The Crossing (26 page)

“Exactly what time was that?”

“I was there as soon as he unlocked the door at ten. I was gone by ten-fifteen tops. Who was the other victim?”

Sutton hesitated before answering but not for too long.

“His brother, Paul.”

“I don’t think he was there when I was but he might have been expected. Peter kept checking the door to the back room like he was waiting for somebody to come through. When did this go down?”

“We’re not sure yet. They were found by a customer about noon. They were on the floor in the back room. The coroner will narrow it down later.”

“No video?”

Cornell raised his hands in frustration.

“He’s asking all of the questions,” he said. “Just ask him what the fuck he was doing in there.”

Sutton held Cornell with his eyes, silently communicating the rebuke for the interruption and the language. Sutton’s glare reminded Cornell and Schmidt that they were observers. This was Sutton and his partner’s case.

“No, no video,” Sutton said. “Whoever killed them took the disc out of the recorder. It’s an old system with no backup to the cloud. The shopkeeper next door thought she saw two men go in that back door off the rear parking lot about ten forty-five. They were wearing white overalls. She thought they were window washers. She didn’t hear any shots.”

“Two men …”

“Yes, two men. We’re looking for cameras in the area but so far no luck with that. So what were you doing in there, Harry?”

Bosch felt a sense of dread crowd into his chest. He couldn’t help but feel responsible for the killing of the Nguyen brothers. All of his instincts told him he had led the killers there, or at the very least created the need for the Nguyen brothers to be killed.

“What was taken?” he asked.

“Harry, your lawyer said this is a two-way street,” Sutton said. “You’re giving me nothing and you’re asking all the questions.”

“Just answer one last question. Was it a robbery or an execution?”

Sutton shook his head. He had let the interview get away from him. Bosch had seized control.

“It was certainly either a robbery or made to look like a robbery,” he said. “One of the display cases was cleaned out.”

“Only one?” Bosch asked. “Which one?”

“The case on the right when you walk in the front door.”

“That was the estate stuff, right?”

Sutton shook his head.

“That’s it, Harry. No more. You answer questions now. Why did you go in there this morning?”

Haller leaned in close to Bosch and whispered.

“Let me remind you that you are working for me and the protection of confidentiality that my client enjoys extends from me to you,” he said. “So you be careful here.”

Bosch looked at Sutton.

“I have a confidentiality issue here,” he said. “I am working as a defense investigator and I can’t talk to you about things pertaining to that case without my client or his attorney’s approval.”

“And you’re not going to get that,” Haller added.

Bosch backed him off with his hand and continued.

“Suffice it to say I don’t know who killed the Nguyen brothers,” he said. “If I did, I would tell you, client or no client.”

“What were you doing there?” Sutton asked.

Bosch looked directly at Cornell while he answered.

“I was asking about a watch they sold about six months ago to the husband of an Alexandra Parks. As you know, she was murdered. Her watch was unaccounted for in the investigative file. I don’t like loose ends like that and was trying to tie it up.”

“Was Peter Nguyen helpful?”

“No, he was not.”

“Was that where the watch was bought?”

“I believe so.”

“And what makes you believe that?”

Haller answered before Bosch could.

“He’s not going to answer that,” Haller said. “I think we need to cut this off here, Detectives.”

Cornell muttered something under his breath again and Haller jumped on it.

“What’s that? You have a problem with Harry Bosch doing your job for you?”

“Fuck you, lawyer,” Cornell said. “This is all just smoke and mirrors—trying to muddy the waters your client is drowning in. He’s still going down.”

“You keep thinking that,” Haller said. “And we might go out and solve this thing for you. I mean really solve it, not pin it on somebody.”

“I’m truly frightened of that.”

Haller shook off the sarcasm with a killer smile aimed at Cornell and then slowly turned toward Sutton.

“What do you say, Detective? Anything else?”

“Not for now,” Sutton said.

“Then we won’t trouble you any further.”

Haller got up and Bosch followed. They didn’t speak until they were standing on the sidewalk outside the building. Bosch was upset. He felt as though he had betrayed someone—maybe himself.

“Look, I don’t like doing it this way,” he said. “I should be telling them everything I know.”

“Really?” Haller said. “What exactly do you know? The truth is, you don’t know anything.
We
don’t know anything. Not yet.”

“I know that I probably led those two killers to the two brothers in that store.”

“Really? How? You’re saying that the two brothers weren’t involved in this and they got whacked because you talked to them?”

“No, I … Look, less than an hour after I was in that store, they get hit. You’re saying that’s a coincidence?”

“What I’m saying is we don’t know enough to go around telling the cops anything, not when we have a client in county who is looking at the rest of his life in prison.”

Haller pointed in the direction of downtown even though it was miles from where they stood.

“That is where our allegiance lies,” he said. “Not to those assholes in that room.”

“I used to be one of those assholes,” Bosch said.

“Look, all I’m saying is we’re still pulling in the nets, Harry. Let’s finish pulling them in and then see what we got. Then we decide what we tell and who we tell it to and, most important of all, where we tell it. We’ve got a trial in five weeks and we need to know the whole story by then.”

Bosch broke away from him and walked out to the curb. He realized he had made a terrible mistake crossing to the other side of the aisle. Haller came up behind him and spoke to his back.

“Anything we tell them now, we give them the opportunity to turn it against us and our client.
Our
client, Harry. You have to remember that.”

Bosch shook his head and looked off down the street.

“What did those two brothers know?” Haller asked. “Why were they killed?”

Bosch turned and looked at Haller.

“I don’t know yet. But I will.”

“All right, then. What’s next?”

“I picked up a name in Vegas. A guy in Beverly Hills who may know the secret behind this watch. Behind everything. He’s next.”

“All right. Keep me informed.”

“Yeah, will do. And listen, if they followed me to the jewelry store, they might also be following you.”

“I haven’t seen any sign of that.”

“That’s the point. You wouldn’t. You have anyone who can check your car? I’m going to check mine.”

“I’ll get it done.”

“Good. Like I said before, be careful. Watch your back.”

“You, too.”

B
osch drove directly home from the substation and came in from the carport to an empty house. He called out his daughter’s name and got no answer. Fear stabbed at him until he remembered that she was on the camping trip. His mind had been so cramped with thoughts about the jewelry store murders that he had forgotten. Relieved, he texted her to see if she had made it to the mountain without problem. Her response was succinct as usual.

Made it. Bus ride was bouncy.

Bosch changed clothes, getting into an old set of coveralls he used to wear at crime scenes. He grabbed a flashlight out of a kitchen cabinet and went out into the carport. Before turning on the light he studied the street in front of his house and the driveways of his neighbors. He was looking for any vehicle that was occupied or seemingly didn’t fit in. He was sure he was being watched in some way—the killing of the Nguyen brothers told him this. But he needed to determine to what extent. Was there physical and electronic surveillance? Was there any window of opportunity for him to make a move without being watched?

He saw no vehicles in the street that drew his suspicion. He next studied the utility poles and trees for a reflection of light that might come off a camera lens. He saw nothing and, emboldened, stepped down the short inclined driveway to the street to further extend the sweep of his visual search. He covered what he was doing by going to the mailbox and retrieving the day’s delivery.

Bosch saw no indication of surveillance in either direction on the street. He walked back up the driveway and into the carport, flipping a light switch and tossing the mail onto the workbench. He walked to the front of the Cherokee and then crouched down in front of its grill. He flicked on the flashlight and began a search of the front end, looking in all places where a GPS transmitter could be attached.

Soon he was under the car, the engine compartment close to his face and still hot. He felt as though he were getting slow-roasted from above but pursued the search, even after a searing drop of engine oil streaked down his cheek and he cursed out loud.

He found the GPS tag in the front left wheel well behind one of the suspension struts, where it would not be in danger of getting hit and knocked off by any road debris kicked up by the tire. It was in a plastic case held to the internal cowling with two heavy-duty magnets. The case snapped open to reveal the transmitter and the power source consisting of two AA batteries. The device would send an uninterrupted signal to a cellular receiver, allowing its holder to track the movement of the Cherokee in real time on a laptop map. The fact that the device was battery operated and not hardwired to an electrical line in the car indicated to Bosch that this was most likely considered a short-term surveillance by those watching his moves.

Bosch snapped off the flashlight and lay unmoving under the Cherokee for a few minutes as he thought about whether to remove the tracker—and thereby reveal to his followers that he had found it—or leave it in place and fold it into his investigative strategy moving forward.

He decided to leave the tracker in place for now. He climbed out from beneath his car, turned off the light, and stepped out to the end of the carport. He looked around once more and saw no one.

Bosch went back into the house and locked the door behind him. He changed back into his regular clothes and then made a call to Lucia Soto. She answered right away.

“Harry.”

“Hey, how’s it going?”

“All right. I was going to call you. The secret’s out and everybody knows you’re doing defense work.”

“Yeah, I’ve been getting the calls.”

“Well, it wasn’t me, if that’s why you’re calling. I didn’t tell a soul.”

“No, I know it wasn’t you.”

“So then what’s up?”

“Uh, my daughter’s not around and she usually helps me with the phone stuff. You mentioned Uber last night. How do I go about getting that?”

“That’s easy. First put your phone on speaker so you can hear me while I walk you through it.”

“How do I do that?”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Yeah. You’re on speaker.”

Soto talked him through the setup. The operation took less than ten minutes.

“Okay, you’re ready to rock,” Soto said.

“Cool,” Bosch said. “So I can just order a car now?”

“That’s right.”

“Great.”

“It’s late. Where are you going?”

“I don’t know. Just for a ride. I want to check out a place.”

“What place?”

Bosch worked the screen and successfully ordered a car.

“Just some guy’s place. Says the car will be here in six minutes. The driver’s name is Marko and he’s driving a black Tesla.”

“Well done.”

“It’s asking my destination.”

“You can put it in or leave it blank. They’ll still come. That way they don’t program an address and you can tell them what way to go.”

Bosch left it blank because he wasn’t sure of his destination yet.

“Thanks, Lucia.”

“I’m gonna go now.”

“Oh, wait. One question. Is this like a cab? Can you make the driver wait, like if you have to go into a store or a house or something?”

“Yeah, you just tell them what you want and it goes on your credit card. I think there’s like a charge for every fifteen minutes of waiting time.”

“Okay, cool. Thanks, and good night.”

“Good night.”

Bosch waited out in front of his house so that he could get a read on whether his Uber driver was followed up the hill. Marko was now supposed to arrive in three minutes, according to the app.

While he waited, Bosch went on his phone’s search engine and plugged in “Schubert MD, Beverly Hills.” He got a hit for a plastic surgeon named George Schubert with offices at something called the Center for Cosmetic Creation on Third Street near the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The address was actually in West Hollywood. Nothing else came up, and there was no listing for a residential address.

Bosch clicked over and made a call back to Lucia Soto, hoping she hadn’t gone to sleep or out to Eastside Luv again.

“Now what, Harry? You want to know about the phone dating app?”

“No. You mean there is one?”

“There’s an app for everything. What’s up? I have to get to bed. Last night I stayed at it way too long.”

“You dance on the bar at Eastside Luv?”

“Matter of fact I did. But I kept my clothes on. What’s up?”

Bosch could see headlights coming around the bend. His ride was arriving.

“You got your laptop home with you?”

“What do you need?”

“I was wondering if you could use your tracker software to run a name for me. A doctor in Beverly Hills.”

When they had been partners, Soto was the one who was computer adept and had subscribed to a number of Internet services and software that helped track addresses through financial, property, and utility records. These methods were often quicker and more reliable than established law enforcement data banks. What Bosch was asking her to do broke no rules because she was using her own laptop and software.