The Reversal (23 page)

“He’s heading home,” a radio voice reported. “Might be an early night.”

Abbot Kinney, named for the man who built Venice more than a century earlier, became Brooks Avenue, which then intersected with Main Street. Jessup crossed Main and headed down one of the walk streets where automobiles could not travel. Wright was ready for this and directed two of the tail cars over to Pacific Avenue so they could pick him up when he came through.

Wright pulled to a stop at Brooks and Main and waited for the report that Jessup had passed through and was on Pacific. After two minutes he started to get anxious and went to the radio.

“Where is he, people?”

There was no response. No one had Jessup. Wright quickly sent somebody in.

“Two, you go in. Use the twenty-three.”

“Got it.”

McPherson looked over the seatback at Bosch and then at Wright.

“The twenty-three?”

“We have a variety of tactics we use. We don’t describe them on the air.”

He pointed through the windshield.

“That’s the twenty-three.”

Bosch saw a man wearing a red windbreaker and carrying an insulated pizza bag cut across Main and into the walk street named Breeze Avenue. They waited and finally the radio burst to life.

“I’m not seeing him. I walked all the way through and he’s not—”

The transmission cut off. Wright said nothing. They waited and then the same voice came back in a whisper.

“I almost walked into him. He came out between two houses. He was pulling up his zipper.”

“Okay, did he make you?” Wright asked.

“That’s a negative. I asked for directions to Breeze Court and he said this was Breeze Avenue. We’re cool. He should be coming through now.”

“This is Four. We got him. He’s heading toward San Juan.”

The fourth car was one of the vehicles Wright had put on Pacific. Jessup was living in an apartment on San Juan Avenue between Speedway and the beach.

Bosch felt the momentary tension in his gut start to ease. Surveillance work was sometimes tough to take. Jessup had ducked between two houses to take a leak and it had caused a near panic.

Wright redirected the teams to the area around San Juan Avenue between Pacific and Speedway. Jessup used a key to enter the second-floor apartment where he was staying and the teams quickly moved into place. It was time to wait again.

Bosch knew from past surveillance gigs that the main attribute a good watcher needed was a comfort with silence. Some people are compelled to fill the void. Harry never was and he doubted anyone in the SIS was. He was curious to see how McPherson would do, now that the surveillance 101 lesson from Wright was over and there was nothing left but to wait and watch.

Bosch pulled his phone to see if he had missed a text from his daughter but it was clear. He decided not to pester her with another check-in and put the phone away. The genius of his giving McPherson the front seat now came into play. He turned and put his legs up and across the seat, stretching himself into a lounging position with his back against the door. McPherson glanced back and smiled in the darkness of the car.

“I thought you were being a gentleman,” she said. “You just wanted to stretch out.”

Bosch smiled.

“You got me.”

Everyone was silent after that. Bosch thought about what McPherson had said while they had waited in the parking lot to be picked up by Wright. First she handed him a copy of the latest defense motion, which he locked in the trunk of his car. She told him he needed to start vetting the witnesses and their statements, looking for ways to turn their threats to the case into advantages for the prosecution. She said she and Haller had worked all day crafting a response to the attempt to disqualify Sarah Ann Gleason from testifying. The judge’s ruling on the issue could decide the outcome of the trial.

It always bothered Bosch when he saw justice and the law being manipulated by smart lawyers. His part in the process was pure. He started at a crime scene and followed the evidence to a killer. There were rules along the way but at least the route was clear most of the time. But once things moved into the courthouse, they took on a different shape. Lawyers argued over interpretations and theories and procedures. Nothing seemed to move in a straight line. Justice became a labyrinth.

How could it be, he wondered, that an eyewitness to a horrible crime would not be allowed to testify in court against the accused? He had been a cop more than thirty-five years and he still could not explain how the system worked.

“This is Three. Retro’s on the move.”

Bosch was jarred out of his thoughts. A few seconds went by and the next report came from another voice.

“He’s driving.”

Wright took over.

“Okay, we get ready for an auto tail. One, get out to Main and Rose, Two, go down to Pacific and Venice. Everybody else, sit tight until we have his direction.”

A few minutes later they had their answer.

“North on Main. Same as usual.”

Wright redirected his units and the carefully orchestrated mobile surveillance began moving with Jessup as he took Main Street to Pico and then made his way to the entrance of the 10 Freeway.

Jessup headed east and then merged onto the northbound 405, which was crowded with cars even at the late hour. As expected, he was heading toward the Santa Monica Mountains. The surveillance vehicles ranged from Wright’s SUV to a black Mercedes convertible to a Volvo station wagon with two bikes on a rear rack to a pair of generic Japanese sedans. The only thing missing for a surveillance in the Hollywood Hills was a hybrid. The teams employed a surveillance procedure called the
floating box.
Two outriders on either side of the target car, another car up front and one behind, all moving in a choreographed rotation. Wright’s SUV was the floater, running backup behind the box.

The whole way Jessup stayed at or below the speed limit. As the freeway rose to the crest of the mountains Bosch looked out his window and saw the Getty Museum rising in the mist at the top like a castle, the sky black behind it.

Anticipating that Jessup was heading to his usual destinations on Mulholland Drive, Wright told two teams to break off from the box and move ahead. He wanted them already up and on Mulholland ahead of Jessup. He wanted a ground team with night vision goggles in Franklin Canyon Park before Jessup went in.

True to form, Jessup took the Mulholland exit and was soon heading east on the winding, two-lane snake that runs the spine of the mountain chain. Wright explained that this was when the surveillance was most vulnerable to exposure.

“You need a bee to properly do this up here but that’s not in the budget,” he said.

“A bee?” McPherson asked.

“Part of our code. Means helicopter. We could sure use one.”

The first surprise of the night came five minutes later when Jessup drove by Franklin Canyon Park without stopping. Wright quickly recalled his ground team from the park as Jessup continued east.

Jessup passed Coldwater Canyon Boulevard without slowing and next drove by the overlook above Fryman Canyon. When he passed through the intersection of Mulholland and Laurel Canyon Boulevard he was taking the surveillance team into new territory.

“What are the chances he’s made us?” Bosch asked.

“None,” Wright said. “We’re too good. He’s got something new on his mind.”

For the next ten minutes the follow continued east toward the Cahuenga Pass. The command car was well behind the surveillance, and Wright and his two passengers had to rely on radio reports to know what was happening.

One car was moving in front of Jessup while all the rest were behind. The rear cars followed a continual rotation of turning off and moving up so the headlight configurations would keep changing in Jessup’s rearview. Finally, a radio report came in that made Bosch move forward in his seat, as if closer proximity to the source of the information would make things clearer.

“There’s a stop sign up here and Retro turned north. It’s too dark to see the street sign but I had to stay on Mulholland. Too risky. Next up turn left at the stop.”

“Roger that. We got the left.”

“Wait!” Bosch said urgently. “Tell him to wait.”

Wright checked him in the mirror.

“What do you have in mind?” he asked.

“There’s only one stop on Mulholland. Woodrow Wilson Drive. I know it. It winds down and reconnects with Mulholland at the light down at Highland. The lead car can pick him up there. But Woodrow Wilson is too tight. If you send a car down there he may know he’s being followed.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. I live on Woodrow Wilson.”

Wright thought for a moment and then went on the radio.

“Cancel that left. Where’s the Volvo?”

“We’re holding up until further command.”

“Okay, go on up and make the left on the two wheelers. Watch for oncoming. And watch for our guy.”

“Roger that.”

Soon Wright’s SUV got to the intersection. Bosch saw the Volvo pulled off to the side. The bike rack was empty. Wright pulled over to wait, checking the teams on the radio.

“One, are you in position?”

“That’s a roger. We’re at the light at the bottom. No sign of Retro yet.”

“Three, you up?”

There was no response.

“Okay, everybody hold till we hear.”

“What do you mean?” Bosch asked. “What about the bikes?”

“They must’ve gone down deaf. We’ll hear when they—”

“This is Three,” a voice said in a whisper. “We came up on him. He’d closed his eyes and went to sleep.”

Wright translated for his passengers.

“He killed his lights and stopped moving.”

Bosch felt his chest start to tighten.

“Are they sure he’s in the car?”

Wright communicated the question over the radio.

“Yeah, we can see him. He’s got a candle burning on the dashboard.”

“Where exactly are you, Three?”

“About halfway down. We can hear the freeway.”

Bosch leaned all the way forward between the two front seats.

“Ask him if he can pick a number off the curb,” he said. “Get me an address.”

Wright relayed the request and almost a minute went by before the whisper came back.

“It’s too dark to see the curbs here without using a flash. But we got a light next to the door of the house he’s parked in front of. It’s one of those cantilever jobs hanging its ass out over the pass. From here it looks like seventy-two-oh-three.”

Bosch slid back and leaned heavily against the seat. McPherson turned to look at him. Wright used the mirror to look back.

“You know that address?” Wright asked.

Bosch nodded in the darkness.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s my house.”

Twenty-three

Sunday, March 21, 6:40
A.M
.

M
y daughter liked to sleep in on Sundays. Normally I hated losing the time with her. I only had her every other weekend and Wednesdays. But this Sunday was different. I was happy to let her sleep while I got up early to go back to work on the motion to save my chief witness’s testimony. I was in the kitchen pouring the first cup of coffee of the day when I heard knocking on my front door. It was still dark out. I checked the peep before opening it and was relieved to see it was my ex-wife with Harry Bosch standing right behind her.

But that relief was short-lived. The moment I turned the knob they pushed in and I could immediately feel a bad energy enter with them.

“We’ve got a problem,” Maggie said.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“What’s wrong is that Jessup camped outside my house this morning,” Bosch said. “And I want to know how he found it and what the hell he’s doing.”

He came up too close to me when he said it. I didn’t know which was worse, his breath or the accusatory tone of his words. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking but I realized all the bad energy was coming from him.

I stepped back from him.

“Hayley’s still asleep. Let me just go close her bedroom door. There’s fresh decaf in the kitchen and I can brew some fully leaded if you need it.”

I went down the hall and checked on my daughter. She was still down. I closed the door and hoped the voices that were bound to get loud would not wake her.

My two visitors were still standing when I got back to the living room. Neither had gone for coffee. Bosch was silhouetted by the big picture window that looked out upon the city—the view that made me buy the house. I could see streaks of light entering the sky behind his shoulders.

“No coffee?”

They just stared at me.

“Okay, let’s sit down and talk about this.”

I gestured toward the couch and chairs but Bosch seemed frozen in his stance.

“Come on, let’s figure it out.”

I walked past them and sat down in the chair by the window. Finally, Bosch started to move. He sat down on the couch next to Hayley’s school backpack. Maggie took the other chair. She spoke first.

“I’ve been trying to convince Harry that we didn’t put his home address on the witness list.”

“Absolutely not. We gave no personal addresses in discovery. For you, I listed two addresses. Your office and mine. I even gave the general number for the PAB. Didn’t even give a direct line.”

“Then how did he find my house?” Bosch asked, the accusatory tone still in his voice.

“Look, Harry, you’re blaming me for something I had nothing to do with. I don’t know how he found your house but it couldn’t have been that hard. I mean, come on. Anybody can find anybody on the Internet. You own your house, right? You pay property taxes, have utility accounts, and I bet you’re even registered to vote—Republican, I’m sure.”

“Independent.”

“Fine. The point is, people can find you if they want. Added to that, you have a singular name. All anybody would have to do is punch in—”

“You gave them my full name?”

“I had to. It’s what’s required and what’s been given in discovery for every trial you’ve ever testified in. It doesn’t matter. All Jessup needed was access to the Internet and he could’ve—”