“You sure?” Bosch said. “You hold something back on me and it’s just the same as a lie. I find out and this deal is dead and I use everything you’ve said to put you in the ground. You understand that?”
Banks relented.
“Look, I don’t know a lot. But when we were down there, I heard that Drummer got hurt and had to go to the hospital. He had like a concussion and they kept him overnight. But Drummer told me later that the whole thing didn’t happen. That he and Carl cooked it up so he would be away from the unit and be able to go to her hotel and use the key to see if she had anything that was, you know, incriminating about the boat.”
Bosch already knew the public story. Drummond, the war hero, was the only one in the 237th who was injured during the call of duty in Los Angeles. It was all a fake, part of a plan to cover up a gang rape and a murder. Now, with the financial help of one of the men he covered up for, he was a two-term sheriff looking at a run for Congress.
“What else did you hear?” Bosch asked. “What did he get from the room?”
“All I heard was that he got her notes. It was like a journal of her looking for us and trying to figure out who we were. Turned out she was writing a book about it, I guess.”
“Does he still have it?”
“I have no idea. I never even saw it.”
Bosch decided that Drummond had to still have the journal. It was that and his knowledge of what had happened that allowed him to control the other four conspirators. Especially Carl Cosgrove, who was rich and powerful and could help Drummond fulfill his ambitions.
Bosch checked his phone. It was still recording and going on ninety-one minutes. He had one more area of questioning for Banks.
“Tell me about Alex White.”
Banks shook his head in confusion.
“Who’s Alex White?”
“He was one of your customers. Ten years ago you sold him a tractor mower at the dealership.”
“Okay. What’s that—”
“The day he took delivery, you called down to the LAPD and used his name to check on the Jespersen case.”
Bosch saw recognition finally come to Banks’s eyes.
“Oh, yeah, right, that was me.”
“Why? Why’d you call?”
“Because I was wondering what happened with the case. I was reading a paper somebody left in the break room, and there was a story about how it had been ten years since the riots. So I called down and asked about it and I got switched around a few times and then finally some guy talked to me. Only he said I had to give him my name or he couldn’t tell me anything. So, I don’t know, I saw the name on a piece of paper or something and just said I was Alex White. I mean, he didn’t have my number or nothing, so I knew it wouldn’t add up to anything.”
Bosch nodded, realizing that if Banks hadn’t made the call, then he might not have connected things to Modesto and the case would still be cold.
“Actually, your number was recorded,” he told Banks. “It’s the reason I’m here.”
Banks nodded glumly.
“But there’s something I don’t understand,” Bosch said. “Why did you call? You guys were in the clear. Why risk raising suspicion?”
Banks shrugged and shook his head.
“I don’t know. It was sort of spur-of-the-moment. The newspaper made me start thinking about that girl and what happened. I was wondering if, you know, they were still looking for anybody.”
Bosch checked his watch. It was ten o’clock. It was late but Bosch didn’t want to wait until the morning to drive Banks to Los Angeles. He wanted to keep his momentum.
He ended the recording and saved it. Being a man who never trusted modern technology, Bosch then did a rare thing. He used the phone’s email feature to send the audio file to his partner as a just-in-case measure. Just in case his phone failed or the file was corrupted or he dropped the phone in the toilet. He just wanted to be sure he safeguarded Banks’s story.
He waited until he heard the whisking sound from the phone that indicated the email had been sent and then stood up.
“Okay,” he said. “We’re done for now.”
“Are you going to take me back to my car?”
“No, Banks, you’re coming with me.”
“Where?”
“Los Angeles.”
“Now?”
“Now. Stand up.”
But Banks didn’t move.
“Man, I don’t want to go to L.A. I want to go home. I got kids.”
“Yeah, when was the last time you saw your kids?”
That gave Banks pause. He had no answer.
“I thought so. Let’s go. Stand up.”
“Why now? Let me go home.”
“Listen, Banks, you’re going with me to L.A. In the morning I’m going to sit you down in front of a deputy DA who will take your official statement and then probably waltz you in to the grand jury. After that, he’ll decide when you get to go home.”
Banks still didn’t move. He was a man frozen by his past. He knew that whether or not he escaped criminal prosecution, his life as he knew it was over. Everyone from Modesto to Manteca would know the part he played—then and now.
Bosch started gathering the photos and documents and returning them to the file.
“Here’s the deal,” he said. “We’re going to L.A. and you can sit up in the front next to me or I can arrest you and cuff you and put you in the backseat. You make that long drive hunched over like that and you’ll probably never walk straight again. Now, how do you want to go?”
“Okay, okay, I’ll go. But I gotta take a leak first. You saw how much I was drinking and I didn’t take a piss before I left the post.”
Bosch frowned. The request wasn’t unreasonable. In fact, Bosch was already trying to figure out how to use the bathroom himself without giving Banks a chance to change his mind on the whole thing and run out the door.
“All right,” he said. “Come on.”
Bosch went into the bathroom first and checked the window over the toilet. It was an old louvered window with a crank handle. Bosch was able to pull the handle off easily. He held it up so Banks would see he wasn’t going anywhere.
“Do your business,” he said.
He stepped out of the bathroom but left the door open so he would hear any effort by Banks to open or break the window. While Banks urinated, Bosch looked around for a place to cuff him so he could in turn use the bathroom before the five-hour drive. He settled on the bars that were part of the design of the bed’s headboard.
Bosch hurriedly started packing, basically throwing his clothes into his suitcase without care. When Banks flushed the toilet and came out of the bathroom, Bosch walked him over to the bed and made him sit while he cuffed him to the headboard.
“What the hell is this?” Banks protested.
“Just making sure you don’t change your mind while I’m taking a leak.”
Bosch was standing over the toilet and just finishing his own business when he heard the front door crash open. He quickly zipped up and ran into the bedroom, prepared to chase Banks down, when he saw that Banks was still cuffed to the headboard.
His eyes moved to the open door and the man standing there with a gun. Even without the uniform or the Hitler mustache that had been drawn on his campaign poster, Bosch easily recognized J.J. Drummond, sheriff of Stanislaus County. He was big and tall and handsome with an angular jaw. A campaign manager’s dream.
Drummond entered the room alone, careful to keep the gun aimed at Bosch’s chest.
“Detective Bosch,” he said. “You’re a little ways out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you?”
32
Drummond told Bosch to raise his hands. He came over and removed Bosch’s gun from its holster and put it into the pocket of his green hunting jacket. Then he signaled with his own gun toward Banks.
“Uncuff him.”