any other killer he had taken to trial and put in prison. And now the science said he was wrong.
Then he remembered the sea horse. The sea horse put the lie to all of this. Danielle Skyler’s favorite piece of jewelry had been found in the secret place in the apartment where Borders lived. DNA could not explain that away. It might be possible that Borders and Olmer knew each other and had committed the crime together, but possession of the sea horse made Borders culpable in a big way. At his trial Borders had testified that he’d bought an exact duplicate of Skyler’s sea horse at the Santa Monica pier because he wanted one for himself. The jury didn’t buy it then, and Soto and Tapscott should not have bought it now.
Bosch switched back to the chrono and soon found out why they did. After the DNA matching came back, the investigators as a pair returned to San Quentin to interview Borders. The entire transcript of the interview was available in the documents but the chrono referenced the specific pages where discussion about the sea horse took place.
Tapscott: Tell us about the sea horse.
Borders: The sea horse was a big fucking mistake. I’m here because of that fucking sea horse.
Tapscott: What do you mean by “mistake”?
Borders: I didn’t have the greatest lawyer, okay? And he didn’t like my explanation for the sea horse. He said it wouldn’t sell to a jury. So we go into court and try to sell a bullshit story that nobody on the jury believed anyway.
Tapscott: So the story about you buying a matching sea-horse pendant on the Santa Monica pier because you liked it, that was a lie you told to the jury?
Borders: That’s right, I lied to the jury. That’s my crime. What are you going to do, send me to death row? [laughing]
Tapscott: What was the story your lawyer said he couldn’t sell to the jury?
Borders: The truth. That the cops planted it when they searched my place.
Tapscott: You’re saying the key piece of evidence against you was planted?
Borders: That’s right. The guy’s name was Bosch. The detective. He wanted to be judge and jury, so he planted the evidence. Him and his partner were completely bent. Bosch planted it and the other one went along with it.
Soto: Wait a second here. You’re saying that weeks before you were even on his radar as a suspect, Bosch took the sea horse off the body or from the murder scene and carried it around with him so at just the right moment and with the right suspect he could plant it as evidence? You expect us to believe that?
Borders: The guy was really obsessed with the case. You can check it. I found out later that his mother had been murdered when he was a little kid, you know. There was a whole psychology to it, him being this obsessed avenging angel. But it was too late by then; I was here.
Soto: You had appeals, you had lawyers, how come in thirty years you’ve never once brought up that Bosch planted the sea horse?
Borders: I didn’t think anybody cared or anybody’d believe me. The truth is, I still don’t. Mr. Cronyn convinced me to tell what I know and that’s what I’m doing.
Soto: Why did your lawyer back at the trial say that claiming the evidence was planted was the wrong move?
Borders: Remember, this was back in the eighties. Back then the cops had a free ride. They could do anything and get away with it. And what proof did I have? Bosch was like this hero cop who had solved big cases. I had no chance against that. All I know is that they supposedly found the sea horse and a bunch of jewelry hidden in my house and I was the only one who knew that I didn’t have the sea horse. That’s how I knew it was planted against me.
Bosch read the short section of the transcript again and then moved on to two amendments that were attached. One was an obituary from the California Bar Journal for Borders’s original attorney, David Siegel, who had retired from the practice of law a decade after the Borders trial and passed away soon after. The second amendment was actually a timeline constructed by Soto that showed when it was during the investigation that Bosch wrote the initial report stating that Danielle Skyler’s prized sea-horse necklace was missing. The timeline showed all the days that went by and the case developments that occurred during which he would have had to hold on to the sea horse before planting it in the hiding place in Borders’s apartment. The report was clearly an attempt by Soto to delineate the tenuousness of the claim that Bosch planted evidence in the case.
Bosch appreciated Lucia’s efforts on his behalf and believed it might have been the reason she got him a copy of the file on the down low. She wanted him to know that what was happening was not a betrayal on her part, that she was watching out for her former mentor but letting the chips—and the evidence—fall where they may.
That aside, the allegation that Bosch had planted evidence in the case thirty years ago was now part of the record of the case and it could blow up publicly at any moment. It was clearly the leverage that Kennedy, the prosecutor, hoped to use to quiet any protest from Bosch about the move to vacate the conviction. If Bosch objected, he would get smeared.
What Kennedy, Soto, and Tapscott could not know was what Bosch knew in the deepest, darkest part of his heart. That he had not planted evidence against Borders. That he had never planted evidence against any suspect or adversary in his life. And this knowledge gave Bosch an affirming jolt of adrenaline and purpose. He knew there were two kinds of truth in this world. The truth that was the unalterable bedrock of one’s life and mission. And the other, malleable truth of politicians, charlatans, corrupt lawyers, and their clients, bent and molded to serve whatever purpose was at hand.
Borders, either with or without his attorney’s knowledge, had lied to Soto and Tapscott at San Quentin. In doing so, he had corrupted their investigation from the start. It confirmed for Bosch that this was a scam and that it was up to him to root out those who plotted against him wherever they were. He was coming for them now. The weight and guilt of possibly having made a horrible mistake so
long ago was lifted.
It was Bosch who felt like the man proven innocent and released from a cage.
14
The killers of José Esquivel and his son had acted in the pharmacy video with the assurance of men who had done this kind of work before. They used revolvers both to prevent their weapons jamming and to avoid leaving behind critical evidence. They showed no hesitation, no remorse. Bosch knew that in every large criminal enterprise, there was a need for such men, enforcers willing to do what had be done to ensure the survival and success of the organization. In reality, such men were rare. This was what led to his suspicion that the killers were brought in from far outside San Fernando to deal with the problem created by the idealistic but naive José Esquivel Jr.
That suspicion seemed to be confirmed when Bosch, Lourdes, and Sisto returned to Whiteman Airport early that evening with a warrant to view surveillance footage from the airstrip’s cameras. Beginning their review of video at noon Sunday, they fast-forwarded through the hours, slowing to real-time speed only when the occasional plane landed or took off, or when a vehicle approached the row of hangars that ran along the edge of the airfield. They were in the airport’s cramped utility room beneath the tower. It also served as the security office. The space was so tight that Bosch could smell Sisto’s nicotine gum.
At 9:10 a.m. on the video, their vigil paid off when the same van they had seen pick up the lineup of pill shills at the clinic drove up to the hangar, opened its two doors wide by remote control, and then waited, its driver getting out and going inside only briefly before returning.
Fourteen minutes later the jump plane landed and taxied to and then into the hangar. Only two men disembarked—white men in dark clothing that appeared very similar to that worn by the farmacia shooters. They walked directly to the van and climbed in through the side door. The van drove off before the plane’s propeller had even stopped turning.
“It’s them,” Sisto said. “Fuckers now go to the mall and kill our victims.”
He said it with a tone of anger Bosch liked, but he knew that emotional belief and evidence were two different things.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“Oh, come on,” Sisto said. “It’s gotta be. The timing is perfect. They fly in, do the job, and you watch: they’re going to fly them out again after it’s over.”
Bosch nodded.
“I’m there with you, but what we know and what we can prove are two different things,” he said. “The men in the pharmacy were masked.”
He pointed to the video monitor.
“Can we prove that’s them?” he asked.
“We can ask the sheriff’s lab to try to clean this up,” Lourdes said. “Make it clearer.”
“Maybe,” Bosch said. “Speed it up.”
Sisto was handling the remote. He boosted the playback to 4x speed and they waited. Bosch watched the minutes go by on the video timer. At the 10:15 a.m. mark, he told Sisto to drop it back to real-time playback. The pharmacy video that had captured the murders placed the time of the killings at 10:14 a.m., and the drugstore was approximately two miles from Whiteman.
At 10:21 the van returned to the airport. It traveled within the speed limit, no hurry as it went through the gate and approached the hangar. Once it was there, the side door slid open and the two men exited and walked directly to the jump plane. Its prop was already turning and it taxied back out to the runway for takeoff.
“In and out, just like that, and two people are dead,” Lourdes said.
“We gotta get these guys,” Sisto said.
“We will,” Bosch said. “But I want the guy who made the call. The man who put those two hitters on the plane.”
“Santos,” Lourdes said.
Bosch nodded. It was a moment of true resolve for the three detectives.
Sisto finally broke the silence.
“So, what’s our next move, Harry?” he asked.
“The van,” Bosch said. “Tomorrow we bring in the driver and see what he has to say.”
“We work our way up the ladder,” Sisto said. “I like it.”
“Easier said than done,” Bosch said. “We have to assume that anybody working for Santos is working for him because he’s a trusted soldier. He won’t be afraid of prison time and that will make him hard to crack.”
“Then, what do we do?”
“We put the fear of God in him. We make him afraid of Santos if he’s not afraid of us.”
Before leaving the airport, Bosch sent Lourdes up the tower to talk to O’Connor and use the second warrant to collect the clipboard log that documented the comings and goings of the jump plane, in particular the landing on Monday morning before the pharmacy shooting. It would be marked as evidence with the video itself. The detectives then called it a day, agreeing to meet in the war room at eight the following morning to plan the takedown of the van driver. From there Sisto and Lourdes headed to Magaly’s for a late dinner, while Bosch decided to head home. He wanted to put in some time on the Borders case file before sleep deprivation caught up and knocked him down.
There was a time when Bosch could easily go two days on a case without sleep. But that time was long gone.
It was late enough for the freeway to be clear and he moved easily into the slipstream of traffic. He called his daughter, whom he had not talked to in several days except through customary good-night texts. She surprised him by answering. Usually at night she was too busy to talk.
“Hey, Dad.”
“How are you, Mads?”
“Stressed. I’ve got midterms this week. I’m about to go to the library.”
This was a sore subject with Bosch. His daughter liked to study at the school library because the place helped her focus. But she often stayed until midnight or later and that left her walking by herself to her car, parked in an underground garage. They had discussed this repeatedly but she had dug in on it and was unwilling to accept the ten p.m. curfew Bosch had tried to impose.
When he didn’t respond, his daughter did.
“Please don’t add to my stress by lecturing me on the library. It’s perfectly safe and I will be there with lots of kids.”
“I’m not worried about the library. I’m worried about the garage.”
“Dad, we’ve been over this. It’s a safe campus. I’ll be fine.”
There was a saying in police work, that places were safe until they weren’t. It only took one moment, one bad actor, one chance crossing of predator and prey, to change things. But he had already shared all of this with her and didn’t want to turn the call into an argument.
“If you have midterms, does that mean you’ll be coming up to L.A. after?”
“No, sorry, Dad. Me and the roomies are going down to IB as soon as we’re all free. I’ll come up next time I can.”
Bosch knew that one of her three roommates was from Imperial Beach down by the border.
“Just don’t go across, okay?”
“Da-ad.”
She drew the word out like it was a life sentence.
“Okay, okay. What about spring break? I thought we were going to go to Hawaii or something.”
“This is spring break. I’m going to IB for four days and then back up here, because spring break isn’t really a break. I have two psych projects to work on.”
Bosch felt bad. He had fumbled the Hawaii idea, having mentioned it a few months earlier and then not followed through. Now she had plans. He knew his time with her and being part of her life was fleeting, and this was a reminder.
“Well, look, save one night for me, would you? You name the night and I’ll come down and we can eat somewhere on the circle. I just want to see you.”
“Okay, I will. But actually there’s a Mozza down here in Newport. Can we go there?”
It was her favorite pizza place in L.A.
“Wherever you want.”
“Great, Dad. But I gotta go.”
“Okay, love you. Be safe.”
“You, too.” r />
Then she was gone.
Bosch felt a wave of grief. His daughter’s world was expanding. She was going places and it was the natural way of things. He loved seeing it and hated living it. She had only been a daily part of his life for a few years before it was time for her to go. Bosch regretted all the lost years before.
When he got to his house, there was a car parked out front with a figure slumped in the front seat. It was nine p.m. and Bosch was not expecting company. He parked in the carport and walked out to the street, coming up behind the car blocking the front walkway to his house. As he approached, he turned on the light on his phone and shined it through the driver’s open window.
Jerry Edgar was asleep behind the wheel.
Bosch tapped lightly on his shoulder until Edgar startled and looked up at him. Because there was a streetlight above and behind him, Bosch was in silhouette.
“Harry?”
“Hey, partner.”
“Shit, I fell asleep. What time is it?”
“About nine.”
“Shit, man. I was out.”
“What’s up?”
“I came by to talk to you. I checked the mail in the box and saw you’re still in the same house.”
“Then let’s go in.”
Bosch opened the car door for him. They went in the front door after Bosch gathered the mail Edgar had checked.
“Honey, I’m home,” Bosch called out.
Edgar gave him an are-you-kidding-me look. He’d always known Bosch to be a loner. Bosch smiled and shook his head.
“Just kidding,” he said. “You want a drink? I’m out of beer. I’ve got a bottle of bourbon and that’s about it.”
“Bourbon’s good,” Edgar said. “Maybe with a cube or two.”
Bosch signaled him into the living room, while he cut right into the kitchen. He got two glasses out of a cabinet and dropped some ice into them. He heard Edgar pull the broomstick out of the sliding door track and open the slider. Bosch grabbed the bottle of bourbon off the top of the refrigerator and went out to the deck. Edgar was standing at the railing, looking down into the Cahuenga Pass.