Michael Connelly - Trunk Music

“I don’t know for sure about that,” he said. “But I doubt it. If somebody did go in, there wasn’t enough time to plant the gun. The gun was already there.”

Samuels nodded again, consulted his legal pad and then looked at Irving.

“Chief Irving, I think that’s as far as we want to take it for the moment. We certainly appreciate your cooperation in this matter and I expect we’ll be talking again soon.”

Samuels made a move to stand up.

“Wait a minute,” Bosch said. “That’s it? You’re just going to get up and leave? What the fuck is going on here? I deserve an explanation. Who made the complaint, Goshen’s lawyer? Because I’m going to make a complaint right back at him.”

“Your deputy chief can discuss this with you, if he chooses to.”

“No, Samuels. You tell me. You’re asking the questions, now you answer a few.”

Samuels drummed his pen on his pad for a moment and looked at Irving. Irving opened his hands to show it was his choice. Samuels then leaned forward and looked balefully at Bosch.

“If you insist on an explanation, I’ll give you one,” he said. “I’m limited, of course, in what I can say.”

“Jesus, would you just tell me what the hell is going on?”

Samuels cleared his throat before going on.

“About four years ago, in a joint operation involving the FBI offices in Chicago, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, the strike force instituted what we called Operation Telegraph. Personnel-wise it was a small operation but it had a large goal. Our goal was Joseph Marconi and the remaining tentacles of the mob’s influence in Las Vegas. It took us more than eighteen months but we managed to get someone inside. An agent on the inside. And in the two years since that was accomplished, that agent was able to rise to a level of prominence in Joseph Marconi’s organization, one in which he had the intended target’s complete confidence. Conservatively, we were four to five months from closing the operation and going to a grand jury to seek indictments for more than a dozen high-ranking members of the Cosa Nostra in three cities, not to mention an assortment of burglars, casino cheats, bust-out artists, cops, judges, lawyers and even a few Hollywood fringe players such as Anthony N. Aliso. This is not to mention that, largely through the efforts of this undercover agent and the wiretaps authorized with probable cause gathered through him, we now have a greater understanding of the sophistication and reach of organized crime entities such as Marconi’s.”

Samuels was talking as if he were addressing a press conference. He let a moment pass as he caught his breath. But he never took his eyes off Bosch.

“That undercover agent’s name is Roy Lindell. Remember it, because he’s going to be famous. No other agent was underground for so long and with such important results. You notice that I said was. He’s no longer under, Detective Bosch. And for that we can thank you. The name Roy used undercover was Luke Goshen. Lucky Luke Goshen. So I want to thank you for fucking up the end of a wonderful and important case. Oh, we’ll still get Marconi and all the others with what Roy’s good work got us, but now it’s all been marred by a…by you.”

Bosch felt anger backing up in his throat but tried to remain calm and he managed to speak in an even voice.

“Your suggestion then is-no, your accusation is-that I planted that gun. Well, you are wrong about that. Dead wrong. I should be angry and offended, but given the situation I understand how you made the mistake. But instead of pointing at me, maybe you folks ought to take a look at your man Goshen or whatever the hell his name is. Maybe you should question whether you left him under too long. Because that gun wasn’t planted. You-”

“Don’t you dare!” O’Grady blurted out. “Don’t you dare say a word about him. You, you’re nothing but a fucking rogue cop! We know about you, Bosch, all your baggage. This time you went too far. You planted evidence on the wrong man this time.”

“I take it back,” Bosch said, still calm. “I am offended. I am angry. So fuck you, O’Grady. You say I planted the gun, prove it. But first I guess you gotta prove that I was the one who put Tony Aliso in his trunk. Because how the hell else would I have the gun to plant?”

“Easy. You could’ve found it there in the bushes off the goddamned fire road. We already know you searched it by yourself. We-”

“Gentlemen,” Irving interjected.

“-will put you down for this, Bosch.”

“Gentlemen!”

O’Grady closed his mouth and everyone looked at Irving.

“This is getting out of hand. I’m ending this meeting. Suffice it to say, an internal investigation will be conducted and-”

“We are doing our own investigation,” Samuels said. “Meantime, we have to figure out how to salvage our operation.”

Bosch looked at him incredulously.

“Don’t you understand?” he said. “There is no operation. Your star witness is a murderer. You left him in too long, Samuels. He turned, became one of them. He killed Tony Aliso for Joey Marks. His prints were on the body. The gun was found in his house. Not only that, he’s got no alibi. Nothing. He told me he spent all night in the office, but I know he wasn’t there. He left and he had time to get over here, do the job and get back.”

Bosch shook his head sadly and finished in a low voice.

“I agree with you, Samuels. Your operation is tainted now. But not because of me. It was you who left the guy in the oven too long. He got cooked. You were his handler. You fucked up.”

This time Samuels shook his head and smiled sadly. That was when Bosch realized the other shoe hadn’t dropped. There was something else. Samuels angrily flipped up the top page of his pad and read a notation.

“The autopsy concludes time of death was between eleven P.M. Friday and two A.M. Saturday. Is that correct, Detective Bosch?”

“I don’t know how you got the report, since I haven’t seen it myself yet.”

“Was the death between eleven and two?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have those documents, Dan?” Samuels asked Ekeblad.

Ekeblad took several pages folded lengthwise from the inside of his jacket and handed them to Samuels. Samuels opened the packet and glanced at its contents and then tossed it across the table to Bosch. Bosch picked it up but didn’t look at it. He kept his eyes on Samuels.

“What you have there are copies of a page from an investigative log as well as an interview report prepared Tuesday morning by Agent Ekeblad here. There are also two sworn affidavits from agents Ekeblad and Phil Colbert, who will be with us here shortly. What you’ll find if you look at those is that on Friday night at midnight, Agent Ekeblad was sitting behind the wheel of his bureau car in the back parking lot at Caesar’s, just off Industrial Road. His partner Colbert was there next to him and in the back seat, Agent Roy Lindell.”

He waited a beat and Bosch looked down at the papers in his hands.

“It was Roy’s monthly meeting. He was being debriefed. He told Ekeblad and Colbert that just that night he had put four hundred and eighty thousand dollars cash from Marconi’s various enterprises into Anthony Aliso’s briefcase and sent him back to L.A. to have it put in the wash. He also, by the way, mentioned that Tony had been in the club drinking and got a little out of line with one of the girls. In his role as enforcer for Joey Marks and manager of the club, he had to get tough with Tony. He cuffed him once and jerked him around by his collar. This, I think, you might agree, would account for the fingerprints recovered from the deceased’s jacket and the antemortem facial bruising noted in the autopsy.”