Michael Connelly - The Closers

“Five ten,” Rider said. “What is that, Oakland?”

“She lives in Hayward. She wants to live in San Francisco but it costs too much for what she makes.”

“What does she do?”

“She’s a metal sculptor.”

“Her last name is still Tanaka?”

“Yes. She never married. She…”

“What?”

“She turned out to be gay.”

“Turned out?”

“Well, what I mean is, we never knew. She never told us. She moved up there and once about eight years ago I went up to visit and then I knew.”

“It was obvious?”

“Obvious.”

“Did she come to the ten-year high school reunion?”

“Yes, she was there. We had fun, but it was sort of sad, too, because people talked about Becky and how it was never solved. I think that’s probably why Tara didn’t come. She didn’t want to be reminded of what happened to Becky.”

“Well, maybe we’ll change that by the twentieth reunion,” Bosch said, immediately regretting the flippant remark. “Sorry, that wasn’t a nice thing to say.”

“Well, I hope you do change it. I think about her all the time. Always wondering who did it and why they have never been found. I look at her picture every day on the plaque when I come into school. It’s weird. I helped raise the money for that plaque when I was class president.”

“They?” Bosch asked.

“What?”

“You said they have never been found. Why did you say they ?”

“I don’t know. He, she, whatever.”

Bosch nodded.

“Mrs. Sable, thanks for your time,” he said. “Would you do us a favor and not talk about this with anyone? We don’t want people being prepared for us, you know what I mean?”

“Like with me?”

“Exactly. And if you think of anything else, anything at all you want to talk about, my partner will give you a card with our numbers on it.”

“Okay.”

She seemed to be in a far-off reverie. The detectives said good-bye and left her there with the stack of papers to grade. Bosch thought she was probably remembering a time when four girls were the best of friends and the future sparkled in front of them like an ocean.

Before leaving the school they stopped by the office to see if the school had any current contact information for former student Tara Wood. Gordon Stoddard had Mrs. Atkins check but the answer was no. Bosch asked if they could borrow the 1988 yearbook to make copies of some of the photos and Stoddard gave his approval.

“I’m on my way out,” he said. “I’ll walk with you.”

They small-talked on the way back to the library and Stoddard gave them the yearbook, which had already been returned to the shelves. On the way out to the parking lot Stoddard stopped with them once more in front of the memorial plaque. Bosch ran his fingers over the raised letters of Becky Verloren’s name. He noticed that the edges had been worn smooth over the years by many students doing the same thing.

RIDER WORKED THE FILE and the phone while Bosch drove toward Panorama City, which was just on the east side of the 405 and across the Devonshire Division line.

Panorama City was a district carved off the north side of Van Nuys many years before when residents there decided they needed to distance themselves from negative connotations ascribed to Van Nuys. Nothing about the place was changed but the name and a few street signs. Still, Panorama City sounded clean and beautiful and crime free, and the residents felt better about themselves. But many years had passed and resident groups had petitioned to rename their neighborhoods again and to distance themselves, if not physically then image-wise, from negative connotations associated with Panorama City. Bosch guessed it was one of the ways Los Angeles kept reinventing itself. Like a writer or actor who keeps changing his name to leave past failings behind and start fresh, even with the same pen or face.

As expected, Roland Mackey was no longer at the auto towing company he had worked for while on his most recent stint of probation. But also as expected, the ex-con was not particularly smart when it came to covering his trail. The probation file contained his entire work history through a life that had largely been spent on probation or parole. He drove a tow truck for two other concerns during past periods of state monitoring. Posing as an acquaintance, Rider called each of them and easily located his current employer: Tampa Towing. She then called the tow service and asked if Mackey was working today. After a moment she closed the phone and looked at Bosch.

“ Tampa Towing. He comes on at four.”

Bosch checked his watch. Mackey reported for work in ten minutes.

“Let’s go by and get a look at him. We’ll check his address after. Tampa and what?”

“ Tampa and Roscoe. Must be across from the hospital.”

“The hospital is Roscoe and Reseda. I wonder why they didn’t call it Roscoe Towing.”

“Funny. Then what do we do after we get a look at him?”

“Well, we go up to him and ask him if he killed Becky Verloren seventeen years ago and then he says yes and we take him downtown.”

“Come on, Bosch.”

“I don’t know. What do you want to do next?”

“We check his address like you said, and then I think we’re ready for the parents. I’m thinking that we need to talk to them about this guy before we set up on him and make a play-especially in the newspaper. I say we go by the house and see the mother. We’re already up here. Might as well.”

“You mean if she’s still there,” he said. “Did you run an AutoTrack on her, too?”

“Didn’t have to. She’ll be there. You heard how Garcia was talking. Her baby’s ghost is in that house. I doubt she’ll ever leave it.”

Bosch guessed that she was right about that but didn’t respond. He drove east on Devonshire Boulevard to Tampa Avenue and then dropped down to Roscoe Boulevard. They got to the intersection a few minutes before four. Tampa Towing was actually a Chevron service station with two mechanics’ bays. Bosch parked in the lot of a small strip shopping plaza across the street and killed the engine.

Bosch wasn’t surprised when four o’clock came and went without any sign of Roland Mackey. He didn’t strike Bosch as somebody who would be excited to come to work to tow cars.

At four-fifteen Rider said, “What do you think? You think my call could have -”

“There he is.”

A thirty-year-old Camaro with gray primer on all four fenders pulled into the service station and parked near the air pump. Bosch had caught only a glimpse of the driver but it was enough for him to know. He reached over to the glove compartment and took out a pair of field glasses he had bought through an airline catalog he had read while on a flight to Las Vegas.

He slouched down in his seat and watched through the glasses. Mackey got out of the Camaro and walked toward the service station’s open garage. He was wearing a uniform of dark blue pants and a lighter blue shirt. There was an oval-shaped patch over the left breast pocket that said Ro. He had work gloves sticking out of one of his back pockets.

There was an old Ford Taurus up on a hydraulic lift in the garage and a man working beneath it with an air wrench. When Mackey entered, the man with the wrench nonchalantly reached out and gave him a high five. Mackey stopped while the man told him something.

“I think he’s telling him about the phone call,” Bosch said. “Mackey doesn’t look too concerned about it. He just pulled a cell out of his pocket. He’s calling the person he probably thinks called him.”

Reading Mackey’s lips, Bosch said, “Hey, did you call me?”

Mackey quickly ended the conversation.