The Crossing

by Michael Connelly

  Haller nodded.

  “He has physical therapy every morning at the Veterans in Westwood.”

  “Good,” Bosch said. “I’ll see him there.”

  “What else?”

  Pointing to Ellis and Long, Bosch said, “One of us should talk to DQ and see if he’s ever had any interaction with these two guys. Just to be sure.”

  “I can do it,” Haller said. “I need to see him about some pre-trial stuff and get his measurements for a trial suit. Hope I got something that fits in my client closet.”

  He pointed to the photocopy on the table.

  “Can I take that, show it to him?” he asked.

  “I’ve got another,” Bosch said.

  Bosch remembered something.

  “When you see him, ask him if he remembers James Allen’s phone number. Cops never found Allen’s phone. If I can get the number we might be able to pull records that will show the two of them in contact.”

  “And bolster the alibi. Good one. What about you?”

  “I still think the watch is the key to all of this. I need to get to the original buyer.”

  “The guy in Beverly Hills?”

  “Yeah. I went by his house tonight. Nice spread. He’s got money. I need to corner him and see where the connections are.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “Thanks.”

  They sat there for the next few minutes without talking. They sipped bourbon and worked their own thoughts. Finally, it was Haller who spoke.

  “This is good stuff,” he said.

  Bosch looked at his glass and rolled the ice around the bottom of it.

  “Better than I got at home,” he said.

  “Well, don’t get me wrong, the bourbon is good, but I’m talking about everything you’ve pulled together these last few days. There’s a lot here. A lot I can work with. We’re going to be able to mount an actual alternate-theory defense. This stuff goes beyond reasonable doubt.”

  Bosch finished the remaining bourbon in his glass. He realized that he and Haller would always have a fundamental difference in how they looked at evidence and the other nuances of an investigation. Haller had to put things in the context of trial and how it might be used to knock down the prosecution’s case. Bosch only had to look at the evidence as a bridge to the truth. This is why he knew he had not really crossed to the dark side. He could never work a case from Haller’s angle.

  “I don’t really care about alternate theories or reasonable doubt,” he said. “To me it’s a simple equation. If your client didn’t do it, then I’m going to find out who did. That’s the person or persons I want.”

  Haller nodded and raised his glass to Bosch. He then finished off his drink.

  “That works for me,” he said.

  35

  The Vice Unit’s weekly all-hands meeting was the usual waste of time. It finally ended and Ellis crossed the hall to the break room so he could refill his cup with black coffee. He was unused to coming in so early and he needed to double down on the caffeine.

  But he had to wait his turn behind Janet, the captain’s secretary, who looked like she was putting together an order of coffees for the whole command staff downstairs. Janet was a wide body and Ellis could not get to the coffee urn until she was finished adding cream and various sweeteners to the five cups in front of her. This annoyed Ellis because he just wanted to top off his cup with the straight black stuff and then get back over to the unit.

  “Sorry,” Janet said, sensing someone behind her.

  “No problem,” Ellis said. “Take your time.”

  Recognition of his voice made Janet glance back and confirm it was Ellis.

  “Oh, Don, I wanted to ask you something.”

  “Fire away.”

  “Were you in the office this morning or last night?”

  “What office?”

  “I’m sorry. I mean downstairs. The command offices.”

  Ellis shook his head, confused.

  “No, what do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s just funny. I came in today and I had to make copies of the overnight log for both captains. It’s the first thing I do every day.”

  She turned back to finishing her work on the array of coffee cups on the counter in front of her.

  “Okay.”

  “And when I went to the copier, I found your and Kevin’s photos already in the machine. Like they had been left there by accident.”

  Ellis wanted to grab her and turn her around.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “Our photos? What were we doing in the photos?”

  Janet laughed at his confusion.

  “No, no, you weren’t doing anything. It was your photo from the station personnel chart. The one on the wall down there. Somebody unpinned your photos, took them over to the copy machine, and then I guess made copies. Then forgot to put them back on the wall. They were under the flap on the glass this morning when I went to make copies of the overnight log.”

  She was weaving her fingers through the handles of five coffee mugs now. Ellis threw his cup into a trash can and moved in next to her at the counter.

  “Let me help you,” he said. “You’ll burn yourself.”

  She laughed that possibility off.

  “I do this every morning and every afternoon,” she said. “I’ve never burned myself once.”

  “I’ll help you anyway,” Ellis said. “Did you ask in the office if anybody was making the copies? The captain, maybe?”

  “Yes, and that’s the mystery. Nobody did it. I asked everybody, including both captains. Somebody must have come in after hours to do it and then forgot to put the photos back up. I thought you might want to know. In case somebody’s pulling a prank.”

  “Thanks, I do. And I think you’re right about somebody working up a prank.”

  Janet laughed.

  “Some people have too much time on their hands, that’s for sure.”

  There was a long tradition of pranking in every station in the LAPD. Photos were often used in the commission of such efforts. Ellis was thinking that something else might be in play but was happy to allow Janet to think otherwise.

  He followed her down the steps, across the back hallway, and into the command-office suite. He put the two cups of coffee he was carrying down on her desk for her to deliver, then scanned the room and looked at the personnel pyramid on the opposite wall. His photo was in place next to Long’s on the line containing the undercover units. All was how it should be.

  “Thank you, Don,” Janet said.

  “Glad to,” he said. “Thanks for the heads-up on the prank.”

  “I wonder what they’re up to.”

  “Like you said, some people have too much time on their hands.”

  Ellis and Long shared a cubicle in the corner of the Vice Unit. It afforded them the most privacy available in the room and they got it because of Ellis’s seniority. Ellis now came back to the cubicle and signaled his partner to roll his chair over so they could huddle and speak privately.

  “What’s up?” Long asked.

  “Not sure,” Ellis said. “You checked on our guy today?”

  “He was still at home. I get a text if he goes anywhere.”

  “What about last night?”

  “He stayed in.”

  “According to your phone?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Well, maybe just his car stayed in. I want you to go up there, confirm that he’s there.”

  “What, now?”

  “Yes, now. I’ll cover for you here. Go.”

  “What happened? What’s going on?”

  “What’s going on is that your phone says his car didn’t move, but last night somebody was in the station making copies of our photos off the wall in the captain’s office.”

  “What the fuck?”

  Ellis checked the rest of the squad room to make sure Long’s outburst had not drawn unwanted attention. He then looked back at Long.

  “Exactly,�
�� he said. “I think Bosch is up to something and I want to know what. It starts with you going up there and trying to figure out if he’s even there. Not just his fucking car.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m going. But maybe we have to rethink things and figure out a way to remove the threat, you know?”

  “Yeah, and look where doing that has gotten us. It’s like fucking dominoes. One thing we do leads to the next thing. Where does it stop?”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Yeah, I’m just saying go up the hill and find out if Bosch is there or if he’s fucking with us.”

  36

  Long drove by the house twice. The Cherokee was in the carport but there wasn’t any other sign that anyone was home. The Volkswagen was gone and he guessed that the girl had school. He drove down the hill and around the next bend in the road. He had seen an opening where a house had been cleared off a cantilevered pad to make way for a rebuild. It would give him a good look at the rear windows and deck of Bosch’s house.

  He parked in front of someone’s garage and got out of the car with the binoculars. He hurried across the street and ducked under the yellow DANGER/PELIGRO tape strung between two stakes at the front of the pad. He walked out and immediately realized how out in the open he was. He first posed with the binoculars as if he were looking toward Universal City or the mountains beyond. But then he turned slightly to his left and focused the binoculars on Bosch’s house. He saw no activity behind any of the glass. The deck was empty and its sliding glass door closed.

  He lowered the binoculars and acted once again as though he were just taking in the sights. He glanced once more at Bosch’s house and saw no movement. He turned and started walking off the pad, wondering what move he should make next to confirm Bosch’s absence.

  When he got back to the yellow tape there was a man standing there waiting for him.

  “You’re trespassing,” he said.

  “No, I’m not,” Long said. “I have permission.”

  “Really? From whom? Give me a name.”

  “No, I don’t need to do that.”

  Long ducked under the yellow tape and crossed the street toward his car.

  “I have your license plate,” the man said. “You’re up to something.”

  Long turned and walked right back toward the man, pulling his badge, which was on a neck chain under his shirt.

  “Mister, you are impeding a police investigation,” he said. “Go back to your house and mind your own business or you’ll find yourself in a cell.”

  The man stepped back, looking almost scared of Long now. Long turned to his car.

  “It’s called Neighborhood Watch,” the man called after regaining his courage. “We watch out for one another up here.”

  “Whatever,” Long said as he opened his car door.

  Long drove away and at the first chance turned the car around and headed back up the hill. He passed the busybody still standing in the street in front of the cantilevered pad. Driving around the bend, he once more came to Bosch’s house and stopped directly in front. He studied the house, thought about what to do, and grew frustrated.

  “Fuck it,” he said.

  He honked the horn three times like he was there to pick someone up. He kept the car in drive and watched the front door. If Bosch or anyone else opened the door, he would take off. The windows on the car were smoked dark enough that he felt he would not be identified.

  Nobody opened the door.

  Long honked once more and waited and watched. Nobody answered.

  “Fuck it,” he said again.

  Long pulled away, drove up to Mulholland, and then turned around. When he drove back down Woodrow Wilson and past Bosch’s house, he honked impotently once more without stopping. He then called Ellis.

  “He fucked us,” he reported. “His car’s here but he’s not. He must know we LoJacked it.”

  “Are you heading back now?” Ellis asked calmly.

  “On my way.”

  “Good. He doesn’t know that we know. We may be able to use that.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking. What do you think he’s up to?”

  “Who knows?”

  “How do we find him?”

  Ellis didn’t respond right away.

  “We go where we think he’ll show up, and wait.”

  “Yeah, where’s that?”

  “Just get back here and we’ll figure it out.”

  Ellis disconnected without saying another word.

  37

  Bosch was familiar with the sprawling Veterans Hospital in Westwood from many years of visiting doctors and once rehabbing there from a gunshot wound. The complex was divided by Wilshire Boulevard and Bosch knew that the rehab centers were on the south side. He parked in a lot that told much about the clientele that the medical center served. Mostly old, taped-up cars, live-in vans, and pickups with camper shells, all of them pasted with bumper stickers proudly proclaiming their service to their country, their specific branch of the military, fighting unit, and politics. The message was clear. It didn’t matter what war was fought, coming back home was another battle altogether.

  He went in through a glass door printed with the motto SERVING THOSE WHO SERVED and checked the sign-in list at the front counter of the physical therapy center. There was a receptionist there but she didn’t look up from her computer screen. Bosch saw that Dennis Wojciechowski, aka Cisco, had checked in forty minutes before. Bosch figured he would almost be through with his session. He took a seat in the waiting room where he could see the door and would be able to spot Cisco as he was leaving.

  Bosch noted that the magazines spread across the table in front of the couch were all several months old. Instead of picking one up, he opened his e-mail on his phone for the first time in several days. He saw the one from Lucia Soto providing the names of Ellis and Long. Most of the other e-mails were spam and he deleted them. There were two from former colleagues, containing messages of disappointment over the news that Bosch was now working in criminal defense. Bosch started typing out a return e-mail to the first one but halfway through realized he could never explain himself or win back the loyalty of the men and women still in the LAPD. He stopped writing and deleted the message.

  The thought of his predicament was depressing. He decided he would not check his e-mail going forward because it was likely that he would be receiving more of the same kind of messages. He was putting his phone back into his pocket when it buzzed in his hand. He checked the screen before answering it and saw the name Francis Albert. He didn’t recognize the name but took the call, getting up and walking out through the door to abide by the signs that said no cell phone calls in the waiting room.

  “Harry Bosch.”

  He stepped into an alcove to the right.

  “Detective Bosch, this is Francis Albert, your neighbor on Woodrow Wilson.”

  Bosch still couldn’t place the name or come up with a face. And he didn’t know if Francis Albert was the full name or a two-part first name, maybe in homage to Francis Albert Sinatra.

  “Yes. How are you?”

  “I’m fine. You might not remember me, but I hosted the Neighborhood Watch meeting a couple months ago that you were kind enough to attend.”

  Now Bosch had him. Old man, stooped shoulders, no family, and too much free time on his hands. Bosch, newly retired and with too much time on his own hands, had agreed to attend the meeting back in March. Francis Albert probably wanted him to come back and address the troops again.

  “Of course I remember you,” Bosch said. “But I’m kind of in the middle of something right now. Can I call you back later?”

  “Sure, that’s fine. But I just thought you’d want to know that somebody was watching your house this morning. He claimed he was a cop but I have my doubts.”

  Suddenly Bosch wasn’t in such a hurry to end the call.

  “What do you mean ‘watching my house’?” he asked.

  “Well, you know the Robinson’s property acros
s the street from me?” Francis Albert responded. “Where they knocked the house down but left the pad there to build on?”

  “Right, I know it.”

  “I go out this morning to pick up the paper, and first thing I see is some schmuck’s parked in front of my garage. And then I see the guy. He went under the tape and is out on the pad with a pair of binoculars. And he’s looking right at your house, Detective Bosch.”

  “Call me Harry. I’m not a detective anymore. Are you sure he was looking at my house?”

  “Definitely looked that way to me. And you call me Frank.”

  “How long did he stay there, Frank?”

  “Till I hassled him and he took off. That’s why I don’t think he was a legit cop—even though he showed me a badge.”

  “You hassled him?”

  “Yeah, I went out and asked him what he was doing. He got all nervous and left. That’s when he showed me this cockamamie badge he had around his neck.”

  Bosch reached into his jacket and pulled out the remaining photocopy of the photos of Ellis and Long. He unfolded it and stared at the two vice cops.

  “What did he look like?” he asked.

  There was a long pause before Albert answered.

  “I don’t know, he was normal,” he finally said.

  “Normal?” Bosch asked. “Was he white, black, brown?”

  “White.”

  “How old?”

  “Uh, forties. I think. Maybe thirties.”

  Bosch looked at the two photos.

  “Did he have a mustache?”

  “Yeah, he had a mustache. You know him?”

  Long had a mustache. Ellis didn’t.

  “I don’t know. Are you going to be around later? I have a couple photos I’d like to show you.”

  “Sure, I’m here all the time.”

  “Thanks, Frank.”

  “Just watching out for the neighborhood. That’s what we do.”

  Bosch disconnected and looked at the photos of the two vice cops. He didn’t think he needed to go by Frank’s to confirm what he knew in his gut. It had been Long with the binoculars. It seemed odd to Bosch that he was snooping around so soon. It was only nine-thirty. Why had he already gotten suspicious about the Cherokee not moving?