Osani stopped the tape so they could discuss it.
“It’s likely that he did stop the camera while we were waiting for the ladder,” Bosch said. “That probably took ten minutes max. But he probably didn’t stop it until after the back and forth about the cuffs on Waits.”
“Are you sure?”
“No, I’m just assuming. But I wasn’t watching Corvin. I was watching Waits.”
“Right.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I don’t want you to give me anything that wasn’t there.”
“Did any of the other witnesses back me on this? Did they say they heard the discussion about uncuffing him?”
“Cafarelli, the SID tech, heard it. Corvin said he didn’t and O’Shea said it never happened. So you got two from the LAPD saying yes and two from the DA’s office saying no. And no tape to back it up either way. Classic pissing match.”
“What about Maury Swann?”
“He’d be the tiebreaker except he’s not talking to us. Says it is in his client’s best interest to remain mute.”
That didn’t surprise Bosch, coming from a defense lawyer.
“Is there another edit you wanted to show me?”
“Possibly. Go ahead, Reggie.”
Osani started the video again and it took them through the descent on the ladder and then to the clearing where Cafarelli methodically used the probe to mark the location of the body. The shot was uninterrupted. Corvin simply turned the camera on and shot everything, probably with the idea that he would edit it later if the tape was ever needed in a court hearing. Or possibly a campaign documentary.
The tape continued and documented the group’s return to the ladder. Rider and Olivas went up to the top and Waits was uncuffed by Bosch. But as the prisoner started his climb up the ladder, the tape cut off just as he reached the upper rungs and Olivas was leaning down to grab him.
“That’s it?” Bosch asked.
“That’s it,” Randolph said.
“I remember after the shooting, when I told Corvin to leave the camera and come up the ladder to help with Kiz, he had it on his shoulder. He was rolling.”
“Yeah, well, we asked about why the tape ended and he claimed that he thought he was going to run short on tape. He wanted to keep some for when the diggers came in and excavated the body. So he turned the camera off when Waits was going up the ladder.”
“That make sense to you?”
“I don’t know. You?”
“Nope. I think that’s bullshit. He had the whole thing on tape.”
“That’s just an opinion.”
“Whatever,” Bosch said. “The question is, why cut the tape at this point? What was on it?”
“You tell me. You were there.”
“I told you everything I could remember.”
“Well, you better remember more. You’re not in such good shape here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There’s no discussion on the tape of whether the man should or shouldn’t be cuffed. What is on the tape is Olivas uncuffing him for the climb down and you uncuffing him for the climb back up.”
Bosch realized that Randolph was right and that the tape made him look like he had uncuffed Waits without even discussing it with the others.
“O’Shea’s setting me up.”
“I don’t know if anyone is setting anyone up. Let me ask you something. When the shit hit the fan out there and Waits grabbed the gun and started shooting, do you remember seeing O’Shea at that point?”
Bosch shook his head.
“I ended up on the ground with Olivas on top of me. I was worried about where Waits was, not O’Shea. I don’t know where O’Shea was. All I can tell you is that he wasn’t in my picture. He was behind me somewhere.”
“Maybe that’s what Corvin had on the tape. O’Shea running away like a coward.”
Randolph’s use of the word coward sparked something in Bosch.
He now remembered. From on top of the embankment Waits had called someone, presumably O’Shea, a coward. Bosch remembered hearing the sound of running behind him. O’Shea had run.
Bosch thought about this. First of all, O’Shea had no weapon with which to protect himself from the man he was going to put in prison for life. By all rights, running from the gun would not be unexpected or unreasonable. It would have been an act of self-preservation, not cowardice. But since O’Shea was a candidate for top prosecutor in the county, running away under any circumstances would probably not look so good-especially if it was on video on the six o’clock news.
“I remember now,” Bosch said. “Waits called somebody a coward for running. It must’ve been O’Shea.”
“Mystery solved,” Randolph said.
Bosch turned back to the monitor.
“Can we back it up and look at that last part again?” he asked. “Just before it cuts off, I mean.”
Osani worked the video and they watched it silently from the moment Waits was uncuffed for the second time.
“Can you stop it right before the cut?” Bosch asked.
Osani froze the image on the screen. It showed Waits past the halfway point on the ladder and Olivas reaching down to grab him. The angle of Olivas’s body had caused his windbreaker to fall open. Bosch could see his pistol in a pancake holster on his left hip, grips out so that he could take the gun with an across-the-body pull.
Bosch stood up and walked to the monitor. He took out a pen and tapped it on the screen.
“You notice that?” he said. “It looks like he’s got the snap on his holster open.”
Randolph and Osani studied the screen. The safety snap was something they obviously hadn’t noticed before.
“Could’ve been that he wanted to be ready if the prisoner made a move,” Osani said. “It’s within regs.”
Neither Bosch nor Randolph responded. Whether it fell within department regulations or not, it was a curiosity that could not be explained, since Olivas was dead.
“You can turn it off, Reg,” Randolph finally said.
“No, can you show it one more time?” Bosch asked. “Just this part at the ladder.”
Randolph nodded to Osani and the tape was backed up and replayed. Bosch tried to use the images on the monitor to build momentum and carry him into his own memory of what happened when Waits got to the top. He remembered looking up and watching Olivas being swung around so that his back was to those below and there was no clear shot at Waits. He now remembered wondering where Kiz was and why she wasn’t reacting.
Then there were shots and Olivas was falling backwards down the ladder toward him. Bosch raised his hands to try to lessen the impact. On the ground with Olivas on top of him he heard more shots and then the yelling.
The yelling. Forgotten in all the adrenaline rush and panic. Waits had come to the precipice and fired down at them. And he had yelled. He called O’Shea a coward for running. But he had said more than just that.
“Run, you coward! How’s your bullshit deal looking now?”
Bosch had forgotten the taunt in the commotion and confusion of the shooting, escape and effort to save Kiz Rider. In the charge of fear that came with those moments.
What did that mean? What was Waits saying by calling the agreement a “bullshit deal”?
“What is it?” Randolph asked.
Bosch looked at him, coming out of his thoughts.
“Nothing. I was just trying to concentrate on what happened during the moments where there’s no tape.”
“It looked like you remembered something.”
“I just remembered how close I came to getting killed like Olivas and Doolan. Olivas landed on me. He ended up shielding me.”
Randolph nodded.
Bosch wanted to get out of there. He wanted to take his discovery-“How’s your bullshit deal looking now?”-and work it. He wanted to grind it down to a powder and analyze it under the microscope.
“Lieutenant, you have anything else for me right now?”
“Not right now.”
“Then I’m going to go. Call me if you need me.”
“You call me when you remember what you can’t remember.”
He gave Bosch a knowing look. Bosch looked away.
“Right.”
Bosch left the OIS office and went out to the elevator lobby. He should have left the building then. But instead he pushed the button to go up.
21
REMEMBERING WHAT WAITS had yelled changed things. To Bosch it meant something had been going on up there in Beachwood Canyon and it was something he’d had no clue about. His first thought now was to retreat and consider everything before making a move. But the appointment at OIS had given him a reason to be in Parker Center and he planned to make the most of it before leaving.
He entered room 503, the offices of the Open-Unsolved Unit, and headed toward the alcove where his desk was located. The squad room was almost vacant. He checked the workstation shared by Marcia and Jackson and saw that they were out. Bosch had to walk by the open door of Abel Pratt’s office to get to his own workstation, so he decided to be up-front. He stuck his head in the door and saw his boss ensconced at his desk. He was eating raisins out of a little red box that looked like it was meant for a child. He looked surprised to see Bosch.