“Should we?” she asked.
“Might as well,” Bosch said.
She pulled the car away from the curb and made a three-point turn. She punched it to get down to El Dorado and made the same turn the van did. They caught up to the van as it made another right at Pierce and then drove north, crossing San Fernando and the Metro tracks before entering Whiteman Airport.
“Didn’t expect this,” Lourdes said.
“Yeah, weird,” Bosch added.
The van pulled up to a gate across from an entrance to the private hangar area, and the driver’s window came down. An arm extended from the window and held a key card to a reader. The gate lifted and the van went through. Lourdes and Bosch couldn’t go through but there was a perimeter road that ran parallel to the internal road and allowed them to follow the van from outside the restricted area. They watched it pull into an open hangar and then lost sight of it from their angle.
They parked on the side of the perimeter road and waited.
“What are you thinking?” Lourdes asked.
“No idea,” Bosch said. “Let’s just see what happens.”
They watched in silence after that, and a few minutes later a single-engine plane, its prop a spinning blur, emerged from the hangar and started moving toward the runway. After it cleared the hangar, the van pulled out and headed back toward the gate.
“The van or plane?” Lourdes asked.
“Let’s stay here with the plane,” Bosch said. “I have the plate off the van.”
Bosch counted seven windows running down the side of the plane behind the cockpit. Shades were pulled down inside each window. He pulled a pen and notebook out of his pocket and wrote down the tail number of the plane. He also noted down the time. Then, raising his phone again, he started taking photos of the plane as it taxied to the runway.
“What the hell are we looking at here?” Lourdes asked.
“I don’t know,” Bosch said. “But I got the tail number. If they filed a flight plan, we can get it.”
Bosch checked the hangar and saw the big, wide door slowly coming down. There was an advertisement in faded paint on the corrugated metal.
TAKE THE PLUNGE!
SFV SKYDIVING CLUB
CALL TODAY! JUMP TODAY!
Bosch turned his attention back to the runway and watched silently as the plane moved down the tarmac. It was white with a burnt-orange stripe running down its side. It had an overhead wing and a jump deck below the outline of a wide passenger door.
Bosch switched the camera to video and filmed as the plane picked up speed and then lifted into the air. It flew off to the east and then banked south below the sun.
Bosch and Lourdes watched until it disappeared.
10
The air traffic control tower at Whiteman was up a staircase from a small general administration building. There was one receptionist between the public and the stairs and she folded at the sight of the police badges. Bosch and Lourdes went up the stairs and knocked on a door with a sign on it that said A.T.C.—NO ADMITTANCE.
A man answered the door and started raising his hand to point to the words “No Admittance,” when he too saw the badges.
“Officers,” he said. “Is this about the drag racers?”
Bosch and Lourdes looked at each other, not expecting the question.
“No,” Lourdes said. “We want to ask about that plane that just took off.”
The man turned and looked back into the room behind him and out the window to the airfield as if to confirm he was at an airport and that a plane had just taken off. He then looked back at Lourdes.
“You’re talking about the Cessna?” he asked.
“The jump plane,” Bosch said.
“Yeah, the Grand Caravan. Also known as the minivan. Not much else I can tell you beyond that.”
“Is there room in there for us to come in and talk? This is a homicide investigation.”
“Uh, sure. Be my guests.”
He held his arm out for them to enter. Bosch pegged him as late sixties with a military background—something about his bearing and the way he held out his hand like he was snapping off a salute.
The tower was a small space with the requisite windows offering a full view of the airfield. There were two seats in front of a radar-and-communications console. Bosch signaled Lourdes to take one of the seats and he leaned against a four-drawer filing cabinet next to the door.
“Can we start with your name, sir?” Lourdes said.
The man took the remaining seat after turning it to face the two detectives.
“Ted O’Connor,” he said.
“How long have you worked here, Mr. O’Connor?” she asked.
“Oh, let’s see, about twenty years now over two different stints. Came here after the Air Force—put in twenty-five there, dropping napalm and shit on foreign lands. Then I came here for ten, retired, then decided I didn’t like being retired and came back after a year. That was twelve years ago. You might think sitting up here all day is boring but you try spending a summer in a double-wide with a single-wide AC unit, you want hot and boring. Anyway, who gives a shit, really? You want to know about that Cessna.”
“Do you know how long it has been here?”
“Offhand, I can tell you it’s been hangared here longer than I have and it’s changed hands quite a few times over the years. The owner for the past couple years is a company from down in Calexico. At least that’s where Betty downstairs tells me the hangar and fuel invoices go.”
“What’s the name of the company?”
“Betty will have to get you that. She told me but I don’t remember. Cielo something or other. It’s a Spanish name and I don’t have much Spanish.”
“Is it still used for skydiving?”
“I hope not. The people I see getting on that plane wouldn’t make it to the ground alive.”
Bosch leaned forward and looked out through the windows. He saw that O’Connor had a direct line of vision into the hangar. The binoculars on the console would give him a close-up view inside when the big door was open.
“So, what do you see going on in that hangar, Mr. O’Connor?” Bosch asked.
“I see a lot of people coming in and out,” O’Connor said. “A lot of people as old as…well, me.”
“Every day?”
“Just about. I’m only here four days a week, but every day that I am, I see that plane either landing or taking off and sometimes both.”
“Do you know if that plane is still configured inside for skydiving?”
“As far as I know.”
“Long jump benches on both sides?”
“That’s right.”
“So, how many people can they put in there at once?”
“That plane’s a stretch model with the big tail section. You can get fifteen, maybe twenty, in there if you have to.”
Bosch nodded.
“Did you ever report what you saw to anyone?” Lourdes asked.
“Report what?” O’Connor said. “What’s the crime in getting on a plane?”
“Did they file a flight plan today?”
“They never file a flight plan. They don’t have to. They don’t even need to check in with the tower as long they’re flying VFR.”
“VFR, what’s that?”
“Visual flight rules. See, I’m here to provide radar to those who request it and to guide instrument fliers in or out if they need it. Trouble is, you mighta noticed we’re in California, and if it’s sunny out, you’re gonna go VFR, and there is no FAA rule requiring a pilot to make contact with the tower on a general aviation airfield. The guy flying the Caravan today? He said one thing to me, and that was it.”
“What was it he said?”
“That he was positioning for an easterly takeoff. And I told him the field was his.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it, except he said it with a Russian accent. I think because we have a westerly wind today, he was letting me know he was
going down to the other end in case I had somebody coming in.”
“How do you know it was a Russian accent?”
“Because I just do.”
“Okay, so no flight plan means there’s no documentation of where he’s going or when he’s due back?”
“Not required at an airfield like this and for a plane like that.”
O’Connor pointed out the window as though the plane in question were hovering out there. Lourdes looked at Bosch. She was clearly surprised by the lack of security and control of who came in and out of the airport.
“If you think the days are wide open here, you should check this place out at night,” O’Connor said. “We close the tower at eight. It’s an uncontrolled field after that. People can come in and out as they please—and they do.”
“You just leave the runway lights on?” Bosch asked.
“No, the lights are radio controlled. Anybody in a plane can toggle them on and off. The only thing you have to worry about are the drag racers.”
“Drag racers?”
“They sneak out onto the tarmac at night and have their races. We had a guy coming in here about a month ago, flicked on the lights and almost put it down on top of one of those hot rods.”
They were interrupted by a call on the radio, and O’Connor turned to the console to handle it. It sounded to Bosch like a plane was coming in from the west. O’Connor told the pilot the airfield was his. Harry looked at Lourdes. She raised her eyebrows and Bosch nodded. The message between them was clear. They didn’t know if what they were asking about had anything to do with their investigation, but what they had just seen—several men and women transported from the clinic directly to a plane and then flown away without so much as a head count—was highly unusual, and the ease with which it was done was surprising.
O’Connor stood and leaned over the console to look through the windows. He picked up the binoculars and held them to his eyes as he looked out.
“We’ve got one coming in,” he said.
Bosch and Lourdes remained silent. Bosch was unsure if he should interrupt O’Connor’s observation and handling of the landing. Soon a small single-engine plane came gliding over the airfield from the west and safely landed. O’Connor wrote the plane’s tail number down on a log page on a clipboard and then hung it on a hook on the wall to his right. He then turned back to the detectives.
“What else can I tell you?” he asked.
Bosch pointed to the clipboard.
“You document every takeoff and landing that occurs during business hours?” he asked.
“We don’t have to,” O’Connor said. “But we do, yes. If we’re here.”
“Mind if I take a look?”
“No, I don’t mind.”
O’Connor took the clipboard back off the wall and handed it to Bosch. There were several pages documenting the comings and goings at the airport. The single aircraft that made the most takeoffs and landings had the tail number Bosch had written down earlier—the jump plane.
He handed the clipboard back. His plan was to officially reclaim it with a search warrant.
“Are there cameras on the runways and in the hangars?” he asked.
“Yes, we have cameras,” O’Connor said.
“How long is the video archived?”
“Not sure. I think a month. The LAPD was out here to look at video of the drag racing, and they went back a few weeks, I heard.”
Bosch nodded. It was good to know they could come back to look at video if needed.
“So, in summary,” Lourdes said. “This airport essentially has unrestricted access in and out. No flight plans required, no passenger or cargo manifests required, nothing like that.”
“That’s about right,” O’Connor said.
“And there’s no way to tell where that plane—the Grand Caravan—is heading?”
“Well, that depends. You’re supposed to fly with your transponder on. If he’s following the rules, then he’s got the transponder on and that will register as that plane moves through airspace from one ATC region to the other.”
“Can you get that in real time? Like right now?”
“No, we would need to get the unique transponder code from the plane and put out the request. Might take a day. Maybe longer.”
Lourdes looked at Bosch. He nodded. He had nothing more to ask.
“Thank you, Mr. O’Connor,” she said. “We appreciate your cooperation. We would also appreciate it if you would keep this conversation to yourself.”
“Not a problem,” O’Connor said.
Bosch and Lourdes waited until they were back in the car before discussing what they had learned in the last hour.
“Holy shit, Harry,” Lourdes said. “I mean, where the fuck’s TSA when you need them? Somebody could just get in a plane here, load it up with whatever they want, and fly it downtown or to a water reservoir or wherever and do who knows what.”
“Scary,” Bosch said.
“No matter what, we need to tell somebody about this. Leak it to the media or something.”
“Let’s see how it figures into our thing before we get the media crawling all over this.”
“Got it. But speaking of our thing, where to next?”
Bosch thought for a moment.
“Downtown to the Reagan. Let’s go talk to your medical board guy.”
Lourdes nodded and started the engine.
“Jerry Edgar. He told me he was LAPD back in the day.”
Bosch shook his head once in surprise.
“What, you know him?” Lourdes asked.
“Yeah, I know him,” Bosch said. “We worked together in Hollywood. Back in the day. I knew he retired but I thought he was selling houses in Las Vegas.”
“Well, he’s back here now,” Lourdes said.
11
The Medical Board of California had offices inside the Ronald Reagan State Office Building on Spring Street three blocks from the LAPD headquarters. It was a forty-five-minute slog in heavy traffic down from Pacoima. Along the way, Lourdes had called Jerry Edgar and said that she and her partner were on their way to see him. When Edgar balked, saying he had a meeting to attend and wanted to set up an appointment, she identified her partner as Harry Bosch, and Edgar couldn’t refuse. He said he would clear space in his schedule.
They parked in a pay lot and Edgar was waiting for them in the lobby of the state building. He greeted Bosch warmly but with an awkward embrace. It had been several years since they had been in each other’s company, professionally or otherwise. The last message Bosch could remember coming from Edgar was one of condolence about Bosch’s ex-wife several years before. Bosch had heard that his old partner had retired after that, but he had not gotten an invite to a retirement party, though he did not know if there had actually been one. Still, they had cleared several cases together while assigned to the homicide table at Hollywood Division. Now there wasn’t even a homicide unit in Hollywood. All murders were handled out of West Bureau detectives or RHD. Things change.
It was said among cops that a true test of a partnership came when there was an officer-needs-help call. The response is to drop everything and go, pinning the accelerator to the floor and blowing through traffic lights with the siren blaring to get to the officer in need. True partners each take one side of every intersection as they speed through. The driver takes the left, the passenger takes the right, each calling out “Clear!” as the car screams through red lights and intersections. It takes an inordinate amount of trust not to cheat and check the other side, even as your partner calls it clear. With a true partner, you don’t need to check the other side. You know. You believe. When Bosch and Edgar were partners, Bosch always found himself checking the other side of the street. An outsider might view it as a distance forged in the racial divide between them. Edgar was black and Bosch was white. But for each man it was something else, something well below the skin. It was the gap between how each man viewed the job. It was the difference between how a cop
works a case and a case works a cop.
But none of that surfaced as the two men smiled at each other and tentatively hugged. Edgar’s head was shaved now and Bosch wondered if he would even have recognized him if he hadn’t known it was his old partner.
“Last I heard, you pulled the pin, moved to Vegas, and were selling real estate,” Bosch said.
“Nah,” Edgar said. “That lasted about two years and I came back here. But look at you. I knew you’d never be able to give it up, but I thought you’d end up with the D.A.’s Office or something. S-F-P-D. They call themselves the Mission City, right? That’s perfect for Harry Bosch.”
Lourdes smiled and Edgar pointed at her.
“You know what I’m talkin’ about,” he said, smiling. “Harry’s always the man on the mission.”
Edgar dropped the smile and the subject when he read Bosch’s frozen look as a hint he was pushing the main difference between them too far. He signaled them to follow him into the elevator alcove and they moved into a crowded box. Edgar pushed the button for the fourth floor.
“Anyway, how’s your daughter doin’?” he asked.
“She’s in college,” Bosch said. “Second year.”
“Wow,” Edgar said. “Crazy.”
Bosch just nodded. He hated carrying on conversations in crowded elevators. Besides, Edgar had never met Maddie, so it was clear that they were now down to idle banter. He said nothing else as they rode up. They got off on the fourth floor, and Edgar used a key card to enter a suite of offices with a large government seal on the wall that showed a seven-pointed star surrounded by the words California Department of Consumer Affairs.
“My crib’s back here,” Edgar said.
“Are you Consumer Affairs?” Lourdes asked.
“That’s right, Health Quality Investigation Unit. We handle enforcement for the medical board.”
He led them to a small private office with a crowded desk and chairs for two visitors. Once they were sitting, they got down to business.
“So this case you’re working,” Edgar said. “You think it’s linked to the complaint one of your victims sent to us?”