Michael Connelly - The Closers

“What do you mean? We were friends. I’d known her since first grade.”

“Right, well, were you the closest to her, do you think?”

“No, I think that would have been Tara.”

Another confirmation that Tara Wood had been tightest with Becky at the end.

“So she didn’t confide in you when she found out she was pregnant.”

“No, I already told you, I didn’t know about it until after she was dead.”

“What about you? Did you confide in her?”

“Of course I did.”

“Everything?”

“Detective, what are you getting at?”

“Did she know you were gay?”

“What did that have to do with anything?”

“I’m just trying to get a picture of the group. The Kitty Kat Club, I think the four of you called -”

“No,” she said abruptly. “She didn’t know. None of them knew. I don’t think I even knew back then. Okay, Detective? Is that enough?”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Tanaka. I’m just trying to get as full a picture as I can. I appreciate your candor. One last question. If Becky was at a clinic after going through the procedure and she needed a ride home because she didn’t think she could drive, who would she have called?”

There was a long silence before Grace Tanaka answered.

“I don’t know, Detective. I would have hoped that it would have been me. That I was that kind of friend. But obviously it was somebody else.”

“Tara Wood?”

“You’ll have to ask her. Good night, Detective Bosch.”

She hung up and Bosch pulled open the yearbook so he could look at her photo. She was a petite Asian and the photo-so many years old-didn’t match the gruff demeanor of the voice he had just heard on the phone.

Bosch wrote a note for Rider that contained the e-mail address and instructions to scan and send the photo of Mackey. He also wrote a short warning about his encountering resistance from Tanaka when he brought up her sexuality. He slid the note over to her desk so she would see it first thing in the morning.

That left one last call, this one to Daniel Kotchof, who lived, according to AutoTrack, in Maui, where it was two hours earlier.

He called the number he had gotten from the AutoTrack search and a woman answered the line. She said she was Daniel Kotchof’s wife and told Bosch that her husband was at work at the Four Seasons Hotel, where he was employed as the hospitality manager. Bosch called the work number she gave him and was put through to Daniel Kotchof. He said he could only talk for a few minutes and put Bosch on hold for five of them while he went to a more private spot in the hotel to talk. When he finally came back on the line the call started out unproductively. Like Grace Tanaka, he did not recognize the name Roland Mackey. He also seemed to treat the call as a nuisance or an intrusion. He explained that he was married and had three children and that he rarely thought about Becky Verloren anymore. He reminded Bosch that he and his family had moved from the mainland a year before her death.

“But I was led to believe that after you moved to Hawaii, you two continued to call each other quite often,” Bosch said.

“I don’t know who told you that,” Kotchof said. “I mean, we talked. Especially at first. I would have to call her ’cause she said her parents told her it was too much money for her to call me. I thought that was kind of bogus. They just wanted me out of the picture is all. So I had to call, but it was like, what’s the use? I was in Hawaii and she was in L.A. It was over, man. And pretty soon I got a girlfriend here-in fact, she’s my wife now-and I stopped calling Beck. That was it until, you know, later, when I heard about what happened and the detective called me.”

“Did you know about it before the detective called?”

“Yeah, I’d heard. Mrs. Verloren called my dad and he broke the news to me. I also got some calls on it from some of my friends out there. They knew I’d want to know about it. It was weird, man, this girl that I knew gets wiped out like that.”

“Yeah.”

Bosch thought about what else he could ask. Kotchof’s story conflicted in small ways with Muriel Verloren’s account. He knew he would need to square the stories at some point. Kotchof’s alibi also continued to bother him.

“Hey, look, Detective, I should get going,” Kotchof said. “I’m at work. Is there anything else?”

“Just a few more questions. Do you remember how long before Rebecca’s death it was that you stopped calling her?”

“Um, I don’t know. Somewhere around the end of that first summer. Something like that. It had been a while, almost a year.”

Bosch decided to try to rattle Kotchof and see what came out. It was something he would rather have attempted in person but there was no time or money for a trip to Hawaii.

“So your relationship was definitely over by the time of her death?”

“Yes, definitely.”

Bosch thought the chances of recovering phone records from back then were not very high.

“When you were still calling was it always at a certain time? You know, like an appointment.”

“Sort of. I was two hours behind so I couldn’t call too late. I usually called right after dinner and that was right before she was going to go to bed. But like I said, it didn’t last too long.”

“Okay. Now I have to ask you something pretty personal. Did you have sex with Rebecca Verloren?”

There was a pause.

“What’s that got to do with this?”

“I can’t explain that, Dan. But it is part of the investigation and it could have a bearing on the case. Do you mind answering?”

“No.”

Bosch waited but Kotchof said nothing else.

“Is that your answer?” Bosch finally asked. “You two never had sex?”

“We never did. She said she wasn’t ready and I didn’t push it. Look, I have to go.”

“Okay, Dan, just a few more. I’m sure you would like for us to catch the guy who did this, right?”

“Yes, right, it’s just that I’m at work.”

“Yes, you said that. Let me ask you, when was the last time you saw Rebecca?”

“I don’t remember the exact date but it was like the day we left. When we said good-bye. That morning.”

“So you never came back from Hawaii once your family moved?”

“No, not at first. I mean, I’ve been back since. I lived in Venice for a couple years after I finished school, but then I came back here.”

“But not between the time your family moved and the time of Rebecca’s murder. Is that what you are saying?”

“Yes, right.”

“So if another witness I have spoken to said she saw you in town that weekend of July Fourth, right before Rebecca disappeared, then she would be wrong about that?”

“Yeah, she’d be wrong. Look, what is this? I told you. I never went back. I had a new girlfriend. I mean, I didn’t even go back for the funeral. Who told you they saw me? Was it Grace? She never liked me-that dyke. She was always trying to get me in trouble with Beck.”

“I can’t tell you who it is, Dan. Just like if you want to tell me something in confidence then I will respect that.”

“Whoever it is, she’s a fucking liar,” Kotchof said, his voice turning shrill. “That is a goddamn lie! Check your records, man! I had an alibi. I was working on the day she was taken, and I was working the next day, too. How could I have gotten there and back? Whoever told you that is totally fucking bogus!”

“It’s your alibi that is bogus, Dan. Your old man could have put your supervisor up to it. That was easy.”

A moment of silence passed before there was a response.

“I don’t know what you are talking about. My father didn’t put anybody up to anything and that’s a goddamn fact. We had the time cards and my boss talked to the cops and that was it. Now you come along seventeen years later with this shit? Are you fucking kidding me?”