The Black Box hb-18

by Michael Connelly

  The pocket held four black film canisters. He didn’t know if this was film that had been shot or was unused. He rebut-toned the pocket and in doing so felt a hard surface beneath it. He knew rigor mortis comes and goes in a day, leaving the body soft and movable. He pulled back the equipment vest and knocked a fist on the chest. It was a hard surface and the sound confirmed this. The victim was wearing a bulletproof vest.

  “Hey, check out the hit list,” Edgar said.

  Bosch looked up from the body. Edgar’s flashlight was now aimed at the wall above. The graffiti directly over the victim was a 187 count, or hit list, with the names of several bangers who had gone down in street battles. Ken Dog, G-Dog, OG Nasty, Neckbone, and so on. The crime scene was in the Rolling 60s territory. The 60s were a subset of the massive Crips gang. They were at endless war with the nearby 7-Treys, another Crips subset.

  The general public was for the most part under the impression that the gang wars that gripped most of South L.A. and claimed victims every night of the week came down to a Bloods versus Crips battle for supremacy and control of the streets. But the reality was that the rivalries between subsets of the same gang were some of the most violent in the city and largely responsible for the weekly body counts. The Rolling 60s and 7-Treys were at the top of that list. Both Crips sets operated under kill-on-sight protocols and the score was routinely noted in the neighborhood graffiti. A RIP list was used to memorialize homies lost in the endless battle, while a lineup of names under a 187 heading was a hit list, a record of kills.

  “Looks like what we’ve got here is Snow White and the Seven-Trey Crips,” Edgar added.

  Bosch shook his head, annoyed. The city had come off its hinges, and here in front of them was the result—a woman put up against a wall and executed—and his partner didn’t seem to be able to take it seriously.

  Edgar must have read Bosch’s body language.

  “It’s just a joke, Harry,” he said quickly. “Lighten up. We need some gallows humor around here.”

  “Okay,” Bosch said. “I’ll lighten up while you go get on the radio. Tell them what we’ve got here, make sure they know it’s a member of the out-of-town media and see if they’ll give us a full team. If not that, at least a photographer and some lights. Tell them we could really use some time and some help on this one.”

  “Why? ’Cause she’s white?”

  Bosch took a moment before responding. It was a careless thing for Edgar to have said. He was hitting back because Bosch had not responded well to the Snow White quip.

  “No, not because she’s white,” Bosch said evenly. “Because she’s not a looter and she’s not a gangbanger and because they better believe that the media is going to jump all over a case involving one of their own. Okay? Is that good enough?”

  “Got it.”

  “Good.”

  Edgar went back to the car to use the radio and Bosch returned to his crime scene. The first thing he did was delineate the perimeter. He backed several of the guardsmen down the alley so he could create a zone that extended twenty feet on either side of the body. The third and fourth sides of the box were the wall of the appliance shop on one side and the wall of the rims store on the other.

  As he marked it off, Bosch noted that the alley cut through a residential block that was directly behind the row of retail businesses that fronted Crenshaw. There was no uniformity in the containment of the backyards that lined the alley. Some of the homes had concrete walls, while others had wood-slat or chain-link fences.

  Bosch knew that in a perfect world he would search all those yards and knock on all those doors, but that would have to come later, if at all. His attention at the moment had to be focused on the immediate crime scene. If he got the chance to canvas the neighborhood, he would consider himself lucky.

  Bosch noticed that Robleto and Delwyn had taken positions with their shotguns at the mouth of the alley. They were standing next to each other and talking, probably sharing a complaint about something. Back in Bosch’s Vietnam days, that would have been called a sniper’s two-for-one sale.

  There were eight guardsmen posted inside the alley on the interior perimeter. Bosch noticed that a group of people were beginning to congregate and watch from the far end. He waved over the guardsman who had led them into the alley.

  “What’s your name, soldier?”

  “Drummond, but everyone calls me Drummer.”

  “Okay, Drummer, I’m Detective Bosch. Tell me who found her.”

  “The body? That was Dowler. He came back here to take a leak and he found her. He said he could smell her first. He knew the smell.”

  “Where’s Dowler now?”

  “I think he’s on post at the southern barricade.”

  “I need to talk to him. Will you get him for me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Drummond started to move toward the entrance of the alley.

  “Hold on, Drummer, I’m not done.”

  Drummond turned around.

  “When did you deploy to this location?”

  “We’ve been here since eighteen hundred yesterday, sir.”

  “So you’ve had control of this area since then? This alley?”

  “Not exactly, sir. We started at Crenshaw and Florence last night and we’ve worked east on Florence and north on Crenshaw. It’s been block by block.”

  “So when did you get to this alley?”

  “I’m not sure. I think we had it covered by dawn today.”

  “And all the looting and burning in this immediate area, that was already over?”

  “Yes, sir, happened first night, from what I’ve been told.”

  “Okay, Drummer, one last thing. We need more light. Can you bring back here one of those trucks you have with all the lights on top?”

  “It’s called a Humvee, sir.”

  “Yeah, well, bring one back here from that end of the alley. Come in past those people and point the lights right at my crime scene. You got it?”

  “Got it, sir.”

  Bosch pointed to the end opposite the patrol car.

  “Good. I want to create a cross-hatching of light here, okay? It’s probably going to be the best we can do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He started to trot away.

  “Hey, Drummer.”

  Drummond turned around once more and came back.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bosch whispered now.

  “All your guys are watching me. Shouldn’t they be turned around, eyes out?”

  Drummond stepped back and twirled his finger over his head.

  “Hey! Turn it around, eyes out. We’ve got a job here. Keep the watch.”

  He pointed down the alley toward the gathering of onlookers.

  “And make sure we keep those people back.”

  The guardsmen did as they were told and Drummond headed out of the alley to radio Dowler and get the light truck.

  Bosch’s pager buzzed on his hip. He reached to his belt and snapped the device out of its holder. The number on the screen was the command post, and he knew he and Edgar were about to be given another call. They hadn’t even started here and they were going to be yanked. He didn’t want that. He put the pager back on his belt.

  Bosch walked over to the first fence that started from the back corner of the appliance shop. It was a wood-slat barrier that was too tall for him to look over. But he noticed it had been freshly painted. There was no graffiti, not even on the alley side of it. He noted this because it indicated that there was a homeowner on the other side who cared enough to whitewash the graffiti. Maybe it was the kind of person who kept their own watch and might have heard or even seen something.

  From there he crossed the alley and dropped to a squatting position at the far corner of the crime scene. Like a fighter in his corner, waiting to come out. He started playing the beam of his flashlight across the broken concrete-and-dirt surface of the alley. At the oblique angle, the light refracted off the myriad surface planes
, giving him a unique view. Soon enough he saw the glint of something shiny and held the beam on it. He moved in on the spot and found a brass bullet casing lying in the gravel.

  He got down on his hands and knees so he could look closely at the casing without moving it. He moved the light in close and saw that it was a 9mm brass casing with the familiar Remington brand mark stamped on the flat base. There was an indentation from the firing pin on the primer. Bosch also noted that the casing was lying on top of the gravel bed. It had not been stepped on or run over in what he assumed was a busy alleyway. That told him that the casing had not been there long.

  Bosch was looking around for something to mark the casing’s location with when Edgar stepped back into the crime scene. He was carrying a toolbox and that told Bosch that they weren’t going to get any help.

  “Harry, what’d you find?”

  “Nine-millimeter Remington. Looks fresh.”

  “Well, at least we found something useful.”

  “Maybe. You get the CP?”

  Edgar put down the toolbox. It was heavy. It contained the equipment they had quickly gathered in the kit room at Hollywood Station once they heard they could not count on any forensic backup in the field.

  “Yeah, I got through but it’s no-can-do from the command post. Everybody’s otherwise engaged. We’re on our own out here, brother.”

  “No coroner, either?”

  “No coroner. The National Guard’s coming with a truck for her. A troop transporter.”

  “You gotta be kidding me. They’re going to move her in a fucking flatbed?”

  “Not only that, we got our next call already. A crispy critter. Fire Department found him in a burned-out taco shop on MLK.”

  “Goddamnit, we just got here.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re up again and we’re closest to MLK. So they want us to clear and steer.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re not done here. Not by a long shot.”

  “Nothing we can do about it, Harry.”

  Bosch was obstinate.

  “I’m not leaving yet. There’s too much to do here and if we leave it till next week or whenever, then we’ve lost the crime scene. We can’t do that.”

  “We don’t have a choice, partner. We don’t make the rules.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Okay, tell you what. We give it fifteen minutes. We take a few pictures, bag the casing, put the body on the truck, and then we shuffle on down the road. Come Monday, or whenever this is over, it isn’t even going to be our case anymore. We go back to Hollywood after everything calms down and this thing stays right here. Somebody else’s case then. This is Seventy-seventh’s turf. It’ll be their problem.”

  It didn’t matter to Bosch what came later, whether the case went to detectives at 77th Street Division or not. What mattered was what was in front of him. A woman named Anneke from someplace far away lay dead and he wanted to know who did it and why.

  “Doesn’t matter that it’s not going to be our case,” he said. “That’s not the point.”

  “Harry, there is no point,” Edgar said. “Not now, not with complete chaos all around us. Nothing matters right now, man. The city is out of control. You can’t expect—”

  The sudden rip of automatic gunfire split the air. Edgar dove to the ground and Bosch instinctively threw himself toward the wall of the appliance shop. His helmet went flying off. Bursts of gunfire from several of the guardsmen followed until finally the shooting was quelled by shouting.

  “Hold your fire! Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”

  The gunshots ended and Burstin, the sergeant from the barricade, came running up the alley. Bosch saw Edgar slowly getting up. He appeared to be unharmed but he was looking at Bosch with an odd expression.

  “Who opened first?” the sergeant yelled. “Who fired?”

  “Me,” said one of the men in the alley. “I thought I saw a weapon on the roofline.”

  “Where, soldier? What roofline? Where was the sniper?”

  “Over there.”

  The shooter pointed to the roofline of the rims store.

  “Goddamnit!” the sergeant yelled. “Hold your fucking fire. We cleared that roof. There’s nobody up there but us! Our people!”

  “Sorry, sir. I saw the—”

  “Son, I don’t give a flying fuck what you saw. You get any of my people killed and I will personally frag your ass myself.”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

  Bosch stood up. His ears were ringing and his nerves jangling. The sudden spit of automatic fire wasn’t new to him. But it had been almost twenty-five years since it was a routine part of his life. He went over and picked up his helmet and put it back on.

  Sergeant Burstin walked up to him.

  “Continue your work, Detectives. If you need me I’ll be on the north perimeter. We have a truck coming in for the remains. I understand that we are to provide a team to escort your car to another location and another body.”

  He then charged out of the alley.

  “Jesus Christ, you believe that?” Edgar asked. “Like Desert Storm or something. Vietnam. What the hell are we doing here, man?”

  “Let’s just go to work,” Bosch said. “You draw the crime scene, I’ll work the body, take pictures. Let’s move.”

  Bosch squatted down and opened the toolbox. He wanted to get a photograph of the bullet casing in place before he bagged it as evidence. Edgar kept talking. The adrenaline rush from the shooting was not dissipating. He talked a lot when he was hyper. Sometimes too much.

  “Harry, did you see what you did when that yahoo opened up with the gun?”

  “Yeah, I ducked like everybody else.”

  “No, Harry, you covered the body. I saw it. You shielded Snow White over there like she was still alive or something.”

  Bosch didn’t respond. He lifted the top tray out of the toolbox and reached in for the Polaroid camera. He noted that they only had two packs of film left. Sixteen shots plus whatever was left in the camera. Maybe twenty shots total, and they had this scene and the one waiting on MLK. It was not enough. His frustration was peaking.

  “What was that about, Harry?” Edgar persisted.

  Bosch finally lost it and barked at his partner.

  “I don’t know! Okay? I don’t know. So let’s just go to work now and try to do something for her, so maybe, just maybe, somebody sometime will be able to make a case.”

  His outburst had drawn the attention of most of the guardsmen in the alley. The soldier who had started the shooting earlier stared hard at him, happy to pass the mantle of unwanted attention.

  “Okay, Harry,” Edgar said quietly. “Let’s go to work. We do what we can. Fifteen minutes and then we’re on to the next one.”

  Bosch nodded as he looked down at the dead woman. Fifteen minutes, he thought. He was resigned. He knew the case was lost before it had even started.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  Part One

  THE GUN WALK

  2012

  1

  They made him wait. The explanation was that Coleman was at chow and pulling him out would create a problem because after the interview they would have to reinsert him into the second meal block, where he might have enemies unknown to the guard staff. Someone could make a move against him and the guards wouldn’t see it coming. They didn’t want that, so they told Bosch to hang loose for forty minutes while Coleman finished his Salisbury steak and green beans, sitting at a picnic table in D yard in the comfort and safety of numbers. All the Rolling 60s at San Quentin shared the same food and rec blocks.

  Bosch passed the time by studying his props and rehearsing his play. It was all on him. No help from a partner. He was by himself. Cutbacks in the department’s travel budget had turned almost all prison visits into solo missions.

  Bosch had taken the first flight up that morning and hadn’t thought about the timing of his arrival. The delay wouldn’t matter in the long run. He wasn’t flying back till 6 P.M. and
the interview with Rufus Coleman probably wouldn’t take long. Coleman would either go for the offer or not. Either way, Bosch wouldn’t be long with him.

  The interview room was a steel cubicle with a built-in table dividing it. Bosch sat on one side, a door directly behind him. Across the table from him was an equal-size space with a matching door. They would bring Coleman through there, he knew.

  Bosch was working the twenty-year-old murder of Anneke Jespersen, a photographer and journalist shot to death during the 1992 riots. Harry had worked the case and the crime scene for less than an hour back then before being pulled away to work other murders in a crazy night of violence that had him moving from case to case.

  After the riots ended, the department formed the Riot Crimes Task Force, and the investigation of the Jespersen murder was taken over by that unit. It was never solved and after ten years of being classified as open and active, the investigation and what little evidence had been gathered was quietly boxed up and placed in archives. It wasn’t until the twentieth anniversary of the riots was approaching that the media-savvy chief of police sent a directive to the lieutenant in charge of the Open-Unsolved Unit ordering a fresh look at all unsolved murders that occurred during the unrest in 1992. The chief wanted to be ready when the media started their inquiries in regard to their twenty-years-later stories. The department might have been caught flat-footed back in ’92, but it wouldn’t be in 2012. The chief wanted to be able to say that all unsolved murders from the riots were still under active investigation.

  Bosch specifically asked for the Anneke Jespersen case and after twenty years returned to it. Not without misgivings. He knew that most cases were solved within the first forty-eight hours and after that the chances of clearance dropped markedly. This case had barely been worked for even one of those forty-eight hours. It had been neglected because of circumstances, and Bosch had always felt guilty about it, as though he had abandoned Anneke Jespersen. No homicide detective likes leaving a case behind unsolved, but in this situation Bosch was given no choice. The case was taken from him. He could easily blame the investigators that followed him on it, but Bosch had to count himself among those responsible. The investigation started with him at the crime scene. He couldn’t help but feel that no matter how short a time he was there, he must have missed something.