Echo Park

by Michael Connelly

  “We need to step into your office, sir. This is a highly confidential matter.”

  “Over this way, please.”

  He pointed to a swing door at the far end of the counter. Bosch and Walling walked down to it and its lock was buzzed open. They followed Osborne back through the rear door to his office. Rachel let him get a look at her credentials once he was seated behind a desk festooned with dusty Dodgers memorabilia. There was a wrapped sandwich from Subway front and center on his desk.

  “What’s this all—”

  “Mr. Osborne, I work for the Tactical Intelligence Unit here in Los Angeles. I’m sure you understand what that means. And this is Detective Harry Bosch of the LAPD. We’re working a joint investigation of high importance and urgency. We’ve learned from your clerk that there exists a file pertaining to an individual named Robert Foxworth, date of birth eleven/three/’seventy-one. It is vitally important that we be allowed to review that file immediately.”

  Osborne nodded, but what he said didn’t go with a nod.

  “I understand. But here at DCFS we work under very precise laws. State laws that protect the children. The records of our juvenile wards are not open to the public without court order. My hands are—”

  “Sir, Robert Foxworth is no longer a juvenile. He is thirty-four years old. The file might contain information that will lead us to the containment of a very grave threat to this city. It will undoubtedly save lives.”

  “I know, but you have to understand that we are not—”

  “I do understand. I understand perfectly that if we don’t see that file now, we could be talking about a loss of human life. You don’t want that on your conscience, Mr. Osborne, and neither do we. That’s why we are on the same team. I’ll make a deal with you, sir. We will review the file right here in your office with you watching. In the meantime, I will get on the phone and instruct a member of my team at Tactical to draw up a search warrant. I will see to it that it is signed by a judge and furnished to you before the end of business today.”

  “Well . . . I’d have to call it up from Archives.”

  “Are the archives here in the building?”

  “Yes, down below.”

  “Then, please call Archives and get that file up here. We don’t have a lot of time, sir.”

  “Just wait here. I will handle it personally.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Osborne.”

  The man left the office and Walling and Bosch sat down in chairs in front of his desk. Rachel smiled.

  “Now let’s hope he doesn’t change his mind,” she said.

  “You’re good,” he responded. “I tell my daughter that she could talk a zebra out of its stripes. I think you could talk a tiger out of its.”

  “If I get this, you owe me another lunch at Water Grill.”

  “Fine. Just no sashimi.”

  They waited for Osborne’s return for nearly fifteen minutes. When he came back to the office he was carrying a file folder that was nearly an inch thick. He presented it to Walling, who took the file as she was standing up. Bosch took the cue and stood as well.

  “We’ll get this back to you as soon as possible,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. Osborne.”

  “Wait a minute! You said you were going to look at it here.”

  Rachel was heading toward the office door, gathering that momentum again.

  “There’s no longer time, Mr. Osborne. We have to move. You’ll have the file back by tomorrow morning.”

  She was already through the door. Bosch followed, closing it behind him on Osborne’s final words.

  “What about the court ord—”

  As they passed behind the clerk, Walling asked her to buzz them out. Rachel kept a two-pace lead on Bosch as they headed out into the hallway. He liked walking behind her and admiring how she handled herself. Command presence in spades.

  “Is there a Starbucks around here where we could sit and look at this thing? I’d like to look before heading back.”

  “There’s always a Starbucks around.”

  Out on the sidewalk they walked east until they came to a tiny luncheonette that had a small inside counter with stools. It beat looking for a Starbucks, so they went in. While Bosch ordered two coffees from the man behind the counter Rachel opened the file.

  By the time the coffees were put down on the counter and paid for she had a one-page lead on him. They sat side by side and she passed each page to him after she was finished with her review of it. They worked silently and neither one drank their coffee. Buying the coffee had merely bought them the work space at the counter.

  The first document in the file was a copy of Foxworth’s birth certificate. He was born at Queen of Angels Hospital. The mother was listed as Rosemary Foxworth, DOB 6/21/54, Philadelphia, Pa., and the father was listed as unknown. The mother’s address was an apartment on Orchid Avenue in Hollywood. Bosch placed the address in the middle of what was now called the Kodak Center, part of the Hollywood renovation and rebirth plan. It was all glitz and glass and red carpets now, but back in 1971 it would have been a neighborhood patrolled by streetwalkers and hypes.

  The birth certificate also listed the doctor who delivered the child and a hospital social worker involved in the case.

  Bosch did the math. Rosemary Foxworth was seventeen years old when she gave birth to her son. No father listed or in attendance. No father known. The listing of a social worker meant the county was picking up the tab on the delivery, and the home address did not bode well for a happy start for baby Robert.

  All of this led to a picture developing like a Polaroid in Bosch’s mind. He guessed that Rosemary Foxworth had been a runaway from Philadelphia, that she hit Hollywood and shared a flop apartment with others like her. She probably worked the nearby streets as a prostitute. She probably used drugs. She gave birth to the boy and then the county eventually stepped in and took him away.

  As Rachel passed him more documents, the sad story was borne out. Robert Foxworth was removed from his mother’s custody at age two and taken into the DCFS system. For the next sixteen years of his life he was in and out of foster homes and youth halls. Bosch noted that among the facilities where he had spent time was the McLaren Youth Hall in El Monte, a place where Bosch himself had spent a number of years as a child.

  The file was replete with psychiatric evaluations conducted annually or upon Foxworth’s frequent returns from foster care homes. In total the file charted the journey of a broken life. Sad, yes. Unique, no. It was the story of a child taken from his one parent and then equally mistreated by the institution that had taken him. Foxworth floated from place to place. He had no real home or family. He probably never knew what it was like to be wanted or loved.

  Reading through the pages brought up memories in Bosch. Two decades before Foxworth’s journey through the system Bosch had charted his own path. He had survived with his own set of scars, but the damage was nothing compared with the extent of Foxworth’s injuries.

  The next document Rachel handed him was a copy of a death certificate for Rosemary Foxworth. She died March 5, 1986, of complications stemming from drug use and hepatitis C. She had died in the jail ward at County-USC Medical Center. Robert Foxworth would have been fourteen.

  “Here we go, here we go,” Rachel suddenly said.

  “What?”

  “His longest stay in any foster home was in Echo Park. And the people he stayed with? Harlan and Janet Saxon.”

  “What’s the address?”

  “Seven-ten Figueroa Lane. He was there from ’eighty-three to ’eighty-seven. Almost four years total. He must have liked them and I guess they liked him back.”

  Bosch leaned over to look at the document in front of her.

  “He was on Figueroa Terrace, only a couple blocks from there, when he got pulled over with the bodies,” he said. “If they had followed him for just one more minute they would’ve had the place!”

  “If that’s where he was going.”

  “It’s got to be
where he was going.”

  She handed him the page and moved on to the next. But Bosch stood up and walked away from the counter. He had read enough for the time being. He had been looking for the connection to Echo Park and now he knew he had it. He was ready to put the book work aside. He was ready to make a move.

  “Harry, these shrink reports from when he was a teenager—he was talking about some sick shit here.”

  “Like what?”

  “A lot of anger toward women. Young promiscuous women. Prostitutes, drug users. You know what the psychology is here? You know what I think he ended up doing?”

  “No and no. What?”

  “He was killing his mother over and over again. All those missing women and girls they’ve hung on him? The one last night? To him they were like his mother. And he wanted to kill her for abandoning him. And maybe kill them before they did the same thing—brought a child into the world.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “That’s a nice shake-and-bake shrink job. If we had the time, you could probably find his Rosebud memory, too. But she didn’t abandon him. They took him away from her.”

  She shook her head.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Abandonment through lifestyle. The state had no choice but to step in and take him away from her. Drugs, prostitution, the whole thing. By being an unfit mother she abandoned him to this deeply flawed institution where he was trapped until he was old enough to walk away on his own. In his brain chart, that constituted abandonment.”

  Bosch nodded slowly. He guessed that she was right but the whole situation made him uncomfortable. It felt too personal to Bosch, too close to his own path. Except for a turn here or there, Bosch and Foxworth had made similar journeys. Foxworth was doomed to kill his own mother over and over again. A police shrink had once told Bosch that he was doomed to solve his own mother’s murder over and over again.

  “What is it?”

  Bosch looked at her. He had not yet told Rachel his own sordid history. He didn’t want her profiling skills turned on him.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I’m just thinking.”

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Bosch.”

  He shrugged. Walling closed the file on the counter and finally raised her coffee cup to sip from it.

  “So what now?” she asked.

  Bosch looked at her for a long moment before answering.

  “Echo Park,” he said.

  “What about backup?”

  “I’m going to check it out first, then call backup.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m going with you.”

  Part Four

  THE DOG YOU FEED

  27

  BOSCH AND WALLING USED Bosch’s Mustang, since it would give them at least a small degree of cover compared with her federal cruiser, which screamed law enforcement. They drove to Echo Park but did not approach the Saxon house at 710 Figueroa Lane. There was a problem. Figueroa Lane was a short turnaround street that extended for a block off the end of Figueroa Terrace and curved up along the ridge below Chavez Ravine. There was no cruising by it without being obvious about it. Even in a Mustang. If Waits was there and watching for law enforcement, he would have the advantage of seeing them first.

  Bosch stopped the car at the intersection of Beaudry and Figueroa Terrace and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

  “He picked a good place for the secret castle,” he said. “There’s no getting close to it without being picked up on radar. Especially in daylight.”

  Rachel nodded.

  “Medieval castles were built on hilltops for the same reason.”

  Bosch looked to his left, toward downtown, and saw the tall buildings rising over the roofs of the homes on Figueroa Terrace. One of the closest and tallest buildings was the Department of Water and Power headquarters. It was directly across the freeway.

  “I’ve got an idea,” he said.

  They drove out of the neighborhood and back into downtown. Bosch entered the DWP garage and parked in one of the visitor slots. He popped the trunk and went to the surveillance kit he always kept in the car. He got out a pair of high-powered binoculars, a surveillance camera and a rolled-up sleeping bag.

  “What are you going to take pictures of?” Walling asked.

  “Nothing. But it’s got a long lens and you might want to look through it while I use the binocs.”

  “And the sleeping bag?”

  “We might be lying on the roof. I don’t want your fancy federal suit to get dirty.”

  “Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself.”

  “I’m worried about that girl Waits grabbed. Let’s go.”

  They headed across the garage floor toward the elevators.

  “Did you notice that you still call him Waits, even though we are now sure his name is Foxworth?” she asked when they were going up.

  “Yeah, I have noticed. I think it’s because when we were face-to-face he was Waits. When he started shooting, he was Waits. And it just sort of stuck.”

  She nodded and didn’t say anything else about it, though he guessed that she probably had a psychological angle on it.

  When they reached the lobby Bosch went to an information desk, showed his badge and credentials and asked to see a security supervisor. He told the desk man that it was urgent.

  In less than two minutes a tall black man in gray pants and a navy blazer over his white shirt and tie came through a door and directly toward them. This time Bosch and Walling both showed their creds and the man appeared properly impressed by the federal-local tandem.

  “Hieronymus,” he said, reading Bosch’s police ID. “Do you go by Harry?”

  “That’s right.”

  The man put out his hand and smiled.

  “Jason Edgar. I believe you and my cousin were partners once.”

  Bosch smiled, not just because of the coincidence but because he knew it meant that he would have this man’s cooperation. He put the sleeping bag under his other arm and shook his hand.

  “That’s right. He told me he had a cousin with DWP. You used to get him billing info when we needed it. Nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise, man. What do we have here? If the FBI’s involved, are we talking about a terrorism situation?”

  Rachel raised a hand in a calming gesture.

  “Not quite,” she said.

  “Jason, we’re just looking for a place where we can look down on a neighborhood across the freeway in Echo Park. There’s a house we’re interested in and we can’t get close to it without being obvious about it, know what I mean? We were thinking that maybe from one of the offices here or from the roof we could get an angle and just see what’s happening over there.”

  “I’ve got just the spot,” Edgar said without hesitation. “Follow me.”

  He led them back to the elevators and had to use a key to get the fifteenth-floor button to light. On the way up he explained that the building was going through a floor-by-floor renovation. At the moment the work had moved to the fifteenth floor. The floor had been gutted and was empty, waiting for the contractor to come in to rebuild according to the renovation plan.

  “You can have the whole floor to yourselves,” he said. “Pick any angle you want for an OP.”

  Bosch nodded. OP, as in observation point. That told him something about Jason Edgar.

  “Where’d you serve?” he asked.

  “Marines, Desert Storm, the whole shebang. That’s why I didn’t join the PD. Had my fill of war zones. This gig is pretty much nine to five, low stress and just interesting enough, if you know what I mean.”

  Bosch didn’t but nodded anyway. The elevator doors opened and they stepped out onto a floor that was wide open from glass exterior to glass exterior. Edgar led them toward the glass wall that would look down on Echo Park.

  “What’s the case about, anyway?” Edgar asked as they approached.

  Bosch knew it would come to this. He was ready with an answer.

  “
There’s a place down there we think is being used as a safe house for fugitives. We just want to see if there is anything there to be seen. You know what I mean?”

  “Sure do.”

  “There’s something else you can do to help us,” Walling said.

  Bosch turned to her along with Edgar. He was just as curious.

  “What do you need?” Edgar said.

  “Could you run the address through your computers and tell us who is paying for utilities?”

  “Not a problem. Let me just get you situated here first.”

  Bosch nodded to Rachel. It was a good move. It would not only get the inquisitive Edgar out of the way for a while, but it could also provide them with some valuable information about the house on Figueroa Lane.

  At the floor-to-ceiling glass wall on the north side of the building, Bosch and Walling looked down and across the 101 Freeway at Echo Park. They were farther from the hillside neighborhood than Bosch had thought they would be, but they still had a good vantage point. He pointed out the geographic markers to Rachel.

  “There’s Fig Terrace,” he said. “Those three houses up above it on the curve are on Fig Lane.”

  She nodded. Figueroa Lane had only the three houses on it. From this height and distance it looked like an afterthought, a developer’s discovery that he could jam three more houses onto the hillside after the main street grid had already been laid out.

  “Which one is seven-ten?” she asked.

  “Good question.”

  Bosch dropped the sleeping bag and raised the binoculars. He studied the three houses, looking for an address. He finally zeroed in on a black trash can sitting out front of the house in the middle. In large white numerals someone had painted 712 on the can in an effort to safeguard it from theft. Bosch knew the address numbers would rise as the street extended away from downtown.

  “The one on the right is seven-ten,” he said.

  “Got it,” she said.

  “So that’s the address?” Edgar asked. “Seven-ten Fig Lane?”

  “Figueroa Lane,” Bosch said.

  “Got it. Let me go see what I can find. If anybody comes up here and asks what you are doing, just tell them to call me on three-three-eight. That’s my page.”