Michael Connelly - Trunk Music

“I went back to the supply post, took a look at the sheet. On Sunday Powers signed out an OC cartridge. Only I then went and looked at the fifty-one list in the watch loo’s office. No use-of-force reported by Powers in this deployment period.”

“So,” Billets said, “he somehow used his pepper spray, because he had to get a refill cartridge but he never reported using the spray to his watch commander.”

“Right.”

Billets thought about things for a few moments before speaking again.

“Okay,” she said, “what you’ve come up with quickly is all good stuff. But it’s not enough. It’s a circumstantial case and most of this can be explained away. Even if you could prove he and the widow have been meeting, it doesn’t prove murder. The fingerprint on the trunk can be explained by sloppy work at the crime scene. Who knows, maybe that’s all it really was.”

“I doubt it,” Bosch said.

“Well, your doubts aren’t good enough. Where do we go from here?”

“We still have some things in the fire. Jerry’s going for a warrant based on what we’ve got so far. If we get inside Powers’s house, maybe we find the shoes, maybe we find something else. We’ll see. I also have an angle in Vegas working. We figure that for them to have pulled this off, Powers had to have followed Tony over there once or twice, you know, to know about Goshen and pick him to hang it all on. If we’re lucky, Powers would’ve wanted to stay right on Tony. That would mean staying at the Mirage. You can’t stay there without a trail. You can pay cash but you’ve got to give a legit credit card imprint to cover room charges, phone calls, things like that. In other words, you can’t register under any name you don’t have on a credit card. I’ve got a guy checking.”

“Okay, it’s a start,” Billets said.

She nodded her head, cupped a hand over her mouth and lapsed into a contemplative silence for a long moment.

“What it all comes down to is that we need to break him, don’t we?” she finally asked.

Bosch nodded.

“Probably. Unless we get lucky with the warrant.”

“You’re not going to break him. He’s a cop, he knows the angles, he knows the rules of evidence.”

“We’ll see.”

She looked at her watch. Bosch looked at his and saw it was now one o’clock.

“We’re in trouble,” Billets said solemnly. “We won’t be able to contain this much past dawn. After that I will have to make proper notification of what we’ve done and what we’ve got going. If that happens, you can count on us not being involved, and worse.”

Bosch leaned forward.

“Go back home, Lieutenant,” he said. “You were never here. Let us have the night. Come back in at nine tomorrow. Bring a DA back with you if you want. Make sure it’s somebody who will go to the edge with you. If you don’t know one, I can call somebody. But give us till nine. Eight hours. Then you come in and we either have the complete package tied up for you or you go ahead and do what you have to do.”

She looked carefully at each one of them, took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“Good luck,” she said.

She nodded, got up and left them there.

Outside the door to interview room three, Bosch paused and composed his thoughts. He knew that everything would turn on what happened inside the room. He had to break Powers and that would be no easy task. Powers was a cop. He knew all the tricks. But somehow Bosch had to find a weakness he could exploit until the big man went down. He knew it was going to be a brutal match. He blew out his breath and opened the door.

Bosch stepped into the interview room, took the chair directly across from Powers and spread out the two sheets of paper he carried with him in front of Powers.

“Okay, Powers, I’m here to tell you what’s what.”

“You can save it, asshole. The only one I want to talk to is my lawyer.”

“Well, that’s what I’m here for. Why don’t you take it easy and we’ll talk about it?”

“Take it easy? You people arrest me, hook me up like a goddamn criminal and then leave me in here for a fucking hour and a half while you sit out there and figure out how fucked up this is, and you want me to take it easy? What planet are you on, Bosch? I’m not taking anything easy. Now cut me loose or give me the goddamn phone!”

“Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? Deciding whether to book you or cut you loose. That’s why I came in, Powers. I thought maybe you could help us out on that.”

Powers didn’t appear to pick up on that. His eyes dropped to the center of the table and they were working-small, quick movements, looking for the angles.

“This is what is what,” Bosch said. “If I book you now, then we call the lawyer and we both know that is going to be that. No lawyer is gonna let his client talk to the cops. We’ll just have to go to court and you know what that means. You’ll be suspended, no pay. We’ll go for no bail and you’ll sit in the can nine, ten months and then maybe it gets straightened out in your favor. And maybe not. Meantime, you’re all over the front page. Your mother, father, neighbors…well, you know how that goes.”

Bosch took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. He didn’t light it and he didn’t offer one to Powers. He remembered offering one to the big cop at the crime scene and being turned down.

“The alternative to that,” he continued, “is that we sit here and try to get this straightened out right now. You’ve got two forms there in front of you. The good thing about dealing with a cop like this is I don’t really need to explain this stuff to you. The first one’s a rights form. You know what that is. You sign that you understand your rights and then you make your choice. Talk to me or call your lawyer after we book you. The second form is the attorney waiver.”

Powers stared silently down at the pages and Bosch put a pen down on the table.

“I’ll take the cuffs off when you’re ready to sign,” Bosch said. “See, now the bad thing about dealing with a cop is that I can’t bluff you. You know the game. You know if you sign that waiver and talk to me, you’ll either talk yourself out of this or right into it…I can give you more time to think about it, if you want.”

“I don’t need any more time,” he said. “Take off the cuffs.”

Bosch got up and went around behind Powers.

“You right or left?”

“Right.”

There was barely enough room between the back of the big man and the wall to work on the cuffs. It was a dangerous position to be in with most suspects. But Powers was a cop and he probably knew that the moment he became violent was the moment he lost any chance of getting out of this room and back to his life. He also had to assume someone was watching and ready behind the glass in room four. Bosch unhooked the right cuff and closed it around one of the metal slats of the chair.

Powers scribbled signatures across both forms. Bosch tried to give no indication of his excitement. Powers was making a mistake. Bosch took the pen from him and put it in his pocket.

“Put your arm behind you.”

“Come on, Bosch. Treat me like a human. If we’re going to talk, let’s talk.”

“Put your arm behind you.”

Powers did as he was told and blew out his breath in frustration. Bosch recuffed his wrists through the metal slat at the back of the chair and then took his seat again. He cleared his throat, going over the last details in his mind. He knew his mission here. He had to make Powers believe he had the edge, that he had a chance to get out. If he believed that, then he might start talking. If he started talking, Bosch thought he could win the fight.

“Okay,” Bosch said. “I’m going to lay it out for you. If you can convince me that we have it wrong, then you’ll be out of here before the sun’s up.”