The Closers

by Michael Connelly

  Bosch guessed that because of time constraints, the reporter had simply gone back to the office and made a few phone calls to round out the story. She had gotten the name Roland Mackey from someone she had called. Bosch doubted that she could have located or even contacted Robert Verloren in the few hours since the interview. He also scratched Grace Tanaka and Danny Kotchof because they weren't local. Without Mackey's name, there was no link to Kibble. That left Tara Wood and the school-either Stoddard, Sable or the secretary. The most obvious answer was the school because it would have been the easiest link for the reporter to make. He now felt better and thought he could contain the threat.

  "Detective, are you still there?"

  "Yes, sorry, I'm trying to dodge some traffic here."

  "Then what is your answer? Who is Roland Mackey?"

  "He's nobody. He's a loose end. Or was, actually. We've tied that up now."

  "Explain that."

  "Look, we inherited this case, right? Well, over the years the murder book got shelved, reshelved, moved around a bit. Things got mixed up. So part of what we had to do was some basic housekeeping. We had to put things in order. We found a picture of this Roland Mackey guy loose in the book and we weren't sure who he was and what his connection was. When we were out doing interviews, getting acquainted with the players in the case, we showed his picture to a few people to see if they knew who he was and where he fit. At no time, McKenzie, did we tell anyone he was a prime suspect. That is the truth. So either you are exaggerating or whoever mentioned this guy to you was exaggerating."

  There was a silence and Bosch guessed she was revisiting the interview that gave her the name Mackey.

  "Then who is he?" she finally asked.

  "Just some guy with a juvie record who was living in Chatsworth back then. He hung out at the old drive-in on Winnetka, and that was apparently a hangout for Rebecca and her friends as well. But it turns out that back in 1988 he was cleared of any involvement. We didn't find out until after we showed the photo to a few people."

  It was a mixture of truth and shadings of the truth. Again the reporter was silent while she considered his answer.

  "Who told you about him, Gordon Stoddard or Bailey Sable?" Bosch asked. "We took the photo to the school to see if he fit in there, and it turns out he didn't even go to school there. We dropped it after that."

  "You sure about this?"

  "Look, do what you want but if you put that guy's name in the paper simply because we asked about him, you could be getting calls from him and his lawyer. We ask about a lot of people, McKenzie. That's our job."

  More silence slipped by. Bosch thought the silence meant he had successfully defused the bomb.

  "We went over to the school to look at the yearbook and copy photos," Ward finally said. "We found out you took the only one they had in the library from 'eighty-eight."

  It was her way of confirming that Bosch had it right, but without giving up her source.

  "Sorry about that," he said. "I have the yearbook on my desk. I don't know what kind of time you have but you can send somebody over to pick it up if you want."

  "No, there's no time. We took a picture of the plaque that's on the wall at the school. That will work. Besides, I found a shot of the vic in our archives. We'll use that."

  "I saw the plaque. It's nice."

  "They're very proud of it."

  "So we're all right on this, McKenzie?"

  "Yes, we're fine. I just got a little excited there when I thought you were holding back something big."

  "Don't have anything big to report. Yet."

  "All right, then I better get back to finishing the story."

  "It's still running in the window tomorrow?"

  "If I get it finished. Call me tomorrow and tell me what you think."

  "I will."

  Bosch closed the phone and looked at Rider.

  "I think we're okay," he said.

  "Boy, Harry, you've really got it going today. The artful dodger. I think you could probably talk a zebra out of his white stripes if you had to."

  Bosch smiled. He then looked up at the City Hall Annex on Spring Street. Banished from Parker Center, Irvin Irving now operated from the Annex. Bosch wondered if Mr. Clean was looking down on them right now from behind one of the mirrored windows of the Office of Strategic Planning. He thought of something.

  "Kiz?"

  "What?"

  "Do you know McClellan?"

  "No, not really."

  "But you know what he looks like?"

  "Sure. I saw him at command staff meetings. Irving stopped going once he was moved out to the Annex. He sent McClellan most of the time as his representative."

  "So you could pick him out, then?"

  "Sure. But what are you talking about, Harry?"

  "Maybe we should go talk to him, maybe spook him and send a message back down the pipe to Irving."

  "You mean right now?"

  "Why not? We're here."

  He gestured toward the Annex building.

  "We don't have the time, Harry. Besides, why pick a fight you can avoid? Let's not deal with Irving until we have to."

  "All right, Kiz. But we will have to deal with him. I know we will."

  They didn't speak again, each focused on thoughts on the case, until they reached the Glass House and went inside.

  25

  ABEL PRATT CONVENED all members of the Open-Unsolved Unit in the squad room as well as four other RHD detectives loaned to the unit for the surveillance. The meeting was turned over to Bosch and Rider, who took a verbal walk through the case that lasted a half hour. On a bulletin board behind them they pinned blowups of the most recent driver's license photos of Roland Mackey and William Burkhart. The other detectives asked few questions. Bosch and Rider then turned the show back over to Pratt.

  "All right, we're going to need all hands on deck with this," he said. "We'll be working the sixes. Two pairs working the sound room, two pairs working Mackey and two pairs working Burkhart. I want the OU teams on Mackey and the surveillance room. The four loaners from RHD will watch Burkhart. Kiz and Harry have dibs and they want the second shift on Mackey. The rest of you can work out how you want to cover the remaining shifts. We start tomorrow morning at six, just about the time the paper will be hitting the streets."

  The plan translated into six pairs of detectives working twelve-hour shifts. The shifts changed at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Since it was their case, Bosch and Rider got first choice of shifts and had elected to cover Mackey beginning each day at 6 p.m. This meant working through the night, but it was Bosch's hunch that if Mackey made a move or a call it would occur in the evening. And Bosch wanted to be there when it happened.

  They would alternate with one of the other teams. The remaining two OU teams would alternate their time in the City of Industry, where a private contractor called ListenTech had what amounted to a wiretap center which was used by all law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles County. Sitting in a van next to the telephone pole carrying the line you were listening to was a thing of the past. ListenTech provided a quiet, air-conditioned center where electronic consoles were set up for monitoring and recording conversations placed or received on any phone numbers in the county, including cell phones. There was even a cafeteria with fresh coffee and vending machines. Pizza could be delivered if needed.

  ListenTech could service as many as ninety taps at a time. Rider had told Bosch that the company was spawned in 2001 when law enforcement agencies began taking increasing advantage of the widening laws governing wiretaps. A private company that saw the growing need stepped in with regional wiretap centers, also known as sound rooms. They made the work easier. But there were still rules to follow.

  "We're going to hit a bit of a snag in the sound room," Pratt said. "The law still requires that each line be monitored by a single individual-no listening to two lines at once. But we need to monitor three lines with two cops because that's all we got. So how do we do this and still stay
within the law? We alternate. One line is Roland Mackey's cell. We monitor that full-time. But the other two lines are secondary. That's where we alternate. They come from the property where he lives and the place where he works. So what we do is we stay with the first line when he is home and then from four to midnight, when he is at work, we switch to the work line. No matter what lines we are actually listening to, we will still get twenty-four-hour pen registers on all three."

  "Can't we get one more loaner from RHD to cover the third line?" Rider asked.

  Pratt shook his head.

  "Captain Norona gave us four bodies and that's it," Pratt said. "We won't miss much. Like I said, we have the pen registers."

  Pen registers were part of the telephone monitoring process. While the investigators were allowed to listen in on phone calls on the monitored lines, the equipment also registered all incoming and outgoing calls on all the lines listed in the warrant, even if they were not being monitored. This would provide the investigators with a listing by time and length of call, as well as the numbers dialed on outgoing calls and the originating numbers for incoming calls.

  "Any questions?" Pratt asked.

  Bosch didn't think there would be any questions. The plan was simple enough. But then an OU detective named Renner raised his hand and Pratt nodded at him.

  "Is this thing OT authorized?"

  "Yes, it is," Pratt replied. "But as was said before, as of now we only have seventy-two hours on the warrant."

  "Well, let's hope it goes the whole seventy-two," Renner said. "I gotta pay for my kid's summer camp in Malibu."

  The others laughed.

  Tim Marcia and Rick Jackson volunteered to be the other street team working with Bosch and Rider. The other four got the sound-room detail, with Renner and Robleto taking the day shift and Robinson and Nord taking the same shift as Bosch and Rider. The ListenTech center was nice and comfortable, but some cops didn't want to be cooped up no matter what the circumstances. Some would always choose the street and, like Marcia and Jackson, Bosch knew he was one of them.

  Pratt ended the meeting by handing out copies of a piece of paper with everyone's cell phone number on it as well as the radio channel they would use during the surveillance.

  "For you teams in the field, I've got rovers on hold down in the equipment shed," Pratt said. "Make sure you have the radio on. Harry, Kiz, did I miss anything?"

  "I think you got it covered," Rider said.

  "Since our time is short on this one," Bosch said, "Kiz and I are working something up to sort of push the action if we don't see any signs by tomorrow night. We have the newspaper article and we have to make sure he sees it."

  "How's he going to read it if he's dyslexic?" Renner asked.

  "He got a GED," Bosch said. "He should be able to read it. We just have to make sure it somehow gets in front of him."

  Everybody nodded their agreement and then Pratt wrapped things up.

  "Okay, gang, that's it," Pratt said. "I will be checking with everybody through the days and nights. Stay loose and be careful with these guys. We don't want anything turning back on us. You people taking the first shift might want to head home now and get a good night. Just remember, the clock's ticking on the warrant. We have till Friday night and then it's pumpkins. So let's get out there and get what's to be got. We're the closers. So let's close this one out."

  Bosch and Rider stood and small-talked about the case with the others for a few minutes and then Bosch made his way back to their alcove. He pulled the copy of the probation file out of the stack of accumulated case files. He had not gotten a chance to read through it thoroughly and now was the time.

  The file was an add-on file, meaning that as Mackey repeatedly was arrested and continued a lifelong trek through the criminal justice system the reports and court transcripts were merely added to the front of the file. Therefore the reports ran in reverse chronological order. Bosch was most interested in Mackey's earlier years. He went to the back of the file with the idea of moving forward in time.

  Mackey's first arrest as an adult came only a month after he turned eighteen. In August 1987 he was picked up for car theft in what the follow-up reports classified as a joyriding incident. Mackey had been living at home at the time and stole a neighbor's Corvette. He had jumped in the car and taken off after the neighbor had left it running in the driveway and gone back inside his house for a forgotten pair of sunglasses.

  Mackey pleaded guilty and the presentencing report contained in the file cited his juvenile record but made no mention of the Chatsworth Eights. In September 1987 the young car thief was placed on one year probation by a superior court judge, who tried to talk Mackey out of a life of crime.

  The transcript of the sentencing hearing was in the file. Bosch read the judge's two-page lecture, in which he told Mackey he had seen young men like him a hundred times before. He told Mackey he was standing at the same precipice as the others. One simple crime could be a life lesson, or it could be the first step down a spiral. He urged Mackey not to go down the wrong path. He told him to think hard and make the right decision on which way to go.

  The words of warning had obviously fallen on deaf ears. Six weeks later Mackey was arrested for burglarizing a neighborhood home while the husband and wife who lived there were at work. Mackey had cut an alarm, but the break in current had registered with the alarm company and a patrol car was dispatched. When Mackey came out the back door carrying a video camera and assorted other electronics and jewelry, two officers were waiting with guns drawn.

  Because Mackey had been on probation for the car theft he was held in the county jail while awaiting disposition of the case. After thirty-six days in stir he stood before the same judge again and, according to the transcript, begged forgiveness and for one more chance. This time the presentencing report noted that drug testing indicated that Mackey was a marijuana user and that he had begun hanging around an unsavory group of young men from the Chatsworth area.

  Bosch knew that these men were likely the Chatsworth Eights. It was early December and their plan of terror and symbolic homage to Adolf Hitler was just a few weeks away. But none of this was in the PSR. The report simply stated that Mackey was hanging with the wrong crowd. As he sentenced Mackey, the judge would not have known how wrong that crowd was.

  Mackey was sentenced to three years of prison reduced to time served. He was also placed on two years probation. The judge, knowing that prison would be just a finishing school for a young criminal like Mackey, was giving him a break and attempting to break him at the same time. Mackey walked out of court free, but the judge had placed a series of heavy restrictions on his probation. They included weekly drug tests, maintaining gainful employment and a requirement that the high school dropout get his general education degree within nine months. The judge told Mackey that if he failed in any part of the probation order he would be sent to a state prison to complete his three-year sentence.

  "You may consider this harsh, Mr. Mackey," the judge said in the transcript. "But I consider it quite kind. I am giving you a last chance here. If you fail me on this, you will without a doubt be going to prison. Society will be through with trying to help you at that point. It will simply throw you away. Do you understand this?"

  "Yes, Your Honor," Mackey said.

  The file came with copies of the court-requested completion reports from Chatsworth High. Mackey got his GED in August 1988, a little more than a month after Rebecca Verloren was taken from her bed and murdered.

  Despite the judge's admirable efforts to steer Mackey from a life of crime, Bosch had to wonder if those efforts had cost Rebecca Verloren her life. Whether Mackey was the actual triggerman or not, he'd had possession of the gun that killed her. Was it reasonable to think that the chain of events leading to the murder would have been broken if Mackey had been behind bars? Bosch wasn't sure. It was possible that Mackey simply filled a role as weapon delivery man. If it wasn't him it could have been someone else. Bosch knew th
ere was no sense in breaking down the chain into what could or could not have happened.

  "Anything?"

  Bosch looked up from his thoughts. Rider was standing at her desk. He flipped the file closed.

  "Nah, not really. I was reading the probation file. The early stuff. A judge took an interest at first but then sort of let him go. The best he could do was make him get the GED."

  "And that served him so well, didn't it?"

  "Yeah."

  Bosch said nothing else. He only had a GED himself. He'd also stood before a judge once as a car thief. The car he had gone joyriding in had also been a Corvette. Except it had not been a neighbor's. It had been his foster father's. Bosch had taken it as a way to say fuck you. But it was the foster father who sent the ultimate fuck you. Bosch was sent back to the youth hall to fend for himself.