Two Kinds of Truth

by Michael Connelly

  Lourdes reported that the DEA had also shut down the clinic in Pacoima and arrested the men operating it, along with the physician of record, Efram Herrera. Among those arrested was the driver of the van. Though he was suspected of being the getaway driver in the farmacia murders, he had so far been charged under federal law only for taking part in a continuing criminal organization.

  From there, report writing, follow-up inquiries, and notifications were distributed among the detectives, with Bosch getting a full pass. Lourdes and Luzon were assigned to go to the federal detention facility downtown and take a shot at interviewing the driver about the farmacia shootings, a task all of those in the room predicted would be fruitless. Fifteen minutes later Bosch was crossing the street to the old jail, carrying his third cup of coffee of the day. He noticed that the TV truck was now gone and he guessed that the reporter and crew had been shined on by Chief Valdez. A joint press conference on the case would be held at three p.m. at the station with DEA and state medical board officials. It would be announced that the double murder at La Farmacia Familia had been solved and that the suspects were dead, provided that Bosch was able later to identify the body recovered that morning from the Salton Sea as the second Russian.

  Because Bosch had worked undercover on the case, he had an out and would not be required to appear at the press conference.

  Besides his coffee, Bosch carried a file containing copies of documents that had been pulled together overnight on the case. The one he was most interested in studying was the Interpol report on the man he had killed on the plane. Once in his cell in the old jail, he sat down behind his makeshift desk and opened the file.

  It turned out that the man he killed was not technically Russian, though it was clear from the Interpol data that he grew up speaking the language. Fingerprints had identified him as Dmitri Sluchek, born in 1980 in Minsk, Belarus. He had served time in two different Russian prisons for theft and assault. The Interpol file tracked him until 2008, when he slipped into the United States illegally and never returned. It described him at that time as a “six” who was associated with a Minsk-based subset of the Russian Bratva—meaning “brotherhood,” a general word encompassing all of Russian organized crime. The report stated that a six was a low-level mob associate used on the front line of criminal enterprises. The reference came from the lowest rank in a deck of cards used in a Russian game called The Sixes. Such associates were often used as enforcers until they showed leadership skills and were moved up to the position of bratok, or soldier.

  It appeared to Bosch that once he was in the United States, Sluchek started showing leadership skills and had moved Santos out of the picture in the California operation. He assumed that if the man pulled that morning from the Salton Sea was identified, he would have a history similar to Sluchek’s.

  The report concluded that Sluchek was most likely still connected to the Bratva and reported to and contributed profits from the California operation to a pakhan, or boss, back in Minsk who had been identified as Oleg Novaschenko.

  Bosch closed the file and thought about the chain of events that resulted in the Esquivels’ being executed in their place of business and people like Elizabeth Clayton being literally enslaved in the desert. The seeds were planted thousands of miles away by faceless men of greed and violence. Bosch knew that people like Novaschenko and the men between him and Sluchek would never pay for their crimes here, and that their operation, though down now, would rise again in another spot with other sixes stepping up and showing their leadership skills. The men who fired bullets into José Esquivel Jr. and his father were dead, but the justice gained was small. Bosch could not bring himself to take part in a press conference to laud the quick closing of the case. Some cases were never closed.

  Bosch put the file on a shelf behind his chair, where he put the cases he believed he had worked to the extent of his ability and reach.

  He turned back to the desk and went to work on the computer, attempting to locate Dina Skyler. Using the department computer to further his own private investigations had been forbidden when he had first come to work in San Fernando. But once he built an impressive record of closing cases, that rule was treated with a wink and a nod. Valdez and Trevino wanted to keep him happy and in the office as often as possible.

  The search didn’t take long. Dina was still alive and still in L.A. She had gotten married and her last name was now Rousseau. The address on her current driver’s license placed her on Queens Road above the Sunset Strip.

  Bosch decided to go knock on her door.

  Part Three

  The Intervention

  36

  Bosch got to Union Station by 8:15 Wednesday morning. He parked in the short-term lot in front and went inside to wait for his daughter. Her train was only ten minutes behind schedule, and when they connected in the vast central waiting area, she had no baggage with her and only carried a book. She explained that her plan was to take a train back down to San Diego after the court hearing—unless Bosch needed her to stay. They ate crepes—her choice—at the station for breakfast before crossing Alameda and walking through the plaza by the El Pueblo de Los Ángeles on their way into the civic center. There, the monolithic Criminal Courts Building stood like a tombstone at the top of a rise.

  They split up at the main entrance so Bosch could enter through the law enforcement pass-through because of his weapon. He showed his badge and made it through a solid ten minutes ahead of Maddie, who had to inch her way through the metal detector at the public entrance in a long line. They made up for the lost time by hopping onto an employees-only elevator and riding up to the ninth floor and Department 107, the courtroom at the end of the hallway, where Judge John Houghton presided.

  The Preston Borders case was not scheduled to be called until ten a.m. but Mickey Haller had told Bosch to get to court early so they could discuss last-minute details and maneuvers. Bosch appeared to be the first person on his team to arrive. He sat in the back row of the gallery with his daughter and watched the proceedings. Houghton, a veteran jurist with a shock of silver hair, was on the bench, going through a calendar call of other cases on his docket, getting updates and scheduling further hearings. There was also a video crew setting up a pool camera in the jury box. Haller had told Bosch that so many local news stations had requested access to the hearing following the Times story that Houghton had specified that one randomly chosen crew could record the hearing and then share the video feed with the others.

  “Is he going to be here?” Maddie whispered.

  “Who?” Bosch asked.

  “Preston Borders.”

  “Yes, he’ll be here.”

  He pointed to the metal door behind the desk where the courtroom deputy sat.

  “He’s probably in a holding cell back there now.”

  Bosch realized by her first question that she might have a fascination with Borders, the unrepentant death row killer. He second-guessed his allowing his daughter to come.

  Bosch looked around. While Houghton was not the original judge on the Borders case, Department 107 was the original courtroom, and it looked to Bosch like it hadn’t been updated in the intervening thirty years. It was 1960s contemporary design, like most of the courthouses in the county. Light wood paneling covered the walls, with the judge’s bench, witness stand, and clerk’s corral all part of one module of sharp lines and faux wood. The great seal of the State of California was affixed to the wall at the front of the courtroom, three feet above the judge’s head.

  The courtroom was cool, but Bosch felt hot under the collar of his suit. He tried to calm himself and be ready for the hearing. The truth was, he felt powerless. His career and reputation were essentially going to be in Mickey Haller’s hands and their fate possibly determined over the next few hours. As much as he trusted his half brother, passing the responsibility to someone else left him sweating in a cold room.

  The first familiar face to enter the courtroom belonged to Cisco Wojciechowski. Bosch a
nd his daughter slid down the bench and the big man sat down. He was as dressed up as Bosch had ever seen him, in clean black jeans and matching boots, an untucked white collared shirt, and a black vest with stylized swirls of silver thread. Bosch introduced his daughter and then she went back to reading her book, a collection of essays by a writer named B. J. Novak.

  “How you feeling?” Cisco asked.

  “One way or another, it will all be over in a few hours,” Bosch said. “How’s Elizabeth?”

  “She had a rough night, but she’s getting there. I got one of my guys watching her. Maybe if you can, you could come by and see her. Encourage her. Might help.”

  “Sure. But when I was there yesterday, it looked like she wanted to use my head as a battering ram on the door.”

  “You go through big changes in the first week. It will be different today. I think she’s about to crest. It’s an uphill battle and then there’s a point where you’re suddenly going down the other side of the mountain.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “The question is, what happens at the end of the week?” Cisco said. “Do we just cut her loose, drop her off somewhere? She needs a long-range plan or she won’t make it.”

  “I’ll think of something,” Bosch said. “You just get her through the week and I’ll take it from there.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Did you ever find anything out about the daughter? She still doesn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Yeah, I found out. Daisy. She was a runaway. Got into drugs in junior high, ran away from home. Was living on the street down in Hollywood and one night she got in the wrong car with somebody.”

  “Shit.”

  “She was…”

  Bosch turned his body casually as if he were reaching down with his left hand to adjust the cuff of his right pant leg. His back to his daughter, he continued.

  “Tortured—to put it politely—and left in a Dumpster in an alley off of Cahuenga.”

  Cisco shook his head.

  “I guess if anybody ever had a reason…”

  “Right.”

  “Did they at least catch the bastard?”

  “Nope. Not yet.”

  Cisco laughed without humor.

  “Not yet?” he said. “Like it’s going to get solved ten years later?”

  Bosch looked at him for a long moment without replying.

  “You never know,” he said.

  Haller entered the courtroom then, saw his investigator and client sitting together, and pointed in the direction of the hallway outside. He hadn’t noticed Maddie because the two bigger men had eclipsed her from the doorway angle. Bosch whispered to Maddie to stay where she was, and started to get up. Maddie put her hand on his arm to stop him.

  “Who were you just talking about?”

  “Uh, a woman from a case. She needed help and I asked Cisco to get involved.”

  “What kind of help? Who’s Daisy?”

  “We can talk about it later. I need to go out and talk to my—your uncle—about the hearing. Stay here and I’ll be back.”

  Bosch got up and followed Cisco out. Most people in the long hallway congregated down in the middle near the snack bar, restrooms, and elevators. Team Bosch found an open bench with some privacy by the door to Department 107 and sat down, Haller in the middle.

  “Okay, boys, are we ready to rock?” the lawyer said. “How are my witnesses? Where are my witnesses?”

  “Locked and loaded, I think,” Cisco said.

  “Tell me about Spencer,” Haller said. “You guys stayed with him, right?”

  “All night,” Cisco said. “As of twenty minutes ago, he was still at his new lawyer’s office in the Bradbury.”

  Bosch knew that meant Spencer was only two blocks away. Haller turned on the bench and looked at him eye to eye.

  “And you, I told you to get some sleep,” he said. “But you still look like shit, and there’s dust on the shoulders of that suit, man.”

  Haller reached out and roughly slapped off the dust that had settled on the suit during the two or more years it had been on a hanger in Bosch’s closet.

  “I don’t have to remind you, this is probably all going to come down to you,” Haller said. “Be sharp. Be forthright. These people are fucking with everything that is important to you.”

  “I know that,” Bosch said.

  As if on cue, the CIU team came out of the stairwell down the hall, having taken the steps down from the D.A.’s Office. It was Kennedy, Soto, and Tapscott. They were heading to Department 107. Another woman, who was carrying a cardboard file box with two hands, followed. She was most likely Kennedy’s assistant.

  Further behind them, coming from the elevator alcove at the same time, walked Cronyn and Cronyn. Lance Cronyn wore steel-rimmed glasses and had slicked-back jet-black hair that was obviously dyed. His suit was black with pinstripes and his tie a loud aqua. He looked like he went to great lengths to appear young, and the reason was right next to him, matching him stride for stride. Katherine Cronyn was at least twenty years his junior. She had flowing red hair and a voluptuous figure clad in a blue calf-length skirt and matching jacket over a chiffon blouse.

  “Here they all come,” Bosch said.

  Haller looked up from a yellow legal pad he was referring to and saw the opposition approaching.

  “Like lambs to slaughter,” he said, his voice brimming with bravado and confidence.

  Team Bosch remained seated as the others made the turn toward the courtroom door. Kennedy kept his eyes averted, as though there was no one sitting on the bench fifteen feet away. But Soto locked eyes with Bosch and peeled off from her team to approach him. She was unhesitant about speaking in front of Haller and Wojciechowski.

  “Harry, why didn’t you call me back?” she asked. “I left you several messages.”

  “Because there was nothing to say, Lucia,” Bosch said. “You guys believe Borders over me and there’s nothing else to say.”

  “I believe the forensic evidence, Harry. It doesn’t mean I believe you planted the other evidence. The stuff in the paper didn’t come from me.”

  “Then how did the evidence I found get there, Lucia? How did Dani Skyler’s pendant get into the suspect’s apartment?”

  “I don’t know, but you weren’t in there alone.”

  “So you’re still willing to pass the buck to a dead guy.”

  “I didn’t say that. What I’m saying is that I don’t need to know the answer to that.”

  Bosch stood up so he could speak to her face-to-face.

  “Yeah, well, see, that doesn’t work for me, Lucia. You can’t believe in the forensic evidence without believing that the other evidence was planted in the apartment. And that’s why I didn’t call you back.”

  She shook her head sadly and then turned away. Tapscott was holding the courtroom door open for her. He gave Bosch the deadeye stare as Soto went by him. Bosch watched the door silently close behind them.

  “Look at this,” Haller said.

  Bosch looked down the hall and saw two women approaching. They were dressed for a night of clubbing, with black skirts cut to midthigh and patterned black stockings, one with skulls on them, the other crucifixes.

  “Groupies,” Cisco said. “If Borders walks out of here today, he’ll probably be banging a different broad every night for a year.”

  The first two were followed by three more, dressed similarly and with tattoos and piercings to the max. Then from the elevator alcove came a woman in a pale yellow dress appropriate for court. Her blond hair was tied back and she walked with a hesitancy that suggested she had not been in a courthouse since the first trial thirty years before.

  “Is this Dina?” Haller asked.

  “That’s her,” Bosch said.

  When Bosch had visited her Monday night, he thought Dina Rousseau was beautiful and the image of what her sister might have grown to be. She had given up on acting when she got married to a studio exec
utive and started a family. She told Bosch she had no doubt that Preston Borders had been her sister’s killer and would not hesitate to tell a judge so or to appear in court simply as moral support.

  Haller and Cisco joined Bosch in standing as she approached, and Bosch introduced her.

  “We certainly appreciate your willingness to come here today and to testify if necessary,” Haller said.

  “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t,” she said.

  “I don’t know if Detective Bosch told you this, Ms. Rousseau, but Borders will be in the courtroom today. He’s been transported down from San Quentin for the hearing. I hope that is not going to cause you any undue emotional distress.”

  “Of course it will. But Harry told me that he would be here, and I’m ready. Just point me to where I need to go.”

  “Cisco, why don’t you take Ms. Rousseau into the courtroom and sit with her. We still have a few minutes and we’re going to wait for our last witness.”

  Cisco did as instructed, and that left Bosch and Haller standing in the hallway. Bosch pulled his phone and checked the time. They had ten minutes until the hearing was scheduled to start.

  “Come on, Spencer, where are you?” Haller said.

  They both stared down the long hallway. Because the top of the hour was approaching, the crowds were thinning as people went into the various courtrooms for the start of hearings and trials. It left the space outside of court wide open.

  Five minutes went by. No Spencer.

  “Okay,” Haller said. “We don’t need him. We’ll work his absence to our advantage—he defied a valid subpoena. Let’s go in and do this.”

  He headed toward the courtroom door and Bosch followed, taking one last glance toward the elevator alcove before disappearing inside.