Майкл Коннелли - Two Kinds of Truth

“Understood, Harry,” Trevino said. “And if there’s anything we can do here to help with that, you let me know. I’ve talked to the chief and, speaking for him and everybody in this room, we are behind you one hundred percent. We know what kind of detective and person you are.”

Bosch could feel his face turning red with embarrassment. In all his years in law enforcement, he had never heard such accolades from a supervisor.

“Thanks, Cap,” he managed to say.

They settled down and got to the business at hand, starting with Lourdes summarizing a report she had gotten that morning from Agent Hovan on the DEA’s activities since the previous afternoon. She reported that the encampment down near Slab City had been raided and shut down. The addicted inhabitants were evacuated to the naval base in San Diego, where they were being medically evaluated before being offered placement in pro bono rehab programs.

Lourdes reported that the DEA had also shut down the clinic in Pacoima and arrested the men operating it, along with the physician of record, Efram Herrera. Among those arrested was the driver of the van. Though he was suspected of being the getaway driver in the farmacia murders, he had so far been charged under federal law only for taking part in a continuing criminal organization.

From there, report writing, follow-up inquiries, and notifications were distributed among the detectives, with Bosch getting a full pass. Lourdes and Luzon were assigned to go to the federal detention facility downtown and take a shot at interviewing the driver about the farmacia shootings, a task all of those in the room predicted would be fruitless. Fifteen minutes later Bosch was crossing the street to the old jail, carrying his third cup of coffee of the day. He noticed that the TV truck was now gone and he guessed that the reporter and crew had been shined on by Chief Valdez. A joint press conference on the case would be held at three p.m. at the station with DEA and state medical board officials. It would be announced that the double murder at La Farmacia Familia had been solved and that the suspects were dead, provided that Bosch was able later to identify the body recovered that morning from the Salton Sea as the second Russian.

Because Bosch had worked undercover on the case, he had an out and would not be required to appear at the press conference.

Besides his coffee, Bosch carried a file containing copies of documents that had been pulled together overnight on the case. The one he was most interested in studying was the Interpol report on the man he had killed on the plane. Once in his cell in the old jail, he sat down behind his makeshift desk and opened the file.

It turned out that the man he killed was not technically Russian, though it was clear from the Interpol data that he grew up speaking the language. Fingerprints had identified him as Dmitri Sluchek, born in 1980 in Minsk, Belarus. He had served time in two different Russian prisons for theft and assault. The Interpol file tracked him until 2008, when he slipped into the United States illegally and never returned. It described him at that time as a “six” who was associated with a Minsk-based subset of the Russian Bratva — meaning “brotherhood,” a general word encompassing all of Russian organized crime. The report stated that a six was a low-level mob associate used on the front line of criminal enterprises. The reference came from the lowest rank in a deck of cards used in a Russian game called The Sixes. Such associates were often used as enforcers until they showed leadership skills and were moved up to the position of bratok, or soldier.

It appeared to Bosch that once he was in the United States, Sluchek started showing leadership skills and had moved Santos out of the picture in the California operation. He assumed that if the man pulled that morning from the Salton Sea was identified, he would have a history similar to Sluchek’s.

The report concluded that Sluchek was most likely still connected to the Bratva and reported to and contributed profits from the California operation to a pakhan, or boss, back in Minsk who had been identified as Oleg Novaschenko.

Bosch closed the file and thought about the chain of events that resulted in the Esquivels’ being executed in their place of business and people like Elizabeth Clayton being literally enslaved in the desert. The seeds were planted thousands of miles away by faceless men of greed and violence. Bosch knew that people like Novaschenko and the men between him and Sluchek would never pay for their crimes here, and that their operation, though down now, would rise again in another spot with other sixes stepping up and showing their leadership skills. The men who fired bullets into José Esquivel Jr. and his father were dead, but the justice gained was small. Bosch could not bring himself to take part in a press conference to laud the quick closing of the case. Some cases were never closed.

Bosch put the file on a shelf behind his chair, where he put the cases he believed he had worked to the extent of his ability and reach.

He turned back to the desk and went to work on the computer, attempting to locate Dina Skyler. Using the department computer to further his own private investigations had been forbidden when he had first come to work in San Fernando. But once he built an impressive record of closing cases, that rule was treated with a wink and a nod. Valdez and Trevino wanted to keep him happy and in the office as often as possible.

The search didn’t take long. Dina was still alive and still in L.A. She had gotten married and her last name was now Rousseau. The address on her current driver’s license placed her on Queens Road above the Sunset Strip.

Bosch decided to go knock on her door.

Bosch got to Union Station by 8:15 Wednesday morning. He parked in the short-term lot in front and went inside to wait for his daughter. Her train was only ten minutes behind schedule, and when they connected in the vast central waiting area, she had no baggage with her and only carried a book. She explained that her plan was to take a train back down to San Diego after the court hearing — unless Bosch needed her to stay. They ate crepes — her choice — at the station for breakfast before crossing Alameda and walking through the plaza by the El Pueblo de Los Ángeles on their way into the civic center. There, the monolithic Criminal Courts Building stood like a tombstone at the top of a rise.

They split up at the main entrance so Bosch could enter through the law enforcement pass-through because of his weapon. He showed his badge and made it through a solid ten minutes ahead of Maddie, who had to inch her way through the metal detector at the public entrance in a long line. They made up for the lost time by hopping onto an employees-only elevator and riding up to the ninth floor and Department 107, the courtroom at the end of the hallway, where Judge John Houghton presided.

The Preston Borders case was not scheduled to be called until ten a.m. but Mickey Haller had told Bosch to get to court early so they could discuss last-minute details and maneuvers. Bosch appeared to be the first person on his team to arrive. He sat in the back row of the gallery with his daughter and watched the proceedings. Houghton, a veteran jurist with a shock of silver hair, was on the bench, going through a calendar call of other cases on his docket, getting updates and scheduling further hearings. There was also a video crew setting up a pool camera in the jury box. Haller had told Bosch that so many local news stations had requested access to the hearing following the Times story that Houghton had specified that one randomly chosen crew could record the hearing and then share the video feed with the others.