Michael Connelly - Trunk Music

“Yeah, it’s blown all right,” Bosch said, finally lowering the light. He lowered his gun to his side also but didn’t put it away. He kept it ready there, under the poncho. “Might as well pack it in now. Powers, go on up the hill to your car. Jerry, grab the bag.”

Bosch climbed up the hill behind Powers, careful to keep the light up and back on the patrol cop. He knew that if they had cuffed Powers down by the tarp, they’d never get him up the hill because of the steep terrain and because Powers might fight them. So he had to scam him. He let him think he was clear.

At the top of the hill, Bosch waited until Edgar came up behind them before making a move.

“Know what I don’t get, Powers?” he said.

“What, Bosch?”

“I don’t get why you waited until dark to check out a complaint you got during the day. You’re told that two suspicious-looking characters went into the woods and you decide to wait until it’s late and it’s dark to check it out by yourself.”

“I told you. Didn’t have the time.”

“You’re full of shit, Powers,” Edgar said.

He had either just caught on or had played along with Bosch perfectly.

Bosch saw Powers’s eyes go dead as he went inside to try to figure out what to do. In that instant Bosch raised his gun again and aimed it at a spot between those two vacant portals.

“Don’t think so much, Powers,” he said. “It’s over. Now stand still. Jerry?”

Edgar moved in behind the big cop and yanked his gun out of its holster. He dropped it on the ground and jerked one of Powers’s hands behind his back. He cuffed the hand and then he did the other. When he was done, he picked up the gun. It seemed to Bosch that Powers was still inside, still staring blankly at nothing. Then he came back.

“You people, you have just fucked up big time,” he said, controlled rage in his voice.

“We’ll see about that. Jerry, you got him? I want to call Kiz.”

“Go ahead. I got his ass. I hope he does make a move. Go ahead, Powers, do something stupid for me.”

“Fuck you, Edgar! You don’t know what you’ve just done. You’re goin’ down, bro. You’re going down!”

Edgar remained silent. Bosch took the Motorola two-way out of his pocket, turned it on and keyed the mike.

“Kiz, you there?”

“Here. I’m here.”

“Come on over. Hurry.”

“On my way.”

Bosch put the two-way back and they stood there in silence for a minute until they saw the flashing blue light lead Rider’s car around the bend. When it pulled up, the lights swept repeatedly through the tops of the trees on the incline. Bosch realized that from below, down in George’s shelter, the lights on the trees might look as if they were coming from the sky. It all came to Bosch then. George’s spacecraft had been Powers’s patrol car. The abduction had been a traffic stop. The perfect way to get a man carrying nearly a half million in cash to stop. Powers had simply waited for Aliso’s white Rolls, probably at Mulholland and Laurel Canyon, then followed and put the lights on when they approached the secluded curve. Tony probably thought he had been speeding. He pulled over.

Rider pulled off the road behind the patrol car. Bosch came over and opened the back door and looked in at her.

“Harry, what is it?” she asked.

“Powers. Powers is it.”

“Oh my God.”

“Yeah. I want you and Jerry to take him in. I’ll follow with his car.”

He walked back over to Edgar and Powers.

“Okay, let’s go.”

“You people have all lost your jobs,” Powers said. “You fucked yourselves up.”

“You can tell us about it at the station.”

Bosch jerked him by the arm, feeling its thickness and strength. He and Edgar then hustled him into the back of Rider’s car. Edgar went around and got in the other side next to him.

Looking in through the open rear door, Bosch went over what would be the procedure.

“Take all his shit away and lock him in one of the interview rooms,” he said. “Make sure you get his cuff key. I’ll be right behind you.”

Bosch slammed the door and knocked twice on the roof. He then went to the patrol car, put the suit bag in the back seat and got in. Rider pulled out and Bosch followed. They sped west toward Laurel Canyon.

It took Billets less than an hour to come in. When she got there, the three of them were sitting at the homicide table. Bosch was going through the murder book with Rider while she took notes on a legal pad. Edgar was at the typewriter. Billets walked in with a force and look on her face that clearly showed the situation. Bosch hadn’t talked to her yet. It had been Rider who had called her in from home.

“What are you doing to me?” Billets asked, her piercing eyes clearly fixed on Bosch.

What she was really saying to him was that he was the team leader and the responsibility for this potential fuckup rested squarely on him. That was okay with Bosch, because not only was that right and fair, but in the half hour he’d had to go through the murder book and the other evidence, his confidence had grown.

“What am I doing to you? I’m bringing in your killer.”

“I told you to conduct a quiet and careful investigation,” Billets responded. “I didn’t tell you to conduct some kind of half-assed sting operation and then drag a cop in here! I can’t believe this.”

Billets was now pacing behind Rider’s back without looking at them. The squad room was deserted except for the three of them and the angry lieutenant.

“It’s Powers, Lieutenant,” Bosch said. “If you’d calm down, we-”

“Oh, it’s him, is it? You have the evidence of that? Great! I’ll call a DA in here right now and we’ll write up the charges then. Because you really had me worried there for a minute that you three jerked this guy off the street with just enough probable cause to charge him with jaywalking.”

Now she was looking at Bosch with the angry eyes again. She had even stopped her pacing to level them at him. He responded as calmly as he could.

“First of all, it was my decision to take him off the street. And you’re right, we don’t have enough to call out a DA yet. But we’ll get it. There’s no doubt in my mind he’s the man. It’s him and the widow.”

“Well, I’m glad there’s no doubt in your mind but you’re not the DA or the goddamned jury.”

He didn’t respond. It was no use. He had to wait for her anger to ebb and then they could talk sensibly.

“Where is he?” Billets asked.

“Room three,” Bosch said.

“What did you tell the watch commander?”

“Nothing. It happened at the end of shift. Powers was going to grab the suit bag and then go punch out. We were able to bring him in while most everybody else was still up in roll call. I parked his car and dropped the key at the watch office. I told the watch lieutenant we were using Powers for a little while on a warrant, that we wanted a uniform with us when we knocked on a door. He said fine and then I expect he went off shift. As far as I know, nobody knows we have him back there.”

Billets thought for a moment. When she spoke, she was calmer and more like the person who normally sat behind the desk in the glass office.

“Okay, I’m going to go back there and get some coffee, see if I get asked about him. When I come back, we’ll go over all of this in detail and see what we have.”

She walked slowly to the hallway at the rear of the squad room that led to the watch office. Bosch watched her go and then picked up the phone and dialed the number of the security office of the Mirage hotel and casino. He told the officer who answered who he was and that he needed to speak with Hank Meyer immediately. When the officer mentioned that it was after midnight, Bosch told him it was an emergency and that he was sure that if Meyer was informed who needed to speak with him, he would return the call. Bosch gave him all the numbers he could be reached at, beginning with his number at the homicide table, and hung up. He went back to his work with the murder book.