Michael Connelly - The Black Echo

“The perfect crime,” she said, “until Meadows pawned the bracelet with the jade dolphins on it. That gets him killed. Which brings us back to the question we had a few days ago. Why? And another thing that makes no sense: why, if he had helped loot the vault, was Meadows living in that dump? He was a rich man not acting like a rich man.”

Bosch walked in silence for a while. It was the question he had been formulating an answer to since halfway through the meeting with Ernst. He thought about Meadows’s eleven-month lease, paid in advance. If he were alive, he would be moving out next week. As they walked through the garden of white stone, it all seemed to fit together. There was no sand left in the top of the hourglass. He finally spoke.

“Because the perfect crime was only half over. By pawning the bracelet, he was giving it away too soon. So he had to go, and they had to get that bracelet back.”

She stopped and looked at him. They were standing on the access road next to the World War II section. Bosch saw that the roots of another old oak had pushed some of the weathered stones out of alignment. They looked like teeth waiting for an orthodontist’s hands.

“Explain that to me, what you just said,” Eleanor said.

“They hit several of the boxes to cover that all they really wanted was what was in Binh’s box. Okay?”

She nodded. They still weren’t walking.

“Okay. So in order to keep that cover, what would be the thing to do? Get rid of the stuff from all the other boxes so it would never turn up again. And I don’t mean fence it. I mean get rid of it, destroy it, sink it, bury it for good, somewhere it would never be found. Because the minute the first piece of jewelry or old coin or stock certificate turns up and the police find out about it, then they’ve got a lead and they’ll come looking.”

“So you think Meadows was killed because he pawned the bracelet?” she said.

“Not quite because of that. There is some other current moving through all of this. Why, if Meadows had a share of Binh’s diamonds, would he even bother with a bracelet worth a few thousand bucks? Why would he live the way he lived? Doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re losing me, Harry.”

“I’m losing myself. But look at it this way for a minute. Say they-Meadows and the others-knew where both Binh and the other police captain, Nguyen Tran, were, and where each of them had stashed what was left of the diamonds they had brought over here. Say there were two banks and the diamonds were in two safe-deposit boxes. And say they were going to hit them both. So first they rip off Binh’s bank. And now they are going for Tran’s.”

She nodded that she was following along. Bosch felt excitement building.

“Okay. So these things take time to plan, to put the strategy together, to plan it for a time the bank is closed three days in a row because that’s how much time they need to open enough boxes to make it look real. And then there is the time needed to dig the tunnel.”

He’d forgotten to light a cigarette. He realized now and put one in his mouth, but started talking again before lighting it.

“You with me?”

She nodded. He lit the cigarette.

“Okay, then what would be the best thing to do after you have hit the first bank but before the second one is taken down? You lie low and you don’t give a goddam hint away. You get rid of all the stuff taken as cover, all the stuff from the other boxes. You keep nothing. And you sit on the diamonds from Binh’s box. You can’t start to fence them, because it might draw attention to you and spoil the second hit. In fact, Binh probably had feelers out, looking for the diamonds. I mean, over the years, he was probably cashing them in piecemeal and was familiar with the gem-fencing network. So, they had to watch out for him, too.”

“So Meadows broke the rules,” she said. “He held something back. The bracelet. His partners found out and whacked him. Then they broke into the pawnshop and stole the bracelet back.” She shook her head, admiring the plan. “The thing would still be perfect if he hadn’t done that.”

Bosch nodded. They stood there looking at each other and then around at the grounds of the cemetery. Bosch dropped his cigarette and stepped on it. At the same moment they looked up the hill and saw the black walls of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

“What’s that doing there?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It’s a replica. Half size. Fake marble. I think they move it around the country, in case somebody who wants to see it can’t make it to D.C.”

Eleanor’s breath caught sharply and she turned to him.

“Harry, this Monday is Memorial Day.”

“I know. Banks closed two days, some three. We’ve got to find Tran.”

She turned to head back to the bureau. He took a last look at the memorial. The long sheath of false marble with all the names carved into it was embedded in the side of the hill. A man in a gray uniform was sweeping the walkway in front of it. There was a pile of violet flowers from a jacaranda tree.

Harry and Eleanor were silent until they were out of the cemetery and walking back across Wilshire toward the Federal Building. She asked a question Bosch had been turning over in his mind and studying but had no good answer for.

“Why now? Why so long? It’s been fifteen years.”

“I don’t know. Just might be the right time, that’s all. People, things, unseen forces, sort of come together from time to time. That’s what I believe. Who knows? Maybe Meadows forgot all about Binh and just saw him one day on the street and it all came to him. The perfect plan. Maybe it was someone else’s plan or it really was hatched on that one day the three of them were together at Charlie Company. The whys you never really know. You just need the hows and the whos.”

“You know, Harry, if they’re out there, or I should say, under there, digging a new tunnel, then we have less than two days to find them. We have to put some crews underground and look for them.”

He thought that putting a crew in the city’s tunnels looking for a possible entrance to a bandit tunnel was a long shot. She had told him there were more than 1,500 miles of tunnels under L.A. alone. They might not find the bandits’ tunnel if they had a month. The key would be Tran. Find the last police captain, then find his bank. There you find the bandits. And the killers of Billy Meadows. And Sharkey.

He said, “Do you think Binh would give Tran to us?”

“He didn’t report his fortune was taken from the vault, so he doesn’t seem like the type that’s going to tell us about Tran.”

“Right. I think we should try finding him ourselves before we go to Binh. Let’s make Binh the last resort.”

“I’ll start on the computer.”

“Right.”

The FBI computer and the computer networks it could access did not divulge the location of Nguyen Tran. Bosch and Wish found no mention of him in DMV, INS, IRS or Social Security files. There was nothing in the fictitious name filings in the Los Angeles County recorder’s office, no mention of him in DWP records or the voter or property tax rolls. Bosch called Hector Villabona and confirmed that Tran entered the United States on the same day as Binh, but there was no further record. After three hours of staring at the amber letters on the computer screen, Eleanor turned it off.

“Nothing,” she said. “He’s using another name. But he hasn’t legally changed it, at least in this county. Nobody has the guy.”

They sat there dejected and quiet. Bosch took the last swallow of coffee from a Styrofoam cup. It was after five and the squad room was deserted. Rourke had gone home, after being informed of the latest developments and deciding not to send anyone into the tunnels.