Michael Connelly - The Crossing

Eleven days after the DNA match came in from the state, the two lead investigators entered the artist’s studio where Foster was alone, having just finished teaching a small class of children about primary colors. Leimert Park was in the City of Los Angeles. The investigators were accompanied by two uniformed LAPD officers from the South Bureau Gang Unit. Cornell and Schmidt asked Foster if he would accompany them to the Homicide Unit, where they wanted to ask him questions.

Da’Quan Foster agreed.

Bosch looked up and realized he had worked through the lunch rush in the restaurant. His check was sitting on the edge of the table and he had not noticed it. Feeling sheepish about not turning the table over during lunch, he put thirty dollars down on the table for the ten-dollar check, then gathered the reports back together and headed out. He cursed his luck when he found a parking ticket under the Cherokee’s windshield wiper. He had paid for two hours on the meter but had been in the restaurant for two and a half. He took the ticket from beneath the rubber blade and shoved it into his pocket. He never had to worry about parking tickets when he was driving a city car, when he carried a badge. It was another reminder of how his life had changed in the last six months. He used to feel like an outsider with an insider’s job. From now on he would be a full-time outsider.

For some reason Bosch didn’t want to go home to finish reading the chrono and the rest of the discovery reports. He felt as though reviewing the case at the dining room table where he had worked on so many cases as an LAPD homicide detective would be some kind of betrayal. He took Third Street out of downtown and out to West Hollywood. Before reading further into the chrono log, he wanted to drive by the house where Lexi Parks had been murdered. He thought it would be good to get out of the paper and to see some of the physical touchstones of the case.

The home was located on Orlando south of Melrose in a neighborhood of modest bungalows. Bosch pulled to the opposite curb and studied the house. It was almost entirely hidden by a tall privacy hedge with an arched entry cut through it. He could see the front door beyond the passage. There was a FOR SALE sign posted in front of the hedge. Bosch wondered how difficult it would be to sell a house where a brutal murder had recently occurred. He decided that living in the house where your wife had been the victim of that murder would be even more difficult.

His phone buzzed and he answered while still staring at the house.

“Bosch,” he said.

“It’s me,” Haller said. “How’s it going?”

“It’s going.”

“You still reading the discovery material?”

“About halfway through.”

“And?”

“And nothing. I’m still reading.”

“I just thought maybe you might have—”

“Look, don’t push me on this, Mick. I’m doing what I have to do. If I want to take it further when I’m finished, I’ll tell you. If I don’t, I’ll drop all of this stuff back with you.”

“Okay, okay.”

“Good. I’ll catch you later.”

Bosch disconnected. He continued to look at the house. He noticed that there was a BEWARE OF DOG sign posted in a planter beside the front door. He had not read anything in the discovery so far that mentioned Parks and her husband having a dog. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he thought about that. He felt strongly that if the couple owned a dog it would have been noted up front in the reports. House pets always leave trace evidence in a home. It was something that had to be accounted for in an investigation.

Bosch’s conclusion was that there was no dog and that the sign was posted as a deterrent. The next best thing to having a dog was pretending you had a dog. The question was did the killer know there was no dog? And if so, how?

Finally, he drove away and went up Orlando to Santa Monica Boulevard. He turned east toward home but pulled over again when he spotted a Starbucks at Fairfax. This time he bought four hours of time on the meter and went in with the discovery file.

With a cup of steaming black coffee in hand, he settled into a chair in the corner with a small round table next to it. There was no room to open the file and spread the stack, so he just pulled out the chrono to continue reading where he had left off. Before doing so he took a pen out of his shirt pocket and wrote a quick note on the outside of the file folder.

He needed to confirm his conclusion about the dog. Jotting the one-word question down was an almost involuntary response to what he had seen while sitting outside the murder house. But as soon as he wrote it, he realized that something as small as writing a single word on the file was a big step toward buying into the case. He had to ask himself the question. Did he miss the work so much that he could actually cross the aisle and work for an accused murderer? Because that was what it would be. Haller was the attorney of record but the client was sitting in a cell accused of raping a woman and beating her to death. If he accepted the job offer, Bosch would be working for him.

He felt the burn of humiliation on the back of his neck. He thought of all the guys before him who retired and the next thing you know they were working for defense lawyers or even the Public Defender’s Office. He had dropped relationships with those guys as though they were criminals themselves. The moment he heard someone had crossed, Bosch considered him persona non grata.

And now...

He took a sip of scalding coffee and tried to put the discomfort aside. He then took up the investigation where he had left off.

After picking up Foster at his studio, the Sheriff’s investigators drove him to the Lynwood station, where they borrowed a room in the detective bureau. The interview was short and its entire transcript was placed into the chronological record. Foster was asked only a few questions before realizing the depth of the trouble he was in and asking for Mickey Haller by name.

Cornell and Schmidt never told him that they had connected his DNA to a murder scene. They attempted to pad their case by flushing out an admission from Foster. But the effort failed. Cornell began the session by reading Foster his constitutional rights — always a quick way to put a willing interview subject on high alert.

Cornell: Okay, Mr. Foster, are you willing to talk to us a little bit, maybe answer some questions and clear up some details?

Foster: I guess so, but what’s it about? What do you people think I did?

Cornell: Well, it’s about Lexi Parks. You know her, right?

Foster: That name, it rings a bell for some reason but I don’t know. Maybe I sold her a painting or she’s one of the mothers of the kids I got come in the studio.

Cornell: No, sir, Lexi Parks didn’t buy a painting. She is the woman up in West Hollywood. You remember you visited her at her house?

Foster: West Hollywood? No, I ain’t been to West Hollywood.

Cornell: What about Vince Harrick, do you know him?

Foster: No, I don’t know no Vince Harrick. Who’s he?

Cornell: That’s Lexi’s husband. Deputy Harrick. Did you know him when he worked in this station?

Foster: What? I don’t know him. I’ve never been here before you took me.

Schmidt: Can you tell us where you were the night of February eighth going into the morning of February ninth of this year? That was a Sunday night. Where were you that night, Mr. Foster?

Foster: How the fuck would I know? That’s like two months ago. Tell you what, every night I’m either at home with my family, puttin’ my boys to sleep, or at the studio, doin’ my work. I stay over a lot at night to get things done. I’m not teachin’ anybody anything and I get to work on my own stuff, you understand? I mean, like I got people who want my pictures and they’ll pay. So I do the work. So you can take your pick between me bein’ at home or me bein’ at the studio because that’s it. There’s no other place. And I know my rights here and you people are up to no good on me. I think I want my lawyer now. I’m thinking I want Mickey Haller to represent me in this matter — whatever the fuck it is.