Nine Dragons

by Michael Connelly

  Bosch carried the evidence box back to his cubicle and dropped it heavily on his desk. He looked over at his partner’s cubicle to make sure it was still empty. Ferras had been left behind in the Valley to keep an eyeball on Robert Li. If he figured out that Lam was in police custody and possibly talking, he might make a move. Ferras hadn’t liked the babysitting assignment but Bosch didn’t really care. Ferras had moved himself to the periphery of the investigation and that was where he was going to stay.

  Soon Chu and Gandle, who had been watching Bosch’s play with Lam from the other side of the camera in the AV room, came to the cubicle.

  “I told you it was a weak play,” Gandle said. “We know he’s a smart kid. He had to have been wearing gloves when he reloaded the gun. Once he knew you were playing him, you lost.”

  “Yeah, well,” Bosch said. “I thought it was the best we had.”

  “I agree,” Chu said, showing his support for Bosch.

  “We’re still going to have to kick him loose,” Gandle said. “We know he had the opportunity to take the gun but we have no proof that he actually did. Opportunity is not enough. You can’t go to court with just that.”

  “Is that what Cook said?”

  “That’s what he was thinking.”

  Abner Cook was the deputy DA who had come over from the CCB to observe in the AV room.

  “Where is he, anyway?”

  As if to answer for himself, Cook called Bosch’s name from across the squad room.

  “Get back here!”

  Bosch straightened up and looked over the cubicle partition. Cook was frantically waving from the door of the AV room. Harry got up and started walking toward him.

  “He’s calling for you,” Cook said. “Get back in there!”

  Bosch picked up speed as he moved toward the interview room door, then he slowed and composed himself before opening the door and calmly stepping back in.

  “What is it?” he said. “We called your lawyer and he’s on the way.”

  “What about the deal? Is it still good?”

  “For the moment. The DA’s about to leave.”

  “Bring him in. I want the deal.”

  Bosch stepped all the way in and closed the door.

  “What are you giving us, Eugene? If you want the deal, I’ve got to know what you’re going to give me. I’ll bring in the DA when I know what’s on the table.”

  Lam nodded.

  “I’ll give you Robert Li…and his sister. The whole thing was their plan. The old man was stubborn and wouldn’t change. They needed to close that store and open another in the Valley. One that made money. But he said no. He always said no and finally Rob couldn’t take it anymore.”

  Bosch slid back into his seat, trying to hide his surprise about Mia’s involvement.

  “And the sister was part of this?”

  “She was the one who planned it. Except…”

  “Except what?”

  “She wanted me to hit them both. The mother and father. She wanted me to show up early and hit ’em both. But Robert told me no. He didn’t want his mother hurt.”

  “Whose idea was it to make it look like a triad hit?”

  “That was her idea and then Robert sort of planned it. They knew the police would go for it.”

  Bosch nodded. He hardly knew Mia but knew enough about her story to feel sad about the whole thing.

  He glanced up at the overhead camera, hoping his stare would send the message to Gandle that he needed to put somebody on locating Mia Li so arrest teams could move in simultaneously.

  Bosch brought his eyes back down to Lam. He was staring down dejectedly at the table.

  “What about you, Eugene? Why’d you get involved in this?”

  Lam shook his head. Bosch could read the regret in his face.

  “I don’t know. Robert said he was going to lay me off because his father’s store was losing too much money. He told me I could save my job…and that when they opened the second store in the Valley it would be mine to run.”

  It was no more pitiful an answer than any other Bosch had heard over the years. There were no surprises left when it came to motivations for murder.

  He tried to think of any loose ends he should try to cover before Abner Cook came in and sealed the deal.

  “What about Henry Lau? Did he give you the gun or did you take it without him knowing?”

  “We took it—I took it. We were playing poker one night at his place and I said I had to go to the bathroom. I went into the bedroom and got it. I knew where he kept the key to the box. I took it and then I put it back afterward—the next time we played. It was part of the plan. We didn’t think he’d ever know.”

  That seemed entirely plausible to Bosch. But Harry knew that once the deal was formally struck and signed off on by Cook and Lam, he would be able to question Lam in more detail about all things pertaining to the case. He just had one last aspect to cover before bringing Cook in.

  “What about Hong Kong?” he asked.

  Lam looked confused by the question.

  “Hong Kong?” he asked. “What about it?”

  “Which one of you had the connection over there?”

  Lam shook his head in bewilderment. It seemed real to Bosch.

  “I don’t know what you mean. My family is in New York, not Hong Kong. I have no connection there and as far as I know, neither does Robert or Mia. Hong Kong wasn’t mentioned.”

  Bosch thought about this. Now he was confused. Something didn’t connect here.

  “You’re saying that as far as you know, neither Robert nor Mia made any calls to anyone over there about the case or any of the investigators involved?”

  “Not as far as I know. I really don’t think they know anybody.”

  “What about Monterey Park? The triad Mr. Li was paying off.”

  “We knew about them and Robert knew when Chang came to collect every week. That’s how he planned it. I waited and when I saw Chang leave the store I went in. Robert told me to take the disc out of the machine but to leave the other discs there. He knew one had Chang on it and the police would see it as a clue.”

  A nice bit of manipulation on Robert’s part, Bosch thought. And he had gone for it, just as planned.

  “What did you two tell Chang when he came to the store the other night?”

  “That was part of the plan, too. Robert knew he would come to collect from him.”

  He looked down and away from Bosch’s eyes. He seemed embarrassed.

  “So what did you say to him?” Bosch prompted.

  “Robert told him that the police had shown us his photo and that they told us that he committed the murder. He told him the police were looking for him and would arrest him. We thought that would make him run. He would leave town and it would look like he had done the crime. If he went back to China and disappeared, it would help us.”

  Bosch stared at Lam as the meaning and ramifications of the statement slowly sank into the dark blood in his heart. He had been totally manipulated every step of the way.

  “Who called me?” he asked. “Who called and told me to back off the case?”

  Lam slowly nodded.

  “That was me,” he said. “Robert wrote a script for me and I made that call from a pay phone downtown. I’m sorry, Detective Bosch. I didn’t want to scare you but I had to do what Robert told me to do.”

  Bosch nodded. He was sorry too, but not for the same reasons.

  46

  An hour later Bosch and Cook emerged from the interview room with a full confession and agreement of cooperation from Eugene Lam. Cook said he would be filing charges immediately against the young killer as well as Robert and Mia Li. Cook said there was more than enough evidence to proceed with arrests of the sister and brother.

  Bosch gathered with Chu, Gandle and four other detectives in the conference room to discuss the arrest procedures. Ferras was still watching Robert Li but Gandle said that a detective sent to the Li home in the Wilshire District
had reported back that the family car was gone and there appeared to be no one home.

  “Do we wait for Mia to show up or do we take Robert down now, before he starts wondering about Lam?” Gandle asked.

  “I think we’ve got to move,” Bosch said. “He already has to be wondering where Lam is. If he starts getting suspicious, he might run.”

  Gandle looked around the room for objections. There were none.

  “Okay, then let’s mount up,” he said. “We take down Robert in the store and then we go find Mia. I want these people booked before the end of the day. Harry, check with your partner and confirm Robert’s location. Tell him we’re on the way. I’ll ride up with you and Chu.”

  It was unusual for the lieutenant to want to leave the office. But the case had transcended routine. He apparently wanted to be there when it was closed by arrest.

  Everybody stood up and started to file out of the conference room. Bosch and Gandle lagged behind. Harry pulled his phone and hit a speed dial button for Ferras. At last check-in, he was still in his car, watching Fortune Fine Foods & Liquor from across the street.

  “You know what I still don’t get, Harry?” Gandle asked.

  “No, what don’t you get?”

  “Who took your daughter? Lam claims he doesn’t know anything about it. And at this point he has no reason to lie. Do you still think it was Chang’s people, even though we now know he was clear on the killing?”

  The call was answered before Bosch could respond to Gandle.

  “Ferras.”

  “It’s me,” Bosch said. “Where’s Li?”

  He held a finger up to Gandle, holding him while he took the call.

  “He’s in the store,” Ferras said. “You know, we need to talk, Harry.”

  Bosch could tell by the tension in his partner’s voice that it wasn’t Robert Li that Ferras wanted to talk about. While he was sitting there in his car alone all morning, something was festering in his brain.

  “We’ll talk later. Right now we have to move. We turned Lam. He gave us everything. Robert and his sister. She was part of this. Is she in the store?”

  “Not that I saw. She dropped off the mother but then she drove off.”

  “When was this?”

  “About an hour ago.”

  Tired of waiting and needing to get ready to join the arrest teams, Gandle headed off toward his office and Bosch was left thinking that he was safe for the time being from having to answer the lieutenant’s question. Now he just had to deal with Ferras.

  “Okay, sit tight,” he said. “And let me know if anything changes.”

  “You know what, Harry?”

  “What, Ignacio?” he responded impatiently.

  “You didn’t give me a chance, man.”

  There was a whining tone in his voice that set Bosch on edge.

  “What chance? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about you telling the lieutenant you wanted a new partner. You should’ve given me another chance. He’s trying to move me to autos, you know. He said I’m not dependable, so I’m the one who has to go.”

  “Look, Ignacio, it’s been two years, okay? I’ve given you two years of chances. But now’s not the time to talk about this. We’ll do it later, okay? In the meantime, just sit tight. We’re on our way.”

  “No, you sit tight, Harry.”

  Bosch paused for a moment.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means, I’ll handle Li.”

  “Ignacio, listen to me. You’re by yourself. You don’t go in that store until you have an arrest team with you. You understand? You want to put the cuffs on him, fine, you can do that. But you wait until we get there.”

  “I don’t need a team and I don’t need you, Harry.”

  Ferras disconnected. Bosch hit redial as he started moving toward the lieutenant’s office.

  Ferras didn’t pick up and the call went direct to voice mail. When Bosch entered Gandle’s office, the lieutenant was buttoning his shirt over a Kevlar vest he had donned for the field trip.

  “We’ve got to move,” Bosch said. “Ferras is going off the map.”

  47

  After returning from the funeral, Bosch took off his tie and grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator. He went out on the deck, sat back on the lounge chair and closed his eyes. He thought about putting on some music, maybe a little Art Pepper to bounce him out of the blues.

  But he found himself unable to move. He just kept his eyes closed and tried to forget as much as he could about the two weeks that had just passed. He knew this was an unattainable task but it was worth a try and the beer would help, if only on a temporary basis. It had been the last one in the refrigerator and he had vowed that it would be the last one for him as well. He had his daughter to raise now and he would need to be the best he could be with her.

  As if thoughts of her conjured her presence, he heard the sliding door open.

  “Hey, Mads.”

  “Dad.”

  In only the one word her voice sounded different, troubled. He opened his eyes and squinted in the afternoon sunlight. She had already changed out of her dress and was wearing blue jeans and a shirt that had come from the bag her mother had packed for her. Bosch had noticed she wore more of the few things her mother had put into the backpack in Hong Kong than all of the clothes they had shopped for together.

  “What’s up?”

  “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m really sorry about your partner.”

  “Me, too. He made a bad mistake and paid for it. But I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem like the punishment fit the crime, you know?”

  Bosch’s mind momentarily shifted to the ghastly scene he’d encountered inside the manager’s office of Fortune Fine Foods & Liquor. Ferras facedown on the floor, shot four times in the back. Robert Li cowering in the corner, shaking and moaning, staring at his sister’s body near the door. After killing Ferras she had turned the gun on herself. Mrs. Li, the matriarch of this family of killers and victims, was standing stoically in the doorway when Bosch got there.

  Ignacio had not seen Mia coming. She had dropped her mother off at the store and then driven away. But something made her come back, sneaking down the alley in her car and parking in the back lot. It was speculated afterward in the squad room that she had spotted Ferras on his surveillance and knew that the police were about to close in. She had driven home, retrieved the gun her murdered father had kept below the front counter at his store, and then gone back to the store in the Valley. It was unclear and would always remain a mystery what her plan was. Perhaps she was looking for Lam or her mother. Or maybe she was just waiting for the police. But she returned to the store and came in through the employee entrance in the back at approximately the same time Ferras entered through the front door to single-handedly attempt to arrest Robert. She watched Ferras enter her brother’s office and then came up behind him.

  Bosch wondered what Ignacio’s final thoughts were as the bullets ripped through his body. He wondered if his young partner was amazed that lightning could strike twice, the second time finishing the job.

  Bosch pushed the vision and the thoughts away. He sat up and looked at his daughter. He saw the burden in her eyes and knew what was coming.

  “Dad?”

  “What is it, baby?”

  “I made a bad mistake, too. Only I’m not the one who paid for it.”

  “What do you mean, sweetheart?”

  “When I was talking to Dr. Hinojos, she said I have to unburden. I have to tell what’s bothering me.”

  Tears started to flow now. Bosch sat sideways on the lounge chair and took his daughter by the hand and guided her to a seat right next to him. He put his arm across her shoulders.

  “You can tell me anything, Madeline.”

  She closed her eyes and held a hand over them. She squeezed his hand with the other.

  “I got Mom killed,” she sa
id. “I got her killed and it should’ve been me.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute. You’re not respons—”

  “No, wait, listen to me. Listen to me. Yes, I am. I did it, Dad, and I need to go to jail.”

  Bosch pulled her into a crushing hug and kissed the top of her head.

  “You listen to me, Mads. You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying right here with me. I know what happened but it doesn’t make you responsible for what other people did. I don’t want you thinking that.”

  She pulled back and looked at him.

  “You know? You know what I did?”

  “I think you trusted the wrong person…and the rest, all the rest, is on him.”

  She shook her head.

  “No, no. The whole thing was my idea. I knew you would come and I thought maybe you’d make her let me go with you back here.”

  “I know.”

  “How do you know?” she demanded.

  Bosch shrugged.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “What matters is that you couldn’t have known what Quick would do, that he would take your plan and make it his.”

  She bowed her head.

  “Doesn’t matter. I killed my mother.”

  “Madeline, no. If anybody is responsible, it’s me. She got killed in something that had nothing to do with you. It was a robbery and it happened because I was stupid, because I showed my money in a place I should never have shown it. Okay? It’s on me, not you. I made the mistake.”

  She could not be calmed or consoled. She shook her head violently and the force threw tears into Bosch’s face.

  “You wouldn’t have even been there, Dad, if we didn’t send that video. I did that! I knew what it would do! That you would be on the very next plane! I was going to escape before you landed. You would get there and everything would be all right but you would tell Mom it wasn’t safe for me there and you would take me back with you.”

  Bosch just nodded. He had put roughly the same scenario together a few days before, when he realized Bo-Jing Chang had nothing to do with the murder of John Li.