The Black Box hb-18

by Michael Connelly

  Bosch hurriedly started packing, basically throwing his clothes into his suitcase without care. When Banks flushed the toilet and came out of the bathroom, Bosch walked him over to the bed and made him sit while he cuffed him to the headboard.

  “What the hell is this?” Banks protested.

  “Just making sure you don’t change your mind while I’m taking a leak.”

  Bosch was standing over the toilet and just finishing his own business when he heard the front door crash open. He quickly zipped up and ran into the bedroom, prepared to chase Banks down, when he saw that Banks was still cuffed to the headboard.

  His eyes moved to the open door and the man standing there with a gun. Even without the uniform or the Hitler mustache that had been drawn on his campaign poster, Bosch easily recognized J.J. Drummond, sheriff of Stanislaus County. He was big and tall and handsome with an angular jaw. A campaign manager’s dream.

  Drummond entered the room alone, careful to keep the gun aimed at Bosch’s chest.

  “Detective Bosch,” he said. “You’re a little ways out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you?”

  32

  Drummond told Bosch to raise his hands. He came over and removed Bosch’s gun from its holster and put it into the pocket of his green hunting jacket. Then he signaled with his own gun toward Banks.

  “Uncuff him.”

  Bosch pulled his keys from his pocket and released Banks from the headboard.

  “Take the cuffs off him and put one on your left wrist.”

  Bosch did as he was told and put his keys back in his pocket.

  “Now, Reggie, cuff him up. Behind the back.”

  Bosch put his hands behind his back and let Banks cuff him. Drummond walked over to him then, close enough that he could touch him with the muzzle of his gun if he wanted to.

  “Where’s your phone, Detective?”

  “Right front pocket.”

  As Drummond dug the phone out, he locked eyes with Bosch from a foot away.

  “Should have left things alone, Detective,” he said.

  “Maybe,” Bosch said.

  Drummond reached into Bosch’s other pocket and took out the keys. He then patted Bosch’s pockets to make sure there was nothing else. Stepping over to the bed, he picked up Bosch’s jacket and felt through it until he came up with Bosch’s badge wallet and the keys to the rental car. He put everything he had confiscated into the other pocket of his jacket. He then reached under his jacket to his back and came out with another gun. He handed it to Banks.

  “Watch him, Reggie.”

  Drummond walked over to the table and flipped open the case file with a fingernail. He bent over to look down at the photographs of the camera models Anneke Jespersen had carried.

  “So, what are we doing here, gentlemen?” he asked.

  Banks blurted out an answer, as if he had to get on record ahead of Bosch.

  “He was trying to get me to talk, Drummer. Talk about L.A. and the boat. He knows about the boat. He fucking kidnapped me. But I didn’t tell him shit.”

  Drummond nodded.

  “That’s good, Reggie. Real good.”

  He continued to look at the file, turning some of the pages, again just using a fingernail. Bosch knew he wasn’t really looking at the file. He was trying to assess what he had walked into and what he needed to do about it. Finally, he closed the file and put it under his arm.

  “I think we’re going to take a little ride,” he said.

  Bosch finally spoke, making a pitch he knew wasn’t going to go anywhere.

  “You know you don’t have to do this, Sheriff. I’ve got nothing but my hunches and if you put them and a buck together, you won’t even be able to buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks.”

  Drummond smiled without humor.

  “I don’t know. I think a guy like you operates on a little more than his hunches.”

  Bosch returned the humorless smile.

  “You’d be surprised sometimes.”

  Drummond turned and surveyed the room, making sure he hadn’t missed anything.

  “Okay, Reg, grab Detective Bosch’s jacket. We’re going to take that drive now. We’ll use the detective’s car.”

  The parking lot was deserted when they walked Bosch out to his rented Crown Vic. Bosch was put in the backseat and then Drummond gave Banks the keys and told him to drive. Drummond got in the back, behind Banks and next to Bosch.

  “Where are we going?” Banks asked.

  “Hammett Road,” Drummond said.

  Banks pulled out of the lot and headed toward the 99 entrance ramp. Bosch looked over at Drummond, who still had his gun in his hand.

  “How’d you know?” he asked.

  In the darkness he could see Drummond’s contented smirk.

  “You mean, how did I know you were sniffing around up here? Well, you made a few mistakes, Detective. First of all, you left muddy tracks across the helipad at Carl Cosgrove’s place last night. He saw them this morning and called me up. He said he had a prowler, and I sent out a couple of my guys to check it out.

  “Then I get a call from Frank Dowler tonight telling me that our boy Reggie here is having drinks at the post with a guy looking to buy an IRG pistol, and the confluence of these things got me to thinking—”

  “Drummer, this guy was conning me,” Banks said from the front seat, his eyes looking for Drummond’s in the mirror. “I didn’t know, man. I thought he was legit, so I called Frank to see if he wanted to sell his gun. Last time I talked to him he was looking for money.”

  “I figured as much, Reggie. But Frank knows a few things you don’t know—plus he was nervous because his wife said a stranger had come by the house yesterday asking about him.”

  He glanced at Bosch and nodded at him as if to say he knew he was the visitor.

  “Frank put two and two together and was wise enough to call me. Then I made some calls, and pretty soon I hear that a name I know from a night long in the past is on the registry at the Blu-Lite. That was another mistake, Detective Bosch. Putting the room in your name.”

  Bosch didn’t respond. He looked out the window into the dark and tried to cheer himself with the knowledge that he had sent the audio file of the Banks interview to his partner. Chu would find it when he checked his email in the morning.

  He knew he could use that knowledge in some way now to possibly bargain for his freedom, but he felt it was too risky. He had no idea what people or connections Drummond had down in L.A. Bosch couldn’t risk his partner or the recording. He had to be content to know that no matter what happened to him this night, the story would get to Chu, and Anneke Jespersen would be avenged. Justice would be done. Harry could count on that.

  They went south and soon crossed the line into Stanislaus County. Banks asked when he’d be able to get his car and Drummond told him not to worry about it, that they’d pick it up later. Banks put the turn signal on as the exit for Hammett Road approached.

  “Going to see the boss, huh?” Bosch said.

  “Something like that,” Drummond said.

  They exited and headed through the almond grove toward the grand entrance to the Cosgrove estate. Drummond told Banks to pull forward so he could push the button on the call box from the backseat.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine. Open up.”

  The gate opened automatically and Banks drove through. They followed the entrance road through the grove toward the château, traversing in two minutes what had taken Bosch an hour to cover the night before. Bosch leaned against the side window and looked up. It seemed darker than the night before. Cloud cover had blotted out the canopy of stars.

  They came out of the grove and Bosch saw that the mansion’s exterior lights were off. Maybe there wasn’t enough wind to turn the turbine behind the house. Or maybe Cosgrove just wanted a blackout for the business at hand. The headlights washed across the black helicopter sittin
g on its pad, ready to go.

  A man was waiting in the circle in front of the château. Banks pulled up and the man got in the front seat. In the overhead light, Bosch saw that it was Carl Cosgrove. Big and barrel-chested with a full head of wavy gray hair. He recognized him from the photos. Drummond said nothing to him, but Banks was excited to see his old pal from the Guard.

  “Carl, long time no see, man.”

  Cosgrove glanced over at him, clearly not as jazzed about their reunion.

  “Reggie.”

  That was all he said. Drummond instructed Banks to drive around the circle and onto a service road that wrapped around behind the château and went past a freestanding garage and back into the hillside to the rear of the property. Soon they came to an old A-frame barn that was surrounded by cattle pens but looked unused and abandoned.

  “What are we doing?” Banks asked.

  “We?” Drummond said. “We are taking care of Detective Bosch because Detective Bosch couldn’t leave the ghosts of the past alone. Pull to the front of the barn.”

  Banks stopped with the headlights bathing the large double doors. There was a “No Trespassing” sign nailed to the door on the left. A large slide bar secured the doors and a heavy chain was also wrapped through the two handles and held in place with a padlock.

  “Kids were sneaking in here, leaving their beer cans and shit all over,” Cosgrove said, as if he had to explain why the barn was locked.

  “Unlock it,” Drummond said.

  Cosgrove got out and headed to the barn doors with a key already in his hand.

  “You sure about this, Drummer?” Banks asked.

  “Don’t call me that, Reggie. People stopped calling me that a long time ago.”

  “Sorry. I won’t. But are you sure we have to do this?”

  “There you go with that we stuff again. When was it ever we, Reg? Don’t you mean me? Me always cleaning up after what you guys did?”

  Banks didn’t answer. Cosgrove had gotten the doors unlocked and was pulling the right side open.

  “Let’s do this thing,” Drummond said.

  He got out of the car, slamming the door behind him. Banks was slow to do likewise, and Bosch seized the moment, locking eyes with him in the rearview.

  “Don’t be a part of this, Reggie. He gave you a gun, you can stop this.”

  Bosch’s door opened then and Drummond reached in to pull him out.

  “Reggie, what are you waiting for? Let’s go, man.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know you wanted me, too.”

  Banks got out as Bosch was pulled out.

  “In the barn, Bosch,” Drummond said.

  Bosch looked up at the black sky again as he was pushed toward the open door of the barn. Once they were inside, Cosgrove turned on an overhead light that was so high up in the crossbeams that it threw only a dim glow down to where they stood below.

  Drummond went to a center column that helped support the hayloft and pushed against it to test its strength. It felt solid.

  “Here,” he said. “Bring him over.”

  Banks pushed Bosch forward and Drummond grabbed him by the arm again and turned him, so his back came to the column. He brought the gun up and pointed it at Bosch’s face.

  “Hold still,” Drummond commanded. “Reggie, cuff him to the beam.”

  Banks pulled the keys out of his pocket and unlocked one of Bosch’s cuffs, then locked his arms around the column. Bosch realized that this meant they were not going to kill him. Not yet, at least. They needed him alive for some reason.

  Once Bosch was secured, Cosgrove got brave and came up close to him.

  “You know what I should’ve done? I should’ve unloaded my sixteen on you back in that alley. It would have saved me all of this. But I guess I aimed too high.”

  “Carl, enough,” Drummond said. “Why don’t you go back to the house and wait for Frank. We’ll take care of this and I’ll be right behind you.”

  Cosgrove gave Bosch a long look that ended with an evil smile.

  “Have a seat,” he said.

  He then kicked Bosch’s left foot out from beneath him and shoved him down by the shoulder. Bosch slid down the column to the ground, landing hard on his tailbone.

  “Carl! Come on, man, let us handle it.”

  Cosgrove finally backed away at the same time Bosch realized what he had meant about aiming high. Cosgrove had been the soldier who had opened fire that night at the crime scene, the gunfire that sent everyone to the ground for cover. And now Bosch knew that he had not seen anyone on a roof. He had only wanted to set nerves on edge and cause a distraction from the investigation of the crime he had committed.

  “I’ll be in the car,” Cosgrove said.

  “No, we leave the car up here. I don’t want Frank to see it when he’s coming in. It might make him nervous. His wife told him about Bosch driving by.”

  “Whatever. I’ll walk back.”

  Cosgrove left the barn, and Drummond stood in front of Bosch and looked down on him in the dim light. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out the gun he had taken away from Bosch.

  “Hey, Drummer,” Banks said nervously. “What did you mean about Frank not seeing the car? Why is Frank—”

  “Reggie, I told you not to call me that.”

  Drummond raised his arm and put the muzzle of Bosch’s gun to the side of Reggie Banks’s head. He was still looking down at Bosch when he pulled the trigger. The sound was deafening and Bosch was hit by the blowback of blood and brain matter a split second before Banks’s body dropped to the hay-strewn floor next to him.

  Drummond looked down at the body. The heart’s last few contractions sent blood gushing from the bullet entrance point into the dirty straw. Drummond pocketed Bosch’s gun again and then reached down to the gun he had given Banks earlier. He picked it up.

  “Back in the car, when you were alone with him, you told him to use it on me, didn’t you?”

  Bosch didn’t answer and Drummond didn’t wait long before moving on.

  “You’d think he would’ve checked to see if it was loaded.”

  He popped out the magazine and wiggled it empty in front of Bosch.

  “You were right, Detective,” he said. “You attacked the weak link and Reggie was the weakest link. Bravo on that.”

  Bosch realized he had been wrong. This was the end. He brought his knees up and pressed his back against the beam. He braced himself.

  He then dropped his head forward and closed his eyes. He conjured up an image of his daughter. It was from a memory of a good day. It was a Sunday and he had taken her to the empty parking lot of a nearby high school for a driving lesson. It had started rough with her foot heavy on the brake. But by the time they were finished, she was operating the car smoothly and with more skill than most drivers Bosch encountered on the real streets of L.A. He was proud of her, and more important, she was proud of herself. At the end of the lesson, when they had switched seats and Bosch was driving them home, she told him she wanted to be a cop, that she wanted to carry on his mission. It had come out of the blue, just something that had developed out of their closeness that day.

  Bosch thought about that now and felt a calmness overtake him. It would be his last memory, what he took with him into the black box.

  “Don’t go anywhere, Detective. I’m going to need you later.”

  It was Drummond. Bosch opened his eyes and looked up. Drummond nodded and started heading back toward the door. Bosch saw him slide the gun he had given Banks under his jacket and into his back waistband. The ease with which he had put Banks down and the practiced motion of slipping the gun behind his back suddenly made things click into place for Bosch. You didn’t coldly dispatch someone like that unless you had done it before. And of the five conspirators, only one had a job in 1992 in which a throw-down gun—one without a serial number—might be useful. To Drummond, his IRG gun wasn’t a souvenir of Desert Storm. It was a working gun. That was why he brought it to L.A.
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br />   “It was you,” Bosch said.

  Drummond stopped and looked back at him.

  “Did you say something?”

  Bosch stared at him.

  “I said I know it was you. Not Cosgrove. You killed her.”

  Drummond stepped back toward Bosch. His eyes roamed the dark edges of the barn and then he shrugged. He knew he held all the cards. He was talking to a dead man and dead men tell no tales.

  “Well,” he said. “She was becoming a nuisance.”

  He smirked and seemed delighted to share confirmation of his crime with Bosch after twenty years. Bosch worked it.

  “How did you get her into the alley?” he asked.

  “That was the easy part. I went right up to her and told her I knew who and what she was looking for. I said I was on the boat and I heard about it. I said I would be her source but I was scared and couldn’t talk. I told her I’d meet her at oh-five-hundred in the alley. And she was dumb enough to be there.”

  He nodded as if to say done deal.

  “What about her cameras?”

  “Same as the gun. I threw all that stuff over the fences back there. I took the film out first, of course.”

  Bosch envisioned it. A camera landing in somebody’s backyard and being kept or pawned instead of turned in to police.

  “Anything else, Detective?” asked Drummond, clearly relishing his chance to flaunt his cleverness to Bosch.

  “Yeah,” Bosch said. “If it was you who did it, how did you keep Cosgrove and the others in line for twenty years?”

  “That was easy. Carl Junior would’ve been disowned if the old man had learned of his involvement in any of this. The others just followed along and got put down if they didn’t.”

  With that he turned and headed toward the door. He pushed it open but then hesitated. He looked back at Bosch with a grim smile as he reached over and turned out the overhead light.

  “Get some sleep, Detective.”

  He then stepped out and closed the door behind him. Bosch heard the steel slide bar strike home as Drummond locked him in.

  Bosch was left in a perfect darkness. But he was alive—for now.