“Yeah, Harry, I’m beginning to like your mojo better all the time.”
“I wish I did.”
He picked up the phone and punched in the number for Trent’s attorney, Edward Morton. He was transferred to the lawyer’s cell phone. He was on his way to lunch.
“Hello?”
“Detective Bosch.”
“Bosch, yes, I want to know where he is.”
“Who?”
“Don’t play this game, Detective. I’ve called every holding jail in the county. I want to be able to speak to my client. Right now.”
“I’m assuming you are speaking about Nicholas Trent. Have you tried his job?”
“Home and work, no answer. Pager, too. If you people have him, he’s entitled to representation. And I am entitled to know. I’m telling you now, if you fuck with me on this, I will go right to a judge. And the media.”
“We don’t have your man, counselor. I haven’t seen him since last night.”
“Yes, he called me after you left. Then again after watching the news. You people fucked him over—you should be ashamed of yourself.”
Bosch’s face burned with the rebuke but he didn’t respond to it. If he didn’t personally deserve it, then the department did. He’d take the bullet for now.
“Do you think he ran, Mr. Morton?”
“Why run if you are innocent?”
“I don’t know. Ask O.J.”
A horrible thought suddenly shot into Bosch’s gut. He stood up, the phone still pressed to his ear.
“Where are you now, Mr. Morton?”
“Sunset heading west. Near Book Soup.”
“Turn around and come back. Meet me at Trent’s house.”
“I have a lunch. I’m not going—”
“Meet me at Trent’s house. I’m leaving now.”
He put the phone in its cradle and told Edgar it was time to go. He’d explain on the way.
18
THERE was a small gathering of television reporters in the street in front of Nicholas Trent’s house. Bosch parked behind the Channel 2 van and he and Edgar got out. Bosch didn’t know what Edward Morton looked like but didn’t see anyone in the group who looked like an attorney. After more than twenty-five years on the job, he had unerring instincts that allowed him to identify lawyers and reporters. Over the top of the car, Bosch spoke to Edgar before the reporters could hear them.
“If we have to go in, we’ll do it around back—without the audience.”
“I gotya.”
They walked up to the driveway and were immediately accosted by the media crews, who turned on cameras and threw questions that went unanswered. Bosch noticed that Judy Surtain of Channel 4 was not among the reporters.
“Are you here to arrest Trent?”
“Can you tell us about the boy from New Orleans?”
“What about the press conference? Media Relations doesn’t know anything about a press conference.”
“Is Trent a suspect or not?”
Once Bosch was through the crowd and on Trent’s driveway, he suddenly turned back and faced the cameras. He hesitated a moment as if composing his thoughts. What he really was doing was giving them time to focus and get ready. He didn’t want anyone to miss this.
“There is no press conference scheduled,” Bosch said. “There has been no identification of the bones yet. The man who lives in this house was questioned last night as was every resident of this neighborhood. At no time was he called a suspect by the investigators on this case. Information leaked to the media by someone outside of the investigation and then broadcast without being checked first with the actual investigators has been completely wrong and damaging to the ongoing investigation. That’s it. That’s all I’m going to say. When there is some real and accurate information to report, we will give it to you through Media Relations.”
He turned back around and headed up the driveway to the house with Edgar. The reporters threw more questions at them but Bosch gave no indication of even hearing them.
At the front door Edgar knocked sharply and called out to Trent, telling him it was the police. After a few moments he knocked again and made the same announcement. They waited again and nothing happened.
“The back?” Edgar asked.
“Yeah, or the garage has a door on the side.”
They walked across the driveway and started heading down the side of the house. The reporters yelled more questions. Bosch guessed they were so used to throwing questions that were not answered at people that it simply became natural for them to do it and natural for them to know they would not be answered. Like a dog barking in the backyard long after the master has left for work.
They passed the side door to the garage, and Bosch noted that he was correct in remembering that there was only a single key lock on the knob. They continued into the backyard. There was a kitchen door with a dead bolt and a key lock on the knob. There was also a sliding door, which would be easy to pop open. Edgar stepped over to it but looked down through the glass to the interior sliding track and saw that there was a wooden dowel in place that would prevent the door from being opened from the outside.
“This won’t work, Harry,” he said.
Bosch had a small pouch containing a set of lock picks in his pocket. He didn’t want to have to work the dead bolt on the kitchen door.
“Let’s do the garage, unless . . .”
He walked over to the kitchen door and tried it. It was unlocked and he opened the door. In that moment he knew they would find Trent dead inside. Trent would be the helpful suicide. The one who leaves the door open so people don’t have to break in.
“Shit.”
Edgar came over, pulling his gun from its holster.
“You’re not going to need that,” Bosch said.
He stepped into the house and they moved through the kitchen.
“Mr. Trent?” Edgar yelled. “Police! Police in the house! Are you here, Mr. Trent?”
“Take the front,” Bosch said.
They split up and Bosch went down the short hallway to the rear bedrooms. He found Trent in the walk-in shower of the master bath. He had taken two wire hangers and fashioned a noose which he had attached to the stem pipe of the shower. He had then leaned back against the tiled wall and dropped his weight and asphyxiated himself. He was still dressed in the clothes he had worn the night before. His bare feet were on the floor tiles. There were no indications at all that Trent had had second thoughts about killing himself. Being that it was not a suspension hanging, he could have stopped his death at any time. He didn’t.
Bosch would have to leave it for the coroner’s people but he judged by the darkening of the body’s tongue, which was distended from the mouth, that Trent had been dead at least twelve hours. That would put his death in the vicinity of the very early morning, not long after Channel 4 had first announced his hidden past to the world and labeled him a suspect in the bones case.
“Harry?”
Bosch nearly jumped. He turned around and looked at Edgar.
“Don’t do that to me, man. What?”
Edgar was staring at the body as he spoke.
“He left a three-page note out on the coffee table.”
Bosch stepped out of the shower and pushed past Edgar. He headed toward the living room, taking a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and blowing into them to expand the rubber before snapping them on.
“Did you read the whole thing?”
“Yeah, he says he didn’t do the kid. He says he’s killing himself because the police and reporters have destroyed him and he can’t go on. Like that. There’s some weird stuff, too.”
Bosch went into the living room. Edgar was a few steps behind him. Bosch saw three handwritten pages spread side by side on the coffee table. He sat down on the couch in front of them.
“This how they were?”
“Yup. I didn’t touch them.”
Bosch started reading the pages. What he presumed were Trent’s last words w
ere a rambling denial of the murder of the boy on the hillside and a purging of anger over what had been done to him.
Now EVERYBODY will know! You people have ruined me, KILLED me. The blood is on you, not on me! I didn’t do it, I didn’t do it, no, no, NO! I never hurt anyone. Never, never, never. Not a soul on this earth. I love the children. LOVE!!!! No, it was you who hurt me. You. But it is I who can’t live with the pain of what you have ruthlessly caused. I can’t.
It was repetitive and almost as if someone had written down an extemporaneous diatribe rather than sat down with pen and paper and wrote out their thoughts. The middle of the second page was blocked off and inside the box were names under a heading of “Those Found Responsible.” The list started with Judy Surtain, included the anchor on the Channel 4 nightly news, and listed Bosch, Edgar and three names Bosch didn’t recognize. Calvin Stumbo, Max Rebner and Alicia Felzer.
“Stumbo was the cop and Rebner was the DA on the first case,” Edgar said. “In the sixties.”
Bosch nodded.
“And Felzer?”
“Don’t know that one.”
The pen with which the pages were apparently written was on the table next to the last page. Bosch didn’t touch it because he planned to have it checked for Trent’s fingerprints.
As he continued to read, Bosch noticed that each page was signed at the bottom with Trent’s signature. At the end of the last page, Trent made an odd plea that Bosch didn’t readily understand.
My one regret is for my children. Who will care for my children? They need food and clothes. I have some money. The money goes to them. Whatever I have. This is my last will and testament signed by me. Give the money to the children. Have Morton give the money and don’t charge me anything. Do it for the children.
“His children?” Bosch asked.
“Yeah, I know,” Edgar said. “Weird.”
“What are you doing here? Where is Nicholas?”
They looked at the doorway from the kitchen to the living room. A short man in a suit who Bosch guessed was a lawyer and had to be Morton stood there. Bosch stood up.
“He’s dead. It looks like a suicide.”
“Where?”
“Master bath, but I wouldn’t—”
Morton was already gone, heading to the bathroom. Bosch called after him.
“Don’t touch anything.”
He nodded to Edgar to follow and make sure. Bosch sat back down and looked at the pages again. He wondered how long it took Trent to decide that killing himself was all that he had left and then to labor over the three-page note. It was the longest suicide note he had ever encountered.
Morton came back into the living room, Edgar just behind him. His face was ashen and his eyes held on the floor.
“I tried to tell you not to go back there,” Bosch said.
The lawyer’s eyes came up and fixed on Bosch. They filled with anger, which seemed to restore some color to Morton’s face.
“Are you people happy now? You completely destroyed him. Give a man’s secret to the vultures, they put it on the air and this is what you get.”
He gestured with a hand in the direction of the bathroom.
“Mr. Morton, you’ve got your facts wrong, but essentially it looks like that’s what happened. In fact, you’d probably be surprised by how much I agree with you.”
“Now that he’s dead, that must be very easy for you to say. Is that a note? Did he leave a note?”
Bosch got up and gestured for him to take his spot on the couch in front of the three pages.
“Just don’t touch the pages.”
Morton sat down, unfolded a pair of reading glasses and started studying the pages.
Bosch walked over to Edgar and said in a low voice, “I’m going to use the phone in the kitchen to make the calls.”
Edgar nodded.
“Better get Media Relations on it. The shit is going to hit that fan.”
“Yeah.”
Bosch picked up the wall phone in the kitchen and saw it had a redial button. He pushed it and waited. He recognized the voice that answered as Morton’s. It was an answering machine. Morton said he wasn’t home and to leave a message.
Bosch called Lt. Billets’s direct line. She answered right away and Bosch could tell she was eating.
“Well, I hate to break this to you while you’re eating, but we’re up here at Trent’s place. It looks like he killed himself.”
There was silence for a long moment and then she asked Bosch if he was sure.
“I’m sure he’s dead and I’m pretty sure he did it himself. Hung himself with a couple of wire hangers in the shower. There’s a three-page note here. He denies anything to do with the bones. He blames his death on Channel Four and the police mostly—me and Edgar in particular. You’re the first one I’ve called.”
“Well, we all know it wasn’t you who—”
“That’s okay, Lieutenant, I don’t need the absolution. What do you want me to do here?”
“You handle the routine call outs. I’ll call Chief Irving’s office and tell him what has transpired. This is going to get hot.”
“Yes. What about Media Relations? There’s already a gang of reporters out on the street.”
“I’ll call them.”
“Did you do anything about Thornton yet?”
“Already in the pipeline. The woman from IAD, Bradley, is running with it. With this latest thing, I’d bet Thornton not only leaked his way out of a job, but they might want to go after him with a charge of some kind.”
Bosch nodded. Thornton deserved it. He still had no second thoughts about the scam he had devised.
“All right, well, we’ll be here. For a while, at least.”
“Let me know if you find anything there that connects him to the bones.”
Bosch thought of the boots with the dirt in the treads and the skateboard.
“You got it,” he said.
Bosch clicked off the call and then immediately made calls to the coroner’s office and SID.
In the living room Morton had finished reading the note.
“Mr. Morton, when was the last time you talked to Mr. Trent?” Bosch asked.
“Last night. He called me at home after the news on Channel Four. His boss had seen it and called him.”
Bosch nodded. That accounted for the last call.
“You know his boss’s name?”
Morton pointed to the middle page on the table.
“Right here on the list. Alicia Felzer. She told him she was going to seek his termination. The studio makes movies for children. She couldn’t have him on a set with a child. You see? The leaking of his record to the media destroyed this man. You recklessly took a man’s existence and—”
“Let me ask the questions, Mr. Morton. You can save your outrage for when you go outside and talk to the reporters yourself, which I know you’ll do. What about that last page? He mentions the children. His children. What does that mean?”
“I have no idea. He obviously was emotionally distraught when he wrote this. It may mean nothing.”
Bosch remained standing, studying the attorney.
“Why did he call you last night?”
“Why do you think? To tell me you had been here, that it was all over the news, that his boss had seen it and wanted to fire him.”
“Did he say whether he buried that boy up there on the hill?”
Morton put on the best indignant look he could muster.
“He certainly said that he did not have a thing to do with it. He believed he was being persecuted for a past mistake, a very distant mistake, and I’d say he was correct about that.”
Bosch nodded.
“Okay, Mr. Morton, you can leave now.”
“What are you talking about? I’m not going to—”
“This house is now a crime scene. We are investigating your client’s death to confirm or deny it was by his own hand. You are no longer welcome here. Jerry?”
Edgar stepped o
ver to the couch and waved Morton up.
“Come on. Time to go out there and get your face on TV. It’ll be good for business, right?”
Morton stood up and left in a huff. Bosch walked over to the front windows and pulled the curtain back a few inches. When Morton came down the side of the house to the driveway, he immediately walked to the center of the knot of reporters and started talking angrily. Bosch couldn’t hear what was said. He didn’t need to.
When Edgar came back into the room, Bosch told him to call the watch office and get a patrol car up to Wonderland for crowd control. He had a feeling that the media mob, like a virus replicating itself, was going to start growing bigger and hungrier by the minute.
19
THEY found Nicholas Trent’s children when they searched his home following the removal of his body. Filling the entire two drawers of a small desk in the living room, a desk Bosch had not searched the night before, were files, photographs and financial records, including several thick bank envelopes containing canceled checks. Trent had been sending small amounts of money on a monthly basis to a number of charitable organizations that fed and clothed children. From Appalachia to the Brazilian rain forest to Kosovo, Trent had been sending checks for years. Bosch found no check for an amount higher than twelve dollars. He found dozens and dozens of photographs of the children he was supposedly helping as well as small handwritten notes from them.
Bosch had seen any number of public-service ads for the charities on late-night television. He had always been suspicious. Not about whether a few dollars could keep a child from going hungry and unclothed, but about whether the few dollars would actually get to them. He wondered if the photos Trent kept in the drawers of his desk were the same stock shots sent to everybody who contributed. He wondered if the thank-you notes in childish printing were fake.
“Man,” Edgar said as he surveyed the contents of the desk. “This guy, it’s like I think he was paying a penance or something, sending all his cash to these outfits.”
“Yeah, a penance for what?”
Michael Connelly Page 12