The Crossing (24 page)

“The original owner,” he said tentatively. “Why didn’t she want the watch back?”

“Technically, it was not a she,” Gerard said. “The buyer was a man, though he did purchase it for his wife. Who asked you to look into this matter?”

There was the misstep. Bosch looked around. He had to change things.

“Mr. Gerard, do you have an office or somewhere we can talk privately?”

Now Gerard paused, probably deciding how much further he wanted to be involved in this.

“Yes, follow me, please,” he finally said.

Gerard nodded to the security man, a signal that all was well, as he brought Bosch through the door behind the displays.

Gerard had a small private office located off a larger back room where a workbench stood with various small tools on a rack. Against the back wall Bosch saw a floor-to-ceiling safe where inventory was probably housed. There was no one in the back room. That and the magnifier attached to his glasses made it clear that Gerard ran the shop and was also the technician who made the repairs and adjustments to the watches.

Gerard took a seat behind a perfectly clean desk and flipped open an At-A-Glance calendar book. He paged back through it until he saw a name or notation, then opened a drawer and removed a corresponding file with a watch attached to it in a padded pouch. He unclipped the pouch, removed the watch, and put it carefully down on his desk, then opened the file.

“The watch was sent to us for repair by Alexandra Harrick,” he said. “She sent it from West Hollywood, California, but you already know that.”

“Yes,” Bosch said.

With Gerard talking, Bosch said as little as possible, not wanting to mention anything that would put the brakes on his revealing information.

“Our website provides precise details on how one should proceed to have a watch serviced or repaired.”

“What was wrong with the watch?” Bosch asked, immediately regretting that he had said anything.

Gerard picked up the watch and used a finger to circle its face.

“The crystal was fractured,” he said. “No explanation given. But it was a simple repair. The only issue was the replacement crystal. I had to order it from Switzerland and that took about ten days.”

Gerard looked up from the watch to Bosch, waiting for the next question. Bosch had blown the momentum of the conversation and had to try to get it back.

“When was the watch sent here?” he asked.

Gerard consulted notes written on the file.

“Received on February second,” he said. “Sent by FedEx.”

Bosch noted the date—one week before the murder of Alexandra Parks.

“That was when it was received—we document that,” Gerard said. “But I didn’t actually open the box and examine its contents until three days later—on the fifth.”

“What happened then?” Bosch asked.

“Well, all of our pieces are registered upon purchase,” Gerard said. “In the case of a resale, they can be reregistered by the new purchaser, after which they can enjoy the benefits of customer service. What happened here was that this watch was not registered in the name Harrick. It still carried the original owner’s registration.”

“It was bought used as a gift,” Bosch said. “An estate sale.”

“The problem was that I happened to know about this specific watch,” Gerard said. “Because I had sold it originally.”

He said nothing else and Bosch was unsure what to ask next. The story of the watch, whatever it was, obviously had puzzled or bothered Gerard in some way that was unsaid. Bosch needed to get it said.

“You sold it originally and had not heard about it being resold?”

“Exactly.”

“Who did you sell it to originally?”

“I can’t tell you that. We have a privacy policy and we can’t reveal client names. People who buy these watches expect and get a high level of confidentiality.”

“All right, so what did you do?”

“The original purchaser had bought two watches from me in the past three years. He was a collector of fine timepieces and bought for himself and his wife. And as far as I knew, he still had them both, but then this watch came in from someone else. So I took the initiative to call his home to verify that the repurchase was legitimate.”

Gerard was now following a pattern of letting the story stall and needing to be prompted. In Bosch’s experience it was a sign of reluctance. It happened often when people—completely innocent or uninvolved people—were questioned about things related to a murder.

“What did he tell you?”

“I didn’t talk to him at first. His wife answered the phone. I asked for the husband but he was not home.”

“So you talked to her.”

“I didn’t feel I should raise an alarm with her if it wasn’t necessary. I identified myself and said I was just calling as a follow-up to see if they remained happy with their timepieces and if there was anything I could do. We offer a free service and cleaning to our clients. They pay only for shipping and insurance.”

“That was a smart way to handle it. What did she say?”

“She told me that both of the watches purchased through me had been stolen.”

“Stolen.”

“Yes, there was a burglary. She was in Paris and never traveled with her watch for fear of robbery. It was at home, and her husband had stayed home because he had to work. There was a break-in one day at the house while he was out and all of their jewelry was taken.”

“Did she say when this was?”

“Just a few months before. I didn’t get an exact date.”

“Do they live here in Las Vegas?”

Gerard hesitated but then decided he could reveal his client’s place of residence without violating company policy.

“They live in Beverly Hills,” he said.

“Okay,” Bosch said. “Did you tell the wife that you had her stolen watch in your shop?”

Gerard hesitated again and Bosch thought he saw where the man’s discomfort might be centered.

“Not exactly,” he said. “I wanted to talk to the husband, you see. Technically he was the client. I asked her to have him call me. And I told her that I may have located one of the watches.”

“That’s how you said it?” Bosch said.

“Yes. I did not say I had it in hand.”

“And did the husband call you?”

“Yes, that same afternoon. He told me a completely different story. He said the watches were not stolen. That was what he had told his wife because he had actually sold the watches and the jewelry without her knowing. He was nervous and embarrassed, but he admitted that he’d had a cash-flow problem and had sold the watches to cover some gambling losses that he didn’t want his wife to know about.”

“So he made up the story about the burglary.”

“Exactly.”

“Was he known to you as a gambler?”

“I didn’t know him outside of this store, but he lives in Beverly Hills and we are in Las Vegas. He paid cash for his purchases. I always assumed that he came here to do more than buy watches.”

“What does he do for a living?”

“He’s a doctor but I don’t know what kind.”

Bosch thought about this. If the story was true, his pursuit of this loose end to the Parks case was tied up now and seemingly unrelated to her murder. It was just an odd side story that he had wasted time on. He wondered if he looked disappointed.

“Did he say where he sold the watches or to whom?”

“No, I didn’t ask. The conversation was short. He just wanted to make sure that I knew the information his wife had given me wasn’t accurate. He asked if I had called the police and I said no, that I had wanted to talk to him first.”

Bosch nodded and studied Gerard. The man still looked uncomfortable, as though telling the story had not exorcised whatever it was that was bothering him.

“Is there more, Mr. Gerard?” he asked.

“More?”

“More to the story. Did you leave something out?”

“Well, no, that’s all he said.”

“Had you called the police?”

“No, of course not. I didn’t lie about that.”

“What about Mrs. Harrick? Did you ever talk to her about any of this?”

Gerard averted his eyes, looking down at his hands on the desk, and Bosch knew he was zeroing in on something.

“You talked to her,” he said.

Gerard said nothing.

“Did you tell her you thought her watch had been purchased stolen?” Bosch asked.

Gerard nodded without looking up.

“She happened to call between the time I talked to the original purchaser’s wife and when he—the doctor—called me back. Mrs. Harrick called because she wanted to know if the watch had been repaired yet. I told her that it had been received and that I had ordered the replacement crystal. I then asked her where it was purchased. She told me the name of a jewelry store in Los Angeles and said it had been part of an estate sale.”

“Nelson Grant and Sons?”

“I don’t recall the name.”

“So, what did you tell her?”

“I was honest. I told her the repair would be easy once the crystal arrived but that I was not sure I could work on the piece because there was a question about its ownership.”

“What was her reaction?”

“Well, she was a bit shocked. She said it was a legitimate purchase, that her husband had bought the watch and that he was a policeman. She said she would never buy stolen property, that she could lose her job and her reputation, and she got very upset with me for implying such a thing. I tried to calm her down. I apologized and told her that I was waiting for additional information and to please call me back in a day or two when I would know more.”

Gerard finally looked up at Bosch, his eyes filled with regret over the phone call.

“And then the doctor called you,” Bosch said.

“Yes, the doctor called and told me his story and said he had sold the watch in question.”

Gerard shook his head at the memory of the mess he had created.

“Did you call Mrs. Harrick back and tell her?” Bosch asked.

“Yes, I called her and, of course, she was very angry, but there was nothing I could do. Some people can’t be mollified. Being in retail, I know this.”

Bosch nodded. This seemed like a dead end to him. He pointed at the watch on the desk and asked his last question.

“Why do you still have the watch?”

Gerard picked it up and looked at it. When he did so, Bosch saw a scribble on a yellow Post-it note attached to the file. He could clearly read a name, though it was upside down. Dr. Schubert. There was also a phone number with a 310 area code, which Bosch knew encompassed Beverly Hills.

“She did not provide a method of payment for the repair,” Gerard said. “After the crystal came in and I installed it, I tried to contact her on the number she provided with the shipment but the number was disconnected. So I kept the watch here and waited for her to call. Then, quite frankly, I forgot about it. I had other work and I forgot. Now you tell me that she is dead, murdered.”

Bosch nodded. Parks had provided her cell with the packaging of the watch for shipment. By the time Gerard had called it, Harrick had already canceled the number following his wife’s death.

“This is very bad,” Gerard said.

“Yes, very bad,” Bosch said.

Gerard nodded and then spoke timidly as he placed the watch down on the desk.

“Is this watch the reason for her murder?”

He asked as though dreading the answer.

“I don’t think so,” Bosch said.

Gerard picked up the watch again and started to return it to its padded pouch. Bosch noticed something on the back of the watch.

“May I see the watch for a minute?”

Gerard handed it to him. Harry turned it over and looked at an inscription.

Vince and Lexi

Forever and a Day

Bosch wrapped the watch back up and put it down on the desk.

“I have one last question,” he said. “Then I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Yes, please,” Gerard said.

“Why do you think she sent it to you like that—in the padded pouch? How come she didn’t send it in its box?”

Gerard shrugged. “Was there a box?” he asked.

Bosch nodded.

“Yes, in her closet. With the receipt from where her husband bought it. It was right there but she didn’t send it to you in the box.”

Gerard shrugged again.

“The box is bulky,” he offered. “Perhaps it was easier to wrap it and send it in a FedEx box instead. I remember that was how we received it. But it’s not unusual for our customers to ship items this way.”

There could have been multiple reasons, Bosch knew. The question had no answer since the only person who really knew it was dead.

“What about the price?” he asked. “The husband got it for six thousand dollars used. Was that a good deal?”

Gerard frowned.

“Our pieces are collected around the world,” he said. “They hold value and some models even go up. Yes, that was a good deal. A very good deal. A deal to quickly initiate a sale.”

Bosch nodded.

“Thank you, Mr. Gerard.”

K
amasi Washington’s tenor sax was coming from the stereo, the sun-scoured desert was hurtling by on either side of the freeway, and Bosch was grinding the case down as he made his way back to L.A.

He loved these solitary moments of concentration and case thought. He always broke his thoughts into three distinct channels of logic: the things he knew, the things he could assume, and the things he wanted to know. The last channel was always the widest.

The trip to Las Vegas to run down the missing watch appeared on surface to be a bust. The watch was accounted for and the explanation of events from Bertrand Gerard was plausible. But Bosch wasn’t quite ready to drop the watch from his investigation. The call Parks made to Nelson Grant & Sons still chafed simply because Peter Nguyen had been evasive and uncooperative with Bosch. Harry decided that he would take another run at Nguyen—and his brother, if possible—and he would also talk to Dr. Schubert to measure his version of the story against Gerard’s. It was a basic elimination strategy. It was covering all the bases.

As he cleared the Las Vegas strip and got onto the open road, Bosch’s thoughts came back to the victim. Alexandra Parks was a public official. Among her duties was running West Hollywood’s consumer protection unit. It would have been highly embarrassing and even job threatening should it turn out that she wore a stolen watch. Bosch wondered what she did in the hours between when Gerard planted the suggestion that she had been doing just that, and the second call when he told her it was a false alarm. He knew she called Nelson Grant & Sons. But who else did she call? Her husband, the Sheriff’s deputy, the man who gave her the watch?