Trunk Music

by Michael Connelly

  The two routes had only a one-mile stretch of Mulholland in common. And since there was no way of knowing for sure which route Aliso would take home that night, it seemed obvious to Bosch that the car stop and abduction would have been somewhere along that one mile of road. It was here that Bosch came, and for nearly an hour he drove back and forth along the stretch, finally settling on the spot he would have chosen for the abduction if it had been his plan. The location was at the bend in a hairpin curve a half mile from the Hidden Highlands gatehouse. It was in an area with few homes and those that were there were built on the south side on a promontory well above the road. On the north side, the undeveloped land dropped steeply away from the road into a heavily wooded arroyo where eucalyptus and acacia trees crowded one another. It was the perfect spot. Secluded, out of sight.

  Once again Bosch envisioned Tony Aliso coming around the curve and the lights of his Rolls coming upon his own wife in the road. Aliso stops, confused—what is she doing there? He gets out and from the north side of the road her accomplice emerges. She hits her husband with the spray, the accomplice goes to the Rolls and pops the trunk. Aliso’s hands are clawing at his eyes when he is roughly thrown into the trunk and his hands tied behind him. All they had to worry about was a car coming around the curve and throwing its lights on them. But at that late hour on Mulholland, it didn’t seem likely. The whole thing could have been done in fifteen seconds. That’s why the spray was used. Not because it was a woman, but because it would make it fast.

  Bosch pulled off the road, got out and looked around. The spot had the right feel to him. It was as quiet as death. He decided that he would come back that night to see it in darkness, to further confirm what he felt in his gut to be true.

  He crossed the street and looked down into the arroyo where her accomplice would have hidden and waited. Looking down he tried to find a spot just off the road where a man could have ducked down and been concealed. He noticed a dirt trail going into the woods and stepped down to it, looking for shoe prints. There were many prints and he squatted down to study them. The ground here was dusty and some of the prints were fully recognizable. He found prints from two distinctly different sets of shoes, an old pair of shoes with worn heels and a much newer pair with heels that left sharp lines in the dirt. Neither pair was what he was looking for, the work-shoe pattern with the cut in the sole that Donovan had noticed.

  Bosch’s eyes looked up from the ground and followed the trail into the brush and trees. He decided to take a few more steps in, lifted a branch of an acacia and ducked under it. After his eyes adjusted to the darkness under the canopy of foliage, they were drawn to a blue object he could see but not identify about twenty yards further into the dense growth. He would have to leave the trail to get to it, but he decided to investigate.

  After slowly moving ten feet into the brush, he could see that the blue object was part of a plastic tarp, the kind you saw on roofs all over the city after an earthquake knocked down chimneys and opened up the seams of buildings. Bosch stepped closer and saw that two corners of the tarp were tied to trees and it was hung over the branch of a third, creating a small shelter on a level portion of the hillside. He watched for a few moments but saw no movement.

  It was impossible to come up on the shelter quietly. The ground was covered with a thick layer of dead and dried leaves and twigs that crackled under Bosch’s feet. When he was ten feet from the canvas tarp, a man’s hoarse voice stopped him.

  “I’ve got a gun, you fuckers!”

  Bosch stood stock-still and stared at the tarp. Because it was draped over the long branch of an acacia tree, he was in a blind spot. He could not see whoever it was who had yelled. And the man who yelled probably couldn’t see him. Bosch decided to take a chance.

  “I’ve got one, too,” he called back. “And a badge.”

  “Police? I didn’t call the police!”

  There was a hysterical tinge to the voice now, and Bosch suspected he was dealing with one of the homeless wanderers who were dumped out of mental institutions during the massive cutbacks in public assistance in the 1980s. The city was teeming with them. They stood at almost every major intersection holding their signs and shaking their change cups, they slept under overpasses or burrowed like termites into the woods on the hillsides, living in makeshift camps just yards from million-dollar mansions.

  “I’m just passing through,” Bosch yelled. “You put down yours, I’ll put down mine.”

  Bosch guessed that the man behind the scared voice didn’t even have a gun.

  “Okay. It’s a deal.”

  Bosch unsnapped the holster under his arm but left his gun in place. He walked the final few steps and came slowly around the trunk of the acacia. A man with long gray hair and beard flowing over a blue silk Hawaiian shirt sat cross-legged on a blanket under the tarp. There was a wild look in his eyes. Bosch quickly scanned the man’s hands and the surroundings within his immediate reach and saw no weapon. He eased up a bit and nodded at the man.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “I didn’t do nothin’.”

  “I understand.”

  Bosch looked around. There were folded clothes and towels under the shelter of the tarp. There was a small folding card table with a frying pan on it along with some candles and Sterno cans, two forks and a spoon, but no knife. Bosch figured the man had the knife under his shirt or maybe hidden in the blanket. There was also a bottle of cologne on the table, and Bosch could tell that it had been liberally sprinkled about the shelter. Also under the tarp were an old tar bucket filled with crushed aluminum cans, a stack of newspapers and a dog-eared paperback copy of Stranger in a Strange Land.

  He stepped to the edge of the man’s clearing and squatted like a baseball catcher so they could face each other on the same level. He took a look around the outer edge of the clearing and saw that this was where the man discarded what he didn’t need. There were bags of trash and remnants of clothing. By the base of another acacia there was a brown-and-green suit bag. It was unzipped and lying open like a gutted fish. Bosch looked back at the man. He could see he wore two other Hawaiian shirts beneath the blue one on top, which had a pattern of hula girls on surfboards. His pants were dirty but had a sharper crease in them than a homeless man’s pants would usually have. His shoes were too well polished for a man of the woods. Bosch guessed that the pair he wore had made some of the prints up on the trail, the ones with the sharp-edged heels.

  “That’s a nice shirt,” Bosch said.

  “It’s mine.”

  “I know. I just said it was nice. What’s your name?”

  “Name’s George.”

  “George what?”

  “George whatever the hell you want it to be.”

  “Okay, George whatever the hell you want it to be, why don’t you tell me about that suit bag over there and those clothes you’re wearing? The new shoes. Where did it all come from?”

  “It was delivered. It’s mine now.”

  “What do you mean by delivered?”

  “Delivered. That’s what I mean. Delivered. They gave it all to me.”

  Bosch took out his cigarettes, took one and offered the pack to the man. He waved them away.

  “Can’t afford it. Take me half a day to find enough cans to buy a pack of smokes. I quit.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “How long you been livin’ up here, George?”

  “All my life.”

  “When did they kick you out of Camarillo?”

  “Who told you that?”

  It had been an educated guess, Camarillo being the nearest state institution.

  “They did. How long ago was that?”

  “If they told you about me, then they would’ve told you that. I’m not stupid, you know.”

  “You got me there, George. About the bag and the clothes, when was it all delivered?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Bosch got up and went over to the suit bag. There was an identification tag
attached to the handle. He turned it over and read Anthony Aliso’s name and address. He noticed the bag was lying on top of a cardboard box that was damaged from a tumble down the hill. Bosch tipped the box with his foot and read the markings on the side.

  Scotch standard HS/T-90 VHS 96-count

  He left the box and the suit bag there and went back to the man and squatted again.

  “How’s last Friday night sound for the delivery?”

  “Whatever you say is good.”

  “It’s not what I say, George. Now if you want me to leave you alone and you want to stay here, you’ve got to help me. If you go into your nut bag, you’re not helping me. When was it delivered?”

  George tucked his chin down on his chest like a boy who’d been chastised by a teacher. He brought a thumb and forefinger up and pressed them against his eyes. His voice came out as if it were being strangled with piano wire.

  “I don’t know. They just came and dropped it off for me. That’s all I know.”

  “Who dropped it off?”

  George looked up, his eyes bright, and pointed upward with one of his dirty fingers. Bosch looked up and saw a patch of blue sky through the upper limbs of the trees. He blew out his breath in exasperation. This wasn’t going anywhere.

  “So little green men dropped it down from their spaceship, is that right, George? Is that your story?”

  “I didn’t say that. I don’t know if they were green. I didn’t see them.”

  “But you saw the spaceship?”

  “Nope. I didn’t say that, neither. I didn’t see their craft. Only the landing lights.”

  Bosch looked at him a moment.

  “Perfect size,” George said. “They got an invisible beam that measures you from up there, you don’t even know it, then they send down the clothes.”

  “That’s great.”

  Bosch’s knees were beginning to ache. He stood up and they painfully cracked.

  “I’m getting too old for this shit, George.”

  “That’s a policeman’s line. I watched ‘Kojak’ when I had the house.”

  “I know. Tell you what, I’m going to take this suit bag with me, if you don’t mind. And the box of videotapes.”

  “Help yourself. I’m not going anywhere. And I don’t have no video machine, either.”

  Bosch walked toward the box and bag, wondering why they had been discarded and not just left in the Rolls. After a moment he decided they must have been in the trunk. And in order to make room for Aliso in there, the killers had yanked them out and thrown them down the hill out of sight. They were in a hurry. It was the kind of decision made in haste. A mistake.

  He picked up the suit bag by a corner, careful not to touch the handle, though he doubted there would be any prints on it other than George’s. The box was light but bulky. He would have to make a second trip for it. He turned and looked at the homeless man. He decided not to ruin his day yet.

  “George, you can keep the clothes for now.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  As he climbed back up the hill to the road, Bosch was thinking about how he should declare the area a crime scene and call out SID to process everything. But he couldn’t do that. Not without announcing he had been continuing an investigation he had been ordered away from.

  It didn’t bother him, however, because by the time he got up to the road, he knew he had a new direction. A plan was coming together. Quickly. Bosch was jazzed. When he stepped onto level ground he punched his fist in the air and walked quickly to his car.

  Bosch worked out the details in his head while he was driving to Hidden Highlands. The Plan. He had been like a cork floating in a great wide ocean that was the case. Bouncing with the currents, not in control of anything. But now he had an idea, a plan that would hopefully draw Veronica Aliso into the box.

  Nash was in the gatehouse when Bosch pulled up. He stepped out and leaned down on Bosch’s door.

  “Morning, Detective Bosch.”

  “Howzit going, Captain Nash?”

  “It’s going. I gotta say your people are creating a bit of a stir already this morning.”

  “Yeah, well, that can happen. Whaddaya gonna do?”

  “Go with the flow, I guess. You going in to catch up with them or you heading to Mrs. Aliso’s?”

  “I’m going to see the lady.”

  “Good. Maybe that’ll get her off my back. I gotta call, you know.”

  “Why’s she on your back?”

  “She’s just been calling up wondering why you people have been talkin’ to the neighbors all morning.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I told her they got a job to do and a murder investigation requires them to talk to a lot of people.”

  “That’s good. I’ll see you.”

  Nash waved him off and opened the gate. Bosch drove to the Aliso house, but before he got there he saw Edgar walking from the front door of the home next door to his car. Bosch stopped and waved him over.

  “Harry.”

  “Jerry. Get anything yet?”

  “Nah, not really. Thing about these rich neighborhoods, it’s like working a shooting in South Central. Nobody ever wants to talk, nobody saw nothing. I get tired of these people.”

  “Where’s Kiz?”

  “She’s working the other side of the street. We met at the station and took one car. She’s on foot down there somewhere. Hey, Harry, what do you think about her?”

  “Kiz? I think she’s good.”

  “No, I don’t mean as a cop. You know…what do you think?”

  Bosch looked at him.

  “You mean like you and her? What do I think?”

  “Yeah. Me and her.”

  Bosch knew Edgar was six months divorced and starting to pull his head out of the sand again. But he also knew something about Kiz that he didn’t have the right to tell him.

  “I don’t know, Jerry. Partners shouldn’t get involved.”

  “I suppose. So you going to see the widow now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe I better go with you. You never know, if she figures out we think she’s it, then she’s liable to wig out, maybe try to take you out.”

  “I doubt it. She’s too cool for that. But let’s go find Kiz. I think both of you should come. I’ve got a plan now.”

  Veronica Aliso was waiting for them at her door.

  “I’ve been waiting for you people to come by to explain just what is going on.”

  “Sorry, Mrs. Aliso,” Bosch said. “We’ve been kind of busy.”

  She ushered them in.

  “Can I get you something?” she asked over her shoulder as she led them in.

  “I think we’re fine.”

  Part of the plan was for Bosch to do all the talking, if possible. Rider and Edgar were to intimidate her with their silence and their cold-eyed stares.

  Bosch and Rider sat where they had sat before and so did Veronica Aliso. Edgar remained standing on the periphery of the seating section of the living room. He put his hand on the mantel of the fireplace and the look on his face said he would rather be anywhere else on the planet on this Saturday morning.

  Veronica Aliso was wearing blue jeans, a light blue Oxford shirt and dirty work boots. Her hair was pulled back and pinned up in the back. She was still very attractive though obviously dressing down. Through her open collar Bosch could see a scattering of freckles that he knew from her video went all the way down her chest.

  “Are we interrupting something?” Bosch asked. “Were you about to go out?”

  “I wanted to go to the Burbank stables sometime today if I could. I keep a horse there. My husband’s body was cremated and I want to take his ashes up the trail into the hills. He loved the hills…”

  Bosch somberly nodded.

  “Well, this won’t take too long. First off, you’ve seen us in the neighborhood this morning. We’re just conducting a routine canvass. You never know, maybe someon
e saw something, maybe somebody watching the house or a car here that shouldn’t have been here. You never know.”

  “Well, I think I’d be the one who would know about any car that shouldn’t be here.”

  “Well, I mean if you weren’t here. If you were out and someone was here, you probably wouldn’t know.”