Michael Connelly - Trunk Music

“That’s all I want.”

“Powers, we know you have a relationship with Veronica Aliso predating her husband’s death. We know you followed him to Vegas on at least two occasions prior to the killing.”

Powers kept his eyes on the table in front of him. But Bosch was able to read them like the needles of a polygraph machine. There had been a slight tremor in the pupils when Bosch mentioned Las Vegas.

“That’s right,” Bosch said. “We’ve got the records from the Mirage. That was careless, Powers, leaving a record like that. We can put you in Vegas with Tony Aliso.”

“So I like goin’ to Vegas, big deal. Tony Aliso was there? Wow, what a coincidence. From what I heard, he went there a lot. What else you got?”

“We’ve got your print, Powers. Fingerprint. Inside the car. You got a refill of pepper spray on Sunday, but you never filed a use-of-force report explaining how you used it.”

“Accidental discharge. I didn’t file a use-of-force because there wasn’t any. You haven’t got shit. My fingerprint? You’re right, you’ve probably got prints. But I was in that car, asshole. I’m the one who found the body, remember? This is a joke, man. I’m thinking I better just get my lawyer in here and take my chances. No DA is going to touch this bullshit with a ten-foot pole.”

Bosch ignored the baiting and went on.

“And last but not least, we have your little climb down the hill tonight. Your story is for shit, Powers. You went down there to look for Aliso’s suit bag because you knew it was there and you thought it had something you and the widow overlooked before. About a half million dollars. The only question I really have is whether she called you up and told you or if that was you in her house this morning when we dropped by.”

Bosch saw the pupils jump again slightly but then they went flat.

“Like I said, I’ll take that lawyer now.”

“I guess you’re just the errand boy, right? She told you to go and get the money while she waited at the mansion.”

Powers started laughing in a fake way.

“I like that, Bosch. Errand boy. Too bad I barely know the woman. But it’s a good try. Good try. I like you, too, Bosch, but I gotta tell you something.”

He leaned across the table and lowered his voice.

“I ever run across you again on the outside, you know, when it’s just me and you, head to head, I’m going to seriously fuck you up.”

He straightened up again and nodded. Bosch smiled.

“You know, I don’t think I was sure until now. But now I’m sure. You did it, Powers. You’re the man. And there is never going to be an outside for you. Never. So tell me, whose idea was it? Was she the first one to bring it up or was that you?”

Powers stared sullenly down at the table and shook his head.

“Let me see if I can figure it out,” Bosch said. “I guess you went up there to that big house and saw all that they had, the money, maybe heard about Tony and his Rolls, and it just went on from there. I’m betting it was your idea, Powers. But I think she knew you would come up with it. See, she’s a smart woman. She knew you would come up with it. And she waited…

“And you know what? We’ve got nothing on her. Nothing. She played you perfect, man. Right down the line. She’s going to do the walk and you”-he pointed at Powers’s chest-“are going to do the time. Is that how you want it?”

Powers leaned back, a bemused smile on his face.

“You don’t get it, do you?” Powers said. “You’re the errand boy here, but look at yourself. You’ve got nothin’ to deliver. Look at what you’ve got. You can’t tie me to Aliso. I found the body, man. I opened the car. If you found a print, then that’s when I left it. All the rest is a bunch of bullshit adding up to nothing. You go in to see a prosecutor with that, they’re going to laugh your ass out onto Temple Street. So go get me the phone, errand boy, and let’s get it on. Just go get me the phone.”

“Not yet, Powers,” Bosch said. “Not just yet.”

Bosch sat at his spot at the homicide table with his head down on his folded arms. An empty coffee cop was near his elbow. A cigarette he had perched on the edge of the table had burned down to the butt, leaving one more scar on the old wood.

Bosch was alone. It was almost six and there was just the hint of dawn’s light coming through the windows that ran high along the east wall of the room. He’d gone at it for more than four hours with Powers and had gained no ground. He hadn’t even made a dent in Powers’s cool demeanor. The first rounds had assuredly gone to the big patrol cop.

Bosch wasn’t asleep, though. He was simply resting and waiting and his thoughts remained focused on Powers. Bosch had no doubts. He was sure that he had the right man sitting handcuffed in the interview room. What minimal evidence they had certainly pointed to Powers. But it was more than the evidence that convinced him. It was experience and gut instinct. Bosch believed an innocent man would have been scared, not smug as Powers had been. An innocent man would not have taunted Bosch. And so what still remained now was to take away that smugness and break him. Bosch was tired but still felt up to the task. The only thing that worried him was time. Time was against him.

Bosch raised his head and looked at his watch. Billets would be back in three hours. He picked up the empty cup, used his palm to push the dead cigarette and its ashes into it and dropped it into the trash can under the table. He stood up, lit another cigarette and took a walk down the aisle between the crime tables. He tried to clear his mind, to get ready for the next round.

He thought about paging Edgar to see if he and Rider had found anything yet, anything at all that could help, but decided against it. They knew that time was important. They would have either called or come back if they had something.

As he stood at the far end of the squad room and these thoughts traveled through his mind, his eyes fell on the sex crimes table, and he realized after a moment that he was looking at a Polaroid photo of the girl who had come into the station with her mother on Friday to report that she had been raped. The photo was on the top of a stack of Polaroids that were paper-clipped to the outside of the case envelope. Detective Mary Cantu had left it on the top of her pile for Monday. Without thinking about it, Bosch pulled the stack of photos from beneath the clip and began to look through them. The girl had been badly mistreated and the bruises documented on her body by Cantu’s camera were a depressing testament to all that was wrong with the city. Bosch always found it easier to deal with victims who were no longer living. The live ones haunted him because they could never be consoled. Not fully. They were forever left with the question why.

Sometimes Bosch thought of his city as some kind of vast drain that pulled all bad things toward a spot where they swirled around in a deep concentration. It was a place where it seemed the good people were often outnumbered by the bad. The creeps and schemers, the rapists and killers. It was a place that could easily produce someone like Powers. Too easily.

Bosch put the photos back under the clip, embarrassed by his thoughtless voyeurism of the girl’s pain. He went back to the homicide table, picked up the phone and dialed his home number. It was nearly twenty-four hours since he had been to his house, and his hope was that Eleanor Wish would answer-he had left the key under the mat-or there might be a message from her. After three rings the line was picked up and he heard his own voice on tape tell himself to leave a message. He punched in his code to check for messages and the machine told him he had none.

He stood there a long moment thinking about Eleanor, the phone still at his ear, when suddenly he heard her voice.