Michael Connelly - The Reversal

After driving off the ferry at Port Townsend, Bosch and McPherson followed directions from the rental car’s GPS to the address on Sarah Ann Gleason’s driver’s license. The trail led them through the small Victorian sea village and then out into a more rural area of large and isolated properties. Gleason’s house was a small clapboard house that failed to keep the nearby town’s Victorian theme. The detective and the prosecutor stood on the porch and knocked but got no response.

“Maybe she’s at work or something,” McPherson said.

“Could be.”

“We could go back into town and get rooms, then come back after five.”

Bosch checked his watch. He realized that school was just over and Maddie was probably heading home with Sue Bambrough. He guessed that his daughter was giving the assistant principal the silent treatment.

He stepped off the porch and started walking toward the corner of the house.

“Where are you going?”

“To check the back. Hold on.”

But as soon as Bosch turned the corner he could see that a hundred yards beyond the house there was another structure. It was a windowless barn or garage. What stood out was that it had a chimney. He could see heat waves but no smoke rising from the two black pipes that extended over the roofline. There were two cars and a van parked in front of the closed garage doors.

Bosch stood there watching for so long that McPherson finally came around the corner as well.

“What’s taking-?”

Bosch held up his hand to silence her, then pointed toward the outbuilding.

“What is it?” McPherson whispered.

Before Bosch could answer, one of the garage doors slid open a few feet and a figure stepped out. It looked like a young man or a teenager. He was wearing a full-length black apron over his clothes. He took off heavy elbow-length gloves so he could light a cigarette.

“Shit,” McPherson whispered, answering her own question.

Bosch stepped back to the corner of the house to use it as a blind. He pulled McPherson with him.

“All her arrests-her drug of choice was meth,” he whispered.

“Great,” McPherson whispered back. “Our main witness is a meth cook.”

The young smoker turned when apparently called from within the barn. He threw down his cigarette, stepped on it, and went back inside. He yanked the door closed behind him but it slid to a stop six inches before closing.

“Let’s go,” Bosch said.

He started to move but McPherson put her hand on his arm.

“Wait, what are you talking about? We need to call Port Townsend police and get some backup, don’t we?”

Bosch looked at her a moment without responding.

“I saw the police station when we went through town,” McPherson said, as if to assure him that backup was waiting and willing.

“If we call for backup they’re not going to be very cooperative, since we didn’t bother to check in when we got to town in the first place,” Bosch said. “They’ll arrest her and then we have a main witness awaiting trial on drug charges. How do you think that will work with Jessup’s jury?”

She didn’t answer.

“Tell you what,” he said. “You hold back here and I’ll go check it out. Three vehicles, probably three cooks. If I can’t handle it, we call backup.”

“They’re probably armed, Harry. You-”

“They’re probably not armed. I’ll check it out and if it looks like a situation we’ll call Port Townsend.”

“I don’t like this.”

“It could work to our favor.”

“What? How?”

“Think about it. Watch for my signal. If something goes wrong, get in the car and get out of here.”

He held up the car keys and she reluctantly took them. He could tell she was thinking about what he had said. The advantage. If they caught their witness in a compromising situation, it could give them the leverage they needed to assure her cooperation and testimony.

Bosch left McPherson there and headed on foot down the crushed-shell drive to the barn. He didn’t attempt to hide in case they had a lookout. He put his hands in his pocket to try to convey he was no threat, somebody just lost and looking for directions.

The crushed shell made it impossible for him to make a completely silent approach. But as he got closer he heard loud music coming from the barn. It was rock and roll but he could not identify it. Something heavy on the guitar and with a pounding beat. It had a retro feel to it, like he had heard the song a long time ago, maybe in Vietnam.

Bosch was twenty feet from the partially opened door when it moved open another two feet and the same young man stepped out again. Seeing him closer, Bosch pegged his age at twenty-one or so. In the moment he stepped out Bosch realized he should have expected that he’d be back out to finish his interrupted smoke. Now it was too late and the smoker saw him.

But the young man didn’t hesitate or sound an alarm of any sort. He looked at Bosch curiously as he started tapping a cigarette out of a soft pack. He was sweating profusely.

“You parked up at the house?” he asked.

Bosch stopped ten feet from him and took his hands out of his pockets. He didn’t look back toward the house, choosing instead to keep his eyes on the kid.

“Uh, yes, is that a problem?” he asked.

“No, but most people just drive on down to the barn. Sarah usually tells them to.”

“Oh, I didn’t get that message. Is Sarah here?”

“Yeah, inside. Go on in.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, we’re almost done for the day.”

Bosch was getting the idea that he had walked into something that was not what he thought it was. He now glanced back and saw McPherson peering around the corner of the house. This wasn’t the best way to do this but he turned and headed toward the open door.

The heat hit him the moment he entered. The inside of the barn was like an oven and for good reason. The first thing Bosch saw was the open door of a huge furnace that was glowing orange with flames.

Standing eight feet from the heat source was another young man and an older woman. They also wore full-length aprons and heavy gloves. The man was using a pair of iron tongs to hold steady a large piece of molten glass attached to the end of an iron pipe. The woman was shaping it with a wooden block and a pair of pliers.

They were glassmakers, not drug cooks. The woman wore a welder’s mask over her face as protection. Bosch could not identify her but he was pretty sure he was looking at Sarah Ann Gleason.

Bosch stepped back through the door and signaled to McPherson. He gave the okay sign but was unsure she would be able to identify it from the distance. He waved her in.

“What’s going on, man?” the smoker asked.

“That’s Sarah Gleason in there, you said?” Bosch responded.

“Yeah, that’s her.”

“I need to talk to her.”

“You’re going to have to wait until she’s set the piece. She can’t stop while it’s soft. We’ve been working it for almost four hours.”

“How much longer?”

“Maybe an hour. You can probably talk to her while she’s working. You want a piece made?”

“That’s okay, I think we can wait.”

McPherson drove up in the rental car and got out. Bosch opened the door for her and explained quietly that they had read wrong what they had seen. He told her the barn was a glassmaking studio. He told her how he wanted to play it until they could get Gleason into a private setting. McPherson shook her head and smiled.

“What if we had gone in there with backup?”

“I guess we would’ve broken some glass.”

“And had one pissed-off witness.”

She got out of the car and Bosch reached in for the file he had put on the dashboard. He put it inside his jacket and under his arm so he could carry it unseen.