The Closers

by Michael Connelly

  "Okay."

  "You want me to call it in to Abel? He'd want to know."

  "Yeah. Fine, call it in. There's nothing to call in, but go ahead."

  "Just cool down, Harry."

  Bosch shut her out by raising the binoculars and looking at Mackey. He was still behind the desk and appeared deep in thought. The other night man, the one Bosch assumed was Kenny, was sitting on another chair and his face was angled up for viewing the television. He was laughing at something he was watching.

  Mackey was not laughing or watching. His face was cast down. He was looking at something in memory.

  The wait until midnight was the longest ninety minutes of surveillance Bosch had ever spent. As they waited for the station to close and Mackey to head to his rendezvous with Burkhart, nothing happened. The phones were silent, Mackey did not move from his spot at the desk and Bosch came up with no plan to either avert the rendezvous or infiltrate it in some way. It was as though they were all frozen until the clock struck twelve.

  Finally, the exterior lights of the station went off and the two men closed the business for the night. When Mackey walked out, he was carrying the newspaper he could not read. Bosch knew he was going to show it to Burkhart and most likely discuss the murder.

  "And we won't be there," Bosch mumbled as he tracked Mackey through the binoculars.

  Mackey got into his Camaro and revved the engine loudly after firing it up. He then pulled out onto Tampa and headed south toward his home, the intended meeting place. Rider waited an appropriate amount of time and then pulled out of the plaza lot, cut across the northbound lanes of Tampa and headed south as well. Bosch called Nord in the sound room and told her Mackey had left the station and they should switch their monitoring to the house line.

  The lights of Mackey's car were three blocks ahead. Traffic was sparse and Rider kept a safe distance back. As they passed the lot where Bosch had left his car he checked on the Mercedes just to make sure it was still there.

  "Uh oh," Rider said.

  Bosch turned back to the street ahead in time to see Mackey's car complete a fast U-turn. He was now heading back toward Bosch and Rider.

  "Harry, what do I do?" Rider asked.

  "Nothing. Don't do anything obvious."

  "He's coming right back at us. He must have seen the tail!"

  "Sit tight. Maybe he saw my car parked back there."

  The deep-throated engine of the Camaro could be heard long before the car got to them. It sounded menacing and evil, like a monster roaring and coming for them.

  31

  THE OLD CAMARO went screaming by Bosch and Rider without hesitation. It blew the light at Saticoy and kept going. Bosch watched its lights disappearing to the north.

  "What was that?" Rider said. "You think he knows there's a tail?"

  "I don't -"

  Bosch's cell phone sounded and he quickly answered it. It was Robinson.

  "He just got called back by the Triple A answering service. He seemed pretty upset but they have to take it, I guess."

  "What do you mean, he's got a tow?"

  "Yeah. It was Triple A dispatch. I guess if he didn't take it they would go to another company and that could mean trouble. Like losing the Triple A business."

  "Where's the tow?"

  "It's a breakdown on the Reagan. On the westbound side near the Tampa Avenue overpass. So it's close. He said he was on the way."

  "Okay. We got him."

  Bosch closed the phone and told Rider to turn around, that their cover was still intact, that Mackey was simply hurrying back to get the tow truck.

  By the time they were back to the intersection of Tampa and Roscoe, the tow truck was pulling out of the darkened station. Mackey wasn't wasting any time.

  Since they knew Mackey's destination Rider could afford to hang back and not risk being noticed in the tow truck's rearview mirror. They headed north on Tampa toward the freeway. The Reagan was the 118 Freeway, which ran east-west across the northern stretch of the Valley. It was one of the few freeways that was not crowded with traffic twenty-four hours a day. Named after the late governor and president, it led to Simi Valley, where Reagan's presidential library was located. Still, it had been jarring to Bosch to hear Robinson call it the Reagan. To Bosch it was always simply the 118.

  The westbound entrance to the 118 ramped down from Tampa Avenue to the ten lanes of freeway. Rider slowed and hung back and they watched the tow truck turn left and head down the ramp out of sight. She then pulled up and made the same turn. As they came on the ramp and started down they immediately realized their problem. The disabled car was not on the freeway as Nord had said but actually on the entrance ramp. They were quickly coming up on the tow truck. It was pulled onto the ramp's shoulder about fifty yards ahead. Its rear spreader lights were on and it was backing toward a small red car that was parked on the shoulder with its emergency lights blinking.

  "What do we do, Harry?" Rider said. "If we pull over it's going to be obvious."

  She was right. They would blow their cover.

  "Just go on by," he replied.

  He had to think quickly. He knew that once they were on the freeway they could pull onto the shoulder and wait until Mackey's tow truck came by with the disabled car on its hook. But that was risky. Mackey might recognize Rider's car, or even stop to see if they needed assistance. If he saw Bosch then the surveillance would be blown.

  "You got a Thomas Guide?"

  "Under the seat."

  Rider drove by the disabled car and the tow truck as Bosch reached under the seat for the map book. Once they were clear of the tow truck he put on the overhead light and quickly flipped through the map pages. A Thomas map book was the driving bible of Los Angeles. Bosch had years of experience with them and quickly found the page depicting the section of the city they were in. He made a quick study of their situation and gave Rider directions.

  "The next exit is Porter Ranch Drive," he said. "Less than a mile. We get off and go right and then another right on Rinaldi. It takes us back to Tampa. We either wait up on top of the overpass and watch or we just keep circling."

  "I think we wait up on top," Rider said. "If we keep going down that ramp in the same car he might notice."

  "Sounds like a plan."

  "I don't like it but I don't know what choice we have."

  They covered the distance to the Porter Ranch exit quickly.

  "Did you check out the tow car?" Bosch asked. "I was looking for the map book."

  "Small foreign job," Rider responded. "It looked like one person behind the wheel and that was it. The lights from the truck were too bright to see anything else."

  Rider kept her speed up until they pulled into the exit lane for Porter Ranch Drive. As instructed, she took a right and then another right and they were quickly heading back toward Tampa. They got stopped at the light at Corbin but then Rider drove through it after checking to make sure it was clear. Less than three minutes after passing the tow truck they were back on Tampa. Rider pulled to the side of the road in the middle of the overpass. Bosch cracked his door.

  "I'll check it out," he said.

  He stepped out of the car. At this angle he couldn't see the tow truck but the spreader lights on the top of the cab cast a glow above the entrance ramp.

  "Harry, take this," Rider called.

  Bosch ducked back into the car and took the rover Rider was holding out to him.

  He walked back along the overpass. The freeway wasn't crowded, but it was still loud with the cars passing beneath him. When he got to the top of the ramp and looked down, it took him a few moments to adjust his vision because the lights from the back of the tow truck were still slashing through the darkness.

  But soon he realized that the blinking lights of the disabled car were not there. He looked closer and saw that the car was no longer on the shoulder. His eyes traveled down the ramp to the freeway and he saw the red taillights of dozens of cars moving westbound into the distance.

>   He looked back at the tow truck. Everything was still. There was no sign of Mackey.

  Bosch raised the radio to his mouth and keyed the mike.

  "Kiz?"

  "Yeah, Harry?"

  "You better get over here."

  Bosch started walking down the ramp. As he did so he drew his weapon and carried it down by his side. In thirty seconds lights flashed behind him and Rider pulled her car onto the shoulder. She got out with a flashlight and they continued down the ramp.

  "What's going on?" she asked.

  "I don't know."

  There was still no sign of Mackey in or around the tow truck. Bosch felt his chest tighten. He instinctively knew something was wrong. The closer they got the more he knew it.

  "What do we say if he's here and everything's okay?" Rider whispered.

  "It isn't," Bosch said.

  The light from the back of the truck was almost blinding and Bosch knew they were in a vulnerable position. He could not see anyone on the front side of the tow truck. He moved to his right so that he and Rider would be spread apart. Rider could not move to the left or she would be walking into the entrance lane.

  A semi-truck roared by on the ramp, wafting petroleum-tinged wind and sound over them and making the ground shake like an earthquake. Bosch was now walking in the weeds that were on the upward slope off the shoulder. He still didn't see anyone up ahead.

  Bosch and Rider did not communicate. The noise from passing traffic on the freeway just below was echoing from beneath the overpass. They would have to shout now and that would detract from their concentration.

  They came back together when they got to the tow truck. Bosch checked the cab and there was no sign of Mackey. The truck was still running. He stepped back to the rear and looked at the ground illuminated by the spreader lights. There were curving black tire marks leading right up to the truck's rear gate. And on the gravel was one of the leather gloves, grease-stained in the palm, that he had seen Mackey wearing earlier in the day.

  "Let me borrow this," he said, taking the flashlight from Rider. He noticed that it was one of the short rubber models approved by the police chief after an officer was videotaped beating a suspect with one of the heavy steel lights.

  Bosch pointed the beam at the truck's rear gate, running it over the underside that had been cast in shadows by the bright glare from the spreader above.

  Blood reflected brightly on the dark steel. It could not be mistaken for oil. It was as red and real as life. Bosch squatted down and pointed the light beneath the truck. It had been dark here, too, made all the more impervious to vision by the bright lights above.

  He saw Mackey's body crumpled against the rear axle differential. Fully one-half of his face was bathed in blood from a long and deep laceration that cut across the left side of his head. His blue uniform shirt was maroon down the front from blood from other unseen injuries. The crotch of his pants was stained with blood or urine or both. The one arm Bosch could see was bent oddly at the forearm and a jagged, ivory white bone protruded from the flesh. The arm was cradled against Mackey's chest, which heaved with non-rhythmic gasps. He was still alive.

  "Oh God!" Rider called out from behind Bosch.

  "Get an ambulance!" Bosch ordered as he started to crawl under the truck.

  Hearing Rider's feet crunch on the gravel as she ran back to her car and the radio, Bosch moved as close to Mackey as he could get. He knew he might be destroying a crime scene but he had to get close.

  "Ro, can you hear me? Ro, who did this? What happened?"

  Mackey seemed to stir at the sound of his name. His mouth started moving and that was when Bosch could tell his jaw was broken or dislocated. Its movements were uncoordinated. It was like Mackey was trying it out for the first time.

  "Take your time, Ro. Tell me who did this. Did you see him?"

  Mackey whispered something but a car speeding by on the entrance ramp drowned it out.

  "Tell me again, Ro. Say it again."

  Bosch pushed forward and leaned his head down by Mackey's mouth. What he heard was half gasp, half whisper.

  ". . . sworth . . ."

  He pulled back and looked at Mackey. He put the light into his face, hoping it might rouse him. He saw that the bone structure around Mackey's left eye was also crushed and hemorrhaging. He wasn't going to make it.

  "Ro, if you have something to say, say it now. Did you kill Rebecca Verloren? Were you there that night?"

  Bosch leaned forward. If Mackey said anything it was drowned in the noise of another car going by. When Bosch pulled back to look at him again he appeared to be dead. Bosch pushed two fingers into the bloodied side of Mackey's neck and could not find a pulse.

  "Ro? Roland, are you still with me?"

  The one undamaged eye was open but at half-mast. Bosch moved the light in close and saw no pupil movement. He was gone.

  Bosch carefully crawled out from beneath the truck. Rider was standing there, her arms folded tightly in front of her.

  "Ambulance on the way," she said.

  "Call 'em off."

  He handed her back her flashlight.

  "Harry, if you think he's dead, the paramedics should confirm it."

  "Don't worry, he's dead. They'll just get under there and ruin our crime scene. Call them off."

  "Did he say anything?"

  "It sounded like he said 'Chatsworth.' That was it. Anything else, I couldn't hear."

  She seemed to be pacing now, in a small track, nervously moving back and forth.

  "Oh God," she said. "I think I'm going to be sick."

  "Then move back over there, away from the scene."

  She walked off behind her car. Bosch felt sick to his stomach as well, but he knew he could keep it in. It wasn't seeing Mackey's torn and broken body that was causing the bile to rise in his throat. Bosch, like Rider, had seen far worse. It was the circumstances that were sickening. Instinctively he knew that this was no accident. This had been an assassination. And it was he who had put it all into motion.

  He was sick because he had just gotten Roland Mackey killed. And with the death he might have lost the last, best link to Rebecca Verloren's killer.

  Part Three DARKNESS WAITS

  32

  THE TAMPA AVENUE entrance ramp to the Ronald Reagan Freeway was closed and traffic was routed down Rinaldi to the Porter Ranch Drive entrance. The entire freeway ramp was choked with official police vehicles. The LAPD's Scientific Investigation Division, California Highway Patrol and the Medical Examiner's Office were all represented, along with members of the Open-Unsolved Unit. Abel Pratt had made calls and had greased the takeover of the case by the unit. Because the murder of Roland Mackey had taken place on a state freeway entrance, the case technically belonged to the jurisdiction of the CHP. But the agency was more than happy to hand it off, especially since the death was seen as part of an ongoing LAPD investigation. In other words, the LAPD was going to be allowed to clean up its own mess.

  The commander of the local CHP barracks did offer the use of his squad's best accident expert, and Pratt took him up on that. Added to this, Pratt had assembled some of the best forensics people the department could muster, all in the middle of the night.

  Bosch and Rider spent much of the time during the crime scene investigation sitting in the back of Pratt's car, where they were interviewed at length by Pratt and then by Tim Marcia and Rick Jackson, who were called in from home to head up the investigation into Mackey's death. Since Bosch and Rider were part of some events and witnesses to others, it was determined that they would not investigate the case as leads. This was a technical formality. It was clear that Bosch and Rider would be continuing to pursue the Verloren case, and in doing so they would obviously be pursuing Roland Mackey's killer.

  At about 3 a.m. the forensics investigators gathered with the homicide detectives to go over what they knew so far. Mackey's body had just been removed from beneath the truck and the scene had been thoroughly photographed, videoed an
d sketched. It was now considered an open scene and everyone could walk freely about.

  Pratt asked the CHP investigator, a tall man named David Allmand, to go first. Allmand used a laser pointer to delineate the tire marks on the roadway and the gravel that he believed were involved in the incident with Mackey. He also pointed to the back of the tow truck, where chalk circles had been drawn around several scratches, dents and breaks in the heavy steel gate. He said he concluded the same thing Bosch and Rider had concluded within seconds of finding Mackey. He was murdered.