Bosch leaned back and said nothing. He hoped Helton would say more.
“Do you have a son, Detective? Any children?”
“A daughter.”
“Yeah, well then, happy Father’s Day. I’m really glad for you. I hope you never have to go through what I’m going through right now. Believe me, it’s not fun!”
Bosch had forgotten it was Father’s Day. The realization knocked him off his rhythm, and his thoughts went to his daughter living eight thousand miles away. In her ten years, he had been with her on only one Father’s Day. What did that say about him? Here he was, trying to get inside another father’s actions and motivations, and he knew his own could not stand equal scrutiny.
The moment ended when there was a knock on the door and Ferras came in, carrying a file.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I thought you might want to see this.”
He handed the file to Bosch and left the room. Bosch turned the file on the table in front of them and opened it, so that Helton would not be able to see its contents. Inside was a computer printout and a handwritten note on a Post-it.
The note said: “No ad on craigslist.”
The printout was of a story that ran in the LA Times ten months earlier. It was about the heatstroke death of a child who had been left in a car in Lancaster while his mother ran into a store to buy milk. She ran into the middle of a robbery. She was tied up along with the store clerk and placed in a back room. The robbers ransacked the store and escaped. It was an hour before the victims were discovered and freed, but by then the child in the car had already succumbed to heatstroke. Bosch scanned the story quickly, then dropped the file closed. He looked at Helton without speaking.
“What?” Helton asked.
“Just some additional information and lab reports,” he lied. “Do you get the LA Times, by the way?”
“Yes, why?”
“Just curious, that’s all. Now, how many nannies do you think you’ve employed in the fifteen months that William was alive?”
Helton shook his head.
“I don’t know. At least ten. They don’t stay long. They can’t take it.”
“And then you go to craigslist to place an ad?”
“Yes.”
“And you just lost a nanny on Friday?”
“Yes, I told you.”
“She just walked out on you?”
“No, she got another job and told us she was leaving. She made up a lie about it being closer to home and with gas prices and all that. But we knew why she was leaving. She could not handle Willy.”
“She told you this Friday?”
“No, when she gave notice.”
“When was that?”
“She gave two weeks’ notice, so it was two weeks back from Friday.”
“And do you have a new nanny lined up?”
“No, not yet. We were still looking.”
“But you put the feelers out and ran the ad again, that sort of thing?”
“Right, but listen, what does this have to – ”
“Let me ask the questions, Stephen. Your wife told us that she worried about leaving William with you, that you couldn’t handle the strain of it.”
Helton looked shocked. The statement came from left field, as Bosch had wanted it.
“What? Why would she say that?”
“I don’t know. Is it true?”
“No, it’s not true.”
“She told us she was worried that this wasn’t an accident.”
“That’s absolutely crazy and I doubt she said it. You are lying.”
He turned in his seat, so that the front of his body faced the corner of the room and he would have to turn his face to look directly at Bosch. Another tell. Bosch knew he was zeroing in. He decided it was the right time to gamble.
“She mentioned a story you found in the LA Times that was about a kid left in a car up in Lancaster. The kid died of heat-stroke. She was worried that it gave you the idea.”
Helton swiveled in his seat and leaned forward to put his elbows on the table and run his hands through his hair.
“Oh, my God, I can’t believe she…”
He didn’t finish. Bosch knew his gamble had paid off. Helton’s mind was racing along the edge. It was time to push him over.
“You didn’t forget that William was in the car, did you, Stephen?”
Helton didn’t answer. He buried his face in his hands again. Bosch leaned forward, so that he only had to whisper.
“You left him there and you knew what was going to happen. You planned it. That’s why you didn’t bother running ads for a new nanny. You knew you weren’t going to need one.”
Helton remained silent and unmoving. Bosch kept working him, changing tacks and offering sympathy now.
“It’s understandable,” he said. “I mean, what kind of life would that kid have, anyway? Some might even call this a mercy killing. The kid falls asleep and never wakes up. I’ve worked these kinds of cases before, Stephen. It’s actually not a bad way to go. It sounds bad, but it isn’t. You just get tired and you go to sleep.”
Helton kept his face in his hands, but he shook his head. Bosch didn’t know if he was denying it still or shaking off something else. He waited, and the delay paid off.
“It was her idea,” Helton said in a quiet voice. “She’s the one who couldn’t take it anymore.”
In that moment Bosch knew he had him, but he showed nothing. He kept working it.
“Wait a minute,” Bosch said. “She said she had nothing to do with it, that this was your idea and your plan and that when she called you, it was to talk you out of it.”
Helton dropped his hands with a slap on the table.
“That’s a lie! It was her! She was embarrassed that we had a kid like that! She couldn’t take him anywhere and we couldn’t go anywhere! He was ruining our lives and she told me I had to do something about it! She told me how to do something about it! She said I would be saving two lives while sacrificing only one.”
Bosch pulled back across the table. It was done. It was over.
“Okay, Stephen, I think I understand. And I want to hear all about it. But at this point I need to inform you of your rights. After that, if you want to talk, we’ll talk, and I’ll listen.”
WHEN BOSCH CAME out of the interview room, Ignacio Ferras was there, waiting for him in the hallway. His partner raised his fist, and Bosch tapped his knuckles with his own fist.
“That was beautiful,” Ferras said. “You walked him right down the road.”
“Thanks,” Bosch said. “Let’s hope the DA is impressed too.”
“I don’t think we’ll have to worry.”
“Well, there will be no worries if you go into the other room and turn the wife now.”
Ferras looked surprised.
“You still want me to take the wife?”
“She’s yours. Let’s walk them into the DA as bookends.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Good. Go check the equipment and make sure we’re still recording in there. I’ve got to go make a quick call.”
“You got it, Harry.”
Bosch walked into the squad room and sat down at his desk. He checked his watch and knew it would be getting late in Hong Kong. He pulled out his cell phone anyway and sent a call across the Pacific.
His daughter answered with a cheerful hello. Bosch knew he wouldn’t even have to say anything and he would feel fulfilled by just the sound of her voice saying the one word.
“Hey, baby, it’s me,” he said.
“Daddy!” she exclaimed. “Happy Father’s Day!”
And Bosch realized in that moment that he was indeed a happy man.
About the Authors
James O. Born is the author of a series featuring Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent Bill Tasker. His newest novel, Field of Fire, follows the investigations of the ATF. His books capture the feeling and details of police work while following realistic procedure. He is a former U.S. drug agent and an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. He has been writing for eighteen years and is published by Putnam.