Nine Dragons (14 page)

Chang said nothing. There was no such thing as small talk when you were under arrest. He stared straight forward and did not acknowledge Bosch’s question in any way. Chu translated the question and got the same non-response.

Bosch shrugged his shoulders like it didn’t matter much to him whether Chang answered or not.

“Harry,” Chu said.

Bosch felt his phone vibrate twice, the signal that he had received a message. He signaled him a few yards away from the shelter so they could talk without Chang hearing.

“What do you think?” Chu asked.

“Well, it’s clear he isn’t going to talk to us and has asked for a lawyer. So that’s that.”

“So what do we do?”

“First of all, we slow things down. We take our time getting him downtown and then we take our time booking him. He doesn’t call his lawyer till he’s been processed and with any luck that won’t be till after two. Meantime, we get warrants. His car, suitcase and his cell phone, if he has it on him. After that, we hit his apartment and his place of work. Wherever the judge lets us go. And we hope like hell we come up with something like the gun by noon Monday. Because if we don’t, he’s probably going to walk.”

“What about the extortion?”

“It gives us PC but it won’t go anywhere if Robert Li doesn’t step up.”

Chu nodded.

“
High Noon,
Harry. That was a movie. A western.”

“I never saw it,” he said to Chu.

Bosch looked down the long row of parked cars and saw a patrol car make the turn toward them. He waved.

He pulled his phone to check the message. The screen said he had received a video from his daughter.

He would have to check it later. It was very late in Hong Kong and he knew his daughter should be in bed. She was probably unable to sleep and expecting him to respond. But he had work to do. He put the phone away as the patrol car stopped in front of them.

“I’m going to ride in with him,” he said to Chu. “In case he decides to say something.”

“What about your car?”

“I’ll get it later.”

“Maybe I should ride with him instead.”

Bosch looked at Chu. It was one of those moments. Harry knew it would be better for Chu to make the ride with Chang because he knew both languages and he was Chinese. But it would mean Bosch would be ceding some control of his case.

It would also mean he was showing trust in Chu, just an hour after pointing the finger of blame at him.

“Okay,” Bosch finally said. “You ride with him.”

Chu nodded, seeming to understand the significance of Bosch’s decision.

“But take the long way,” Bosch said. “These guys probably work out of Pacific. Go by the division first, then call me. I’ll tell you there’s a change of plans and we’re going to book him downtown. That ought to add an extra hour to the ride.”

“Got it,” Chu said. “That’ll work.”

“You want me to drive your car in?” Bosch asked. “I don’t mind leaving mine here.”

“No, it’s okay, Harry. I’ll leave mine and come get it later. You wouldn’t want to hear what I’ve got on the stereo, anyway.”

“The musical equivalent of tofu hot dogs?”

“To you, probably, yeah.”

“Okay, then I’ll take mine.”

Bosch told the two patrol officers to put Chang in the back of the patrol car and to load the suitcase into the trunk. Harry then got serious with Chu.

“I’m going to put Ferras to work on search warrants for Chang’s property. Any admission from him will help with the PC. Him telling us he had a flight is an admission that goes to his fleeing. Try to make him slip up like that when you’re riding in the back with him.”

“But he already said he wants a lawyer.”

“Make it conversational. Not an interrogation. Try to find out where he was going. That’ll help Ignacio. And remember, stretch everything out. Take the scenic route.”

“Got it. I know what to do.”

“Okay, I’m going to wait here for the tow truck. If you get to the PAB ahead of me, just put Chang in a room and let him stew. Make sure you turn the video on—Ignacio can show you how. You never know, sometimes these guys sit for an hour in a room by themselves and they start confessing to the walls.”

“Got it.”

“Good luck.”

Chu slipped into the back of the patrol car next to Chang and closed the door. Bosch slapped his palm twice on the roof and then watched the cruiser pull away.

16

I
t was almost one by the time Bosch got back to the squad room. He had waited for the tow truck and then taken his time coming in, stopping at the In-N-Out near the airport for a hamburger on the way. He found Ignacio Ferras in place in his cubicle, working on his computer.

“Where are we at?” he asked.

“I’m almost done with the search warrant app.”

“What are we going for?”

“I have one affidavit going for the suitcase, the phone and the car. I take it that the car is at the OPG?”

“Just towed it in. What about his apartment?”

“I called the DA’s help line and told the woman what we were doing. She suggested two waves. These three first and then we hopefully come up with something that will give us the PC for the apartment. She said the apartment was a stretch with what we have now.”

“Okay, you got a judge waiting on this?”

“Yeah, I called Judge Champagne’s clerk. She’s getting me in as soon as I’m ready.”

It sounded like Ferras had things in order and moving along. Bosch was impressed.

“Sounds good. Where’s Chu?”

“Last I knew he was in the video room, watching the guy.”

Before joining Chu, Bosch stepped into his cubicle and dropped his keys on his desk. He saw that Chu had left Chang’s heavy suitcase there and had bagged the suspect’s other possessions and left them all on the desk. There were evidence bags holding Chang’s wallet, passport, money clip, keys, cell phone and airline boarding pass, which he had apparently printed at home.

Bosch read the boarding pass through the plastic and saw that Chang had an Alaska Airlines ticket for a flight to Seattle. This gave Harry pause because he was expecting to learn that Chang had been headed to China. Flying to Seattle didn’t exactly sell an allegation of attempting to flee the country to avoid prosecution.

He put the bag back down and picked up the bag containing the phone. It would have been easy for him to quickly open the phone and scan the call log for the numbers of Chang’s associates. He might even find a call from a number belonging to a Monterey Park cop or Chu or whoever had tipped Chang off to the investigation surrounding him. Maybe the phone had e-mail or texts on it that would help them build the murder case against Chang.

But Bosch decided to play by the rules. It was a gray area and the department and DA’s office had both issued directives telling officers to seek court approval before viewing data contained in a suspect’s phone. Unless, of course, permission was granted by the suspect. Opening the phone was treated the same as opening the trunk of a car on a traffic stop. You had to do it correctly or whatever you found in that trunk might be taken out of the case by the courts.

Bosch put the phone down. It might contain the key to the case but he would wait for Judge Champagne’s approval. Just as he did so, the phone on his desk buzzed. The caller ID display said XXXXX, meaning it was a call transferred over from Parker Center. He picked up.

“This is Bosch.”

There was no one there.

“Hello. This is Detective Bosch, can I help you?”

“Bosch…you can help yourself.”

The voice was distinctly Asian.

“Who is this?”

“You do yourself the favor and you back off, Bosch. Chang is not alone. We are many. You back the fuck off. If not, there will be consequences.”

“Listen to me, you—”

The caller had hung up. Bosch dropped the phone into its cradle and stared at the empty ID screen. He knew he could go over to the communications center at Parker and pull up the number the call had come from. But he also knew that someone calling to threaten him would have blocked their number, used a pay phone or a throwaway cell. They would not be so stupid as to use a traceable number.

Instead of worrying about that, he concentrated on the timing of the call and its content. Somehow, Chang’s triad associates knew already that he had been picked up. Bosch rechecked the boarding pass and saw the flight was scheduled to take off at eleven-twenty. That meant the plane was still in the air and it couldn’t be that someone waiting in Seattle for Chang would know he wasn’t on the plane. Nevertheless, Chang’s people somehow knew that he was in the hands of the police. They also knew Bosch by name.

Once again dark thoughts entered Bosch’s brain. Unless Chang was meeting a fellow traveler at LAX or was being watched all the while Bosch was watching him, the evidence once more pointed to a leak inside the investigation.

He left the cubicle and walked directly back to the video center. This was a small electronics alcove between the RHD’s two interview rooms. The IRs were wired for sight and sound and the space in the middle was where suspects could be observed on the recording equipment.

Bosch opened the door and found both Chu and Gandle in the room watching Chang on the monitor. Bosch’s entrance made it crowded.

“Anything?” Bosch asked.

“Not a word so far,” Gandle said.

“What about in the car?”

“Nothing,” Chu said. “I tried to get a conversation going and he just said he wanted a lawyer. That killed it.”

“Guy’s a rock,” Gandle said.

“I looked at his plane ticket,” Bosch said. “Seattle doesn’t help us, either.”

“No, I think it does, actually,” Chu said.

“How?”

“I figured he was going to fly to Seattle and go across the border to Vancouver. I have a contact in the RCMP and he was able to check passenger lists for me. Chang’s booked on a flight tonight from Vancouver to Hong Kong. Cathay Pacific Airways. It clearly shows he tried to leave quickly and deceptively.”

Bosch nodded.

“Royal Canadian Mounted Police? You get around, Chu. Nice work.”

“Thanks.”

“Did you tell this to Ignacio? Chang’s attempt to smoke his trail will help with the PC for the search warrant.”

“He knows. He put it in.”

“Good.”

Bosch looked at the monitor. Chang was sitting at a table with his wrists now handcuffed in front of him to an iron ring bolted through the center of the table. His massive shoulders looked ready to burst the seams of his shirt. He was sitting ramrod straight and staring dead-eyed at the wall directly across from him.

“Lieutenant, how long are you comfortable with us stalling this before we book him?”

Gandle looked concerned. He didn’t like being put on the spot with something that could later hit him in the face with blowback.

“Well, I think we’re stretching it. Chu told me you already gave him the scenic tour coming in. You wait too much longer and a judge might take issue with it.”

Bosch looked at his watch. They needed another fifty minutes before allowing Chang to call his lawyer. The booking process involved paperwork, fingerprinting and then the physical transfer of the suspect to jail, at which point he would be given access to a phone.

“Okay, we can start the process. We just keep taking it slow. Chu, you go in and start filling out the sheet with him. If we’re lucky he won’t cooperate and that will just take up more time.”

Chu nodded.

“Got it.”

“We don’t put him into a cell until two at the earliest.”

“Right.”

Chu squeezed between the lieutenant and Bosch and left the room. Gandle started out after him but Bosch tapped him on the shoulder and signaled him to stay. Bosch waited until the door was closed before speaking.

“I just got a phone call. A threat. Somebody told me to back off.”

“Back off what?”

“The case. Chang. Back off everything.”

“How do you know the call was even about this case?”

“Because the caller was Asian and he mentioned Chang. Said Chang was not alone, that I needed to back off or there would be consequences.”

“You try to trace it? You think it’s serious?”

“A trace would be a waste of time. And as far as the threat goes, let them come. I’ll be waiting. But the point is, how did they know?”

“Know what?”

“That we picked up Chang. We pull him in and then within two hours one of his asshole buddies from the triad calls up and tells me to back the fuck off. We’ve got a leak, Lieutenant. First Chang is tipped, now they know we grabbed him. Somebody’s talking to—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, we don’t know that, Harry. There could be explanations.”

“Yeah? Then how do they know we have Chang?”

“Could be a lot of reasons, Harry. He had a cell phone. Maybe he was supposed to check in from the airport. Could be anything.”

Bosch shook his head. His instincts told him otherwise. There was a leak somewhere. Gandle opened the door. He didn’t like this conversation and wanted to get out of the room. But he looked back at Bosch before leaving.

“You better be careful with this,” he said. “Until you have something like this nailed down, you be very careful.”

Gandle closed the door behind him, leaving Bosch alone in the room. Harry turned to the video screen and saw that Chu had entered the interview room. He sat down across from Chang with a pen and clipboard, ready to fill out the arrest form.

“Mr. Chang, I need to ask you some questions now.”

Chang did not answer. He showed no recognition in his eyes or body language that he had even heard the question.

Chu followed this with a Chinese translation but again Chang remained mute and motionless. This was no surprise to Bosch. He left the interview room and went back out to the squad, still feeling anxious and upset about the phone-call threat and Gandle’s seeming lack of concern about it or the leak that had to have spawned it.

Ferras’s cubicle was empty now and Bosch assumed he had already left with the search warrant application for his appointment with Judge Champagne.

Everything was riding on the search warrant. They had Chang on the attempted extortion of Robert Li—if Li agreed to file a complaint and testify—but weren’t even close on the murder. Bosch was left hoping for a daisy chain. The first search warrant would yield evidence that would support further search warrants and they would lead to the grand prize—the murder weapon—hidden somewhere in Chang’s apartment or workplace.