Michael Connelly - Lost Light

“And what, you left him a key?”

“No, I didn’t. But I must’ve left the door unlocked because he was inside when I got home. I guess you could say he had permission because I invited him to the house but I didn’t exactly tell him to go inside. He just sort of did that on his own when he beat me to the house.”

“Agent Milton had a number of miniaturized listening devices in the pocket of his coat. Do you know anything about that or why he had them?”

My guess was that he had removed them from my house but I didn’t say this.

“No idea,” I said. “You would’ve had to ask him, I guess.”

“What about his car? It was found parked about a block north of your house on Woodrow Wilson. In fact, it was further away from your house than the car the four assailants used. Any idea why Milton would park so far from your house if he was invited to be there?”

“No, not really. Like I said, I guess he’s the only one who knew that.”

“Exactly.”

I could see her getting heated. Her eyes grew sharper and she seemed to be trying to read the looks I was giving Lindell. She knew there was a play on but she was smart enough not to mention anything on camera. I had taught her well.

“Okay, I’ll tell you what, Harry. You told us every detail about what happened last night but not how it fits into anything. Before all the shit hit the fan you called the big meeting for this morning in order to lay it all out for us. So go ahead and do it now. Tell us what you’ve got.”

“You mean from the beginning?”

“From the beginning.”

I nodded.

“Okay, well, I guess you could say it all started with Ray Vaughn and Linus Simonson deciding to rip off the cash shipment to the movie set. There was some sort of connection between them. One of their former colleagues at the bank said she thought Vaughn was gay and Simonson had said he was making a move on him. Anyway, whether Simonson drew Vaughn in or it was the other way around, they decided to take the money. They planned it out and then Simonson recruited his four pals for the heavy work. It went from there.”

“What about Angella Benton?” Rider asked.

“I’m getting to that. Without telling the others, Vaughn and Linus decided they needed a device, something that would make the cops think the heist came from inside the movie company, not the bank. So they picked her. She’d come to the bank as a liaison once with documents pertaining to the loan. So they knew a case could be made that she knew about the money. They picked her and probably watched her for a couple days and then figured out when she was most vulnerable and when to do it. They killed her and one of them put the semen on her so it would look like a sex case at first and it wouldn’t immediately reflect on the movie company or the plan to shoot scenes with real money. That would come later. After the heist.”

“So she was just a device is what you are saying,” Rider said dejectedly. “Her life taken simply because she fit into the plan.”

I nodded somberly.

“What a wonderful world, right?”

“Okay, go on. Did they both do it?”

“I don’t know, maybe. Simonson had an alibi for that night but it was cleared by Jack Dorsey, and we’ll get to him in a minute. But my guess is that they did it together. It would take two to completely overpower her without a struggle.”

“The jizz,” Rider said. “We can see if it matches one of them. Since Vaughn was killed during the robbery and Simonson was shot, it was never thought to type them against the semen collected at the murder scene.”

I shook my head.

“I have a feeling that it won’t match either one of them.”

“Then who did it come from?”

“We may never know. Remember the spatter evidence? We decided the semen was brought to the scene and dripped onto the body. Who knows where they got it. Maybe from one of themselves but if they were smart they wouldn’t have left their own. Why leave a direct tie to the crime?”

“So, what, they just go up to a stranger and ask him to jerk off in a cup for them?” Lindell asked incredulously.

“It wouldn’t be that hard to get,” Rider said. “Go into any alley in Hollywood and you’ll find a loaded condom. And if Vaughn was gay, then it could have come from one of his partners and the partner might not have ever known it.”

I nodded. I had been thinking the same thing.

“Exactly. And that’s probably why he was killed. Simonson double-crossed him. He told his guys to make sure they took him out during the robbery. It would mean more money for them and a link to the Benton case eliminated.”

“Jesus, these are cold-blooded fucks,” Lindell said.

I could tell he was thinking about Marty Gessler and her unknown fate.

“Simonson further secured the operation and the future use of the money by switching the currency report he and another BankLA employee had put together. You could say he unmarked the bills.”

“How?” Rider asked.

“I thought at first that he probably just put wrong currency numbers into the report he and another bank employee made in the vault. But I guess that would have been too risky because she wasn’t in on it and she might have decided to double-check the numbers. So I think what he did was create a second, phony report on his computer. It listed currency numbers he just made up. He then printed it out and forged his coworker’s signature on it and turned it in to the vice president for his signature. From there it went to the insurance company and then to the cops after the heist and eventually to the FBI.”

“You told me to bring the original to the meeting we were supposed to have this morning,” Rider said. “Why?”

“You know what forger’s tremor is? It’s something you can see in a signature that has been forged by tracing. He traced his coworker’s signature off the original or real currency report. In the photocopy of the one he turned in I could see hesitation marks. Her signature would have been one smooth, uninterrupted scrawl. But it looks like whoever signed that page never lifted the pen but stopped and started after almost every letter. It’s a tell and I think the original will show it beyond a doubt.”

“How was that missed?”

I shrugged.

“Maybe it wasn’t.”

“Dorsey and Cross.”

“I think Dorsey. I don’t know about Cross. Cross helped me with this. In fact, he called me and gave me the jump start on it.”

Lindell leaned forward. We were getting to the part about Marty Gessler and he wanted to get it right.

“So Simonson turns in a report with made-up numbers and then his buddies go and rip off the delivery and kill Vaughn in the process. Intentionally.”

“That’s right.”

“What about Simonson? He got shot, too. Were they trying to cut him out, too?”

“No, that wasn’t supposed to happen. Not according to Fazio. At least that was what he was saying to me before he got nailed last night. It sounded like Simonson getting shot was just dumb luck. A ricochet. If Banks comes out of his sleep with his brain intact maybe he can tell you about that. I have a feeling he’ll want to talk. He’ll want to spread the blame around.”

“Don’t worry, if he comes out of it, we’ll be there. But the early word from the hospital is that that’s a big if.”

“The thing about that ricochet is that it actually helped them. It gave Simonson a valid out from the bank. No suspicion there. Then he hid the purchase and renovation of the bars behind a settlement from the bank. The truth was he didn’t make enough off the settlement to put in a new beer cooler.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just know.”

“All right, let’s get back to the heist for a minute,” Lindell said. “So other than Simonson taking a slug in the ass, the heist goes off as planned. All the cops -”