The Crossing (36 page)

“We’ll worry about Long later. I want to hear your story, Harry. You told the sergeant that these are the two guys who took down the jewelry store yesterday?”

“That and Lexi Parks and a male pro in Hollywood a couple months ago. They’ve been busy.”

“All right, we’ll get to all of that, but tell me what happened up in that office today.”

“I can tell you but you could also hear it for yourself.”

This gave Sutton great pause. Bosch nodded.

“Bring me my phone,” Bosch said. “I recorded my whole interview with Schubert on my phone. It was still taping when Ellis and Long showed up.”

“You’re saying you have the shooting on tape?” Sutton said.

“That’s right. But you can’t access it without a warrant. You want to hear it now, bring me the phone. I’ll play it for you. Bring Cornell and Schmidt in here. I want them to hear it, too.”

Bosch considered in that moment whether he should ask for Haller to be called in as well, but he let the thought go. The last time he had called Haller in, things had not gone well. Bosch had been in a thousand interview rooms before, and there was no move a detective could make that he wouldn’t see coming. He felt he could protect himself as well as Haller could protect him.

Sutton got up and moved toward the door.

“Dick, one other thing,” Bosch said.

Sutton paused, hand on the doorknob.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Heads-up on the recording,” Bosch said. “My coaching tip is to make sure it is handled right. It can’t disappear or get buried. You’re not the only one who has it.”

“Haller?”

“That’s right.”

“So you took the time to send it to him before you surrendered out there?”

Bosch nodded.

“I’m not stupid, Dick,” he said. “The LAPD isn’t going to like the way this case falls out and I don’t think the Sheriff’s Department is going to like the outcome much either. You’ve got a guy in county for a killing Long and Ellis did. So, yeah, I took the time to get it to my lawyer.”

Sutton opened the door and left.

B
osch had to be moved back to the boardroom for the playing of the recording from his phone. This was to accommodate the crowd of investigators and brass who needed to listen to the forty-two-minute audio accounting of what happened in Dr. Schubert’s office. There was Sutton, of course, and Schmidt and Cornell, as well as two detectives from the LAPD’s Officer Involved Shooting team and one from the Internal Affairs Division.

The IAD investigator was Nancy Mendenhall and Bosch knew her from a case when he was still with the department. His experience with her had been good and fair. Seeing her in the group gathered around the oval table put a positive spin on things for Bosch. He knew she would listen and do the right thing—as far as she was allowed. Also in the room was Captain Ron Ellington, commander of LAPD’s Professional Standards Bureau, which included Internal Affairs. He was Mendenhall’s boss and was there because it would be his report on the exploits of Ellis and Long that would land on the desks of the chief of police and the Police Commission.

Even though the shooting had occurred on Sheriff’s Department turf, the investigation was now a joint-department affair because of the involvement of Ellis and Long. Sutton explained this after the group was seated around the table. He also announced that there was a recording of the shooting and that he wanted the group to hear it first. He invited Bosch to offer commentary where needed as it played.

The phone was then placed on speaker mode and the recording played, with Bosch stopping the playback from time to time to describe things visually or to explain how Schubert’s responses to questions fit with the investigation of the murder of Alexandra Parks and the murders that followed. Only Mendenhall took notes. The others just listened and sometimes cut off Bosch’s explanations as if they didn’t want him to interpret the meaning of things said in Schubert’s office.

Halfway into the playback, the recording was interrupted when Mickey Haller’s name popped up on the screen. He was calling Bosch’s phone.

“It’s my lawyer,” Bosch said. “All right if I take this?”

“Fine,” Sutton said. “Make it quick.”

Bosch stood up and took the phone out of the room and into the hallway so he could have some privacy.

“I’ve listened to the recording. Thank Christ you’re okay, brother,” Haller said.

“Yeah, it was a close one,” Bosch said. “I’ve just been playing it to a room full of cops—Sheriff’s and LAPD.”

There was a pause as Haller digested that.

“I’m not sure that was the right move,” he finally said.

“It’s the only move,” Bosch said. “It’s the only way I’m going to get out of here tonight. Besides, there are at least two in there I trust to do the right thing. One from each team.”

“Well, no doubt the recording is the Holy Grail. I wanna go in with a nine-nine-five as soon as we can. DQ’s going to walk right out of county after this. You did it, man. I was so fucking right about you.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see.”

Bosch knew that a 995 motion in this case was essentially a petition to the court to change its mind based on new evidence. It would be filed before the judge who had held Da’Quan Foster over for trial at the preliminary hearing.

“Where are you, Whittier or West Hollywood?” Haller asked.

“West Hollywood substation,” Bosch said. “The same gang as before with a few more from the LAPD in the mix now.”

“I bet they’re not happy.”

“No, doesn’t look like it. Ellis and Long are their guys.”

Sutton stuck his head out from the boardroom and twirled a finger, signaling Bosch to wrap up the call and get back to the meeting and the playback. Bosch nodded and held up a finger. One minute.

“You need me to come over and kick some ass?” Haller asked.

“No, not yet,” Bosch said. “Let’s see how it goes. I’ll call you if I need you.”

“Okay, but remember what I told you last time. They’re not your friends anymore, Harry, and they certainly aren’t Da’Quan Foster’s friends. Watch yourself.”

“Got it.”

Bosch disconnected and went back in.

The playback continued, and at the thirty-four-minute mark, the intensity in the boardroom palpably heightened when on the recording Bosch said, “Is there anybody else here?”

Where Bosch had mostly kept quiet during the playback of the interview with Schubert, he now felt compelled to offer descriptions of what was happening in the office to supplement what was captured on the recording. The recording was clear to a zone of about six feet. Sounds and voices more distant were fuzzy and lacking clarity. Bosch tried to be brief with his descriptions so as not to overlap what was coming from the phone.

“We heard a noise, like a door closing out in the hall….”

“I was listening at the door to the office and I heard one of them say, ‘Clear.’ I knew they were out there searching for us….”

“I tipped the desk over because my first plan was to make a barricade….”

“The first three were Ellis shooting Schubert. The doctor had his hands up and posed no threat. He shot him three times. Then that was me yelling there and firing. Four shots, I think, at first. Then two more when Ellis was backing out, using Long as a shield.”

The recording ended with Bosch’s announcement to the deputy on the office phone that he was coming out. There was a gulf of silence from the investigators gathered around the table. Bosch then noticed Cornell shake his head and lean back in his chair in a dismissive manner.

“What?” Bosch said. “You’re going to stick with Foster as your guy?”

Cornell pointed at the phone that still sat in the middle of the table.

“You know what that is?” he asked. “It’s just a bunch of words. You’ve got nothing—no evidence—that directly links these two to Parks. And let’s not forget, you’re a guy suing your own department and you’ll do anything to embarrass it.”

Now Bosch shook his head dismissively and looked at Sutton, who was still in the posture he had adopted while listening to the playback, leaning forward, hands clasped on the table. He now extended a finger and pointed at Bosch’s phone.

“I need you to send me that,” he said.

“Me, too,” Mendenhall said.

Bosch nodded and picked up his phone. He moved a file containing a copy of the recording into an e-mail and then handed his phone to Sutton so he could type in his e-mail address. The process was then repeated with Mendenhall.

“Now what?” Bosch asked.

“You can go,” Sutton said.

Cornell made another gesture of dissatisfaction, tossing a hand up in the air. Sutton ignored it.

“Do us a favor, Harry,” Sutton said. “We’ve got a bunch of TV reporters outside the station, doing their stand-ups for the eleven-o’clock news. Don’t talk to them about any of this, huh? That won’t help anybody.”

Bosch stood up, putting his phone away.

“No worries,” he said. “What about the rest of my stuff? Wallet, gun, car?”

Sutton frowned.

“Uh, we’ll get you your wallet,” he said. “The car and gun we’re going to need to hang on to for the moment. We’re going to put together a full ballistics package and we’ll need the weapon for that. And that whole building is taped off and considered a crime scene right now. We’ll be working it for a few more hours. All right if we wait on the car until tomorrow morning?”

“No problem. I’ve got another at home.”

He knew he had another gun at home as well, but he didn’t mention that.

Standing up, Mendenhall put her notebook away in a leather satchel that doubled as purse and briefcase and probably contained her service weapon as well.

“I can give you a ride,” she said.

M
endenhall drove her company car toward Hollywood. Bosch judged that there had been a purpose beyond courtesy to her offering to give him a ride. After telling her he lived in the Cahuenga Pass, he got down to business, turning in his seat to look at her. She was a brunette with dark eyes and smooth skin. Bosch put her at late forties. Looking at her hands on the wheel, he saw no rings. He remembered that from Modesto. No rings.

“So, how come you ended up with this mess?” he asked.

“I would say it’s because of my familiarity with you. Your last interaction with IA is in litigation, so that created a conflict of interest with O’Dell. I was next on the list because of Modesto.”

Bosch’s lawsuit against the department for unfair labor practices named IAD investigator Martin O’Dell as a defendant along with several others involved in his being forced to retire. A few years before, Bosch had worked a case in which Mendenhall had trailed him to Modesto on suspicion that he was acting outside the policies of the department. She ended up helping him escape from captors who intended to kill him and clearing him of any departmental wrongdoing. The episode left Bosch with something he had never known before—respect for an Internal Affairs investigator. There had been a connection between them in Modesto. But because at the time he was the subject of an investigation being conducted by her, Bosch never did anything about it.

“Let me ask you something,” he said.

“You can ask me anything, Harry,” she said. “But I’m not promising to answer. Some things I can’t talk about. But just like before, you be straight with me, I’ll be straight with you.”

“Fair enough.”

“Which way should I go, Laurel Canyon up to Mulholland or down to Highland and then up?”

“Uh, I’d take Laurel Canyon.”

His suggested route would take longer than the other choice. He hoped to be able to use the extra time to draw more information out of her.

“So, did Ellington tell you ahead of time to give me a ride? Maybe get me to talk outside the room?”

“No, it was just spur of the moment. You needed a ride. I offered. If you want to tell more, I’ll certainly listen.”

“There is something more, but let me ask a few questions first. Let’s start with Ellis and Long. Big surprise today in IAD, or were they a known quantity?”

“Well, you really don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

“They’re bad cops. You guys go after bad cops. I’m just wondering if they were already on the radar.”

“I can’t go into specifics, but, yes, they were on the radar. The thing is, we’re not even remotely talking about the level of action we are looking at today. It involved use of time complaints, insubordination. But usually when you have those things happening, they’re indicators of bigger problems.”

“So no external complaints. All department bred.”

“No, none.”

“What about Long? Is he going to make it?”

“He’ll recover.”

“Is he talking?”

“Last I heard, not yet.”

“And nobody’s got a line on Ellis?”

“Not yet, but not for lack of trying. It’s a Sheriff’s Department op, but we’re all over it. RHD, Major Crimes, Fugitives—they don’t want this to blow up into another Dorner. They want a quick end to it.”

Christopher Dorner was an ex-LAPD cop who went on a killing rampage a couple years before. A massive manhunt ended at a cabin near Big Bear where he killed himself during a firefight with officers who had surrounded the location. His notoriety was such that within the department his last name had become a noun applied to any officer controversy or scandal involving crazy and deadly behavior.

“So, the big question,” Bosch said, “is whether there’s a case? Are they going to be charged?”

“That’s actually two big questions,” Mendenhall said. “The answers, as far as I’m concerned, are yes and yes. But it’s a Sheriff’s case. You never know. We will be looking into anything on our turf, which includes James Allen and whatever else those two had going.”

Bosch nodded and let some more asphalt go under the car before responding.

“So you want my coaching tip on Allen?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said.

“Check out the UC car lot behind the Hollywood Athletic Club. On the back row against the wall is a burnt-orange Camaro that’s been taken out of circulation.”