Michael Connelly - The Crossing

His eyes kept going to the hands and he noticed from his new position a slight discoloration to the victim’s skin on the left wrist. He got up to go back to the bed. The photo was a wide shot that displayed the entire body in situ. He bent over the photo with the magnifying glass and saw that the woman’s wrist had slight tan lines left by a thick bracelet or, most likely, a watch.

Since he had seen nothing in the summaries or reports about the murder being possibly motivated by robbery, the missing watch was curious to Bosch. Had the victim been wearing it at the time of the attack? Had she taken it off to sleep? Had it fallen or been pulled off during her struggle to live? Had it been taken by her attacker as a souvenir?

Bosch studied the bed table next to the body. There was a bottle of water, a prescription bottle, and a paperback novel, but the watch wasn’t there. He went back to the printouts and looked at the property report. Since the victim was murdered in her own home, the property report dealt primarily with items from the crime scene and the house that were specifically examined by the investigators or forensics team. There was nothing here about the watch. It had apparently not come off in the victim’s struggle. It had not been noted as having been found in the bedding, on the floor, or anywhere else.

Bosch next flipped back into the Chronological Log to check if he had missed a mention of the watch in the early stages of the investigation — before there was a focus on Da’Quan Foster. He found nothing and wrote a note about the watch on the outside of the file below his other notations.

He collected all the photos of the body from the bed and put the stack to the side in case his daughter came home. He then moved to the second stack of photos, which were the shots taken of every room in the victim’s house at the time of the on-site investigation. This was a sign of the thoroughness of the investigation. Bosch knew that the photos from other rooms of the house would have been a call and request made by the lead investigators. It showed they were not cutting corners.

There were several photos taken in each room of the house and it took Bosch more than a half hour to work his way through them. He saw only the things that looked like the normal trappings of a neatly kept home where there were no children and both husband and wife worked full-time jobs and had active lifestyles. A second bedroom was used as a home gym and a third used as an office. The single-car garage was used to store bikes, surfboards, and camping equipment. There was no room to park a car.

The home office drew Bosch’s attention the longest. It looked to him like the room was primarily used by Lexi Parks. The knickknacks and souvenirs on the desk and on the bookcase shelves behind it appeared to have been collected during her duties as a city employee. There was a paperweight from the West Hollywood Rotary Club and framed certificates of appreciation from various gay and lesbian groups in regard to her involvement in the permitting process for the annual gay pride parade that drew participants and watchers from around the world. On the wall beside the desk was a framed diploma from Pepperdine University with the name Alexandra Abbott Parks. Clipped to the sides of the frame were various name tags from functions she had attended as part of her job. Bosch realized there was a large social component to Lexi Parks’s work that most likely added a layer of difficulty to the effort of tracking the point where she may have encountered her killer — whether it was Foster or someone else.

His eye held on the diploma frame when he saw a name tag that was unlike the others. It was a red-and-white juror tag that would have been issued by the county and worn by Parks when she was called in for jury service. All that was visible in the photo was a bar code — in keeping with juror anonymity — and no visible indication of when or in which courthouse the juror had served.

More than anything he had seen so far the juror tag bothered him. He had seen nothing in the chrono or other files about this being a branch of the investigation. Though Bosch would freely admit that an investigation was a subjective matter always open to second-guessing — by lawyers, judges, juries, and other investigators — this struck him as something that was either missed or hidden. If Lexi Parks had served on a criminal courts jury, that would have been an important arena for investigators to look into. It would have put her in a building where there was a routine flow of criminals and accused criminals. In a case like this, where the victim appeared to be chosen at random, there is always a crossing point. The place where the predator first encounters his prey. The job of the investigators is to find the crossing, the place where the circle of the victim’s life overlaps the circle of the predator.

Now Bosch had to consider whether investigators Lazlo Cornell and Tara Schmidt had missed this possible crossing or whether it was something they purposely left out of discovery to obfuscate the prosecution’s case.

He put the thought aside for the time being and went back to the other photographs. The office had two closets. Both were photographed from multiple angles. One was packed with summer dresses and blouses on hangers and shoe boxes on the shelves above. It looked like Parks rotated seasonal clothing. At the time of her death in February temperatures were cooler.

The second closet was used to store boxes from computers, printers, and other household items. On the top shelf Bosch saw a small square box that was made of what looked like brown leather. There was no brand name or logo but Bosch thought it might be a box that a watch would come in. He studied the photo with the magnifying glass. He knew there was no telling whether the box was empty, or whether it was for a woman’s or man’s watch. Brown leather favored it being a man’s watch box.

Bosch heard the front door of the house open. His daughter was home. He had started stacking the second set of photos when he heard her call to him.

“In my room,” he called back. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

He then stacked all the files and photos together on his bureau. He got out his phone and called Mickey Haller. The defense attorney answered right away and Bosch could tell by the background noise that he again was in his car.

“Okay,” Bosch said. “I’m ready to talk.”

They met at the bar at Musso’s and both ordered a vodka martini. It was early enough that getting one of the precious stools was not a problem. Bosch didn’t want to bring the thick stack of discovery documents in with him and draw attention, so he simply brought the empty file folder on which he had jotted his notes.

Haller was still in a crisp court suit but his tie was long gone. He noticed the empty file that Bosch put down on the old polished wood bar top.

“Well, you’re not giving it all back to me,” he said. “That’s a good sign.”

“Not yet, at least,” Bosch said.

“So, what do you want to talk about, then?”

“I’m ready to talk to your client. Can you get me in?”

“The easiest and quickest way is for us both to go in tomorrow. Attorney-client visit with an investigator in tow. It cuts through the bullshit. You have a problem with that?”

Bosch thought a moment before answering.

“Do I need to show a PI license? I don’t have that. I got one about twelve years ago but it’s long expired.”

“No need. I’ll print out a letter of engagement. It’ll say you’re working under the aegis of me and Dennis Wojciechowski, a state-licensed private investigator. That’ll do it.”

“Who the hell is Dennis Woja-whatever-you-just-said?”