Michael Connelly - EchoPark

“What’s the address?”

“Seven-ten Figueroa Lane. He was there from ’eighty-three to ’eighty-seven. Almost four years total. He must have liked them and I guess they liked him back.”

Bosch leaned over to look at the document in front of her.

“He was on Figueroa Terrace, only a couple blocks from there, when he got pulled over with the bodies,” he said. “If they had followed him for just one more minute they would’ve had the place!”

“If that’s where he was going.”

“It’s got to be where he was going.”

She handed him the page and moved on to the next. But Bosch stood up and walked away from the counter. He had read enough for the time being. He had been looking for the connection to Echo Park and now he knew he had it. He was ready to put the book work aside. He was ready to make a move.

“Harry, these shrink reports from when he was a teenager-he was talking about some sick shit here.”

“Like what?”

“A lot of anger toward women. Young promiscuous women. Prostitutes, drug users. You know what the psychology is here? You know what I think he ended up doing?”

“No and no. What?”

“He was killing his mother over and over again. All those missing women and girls they’ve hung on him? The one last night? To him they were like his mother. And he wanted to kill her for abandoning him. And maybe kill them before they did the same thing-brought a child into the world.”

Bosch nodded.

“That’s a nice shake-and-bake shrink job. If we had the time, you could probably find his Rosebud memory, too. But she didn’t abandon him. They took him away from her.”

She shook her head.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Abandonment through lifestyle. The state had no choice but to step in and take him away from her. Drugs, prostitution, the whole thing. By being an unfit mother she abandoned him to this deeply flawed institution where he was trapped until he was old enough to walk away on his own. In his brain chart, that constituted abandonment.”

Bosch nodded slowly. He guessed that she was right but the whole situation made him uncomfortable. It felt too personal to Bosch, too close to his own path. Except for a turn here or there, Bosch and Foxworth had made similar journeys. Foxworth was doomed to kill his own mother over and over again. A police shrink had once told Bosch that he was doomed to solve his own mother’s murder over and over again.

“What is it?”

Bosch looked at her. He had not yet told Rachel his own sordid history. He didn’t want her profiling skills turned on him.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m just thinking.”

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Bosch.”

He shrugged. Walling closed the file on the counter and finally raised her coffee cup to sip from it.

“So what now?” she asked.

Bosch looked at her for a long moment before answering.

“Echo Park,” he said.

“What about backup?”

“I’m going to check it out first, then call backup.”

She nodded.

“I’m going with you.”

BOSCH AND WALLING USED Bosch’s Mustang, since it would give them at least a small degree of cover compared with her federal cruiser, which screamed law enforcement. They drove to Echo Park but did not approach the Saxon house at 710 Figueroa Lane. There was a problem. Figueroa Lane was a short turnaround street that extended for a block off the end of Figueroa Terrace and curved up along the ridge below Chavez Ravine. There was no cruising by it without being obvious about it. Even in a Mustang. If Waits was there and watching for law enforcement, he would have the advantage of seeing them first.

Bosch stopped the car at the intersection of Beaudry and Figueroa Terrace and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

“He picked a good place for the secret castle,” he said. “There’s no getting close to it without being picked up on radar. Especially in daylight.”

Rachel nodded.

“Medieval castles were built on hilltops for the same reason.”

Bosch looked to his left, toward downtown, and saw the tall buildings rising over the roofs of the homes on Figueroa Terrace. One of the closest and tallest buildings was the Department of Water and Power headquarters. It was directly across the freeway.

“I’ve got an idea,” he said.

They drove out of the neighborhood and back into downtown. Bosch entered the DWP garage and parked in one of the visitor slots. He popped the trunk and went to the surveillance kit he always kept in the car. He got out a pair of high-powered binoculars, a surveillance camera and a rolled-up sleeping bag.

“What are you going to take pictures of?” Walling asked.

“Nothing. But it’s got a long lens and you might want to look through it while I use the binocs.”

“And the sleeping bag?”

“We might be lying on the roof. I don’t want your fancy federal suit to get dirty.”

“Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself.”

“I’m worried about that girl Waits grabbed. Let’s go.”

They headed across the garage floor toward the elevators.

“Did you notice that you still call him Waits, even though we are now sure his name is Foxworth?” she asked when they were going up.

“Yeah, I have noticed. I think it’s because when we were face-to-face he was Waits. When he started shooting, he was Waits. And it just sort of stuck.”

She nodded and didn’t say anything else about it, though he guessed that she probably had a psychological angle on it.

When they reached the lobby Bosch went to an information desk, showed his badge and credentials and asked to see a security supervisor. He told the desk man that it was urgent.

In less than two minutes a tall black man in gray pants and a navy blazer over his white shirt and tie came through a door and directly toward them. This time Bosch and Walling both showed their creds and the man appeared properly impressed by the federal-local tandem.

“Hieronymus,” he said, reading Bosch’s police ID. “Do you go by Harry?”

“That’s right.”

The man put out his hand and smiled.

“Jason Edgar. I believe you and my cousin were partners once.”

Bosch smiled, not just because of the coincidence but because he knew it meant that he would have this man’s cooperation. He put the sleeping bag under his other arm and shook his hand.

“That’s right. He told me he had a cousin with DWP. You used to get him billing info when we needed it. Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise, man. What do we have here? If the FBI’s involved, are we talking about a terrorism situation?”

Rachel raised a hand in a calming gesture.

“Not quite,” she said.

“Jason, we’re just looking for a place where we can look down on a neighborhood across the freeway in Echo Park. There’s a house we’re interested in and we can’t get close to it without being obvious about it, know what I mean? We were thinking that maybe from one of the offices here or from the roof we could get an angle and just see what’s happening over there.”

“I’ve got just the spot,” Edgar said without hesitation. “Follow me.”

He led them back to the elevators and had to use a key to get the fifteenth-floor button to light. On the way up he explained that the building was going through a floor-by-floor renovation. At the moment the work had moved to the fifteenth floor. The floor had been gutted and was empty, waiting for the contractor to come in to rebuild according to the renovation plan.

“You can have the whole floor to yourselves,” he said. “Pick any angle you want for an OP.”