Майкл Коннелли: Two Kinds of Truth

A week after interviewing Amanda Margot, the detectives positioned themselves on a surveillance of Borders’s apartment in Sherman Oaks and waited for him to exit for the day. They wanted to approach him away from the apartment in case he revealed something in the interview that would serve as probable cause to search his home. They didn’t want to knock on the door and give him the chance to hide or destroy incriminating evidence.

They were also working a hunch. With the help of Danielle Skyler’s mother and friends, they had inventoried her apartment and found only one piece of personal property missing. It was a blue sea-horse pendant that had been attached to a necklace made of braided twine. Her mother had given it to her on the day she left home for California. Danielle had gone to a high school that had the sea horse as a mascot, and the pendant was a reminder of the Hollywood Danielle had come from and that her mother didn’t want her to forget. Her mother had attached it to a necklace she had made herself. The piece of jewelry, though not outwardly valuable, was said to be the young woman’s most prized possession.

Despite three different searches of Skyler’s apartment, Bosch and Sheehan did not find the sea horse or necklace. They were certain Skyler had not lost it, as it was prominently shown in a new set of head shots taken a few weeks before her death. The detectives believed that the killer had taken the necklace and pendant as a souvenir after the murder. If they were found in a suspect’s possession, any blood residue on the twine could be type-matched to Danielle and would be a valuable piece of evidence.

Late in the morning of the surveillance, Borders emerged from his apartment on Vesper and walked a block south to Ventura Boulevard. Bosch and Sheehan gave him a lead and then followed on foot. Borders first entered the Tower Records store at the corner of Cedros and Ventura and browsed in the video section for more than a half hour. The detectives observing him debated whether they should approach and ask for an interview but decided to hang back and intercept him only if he started back to his apartment.

After leaving the record store, Borders walked back across Ventura and went into a restaurant called Le Café, where he had lunch by himself at the bar while chatting familiarly to the bartender. Bosch had been in Le Café several times because above the restaurant and bar was a jazz club called the Room Upstairs that was open late and featured world-class performers. He had seen Houston Person and Ron Carter perform there just a few months before.

When lunch was finished, Borders left a twenty on the counter and left. Bosch and Sheehan quickly approached the three-sided bar and Bosch drew the bartender over to one side with a question about what bourbons he had available, while Sheehan went to the other side and placed the empty beer glass Borders had drunk from into a paper bag. He headed out and waited for Bosch on the sidewalk. Borders was nowhere to be seen at first when Bosch joined him but they checked a drugstore two businesses down and found him inside shopping with a plastic basket.

Borders bought a box of condoms and other toiletry items at the drugstore before heading back to his apartment. As he was unlocking the security gate, Bosch and Sheehan approached him from different sides. They had a plan for talking him into agreeing to a voluntary interview. His reported behavior with Skyler suggested a narcissistic personality, two hallmark traits of which were an inflated sense of self-importance and feelings of superiority. The detectives played to those traits by identifying themselves to Borders and saying they needed his help solving the murder of Danielle Skyler. Sheehan said they were grasping at straws and hoped, since Borders had dated her, he could give insight into her personality and lifestyle. Borders agreed to the interview without hesitation. Bosch and Sheehan read that as Borders believing that if he went with the detectives that he would learn more from them than they would from him. It was similar to the psychology that often led a murderer to volunteer to join the search for the missing person they had actually killed and buried. They had to get close to the investigation to learn what was going on, while hiding in plain sight also brought them psychological fulfillment.

They drove Borders over to the nearby Van Nuys station, where they had previously reserved an interview room with the detective commander. The room was wired for sound, and the interview was taped.

Bosch dropped off his reading of the chrono log and changed the CD as Chemistry came to an end. This time he put in Frank Morgan’s Mood Indigo and soon he was hearing “Lullaby,” one of his favorite recordings. He then looked back through the stack of old reports for the transcript of the interview conducted thirty years earlier with Borders. It was the thickest report in the stack, weighing in at forty-six pages. He quickly leafed through it to find the moment when Borders was caught in the lie that ultimately led to his arrest and conviction. It was two-thirds through the thirty-minute conversation and during a segment where Bosch was asking the questions. It was also after Borders had signed a consent form acknowledging his Miranda rights and agreeing to talk to the detectives.

HB: So you and Danielle didn’t have sex? You just dropped her at her place and took off?

PB: That’s right.

HB: Well, were you a gentleman? Did you walk her to her door?

PB: No, it was like she jumped out and was gone before I could even be a gentleman.

HB: You mean like she was mad at you?

PB: Sort of. She didn’t like what I’d had to say.

HB: Which was what?

PB: That there wasn’t any chemistry. You know, nice try but it wasn’t right. I thought she understood and thought the same thing but then she jumped out of the car and was gone without so much as a good-bye. It was rude but I guess she was disappointed. She liked me better than I liked her. Nobody likes getting rejected.

HB: And you said you had not picked her up at her place earlier?

PB: Yeah, she took a cab and we met at the restaurant, because she was coming from the Westside and for me to go all the way over the hill to get her would be a slog, man. I liked the girl, or at least I thought I did, but not that much, you know what I mean?

HB: Yeah, I get it.

PB: I mean, I’m not running a taxi service. Some of these girls think you are their chauffeur or [unintelligible]. Not me.

HB: Okay, so what you’re saying is that you didn’t pick her up and then you just dropped her at the curb and took off.

PB: That’s it. Not even a good-night kiss.

HB: And you were never in her apartment?

PB: Nope.

HB: Not even to her door?

PB: Never.

HB: What about after that night? You knew where she lived now. Did you ever come back?

PB: No, man, I’m telling you. I wasn’t interested.

HB: Well, then, we have a problem that we need to work out here.

PB: What problem?

HB: Why do you think we approached you today, Preston?

PB: I don’t know. You said you needed my help. I thought maybe one of her friends told you Skyler and I had dated.

HB: Actually, it was because we found your fingerprints on the front door of her apartment. The problem is, you just told me you’d never been to the door.

PB: I don’t understand. How’d you get my fingerprints?

HB: You know, that’s sort of funny. I tell you that your fingerprints were found at a murder scene and you ask how I got your fingerprints. I think most guys would’ve said something else, especially if they had previously said they were never, ever at that scene. Is there something you want to tell us, Preston?

PB: Yeah, I want to say this is all bullshit.