The Reversal (12 page)

“Let’s go,” Bosch said.

He started to move but McPherson put her hand on his arm.

“Wait, what are you talking about? We need to call Port Townsend police and get some backup, don’t we?”

Bosch looked at her a moment without responding.

“I saw the police station when we went through town,” McPherson said, as if to assure him that backup was waiting and willing.

“If we call for backup they’re not going to be very cooperative, since we didn’t bother to check in when we got to town in the first place,” Bosch said. “They’ll arrest her and then we have a main witness awaiting trial on drug charges. How do you think that will work with Jessup’s jury?”

She didn’t answer.

“Tell you what,” he said. “You hold back here and I’ll go check it out. Three vehicles, probably three cooks. If I can’t handle it, we call backup.”

“They’re probably armed, Harry. You—”

“They’re probably not armed. I’ll check it out and if it looks like a situation we’ll call Port Townsend.”

“I don’t like this.”

“It could work to our favor.”

“What? How?”

“Think about it. Watch for my signal. If something goes wrong, get in the car and get out of here.”

He held up the car keys and she reluctantly took them. He could tell she was thinking about what he had said. The advantage. If they caught their witness in a compromising situation, it could give them the leverage they needed to assure her cooperation and testimony.

Bosch left McPherson there and headed on foot down the crushed-shell drive to the barn. He didn’t attempt to hide in case they had a lookout. He put his hands in his pocket to try to convey he was no threat, somebody just lost and looking for directions.

The crushed shell made it impossible for him to make a completely silent approach. But as he got closer he heard loud music coming from the barn. It was rock and roll but he could not identify it. Something heavy on the guitar and with a pounding beat. It had a retro feel to it, like he had heard the song a long time ago, maybe in Vietnam.

Bosch was twenty feet from the partially opened door when it moved open another two feet and the same young man stepped out again. Seeing him closer, Bosch pegged his age at twenty-one or so. In the moment he stepped out Bosch realized he should have expected that he’d be back out to finish his interrupted smoke. Now it was too late and the smoker saw him.

But the young man didn’t hesitate or sound an alarm of any sort. He looked at Bosch curiously as he started tapping a cigarette out of a soft pack. He was sweating profusely.

“You parked up at the house?” he asked.

Bosch stopped ten feet from him and took his hands out of his pockets. He didn’t look back toward the house, choosing instead to keep his eyes on the kid.

“Uh, yes, is that a problem?” he asked.

“No, but most people just drive on down to the barn. Sarah usually tells them to.”

“Oh, I didn’t get that message. Is Sarah here?”

“Yeah, inside. Go on in.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, we’re almost done for the day.”

Bosch was getting the idea that he had walked into something that was not what he thought it was. He now glanced back and saw McPherson peering around the corner of the house. This wasn’t the best way to do this but he turned and headed toward the open door.

The heat hit him the moment he entered. The inside of the barn was like an oven and for good reason. The first thing Bosch saw was the open door of a huge furnace that was glowing orange with flames.

Standing eight feet from the heat source was another young man and an older woman. They also wore full-length aprons and heavy gloves. The man was using a pair of iron tongs to hold steady a large piece of molten glass attached to the end of an iron pipe. The woman was shaping it with a wooden block and a pair of pliers.

They were glassmakers, not drug cooks. The woman wore a welder’s mask over her face as protection. Bosch could not identify her but he was pretty sure he was looking at Sarah Ann Gleason.

Bosch stepped back through the door and signaled to McPherson. He gave the okay sign but was unsure she would be able to identify it from the distance. He waved her in.

“What’s going on, man?” the smoker asked.

“That’s Sarah Gleason in there, you said?” Bosch responded.

“Yeah, that’s her.”

“I need to talk to her.”

“You’re going to have to wait until she’s set the piece. She can’t stop while it’s soft. We’ve been working it for almost four hours.”

“How much longer?”

“Maybe an hour. You can probably talk to her while she’s working. You want a piece made?”

“That’s okay, I think we can wait.”

McPherson drove up in the rental car and got out. Bosch opened the door for her and explained quietly that they had read wrong what they had seen. He told her the barn was a glassmaking studio. He told her how he wanted to play it until they could get Gleason into a private setting. McPherson shook her head and smiled.

“What if we had gone in there with backup?”

“I guess we would’ve broken some glass.”

“And had one pissed-off witness.”

She got out of the car and Bosch reached in for the file he had put on the dashboard. He put it inside his jacket and under his arm so he could carry it unseen.

They entered the studio and Gleason was waiting for them, with her gloves off and her mask folded up to reveal her face. She had obviously been told by the smoker that they were potential customers and Bosch initially did nothing to dissuade her of that interpretation. He didn’t want to reveal their true business until they were alone with her.

“I’m Harry and this is Maggie. Sorry to barge in like this.”

“Oh, no problem. We like it when people get a chance to see what we do. In fact, we’re right in the middle of a project right now and need to get back to it. You’re welcome to stay and watch and I can tell you a little bit about what we’re doing.”

“That would be great.”

“You just have to stay back. We’re dealing with very hot material here.”

“Not a problem.”

“Where are you from? Seattle?”

“No, actually we’re all the way up from California. We’re pretty far from home.”

If the mention of her native state caused Gleason any concern, she didn’t show it. She pulled the mask back down over a smile, put her gloves on and went back to work. Over the next forty minutes Bosch and McPherson watched Gleason and her two assistants finish the glass piece. Gleason provided a steady narration as she worked, explaining that the three members of her team had different duties. One of the young men was a blower and the other was a blocker. Gleason was the gaffer, the one in charge. The piece they were sculpting was a four-foot-long grape leaf that would be part of a larger piece commissioned to hang in the lobby of a business in Seattle called Rainier Wine.

Gleason also filled in some of her recent history. She said she started her own studio only two years ago after spending three years apprenticing with a glass artist in Seattle. It was useful information to Bosch. Both hearing her talk about herself and watching her work the soft glass.
Gathering color,
as she called it. Using heavy tools to manipulate something beautiful and fragile and glowing with red-hot danger all at the same time.

The heat from the furnace was stifling and both Bosch and McPherson took off their jackets. Gleason said the oven burned at 2,300 degrees and Bosch marveled at how the artists could spend so many hours working so close to the source. The glory hole, the small opening into which they repeatedly passed the sculpture to reheat and add layers, glowed like the gateway to Hell.

When the day’s work was completed and the piece was placed in the finishing kiln, Gleason asked the assistants to clean up the studio before heading home. She then invited Bosch and McPherson to wait for her in the office while she got cleaned up herself.

The office doubled as a break room. It was sparely furnished with a table and four chairs, a filing cabinet, a storage locker and a small kitchenette. There was a binder on the table containing plastic sleeves with photos of glass pieces made previously in the studio. McPherson studied these and seemed taken with several. Bosch took out the file he had been carrying inside his jacket and put it down on the table ready to go.

“It must be nice to be able to make something out of nothing,” McPherson said. “I wish I could.”

Bosch tried to think of a response but before he could come up with anything the door opened and Sarah Gleason entered. The bulky mask, apron and gloves were gone and she was smaller than Bosch had expected. She barely crested five feet and he doubted there were more than ninety pounds on her tiny frame. He knew that childhood trauma sometimes stunted growth. So it was no wonder Sarah Gleason looked like a woman in a child’s body.

Her auburn hair was down now instead of tied into a knot behind her head. It framed a weary face with dark blue eyes. She wore blue jeans, clogs and a black T-shirt that said
Death Cab
on it. She headed directly to the refrigerator.

“Can I get you something? Don’t have any alcohol in here but if you need something cold…”

Bosch and McPherson passed. Harry noticed she had left the door to the office open. He could hear someone sweeping in the studio. He stepped over and closed it.

Gleason turned from the refrigerator with a bottle of water. She saw Bosch closing the door and a look of apprehension immediately crossed her face. Bosch raised one hand in a calming gesture as he pulled his badge with the other.

“Ms. Gleason, everything is okay. We’re from Los Angeles and just need to speak privately with you.”

He opened his badge wallet and held it up to her.

“What is this?”

“My name is Harry Bosch and this is Maggie McPherson. She is a prosecutor with the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office.”

“Why did you lie?” she said angrily. “You said you wanted a piece made.”

“No, actually we didn’t. Your assistant, the blocker, just assumed that. We never said why we were here.”

Her guard was clearly up and Bosch thought they had blown their approach and with that the opportunity to secure her as a witness. But then Gleason stepped forward and grabbed the badge wallet out of his hand. She studied it and the facing ID card. It was an unusual move, taking the badge from him. No more than the fifth time that had ever happened to Bosch in his long career as a cop. He saw her eyes hold on the ID card and he knew she had noticed the discrepancy between what he had said his name was and what was on the ID.

“You said
Harry
Bosch?”

“Harry for short.”

“Hieronymus Bosch. You’re named after the artist?”

Bosch nodded.

“My mother liked the paintings.”

“Well, I like them, too. I think he knew something about inner demons. Is that why your mother liked him?”

“I think so, yeah.”

She handed the badge wallet back to him and Bosch sensed a calmness come over her. The moment of anxiety and apprehension had passed, thanks to the painter whose name Bosch carried.

“What do you want with me? I haven’t been to L.A. in more than ten years.”

Bosch noted that if she was telling the truth, then she had not returned when her stepfather was ill and dying.

“We just want to talk,” he said. “Can we sit down?”

“Talk about what?”

“Your sister.”

“My sister? I don’t—look, you need to tell me what this is—”

“You don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“Sit down and we’ll tell you.”

Finally, she moved to the lunch table and took a seat. She pulled a soft pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and lit one.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s my one remaining addiction. And you two showing up like this—I need a smoke.”

For the next ten minutes Bosch and McPherson traded off the story and walked her through the short version of Jason Jessup’s journey to freedom. Gleason showed almost no reaction to the news. No tears, no outrage. And she didn’t ask questions about the DNA test that had sprung him from prison. She only explained that she had no contact with anyone in California, owned no television and never read newspapers. She said they were distractions from work as well as from her recovery from addiction.

“We’re going to retry him, Sarah,” McPherson said. “And we’re here because we’re going to need your help.”

Bosch could see Sarah turn inward, to start to measure the impact of what they were telling her.

“It was so long ago,” she finally responded. “Can’t you just use what I said from the first trial?”

McPherson shook her head.

“We can’t, Sarah. The new jury can’t even know there was an earlier trial because that could influence how they weigh the evidence. It would prejudice them against the defendant and a guilty verdict wouldn’t stand. So in situations where witnesses from the first trial are dead or mentally incompetent, we read their earlier testimony into the trial record without telling the jury where it’s from. But where that’s not the case, like with you, we need the person to come to court and testify.”

It wasn’t clear whether Gleason had even registered McPherson’s response. She sat staring at something far away. Even as she spoke, her eyes didn’t come off their distant focus.

“I’ve spent my whole life since then trying to forget about that day. I tried different things to make me forget. I used drugs to make a big bubble with me in the middle of it. I made… Never mind, the point is, I don’t think I’m going to be much help to you.”

Before McPherson could respond, Bosch stepped in.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Let’s just talk here for a few minutes about what you can remember, okay? And if it’s not going to work, then it won’t work. You were a victim, Sarah, and we don’t want to victimize you all over again.”

He waited a moment for Gleason to respond but she sat mute, staring at the water bottle in front of her on the table.

“Let’s start with that day,” Bosch said. “I don’t need you at this point to go through the horrible moments of your sister’s abduction, but do you remember making the identification of Jason Jessup for the police?”